To start off the Blog, I thought I would talk about something that is currently a big part of my life: recording. I went into the recording studio a total novice, and it took some experience and research to learn some important and sometimes painful lessons. I have spent two years and about $2,000 getting to the point where I am ready to record professionally, and that could have been avoided if I had known the things I have learned over these two years. Since recording is something that all singers have to do now, I thought I would pass on these experiences; hopefully, someone can learn from my recording travails and not have to waste time and money learning the same things. I would love to hear your insights and experiences, too; just post a Comment at the bottom of this Post.
Whether you sing opera, art song, pop or jazz, if you expect to be marketable, to get your music heard or to get a job, you have to have audio clips, preferably posted on a website, or at least ready to send out on a CD. The first thing I do when I look at a singer’s website is listen to their clips. I’ve heard that management does the same thing now. In fact, someone recently told me that the first thing that managers and directors do when they’re considering a singer is to look for them on YouTube, which means singers need to do video now, as well (another adventure down the road!). For now I’ll stick with recording, which has proved to be challenging enough!
I am a crossover singer; in addition to opera and art song, I sing Broadway, standards and Latin jazz, as well as some music that is hard to categorize. Because of this, I’ll be using the recording studio in different ways for different types of music. But I’m finding that the technical and professional aspects of working with the engineer in the studio will be the same for all the music I do, something I didn’t know would be the case when I started out.
Performing versus recording
Most classical singers have not had a lot of experience with recording. Everything we’ve spent years learning to do is about projecting sound and feeling over a large expanse to reach an audience, unaided by microphones or projectors. We’ve learned to be larger than life, to expand enormously when we perform and to move people with our energy and sound, people who might be hundreds of feet away.
In the recording studio, the microphone is directly in front of you, which makes it seem unnatural to sing full voice. How do you sing opera over such a short distance? Projecting to the back of the house just doesn’t work in a recording studio. This means, first of all, that the sound is never going to be quite as thrilling. It can be engineered to sound almost the same, but the natural ring to a healthy vocal sound in a big hall can’t really be duplicated. However, it also means that I don’t have to work as hard! Eventually I began to learn that having to project only as far as the microphone afforded me the opportunity to express nuance in a song in a way that I cannot do when singing full voice in a large hall, particularly in popular or art song.
In the recording studio, there is no audience to share energy and emotion with. There is no human to respond, to communicate with. When I sing to the mic, it feels as if I’m talking to myself instead of communicating with someone else. At first I really, really did not enjoy this. And when I step in front of the microphone, I don’t get the rush of adrenaline that comes when I step in front of an audience. That adrenaline is something that I love – and hate – because while it doesn’t feel particularly pleasant, it is what gives my performance the edge, raises the energy and helps me go beyond myself, which in turn excites the audience. But without that adrenaline rush, I don’t have the uncertainty of vocal technique that it sometimes brings or the plunge in blood sugar that always follows. I can calmly continue recording until I get the take I want, even repeating the same phrase a hundred times if I want to.
Recording also gives me the opportunity to make the song exactly the way I want it to be, the way I hear it in my “inner ear,” unhampered by human error. If I make a mistake, no problem; I can do that measure again, and the audience (the listeners) will be none the wiser. If I wish the piano had been just a little louder in a certain passage, no problem; I can tell the engineer to make that adjustment in the mixing. If I want to add another instrument later on, no problem; just bring them into the studio and they can do overdubs by playing to the recorded tracks of me or the other musicians. So although it feels like a rather sterile means of making music, it does have some wonderful benefits to make up for what is lost. Although I miss the aspects of live performance that are absent in the recording studio, I have come to appreciate what it gives me in their place.
Recording can also allow me to do things musically that I might not be able to do while singing 15 songs in a concert, again due to human limitations in live performance. In the recording studio, I can focus on one song, and really express it to the best of my ability, not fatigued by just having performed for an hour straight, or needing to hold back a little for the climax of the show.
