Recording Project, Fit the Seventh
Oct. 26th, 2006 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sen_no_ongaku(Fits the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth.)
About damn time. After about five months of playing spin-the-schedule, Colin, Terry (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wavyarms's dad), and I finally got into Rear Window to record my Three Sketches. It's in the basement of a multi-story house in Brookline, quite cheap, and with excellent equipment. The house engineer, Nate, was kind of a nutcase, twitchy and talky, like an addict without (I think) the drugs -- Colin was reminded of Brad Pitt's character from Twelve Monkeys -- but he was quite competent, and Colin was up in the control room keeping an eye on him[1].
As always, the first hour of the session was basically completely taken up by mike setup, EQ adjustment, tweaking inputs, etc., etc., leaving two hours for the actual recording. No problem.
We laid down our tracks, and all was good. I'm mildly concerned about how the piano sounded -- it was somewhat dead in the high register, so controlling the dynamics took some extra concentration; I had to remember to play different parts of the keyboard with different amounts of force to get the same volume, which is difficult to balance, and another way to screw up the recording. I think I managed.
I was also reminded that I have a knack for writing music that sounds easy but is really hard.
Colin and I will start the splicing process at the end of next week, and hopefully have a CD ready to be mastered by...the end of the year? Though, given how wildly incorrect my initial timeline for this project was, it may not actually come together until 2010.
___
(1) Some folks might not know how a recording studio is laid out -- the musicians are isolated in a heavily soundproofed room where they do their thing. The engineer(s) and producer hang out in the control room, which looks out through a soundproofed window (or two, or three, just in case) into the musicians' room.
What's sometimes disconcerting is that the musicians talk to the engineers through the mikes that are already set up and recording, while the engineers talk to the musicians by pushing a button on their mixing console and speak over monitors hidden in the studio. I'm not sure the strangeness of it is communicable without you being there.
About damn time. After about five months of playing spin-the-schedule, Colin, Terry (
wavyarms's dad), and I finally got into Rear Window to record my Three Sketches. It's in the basement of a multi-story house in Brookline, quite cheap, and with excellent equipment. The house engineer, Nate, was kind of a nutcase, twitchy and talky, like an addict without (I think) the drugs -- Colin was reminded of Brad Pitt's character from Twelve Monkeys -- but he was quite competent, and Colin was up in the control room keeping an eye on him[1].As always, the first hour of the session was basically completely taken up by mike setup, EQ adjustment, tweaking inputs, etc., etc., leaving two hours for the actual recording. No problem.
We laid down our tracks, and all was good. I'm mildly concerned about how the piano sounded -- it was somewhat dead in the high register, so controlling the dynamics took some extra concentration; I had to remember to play different parts of the keyboard with different amounts of force to get the same volume, which is difficult to balance, and another way to screw up the recording. I think I managed.
I was also reminded that I have a knack for writing music that sounds easy but is really hard.
Colin and I will start the splicing process at the end of next week, and hopefully have a CD ready to be mastered by...the end of the year? Though, given how wildly incorrect my initial timeline for this project was, it may not actually come together until 2010.
___
(1) Some folks might not know how a recording studio is laid out -- the musicians are isolated in a heavily soundproofed room where they do their thing. The engineer(s) and producer hang out in the control room, which looks out through a soundproofed window (or two, or three, just in case) into the musicians' room.
What's sometimes disconcerting is that the musicians talk to the engineers through the mikes that are already set up and recording, while the engineers talk to the musicians by pushing a button on their mixing console and speak over monitors hidden in the studio. I'm not sure the strangeness of it is communicable without you being there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 03:22 pm (UTC)A little compression might help level out the volume variation in a performance, although it won't help with the timbre. It can of course have the unfortunate side effect of sucking the dynamics out of a performance. I haven't found that any good software compressors outside of the ones which Waves sells and those are extraodinarialy expensive. I am still trying some out in the quest for a good free/cheap one.
I have a little outboard one you are welcome to borrow sometime should you need it that is pretty nice (FMR Audio's RNC 1773 ).
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:18 pm (UTC)Once Colin and I take a closer look at the files, I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:17 pm (UTC)And I, too, am definitely planning on using them in the future.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-28 07:57 pm (UTC)And is it awful of me to have an excitable, glamorous image of recording studios? Maybe I should become a backup singer instead of a teacher . . . .