Recording an album

Bell Green · Post by **Bell Green** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:13 pm

I've been writing and recording odd songs here and there for the last few years now and I'm getting a bit frustrated. What is my sound, where am I going with my music etc are all the questions that keep coming up. So my wife suggested that I recorded an album. At first I thought that it would be too much of a challenge, but then I thought why not. It may help to address some of my musical issues such as what is my sound, what is my feel, etc. I've given myself one year to do it starting from the end of October. So the next few weeks is to come up with some sort of plan. 12 songs in 12 months. So now I'm turning to you guys for advice.

What would be the best strategy? I know it probably won't be one song a month, more like three one month then nothing the next. Should I follow a theme or concept of some sort? Should the subject matter be consistent? Should they all have the same style? Should they all be around the same tempo? All happy or sad songs? A mixed bag? Or just play it by ear?

Any advice, feedback or comments would be much appreciated.

Mogosagatai · Post by **Mogosagatai** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:40 pm

They should <i>not</i> all be the same style. Think of any of your favorite albums, and I bet they're full of ups and downs and mood swings, however subtle.

A theme or concept would be very awesome. You need not follow it rigorously to a point of confining yourself, but just so that all the songs <i>could</i> tie in to the same, larger story.

Same tempo? Heck no. Mixed bag.

That's all I got for now.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:44 pm

To get an idea of what you're about, maybe take some of your favorite tracks and then arrange them in different ways to see how they fit together. Fiddle around and try to find a good flow. Then use that for inspiration on new material with a deeper understanding of your own music.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:23 pm

Rather than thinking of it in terms of "a song a month," think in terms of the whole process it'll take to get from where you are to where you want to get. Month 1 might just be listen to all the songs you've written up 'til now... if you had to pick 12 songs and make an album next week, what 12 would you pick? Make a rough tape / CD and just soak in it. Then a couple months of improving those songs and writing new ones. At the end of that, re-do the rough version and start passing it around to people for feedback (post the .mp3s and ask for comments here). Play the songs live if you have a chance and see how they feel in front of an audience.

Then start planning out how you're going to actually record it - home studio? Paid studio? What other musicians are you going to need? What of your own skills do you need to work on? What's it gonna cost and where is the money gonna come from? Who might be interested in buying a copy and how are you gonna convince them to buy?

So now you're about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through your year, and it's time to do the actual recording... if you're working with other musicians, you'll have to coordinate schedules (not necessarily everybody in the studio at the same time) and you'll also want to rehearse the songs so that when you're paying for studio time, you're not making up arrangements...

...and you've got three or four months left to take what you've got and make it better. Bounce the "finished product" off a few songfighters for more feedback, figure out cover art, write a new song to replace that one that just isn't working... figure out what you're going to do to promote the album and start working on that. Two or three rounds of "okay, what's the biggest problem with this album right now and how can I make it better?"

The process doesn't have to be rigid steps, but for a project like this, it seems like it makes sense to break it up somewhat...

Charles (KA)

Post by **Spud** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 3:38 pm

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 4:40 pm

i say make as many songs as you can within the next twelve months. take the songs that you love. i made an album this summer and ended up ditching 4 or 5 songs that didn't fit/weren't good enough.

i really think that making an album does help with "finding your sound." thinking of my own music in terms of the future has become easier since making an album. just avoid sticking with one distinct sound. whatever you do will sound like you.

i agree with all that Mogosagatai said.

j$ · Post by j$ » Sat Oct 08, 2005 5:45 pm

Oddly enough, I am in the process of doing something similiar (of which more in due course)

My advice - write 12 songs you like. Record them. Put them out as an album. Leave artistic cohesion to the sub-conscious.

j$

Albatross · Post by **Albatross** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 6:10 pm

j$ wrote:artistic cohesion to the sub-conscious.

OK, now that we've gotten the album's name out of the way...

