Demo - Staying in Tune

Julie join us in the studio to lay down the violin tracks. On listening to her playback, both Ben and her noticed that she was a little flat. They tried again, and again, eventually realizing that she needed to tune her D string slightly sharp. Next time through, it sounded good.

For me I hate to admit that it sounded just fine. Ben and Julie, however, have much better ears and pick up on an instrument or someone's voice being the slightest bit out of tune. We then got into a discussion about how often we hear people playing or recoding out of tune. To trained musician's being out of tune is like fingernails on a blackboard.

Take home lesson - BE IN TUNE with both your instrument and voice! If you don't have a great ear, get someone who does. Think of it as musical proof reading.

Demo - Part ??

It's all becoming a blur. Ben just announced that he's moving to NY and we're now on a deadline. We have to have the demo completed by early December. We spent two hours today and laid down the guitar tracks for three songs. My earlier challenges with the click track are a distant memory. Now I love having it, it helps me feel in the groove.

Tomorrow we have three hours scheduled and Julie comes for the first time. I've laid the foundation and its now time to add her vocals and violin tracks. It will be interesting to see how well my guitar tracks hold up after we add the violin.

Demo - Part 7 - Do I really like this song?

We sat down and knocked out Contradiction Blue in less than an hour. Now that I've got a handle on the click track, I did the guitar in one take. What was surprising was that I began to fall asleep while playing the guitar. With a very simple blue progression, it quickly became old. Even later adding the vocal track, it still wasn't that exciting. Worse was that it came in at 5:20 (way too long).

Ben thought it sounded fine and offered to add a bass and drum track behind the song. I left wondering if I should just scrap it and move on. Still haven't decided and will see what he comes up with. The interesting things was, coming into the studio, I thought this would be one of the more solid tracks.

Demo - Part 6 - Practice pays off

I was back in the studio today. Ben was all excited by his new mike and the fact that I had practiced. In a hour, we laid down two guitar tracks and the lyrics for "Vote for Me." A song done in an hour, pretty cool and more importantly economical!!!!

Today worked so well, because I had practiced with the metronome and a recording of the click track for the past two weeks. For the first time, I walked into the studio confident. Even though I still had the "live on tape" nerves, it was actually fun. I was even able to add a few licks while playing.

To prepare for next week, I had Ben record the click track to the next song, "Contradiction Blues." With practice, hopefully it will go smoothly next week.

Demo - Part five - Editing

In the studio today I was reminded of that old commercial, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later."

The story goes, I heard three spots in the demo that needed help and went to the studio to fix them. I practiced beforehand, tuned up, and expecting to play and go. Instead, I watched for an hour as Ben manipulated the file making me sound like I know what I'm doing. I never picked up the guitar.

Ben made a really interesting point, he said in the old days, musicians would practice for days getting the song perfect. They'd then go into the studio, record the song a few times and select the best cut. With today's technology, you don't need to be perfect (or even competent like some singers I won't mention). You can use editing features to smooth over any mistakes. You can decide at a later time to add accompanying instruments, back-up vocals or add an introduction (like we did yesterday). The sky's the limit. However, this new technology doesn't save time, it just adds time on the back end versus time practicing.

The lesson to me is to find the balance between perfecting the song and using technology. Walking into the studio prepared will save money, however, its nice to know that I don't need to be perfect!

Demo - Part 4 - The learning process

Back in the studio today. The first time, all the way through on time, with the guitar part for the Foundation Stands. I felt in good voice so we laid down the vocal track immediately. What was interesting was that the cut felt slow, and the vocals didn't feel natural. In concentrating on keeping to the click track, the emotion of my guitar was missing.

Ben then suggested that I record just the guitar, without the click track. On playback, I was amazed at how well I kept time and when I added the voice how much more natural it felt. While there are a few places I'd like to correct, I'm pretty excited about what we accomplished in one hour.