There are, of course, drawbacks in recording, which manifest primarily in two areas: first, the energetic communication inherent in performing, which I have just mentioned, and, second, the sound quality. More and more, the sound quality of recordings has become homogenized and overprocessed to the point that I sometimes do not recognize the voice of even a very famous singer. For example, I heard a recording the other day and was shocked to learn that the singer was Mariah Carey, someone whose voice is quite distinctive; the sound had been altered so much that her voice was totally unrecognizable. This is much more prevalent in popular music, but it is beginning to be a problem even in classical music. There seems to be an emphasis on a sound that lacks overtones and instead sounds artificially thickened, deepened or whitened. This seems to go along with the current trend to promote the very superficial and slick, whatever is selling at the moment, at the expense of true artistry and real human emotion. But a true artist never sounds like everyone else, and what is unusual about a voice is what makes it interesting to me. So whatever the current vogue is in sound reproduction, that is what I don’t want! I want to sound like a real, live human being.
The wonderful world of recording
The most wonderful aspect of recording, I think, is that it can reach so many people. For working classical and Broadway singers, putting clips on a website can mean reaching many more managers and agents than would be possible by any other means. For pop and other singers, it can mean a chance to be heard by the masses instantly, without the necessity of a manager or producer.
It also means that millions of people can enjoy the benefit of music, whether or not they have access to live performances. I live my life to the soundtrack of recorded music. If I’m depressed, allowing myself to revel in some great, sad music helps to get me to the other side of the darkness and lightens my mood. If I’m feeling tired, I listen to stimulating music, and before long I’m dancing without realizing it. During the truly awful times in my life, the one thing that kept me moving and gave me inspiration was listening to recorded music.
I spend countless hours in concentrated listening of music of all genres, pursuing my endless exploration of music I have never heard to see what treasures I haven’t unearthed yet. I would never have been exposed to 90% of the music I love, listen to and perform if I had not had access to recorded music.
Some of the worst moments of my childhood were survived by listening to recorded music. And some of the most sublime moments I have experienced on this earth were spent listening to recordings of great musicians. I am grateful for all the music that has been recorded. Listening to recordings has been therapy, food for my soul and pure joy. If my own recording can do for even one person what recordings have done for me, that is enough incentive to record.
There is nothing that tells me more about a person than listening to them make music. When I close my eyes and listen, I get a strong sense of who they really are. And through recordings on the internet, I can hear thousands of musicians. What a wonderful way to connect with other musicians. Now with the wonderful world of mp3s, we can sit at our computer and, with a click of a button, email music to friends, add to our computer music library or play any music from anywhere in the world we choose.
I remember finding online a website of a singer who documented through recordings the changes and transformation of his voice, both positive and negative, over many years. It was quite amazing to hear how one voice could sound so totally different depending solely on how it was trained. It was encouraging to hear that even when a voice was taken down the wrong path by a misguided teacher and almost ruined, to the point that you really wouldn’t have thought there was much of a voice there if you were hearing it for the first time, it could still triumph and return to its former glory with some skillful coaching over a year or two. I learned a lot, not only from reading the singer’s post about his vocal journey, but listening to the recordings, which said so much more than words could ever say and which made an impact that reading someone else’s impression or description could never accomplish. This is another good reason for recording: to document and track change, for ourselves and others. And another reason for blogging to share about these things!
There are so many ways to disseminate recorded music now – MySpace, Facebook, ReverbNation, and my absolute favorite, BandCamp (bandcamp.com/faq). I’ve moved my own audio page to Bandcamp (elenagreco.bandcamp.com); although I haven’t yet done it, it is possible now to add your website’s header/menu in order to incorporate your own website design, and a lot of other features are in the works. For now, they offer the best audio quality and the cleanest-looking and most user-friendly (for both artist and listener) interface that I’ve found, plus tons of options for showcasing, selling and distributing your music. Of course, that’s just my preference, and there are plenty of other options.
Challenges
Some of the challenges for me in recording are technical (relatively minor), and then there are the personal ones, which seem to be more significant.
Perfection. The thing that really hangs me up the most about recording is that I seem to believe that it has to be perfect. Whenever I listen to session tracks, I hear everything that is wrong, and I feel I have to make it absolutely perfect. This makes me nuts.
