Diary: The Making of THE HOMEPLACE - August 9, 2009
The purpose of this diary is to give you a look inside the recording process of my latest album. I want to share things I've learned, ideas, and my excitement as well over my new project.
In my own experience now looking at both sides of the process, I would recommend working with a producer, as a good producer has (hopefully) years of experience and an expertise not only of the recording process, but of the music industry in general. Knowledge of trends, styles of music, etc. A producer can help you edit songs that down in length, come up with instrumental ideas you'd never thought of, and work wonders as far as editing goes. My producer's name is Doug Jansen Smith and he has owned Soundcell Studio in Huntsville, AL for 20+ years. The rest of my narrative will continue in diary form, so please read on and check back as I will be adding entries regularly until I have covered the end of the project.
Day 1: June 16, 2009 The Meeting
I actually discovered Soundcell Studio through a friend of mine I'd met in Jacksonville, Erin Smith. She'd been going to JSU but was from Huntsville, and so after she'd moved back there, I went to visit her one day and we went to the Botanical Gardens and some other places, including Soundcell Studio where her dad worked. I remember vaguely seeing pics on the walls of letters, some gold records, and pics of musicians, some of them famous. What impressed me most was the beauty of the studio. A very large recording room for instruments, a separate side room with two stained glass windows, a grand piano, and an organ. Two separate recording booths for vocals.And then the console room with all kinds of equipment, computers, etc. I met her dad briefly out in the stockyard behind the small strip mall they owned which Erin told me was being converted into a venue/other things (it was still in the works at the time). At present, at least two years later, it is called Park Place and is used for live events. I will describe it in more detail later on. When it came time to work on my new album I remembered the studio I had toured and gave Doug a call to set up a meeting.
That initial meeting, which was not June 16 (my actual start day) I told him how I wanted a project that was of radio quality and one where other musicians were playing besides myself (on my first album I did all the instruments, and while I am proud of myself for that, it was stressful, and obviously, I am not an expert at multiple instruments). He listened to two of my demos, The Homeplace and Wild Dogs. He really liked the latter and we talked ideas for it, as well as my other songs. He played me some examples of artists that had recorded with him in an edited take that began with their initial demos, which after about 30 seconds transformed into the piece he had produced. I was really impressed with the result, and at the end of the meeting I was onboard to work there.
My first day of recording began with listening to all the demos of my songs. I had decided to drop two of my initial album choices and replaced them with two songs I had written recently that I felt were really good songs (Caves and The Observer). Doug actually agreed after I sang them for him live, liking them more than the two I dropped. Since I didn't have a demo for Caves or The Observer, we did one for each. playing the 12-string guitar first for The Observer, I was blown away when I put the headphones on and listened to the signal. I thought my guitar sounded even better than how I usually hear it--such a rich, gorgeous sound. I then did a rough vocal and my reaction was the same. I could hear myself so crystal clear. It was such a high quality of sound that I became excited. In the past I have always sang better live than I did in recordings, and I realized that it was partly due to me not being able to hear myself well enough through headphones in the past. Especially in my home set-up (which I will not discuss, as it is emarrassing--lol). I then did the guitar and vocal for Caves. Although I didn't think these were the final takes, the guitar tracks for both of these demos ended up as keepers for the final tracks).
We went on to Lambert Road, a song telling the true story of my Grandmother being jilted in a cruel way when she was young (before she met and married my grandfather). I played with a click track and was nervous initially, flubbing in the beginning multiple times. Doug's intern/assistant Adam was helping with the recording of this. I was concerned about bleed on parts where the guitar had held out. I didn't realize how easy it was to go back and just correct parts without the click, re-recording them (punching in). I of course knew about punching in but had been told in past it was not good for the recording overall. But Doug was of course an expert at it and the final track for Lambert Road sounded great, no glitches of any kind. Next we did the guitar for Wild Dogs. It went well overall except for the signature lick I have in it that occurs three times in the song. I kept wanting to go back and start again and Doug told me to just play it through and we'd probably redo the guitar later on. I usually work alone on things, perform solo, and am somewhat of a control freak, somewhat perfectionist. But I had come into this experience realizing that I didn't want to be the one in control, and so it was a challenge, yet a challenge worthwhile, to chill out and let Doug call the shots. It was a relief really (although it is my project and he told me many times over the course of this project that the goal was for me to be happy with the end result, so I should speak up if I didn't like anything that was happening with any of the tracks). Doug was a great person to work with and I strove to learn when to speak up and when to be silent and let him do what he does best in the recording dept.
I came away from my first day of recording feeling confident that my project was going to turn out even better than I had hoped. Being set to record the following day as well, I spent the night with Erin, who coincidentally was throwing a "Spa Party." I'd never heard of one, but it was much fun. She and I, among other ladies, treated our feet, hands, faces, etc. to the royal treatment. I basically went to bed that night feeling like a million bucks. :)