There has been enormous learning from the last four sessions. I'm more comfortable with keeping time, but still have a long way to go before it's 100% natural. I also have come to know my songs in a way I hadn't before. I know each pause, mini-break or place where I might skip a beat.

Eventually I'm going to have a demo, but along the way, I'm learning a lot....

Demo - Part 3 - Practice rhythm more than chords

Today was our third demo session. We finished the guitar part on College Years and just started working on the Foundation Stands. I've come to the conclusion that one hour sessions are too short, it's taking me that long to get into the groove.

In working on the Foundation Stands, its interesting that I can nail it in practice, but during recording I tend to speed up. While I hear that this is the most common problem, it's still frustrating. Ben made an interesting comment from his teaching experience that guitar students need to focus as much on rhythm as the chords. The typical student focuses on trying to get the chord shapes and forgets about the rhythm. Playing solo guitar this doesn't become an issue until you play with a band or get into the studio.

While this has been frustrating in the studio, I'm hearing a difference in my playing. Since I can't cheat in working with a click track, I'm being forced to be perfect my rhythm. Give me a few more years and I'll be there...

Preparing a demo

Everywhere I turn, I keep hearing about the need to have a high quality demo CD. It finally took a voice from above to push me over the edge. When asking at church, how do I get involved with the music ministry, I was immediately told to submit a demo CD.

Today I started working toward a demo. I chose to work with Ben Senterfit in his studio and our approach will be to:
1) Record the guitar to a click track
2) Record the vocals
3) Add Julie's violin
4) Add other instruments later

In preparation for studio time, we started by getting me ready to work with a click track. A click track is basically a metronome. Today we identified the tempo for each song and my goal over the next week is to get my guitar rock solid with this beat.

If you haven't done it before, it's challenging playing to a click track. So I'm glad I have practice time. A few things that I noticed immediately:
- I tend to add an extra beat at the end of phrases (my guitar embellishment was throwing me off time)
- I tend to speed up going into (or during) the chorus
- The first three songs (my favorites) were at basically the same tempo (need to mix this up on the CD).

This should be an interesting process.

Nashville experiences

Two of our songwriting group recently returned from Nashville. A few of their comments that I noted were:

- It was a great learning experience.
- The main thing they accomplished was making contacts and learning about songwriting Nashville style.
- Songwriting is treated like any other business, songs need to be written to match the needs of the client. While everyone say that they want something different, if it does match the formula it needs to be really amazing to get listened to.
- Songs need to be much shorter, have a strong hook that's repeated, and follow a format like V C V C B C (with some flexibility).
- There are over 300 songs writing per week in Nashville, so it's as much who you know as what you know.
- Both had demos of their songs made in Nashville. It was really weird hearing our friends songs country-fied. If you're pitching in Nashville, your pitching country songs... Also, there's a big difference between demo shops, so do your homework.
- Co-writing is strongly encouraged and there is no shortage of people offering to do a cowrite on one of your existing songs. The trick is to get a co-write situation that works for you. (see my earlier postings on co-writing)

Listening to their comments, it sounds like something that I may want to do.

Recording a song

I received the following question from Michael -- what kind of recording system do you use to record your song for a day? Are you using a PA system and then recording to what? And how do you post it using quicktime?

My response was:

I started with an old cassette recorder and even used my camcorder when in a pinch. Now I have an 8 track digital recorder, Zoom MRS-802B. The system with accessories costs about $1000. This includes a condenser mike, 2 headphones, speakers, etc. From that I burn to a CD. I then use my computer and a FreeWare Program, FreeRip, to convert my audio track to MP3. From there I load it to my website. If you don't have a website, MySpace allows you to post up to 3 songs free.

If I did it again, I would check out ProTools which runs off the computer. If anyone has a suggestion, add a comment.

I'd also suggest finding an easy to use system, rather than the most advanced, unless you are a techie. Each system has a large learning curve! I use only about 5% of the functionality of my recording system.