As I said, recording is for me the total opposite of performing. There are so many elements involved in performing music, but the most important, I believe, is the energetic connection with the audience, and the feelings you share with them. In the recording studio, that is the one thing that is totally absent. Your audience is the microphone. The “performance” is solely about the sound and nothing else. I have found this to be enormously intimidating. It brings out my most perfectionistic qualities and a fear of failure.
I’m not someone who adulates perfection in music. Musical perfection tends to leave me cold, unless it is fueled by an abandonment to the creative force and the emotional expression of the human soul. My own taste runs to those who express something genuine and real, warts and all, pretty or not, something unique that moves me and touches my soul, rather than to those who produce perfectly beautiful sound or perfectly timed gestures in a perfectly beautiful package. So why am I making myself nuts about making a perfect recording? I guess because there is still a bit of the perfectionist in me, try as I might to shed that part of my personality. But mostly because our society seems to be totally obsessed with glossy, superficial perfection with no recognition of the soul, and I guess I still have the old feeling that I must get society’s approval, or at least that of the music world, another remnant from the past that it’s time to cast off. This is particularly true since I’m someone who has steadily flouted convention since birth, insisting on marching to my own drummer, not due to obstinacy (I really wanted to be acceptable for a large part of my earlier existence) but to an inner drive that will not let me do otherwise. That tends to cause those who are considered authorities to disapprove. Hurray for disapproval!
Purpose. One thing I had to discover was the real purpose behind my wanting and needing to record. I left music many years ago because eventually I found that I was making music for all the wrong reasons and was unhappy performing from that place. In returning to music a few years ago, I found my true impetus for making music, and I wanted to be sure that nothing of that former musical life was in my desire to record. Am I doing it just to succeed, commercially or personally? Or is there a deeper meaning for me? What is my real purpose in putting myself through this challenging process?
I have a desire to share my voice, my energetic and emotional expression, the music in me. But most of all I have a desire to heal through music, to communicate, to uplift, to bring people together and to serve my creative impulse, which I believe ultimately serves everyone (I believe this is so for everyone who truly listens to and serves their creative impulse). I need to remember this at all times when I am involved in recording. If I focus solely on promoting myself or achieving a practical goal, the result will not be moving to anyone, and I will have a miserable time doing it. That is just not what I am committed to. Part of this process has been learning to return to my real intention in recording music.
Lessons learned
I’m working on two recording projects, and I started both of them two years ago. I am just now really getting them off the ground. Why so long? Well, there were two problems. One was that of finding talented musicians of like musical mind who were also pleasant, ethical and reliable (much more difficult than I anticipated, but it has finally happened!). The second, which was really a learning process and is even more important, was the need to learn something about the technical basics of recording and what to look for in a recording engineer. That is really the key to a successful recording experience, I think.
I knew at the beginning that I would be recording three very different types of music: classical (opera and art song), standards or popular music, and Latin jazz. The classical music would involve a pianist and/or guitarist, and the standards and Latin jazz would also include a percussionist and other instrumentalists. I needed a recording engineer who could do all of them, and I assumed that the recording process would be different for the different genres of music.
At the start of my first recording experience, I learned of two recording engineers who seemed to have good reputations and years of experience. One of them was heavily touted by the classical vocal world, and since I’m not one to jump on the band wagon, particularly that of the musical establishment, that actually pushed me away. The other was an engineer who has recorded a lot of jazz, in addition to working with a lot of classical singers, and since I’m a crossover singer, that appealed to me. I figured I needed someone who could record the popular sound and the instrumentals as well as doing the vocals well. I listened to a few clips done by each, and I did like the classically-oriented one better and had reservations about the other due to the vocal quality, but I decided to try the engineer with the most cross-over experience first; it seemed more logical (a decision-making choice that has always gotten me in trouble!).