Bell Green · Post by **Bell Green** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 1:35 am

Thanks for all the responses so far. This is great. It gives me a point of entry. I've started to look through my more recent back catalogue and building a compilation. This should give me a sense of where I'm coming from. It's funny how some of those old songs sound awful and cringworthy after many months or years and others are like, "wow, did I really do that?". So my ipod will only have me on it for next few weeks or so. Should be interesting.

What I appreciate most about all of your responses is the artistic standpoint. I don't know if it's just me, but when I'm into writing a song I can easily get sucked into the technical side i.e. song form, rhyme scheme, key centre, and production of course. But the organic, creative side can often get a bit lost in the mix, so to speak. So thanks for emphasising that.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 10:48 am

Bell Green wrote:What I appreciate most about all of your responses is the artistic standpoint. I don't know if it's just me, but when I'm into writing a song I can easily get sucked into the technical side i.e. song form, rhyme scheme, key centre, and production of course. But the organic, creative side can often get a bit lost in the mix, so to speak. So thanks for emphasising that.

Okay, just to balance it all out, I'd like to say that I think it's important to have a sound, or rather, it's better to have a sound than to not have one. When a 3 Doors Down song comes on the radio that I haven't heard before, I wouldn't be able to say for sure what band it was. But if someone played me an AC/DC song I hadn't heard, I bet I could recognize it. And their style, like anyone else's, is due in part to "technical" things like production, song form, and arrangement. There's creativity in those things too.

Your style not a static unchanging thing, but it does fit under an umbrella of things which people will associate with you. When you make songs, what is most important: melody? the meaning of the lyrics? the sound of the lyrics? vocal emotion? mood? musical virtuosity? song structure? a unique arrangement? an arrangement where certain musicians have certain predefined roles?

Everything that you write will not sound like you unless you have some idea of what you think you should sound like.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:08 pm

you could use the albumfight titles and try really hard to get it done in 6 months or something. or do a couple of AADs.

i think the best way to get something decent going is to re-record your own favorite songs with a lot of attention to detail. now that you know what the song sounds like, look for places where the arrangement needs to expand or tighten, and try to perform every part perfectly.

unless you don't already have any songs that you like.

j$ · Post by j$ » Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:04 am

Yes. I also recommend taking a good short song and adding 7 minutes of rehearsal room pedal play wankery to the end to meet the minimum lengthr requirements of your album. Good idea, eh, Blue? :p

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:49 am

Another thought: I think an album without a theme is really just a collection of songs. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but the most cohesive albums have lyrical and musical themes that make the songs feel as though they belong together. Cohesiveness comes from lyrical motives (i.e. specific places or periods, emotions, or maybe even just a couple of words that recur inconspicuously,) common arrangements (i.e. the same basic instruments used for most songs,) and probably most importantly, consistent production. The songs should all sound like they were recorded together (as opposed to the sound of a greatest hits collection, were you've got lots of great songs but mixed by a dozen different engineers.)

The most cohesive album I can think of is Blue Rodeo's 5 Days In July, and it's no accident the songs gel so perfectly: The band recorded the album in 5 days at the guitar player's farm. Not only do the songs really belong together, but as a listener you feel like you're in the farmhouse with them.

So I guess my advice is write, and more importantly, record the songs so they sound like they're meant to be heard together.

Mostess · Post by **Mostess** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 6:58 am

Every album I love has one song that doesn't really go with the others: usually a really slow/soft/sensitive one surrounded by crazier songs, usually about 2/3 through. But really, anything that breaks the flow is helpful, just like the bridge in a single song.

The few "albums" I've put together (usually just choosing and ordering songs I've written for fun), I've spent a surprising amount of time listening to the boundaries between songs: the end of each and the start of the next. The amount of silence, relative volume, key, tuning (since I'm a guy/guitar, I'm often not pitch-pipe-tuned when I record) makes a big difference. If I start recording with the goal to make an album*, I'll probably try planning those transitions first, and writing the songs after.

*not a bad idea at all!

