Sidingsound

Band recording thoughts

Oh, and while I'm at the keyboard...

I've been musing over how I'm going to achieve probably the major 'task' of my nascent CD project: recording some live backing tracks with real musicians. I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd like to have a 'real' (i.e. not programmed) rhythm section on some of the songs—on present thinking, about half of them—and have a reasonable idea how I'd like to go about it.

The main factor impacting on this laudable concept, can be summed up in three words:

1. wonga;
2. moolah; and
3. (oh, you've got the idea by now) cash.

Let's face it: most people would say they prefer hearing a live drummer, bassist, digeridoo player or whatever on a recording, rather than the MIDI/sampled/Casio keyboard equivalent. Sometimes, that would even include me, and in my younger and more ignorant days (circa 1991!), I admit to have (shudder) suggested to at least one higher-profile recording musician than I, that he might have made that last album of his with a bit less programmed backing. (Sammy, if you ever read this, I really hope you don't remember that gawky teenager saying that to you at that signing session, but if you do: sorry, and I'm older and a bit wiser now...)

I'd agree that nothing sounds quite like a 'real' band going through its paces, as opposed to programmed drums (and especially cymbals) and other MIDI backing parts, although to be fair there's often a place for the latter. This is why—after years of multitracked and usually partly programmed solo demos—I'd really like to have at least a live drummer and bass player on this CD project, even if they don't appear on all the songs.

However, despite all the advances in music technology over the years, it remains a right royal pain-in-the-proverbial to actually record a group of real musicians (especially if there's a drum kit involved), and even more so if you're doing so on a shoestring budget... or for that matter, next to no budget at all.

You may have picked up that my project here falls more or less into this category. I've already planned to cut down the time it will take to record the band tracks, mainly by

1. limiting the number of tracks which will feature the 'live' band (as I said, about half of them at present);
2. only recording the 'skeleton' rhythm track (i.e. drums, bass and guide guitar), with all the other parts to be overdubbed later at leisure; and
3. only requiring two other musicians (drums and bass) for the session(s).

But, that still leaves the question: where will I actually do the recording? The options are not, on the face of it, promising. One day in a pro studio would probably cost a few hundred, and recording in a rehearsal studio with the "Sidingsound Mobile" (i.e. my own gear) probably wouldn't save me much dosh when hire of the room was factored in, though I haven't checked that route much yet. Basically, even if I had that kind of money to spend on the recording, I'm not sure at this stage whether I could justify it, especially as at this stage I'm not even that sure what I'm going to do with the end result.

Which leaves what I think is the most likely option considering the above: set up all the gear in someone's home, and record everything there. In fact, at this stage, the primary candidate location is... our house's "music room", where Joy currently teaches piano. On the plus side, it's big enough (just) to accommodate a drum kit and two guitarists, and I'd only have to move my recording gear downstairs instead of across town.

Of course, you knew there had to be a few catches:

• Joy actually works in this room (teaching piano), including on Saturday mornings, so it might be some way into the day (probably Saturday) before we could even set up drums, mikes, etc.
• Our house is a 'newbuild', which as we live in the UK means cardboard walls (well, not quite that bad, but man, they're thin)
• On that note, I'm not sure how our neighbour will take to us playing for the hours it will probably take to get everything recorded to our satisfaction
• The room has little on the walls to absorb sound, and laminate flooring, so the sound is likely to be highly 'live' and reverberant, which you don't really want when you're recording drums (and that's assuming there are no unpleasant acoustic surprises in the room, like standing waves)
• There's an upright piano in the room, and I bet the vibrations of a drum kit a metre away will cause it to resonate (and goodness knows how that will sound on the recording)

So, perhaps not an ideal location, then, but unless some Good Samaritan I know can come up with a better location which won't triple my recording costs in one go, I think our "music room" is looking the likely winner. And much as I'd like to put this off for a while, I'd rather like to get the 'band' recording for this project done soon; if possible, by the end of 2007, which leaves me with only about two months to sort this whole business out.

Rather a lot of trouble to go to, for a CD project that I'm not even sure what to do with when I finish it! Still, I think that if I can pull this off, I'll have a set of songs that I'll be able to look back on in years to come, and think, "that sounds pretty good, hmmmmm" (or maybe better, if I'm fortunate).

Anyway, it could be worse—at some stage, I'll have to think about how I'm going to get the project mastered...

(cue 'Psycho'-style shrieking violins :-) )

Labels: music

posted by Tim @ 21:49