I don’t believe I have ever been so nervous about a performance. I didn’t sleep the night before my first time in the studio. It was partly fear of the unknown and partly fear that the voice wouldn’t live up to my needs, since it was the sole vehicle for the music. In addition, just prior to the recording, I had been working with a voice teacher who took me down the wrong road and my vocal technique wasn’t in the greatest shape, so when I first began recording I wasn’t feeling confident of my singing. (I’m happy to say that, with the help of a wonderful coach, I am singing my very best again!)
When we began the session, I found that I did not feel very comfortable with the recording engineer or the physical recording studio. I didn’t know why at the time, assuming that it must be me, since I was new to the process. I soon learned that I should have listened to my instinct at the beginning, as I think I unconsciously picked up on something that could have warned me that this was not the right person for me to work with.
Bumps in the road
The first recording I did was The Water Is Wide, an old folk song that I did bolero-style with guitar, bongos and maracas. I did this recording in honor of Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, so there was a deadline. On the day of the recording, I was not in good voice due to lack of sleep, but the engineer told me that once we got the instrumentals down, I could come in any time to do overdubs for the vocals.
The vocals I did with the instrumentalists I recorded in the booth. The booth was a difficult experience for me. I am claustrophobic for one thing, and being in a tiny enclosed space – and this one was tiny! – where I couldn’t move, while doing something that required that I open energetically and make a lot of sound, was very stressful and made me a little crazy. I stifled my reaction, knowing that it was necessary to do this in order to get the instrumentals recorded, and knowing that I would not be using the vocals anyway. We got the instrumentals done, and I was happy with the instrumental tracks, so just my vocals remained to be done.
Unfortunately, the next time I went in to do the vocal overdubs I had severe allergies and so still did not get a good vocal sound. In addition, that was my first time in the studio alone, and singing with a mic only a few inches from my face (more about that later), hearing the instruments and myself through headphones, and having no one in the room with me pretty much totally freaked me out. The recording was terrible. So I had to do it again.
Wouldn’t you know, the day before the recording I came down with a cold. By now, it was down to the wire, only a week before Pete’s birthday, so it had to be done. This time, I asked a friend to come with me; it was just too weird being in the studio alone singing to no one, with the sound coming into my ears through headphones, especially since in this particular studio, the engineer is in a complete different room from the recording room so that you cannot see him. It did help having a human in the room with me that time.
The tracks, not surprisingly, sounded exactly like I had a cold. But I was doing this as a “thank you” to Pete, so I figured I shouldn’t be that concerned with perfection of the voice, as that is just not Pete Seeger. After choosing the tracks (more about that in another Post), I had the engineer mix the final version. I used one take from the previous session and the rest from the session when I had the cold. Unfortunately, the final mix was terrible. You really couldn’t hear the maracas at all, which was something that added interest and flavor to the arrangement, and there was a clear difference between the one take from the previous session and the rest. I realize that the engineer muffled the sound a little from the session with the cold so that you couldn’t hear the cold as much, but he didn’t make the track from the previous session match the new ones. The result is a poorly mixed, unprofessional-sounding clip that doesn’t have any vocal overtones. I will have to do the vocals over now, and then get it re-mixed and mastered so that I have a usable product. It is on my BandCamp page now (www.ElenaGreco.BandCamp.com, also www.elenagreco.com/wiw.htm), so you can listen, and hopefully you will listen again when I redo the overdubs and have a remastered recording posted.
Okay, this first experience resulted in four lessons: I am miserable and don’t sing well in the booth, I have trouble singing in the room alone, I have a great deal of trouble singing with a mic inches from my face and I need to find out why the mix was not good so that I don’t have that problem in the future. In short, it was a pretty miserable experience all around, but on the positive side, I got these benefits: I ended up with a clip that could be used for the immediate purpose, which was a thank you to Pete Seeger, I learned some important lessons or things that I needed to address for the next recording, and I got over my initial fear of recording.
By this time, I had been in the room in front of the mic twice, and I was beginning to get used to the process. However, standing with the mic very close to my mouth was something that I just could not get used to, as it made me feel I couldn’t sing out. (I have since learned that this was unnecessary, but I didn’t know that at the time.)