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:33 am

When I'm deliberately "putting an album together" one of the things I do a lot is to order the songs by (among other things), "rising keys." If the first song is in C, I'd look for something in D, E, or F for the next song, not something in A or Bb. If the second one is then in E, the third might be in F, G or A. In general, I just ignore minor keys in doing this, except to be aware that if one song is in Am and the next is in C (Am being the "relative minor" of C, no flats or sharps in either key), it's going to sound sorta like the same key.

There are other things to take into consideration when choosing song order (tempo, rock-ness, song story line), but it's surprising how much this "rising key" trick can make each song sound fresh... even if I'm trying to do a "concept album" sort of thing with a story line or something else which determines what the song order will be, I try to keep the rising keys thing in mind while WRITING the songs.

Something else I do is to bring each finished song up in a .wav editor program and make sure there's exactly 1 1/2 seconds of silence at the start of the song, and then fade out the last chord ring or whatever for about five seconds (if the last chord "rings" rather than chopping off or ending with a fadeout) and then a second and a half of silence at the end. I think the "industry standard" is more like starting the song with almost no silence at the start of the track and then have a bit longer fade at the end... it's not five seconds of silence at the end of the song, it's five seconds of ringing / reverb / fx fading out . My .wav editor program just does linear fades, but if I take that last few seconds and apply the fade TWICE, it creates a fade which drops off dramatically at first and then fades more slowly to the end, which I think sounds a little better. It's a math thing.

Charles (KA)

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:16 am

j$ wrote:Yes. I also recommend taking a good short song and adding 7 minutes of rehearsal room pedal play wankery to the end to meet the minimum lengthr requirements of your album. Good idea, eh, Blue? :p

there are no length requirements. that wank was voluntary.

Bell Green · Post by **Bell Green** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:28 am

I was listening to Radio 4 yesterday, as you do, and there was programme about how radio is getting a more positive image in Rwanda. Having been used as a great propoganda machine during the massacre of '94, obviously it has a negative image. But the programme discussed how they are now producing a soap opera which communicates and educates the population about necessary issues, such as aids. The show has become very popular and it got me thinking about art and media as a means of education, which is propoganda as well.

I tend to think of art as a means to explore oneself and that was my initial idea really with making an album: find my sound and what I'm about. But rather than an exercise in self analysis, it could be about what I want to say to others, to the world. Some sort of a message. It's not that I didn't understand that before, but never thought about my own music in that way, so that was quite interesting.

It has also been interesting listening to some of my own tunes as an album over and over again. After all, when we have an album of work of an artist that we like, we listen to it over and over again. The first few times it was a bit nostalgic, even though none of the songs are more than a year old. Then I thought that enough was enough and turned it off. Then when I started to listen again, I began to listen as though it wasn't me and began to find some common threads that tied the songs together. Like:

The story in the song was always a tragedy.
There was always a story in the song.
The lead vocals are always double tracked.
The rhythm section is funky.
There are backing vocals.
There is always a synth or an organ.
The songs are always written on the guitar first.

Now these things are usually unplanned. I don't set out with a plan to double track the vocals, but I always do. I don't really think about it. As I'm writing the arrangement, somewhere along the line I compose a synth or organ part, but again don't really set out with that plan. What I mean is that some of these common threads that I've discovered are not conscious desicions. I made the desicion perhaps a year ago and now it has become a habit. So that was quite interesting.

Anyway, I'll stop there for now before this becomes a bit of a "how I wrote my album" blog. Thanks for all the comments. My mind is buzzing with ideas and I feel excited and inspired. At first I thought it might be too great a challenge, but now I feel a sense of support from all you guys which gives me the strength and confidence to carry on.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:58 am

blue wrote:
j$ wrote:Yes. I also recommend taking a good short song and adding 7 minutes of rehearsal room pedal play wankery to the end to meet the minimum lengthr requirements of your album. Good idea, eh, Blue? :p
there are no length requirements. that wank was voluntary.

Are there involuntary wanks?
And I thought that was the one time when one was blissfully free of any 'length requirements'.