Friday, December 14, 2007 Tips from Songs From Above

Ø      Recording: sometimes you can do a little of your own recording at home before even coming to the studio, and save yourself time (and the ever-elusive J money!)

First of all decide what it is you want!

Isn’t that always the case with everything in life? J – well hells yeah!? – so figure it out – take a few minutes a day before you record the parts of your song you’ll do yourself at home, and write down a few lines – 5 or so – about what you want the recording to sound like – whom you think will enjoy listening to it (and hence be moved to buy it) – and whom you will like to emulate as far as the sound.Then do the following:

1)      Get a simple, easy to use Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) – you can get some for as affordably as $200 nowadays (about 3 or 4 hours’ worth of studio time at a major studio, which converts to endless nights of you staying up in your underpants tracking your guitar or vocals, while your neighbors plot how to get you thrown out of your apartment J). But seriously, for a few hundred $you can lay your ideas down on your own time, and then add the major stuff (lead vocals, main guitars, live drums, etc.) at the studio – on studio time.

2)      Learn how to use the darn thing fairly well! – It will take you about 4 weeks of regular use to become comfortable with your gear (unless you do several hours on it each day).

3)      Record your basic tracks – usually things like some guitar, drum machines tracks, loops, and possibly some BG vocals, can be done in a decently treated room (your closet might actually do – well, with enough clothes in it, i.e. and with you being properly positioned to get the best sound waves control). Record these basic tracks at fairly decent levels – loud enough to get compressed without resulting in too much background noise becoming too present in the track.

4)      Save these as .WAV files (which is very standard and can be imported onto most/all music recording devices/software).

5)      Call your trustee studio and tell them that you’ve got some tracks, and you want them to record other tracks that will be the more upfront tracks of the song, then you want them to edit, mix and master the whole thing for you.

6)      Practice what you are going to record at least 3 or 4 times – very well – starting about 4 days before your session in the studio. This will give you an ease and confidence when you do go into the studio, that will ultimately convert to solid performances, in shorter time, and save you money and make you happy! J

- By Nkeng Alemanji, SongsFromAbove.