Next up was a premier recording of a Spanish art song, Ronda, which I will be performing on a concert called The Flavor of Spain later in the year, which will also be the premier performance of that song in this country. This was an important recording, because, in addition to being the premier recording of the song, I was not only going to use it for promotion for the concert, but to produce a CD of songs from that concert that I can sell at the concert and online to help defray the costs of the concert production (I’m producing all of these projects myself, and the cost is not insignificant). In addition, I need to send it to some well-known singers in Spain with whom I hope to have some sessions when I go to Spain next year.
I initially recorded Ronda live with my awesome accompanist, but when I listened to the tracks, I realized not only that I was not really in good voice, but that I could do the song much better. I find that I hear things in professionally recorded tracks that I just don’t hear when I play back rehearsals on my own recorder. We scheduled another session, and I did part of that session in the booth so that the piano accompaniment would be on a separate track, meaning I could do overdubs if I didn’t get the vocals I wanted in that session. I did this because my accompanist was going to be out of the country for a while (you normally record classical music live together, but this was a special circumstance and doing overdubs worked on this particular song). I did decide to do overdubs to see if I could get the vocals closer to what I wanted.
We had another session the next day on the Latin song, Dos Gardenias, which is part of the Latin CD I’m working on. I did those vocals in the booth with the intention of getting the instrumentals done, intending to do overdubs in the recording studio (as opposed to the booth) later.
After the session for Dos Gardenias, I discovered that the vocal tracks had a different sound than they had had previously, and not in a good way. I wanted to make sure that the overdubs I was about to do on Ronda would have the sound I wanted. I didn’t want to have to redo the overdubs again, wasting time and money. I determined ahead of time how to describe it to the engineer so I would be crystal clear, as I thought maybe he hadn’t understood me previously.
When I went in to do the Ronda overdubs, the engineer told me that he had a new mic in the room. I said, “Well, I liked the sound I got in the last Ronda session. Is this going to make it different?” I really was so ignorant at that time that I didn’t know whether it would, or how much difference the mic could make. He said that he liked the sound of the new mic better. I asked that if I didn’t like it, could he make it sound like the previous session, and he said that he could. I mentioned that my accompanist had said during the last session when we recorded a jazz number that I sounded better in the booth than I did in the room. I asked if that was because of the mic. I had always assumed it was the booth itself, being totally ignorant of the vast difference a mic can make. He said, “Do you want me to put the booth mic in the room?” I said I didn’t know. How could I possibly know? I knew nothing about mics, and I didn’t know what the difference in sound would be between the booth mic and the new one, especially since I had never used the new one. But he had said that he could fix it, no matter what, so I figured it might be OK.
Then I told him that sometimes I got a sound I liked and sometimes I didn’t, and I wanted to be sure we got the sound I was looking for on Ronda. I told him briefly and concisely what I wanted in the vocal sound.
When he gave me the session tracks on CD, I was dismayed to discover that although I had gotten the takes I wanted, i.e., I was happy with my singing, the sound was pretty much the opposite of what I had asked for. It sounded sort of like I was singing into a sponge, more like a jazz singer than a classical singer. I liked the warmth of the sound, but it did not have the resonance and what I heard as space around the sound, which I have now learned should be called reverb. Since I had spent time at the beginning of that session to explain exactly what I wanted in the sound, I was particularly upset that I had not gotten what I had asked for. This was the second time I had discussed sound, and the result was not good, so I knew that more verbal discussion was pointless. I wrote an email describing exactly what I wanted in the sound and asked if he could fix the tracks from the last session so that they sounded the way the last session had sounded. I needed to know that, before I spent the hours that it takes to go through session takes to choose which parts of which takes go where (more on choosing takes in another Post). When he didn’t respond to the email, I called him and started to leave a voicemail, but he picked up in the middle of my message and told me he was in the middle of a session. He spoke to me in the most disrespectful manner, and screamed, “You want it bright, I’ll make it so bright your ears will hurt!” I was shocked that someone I had believed to be a professional would behave in such a crass manner. I knew in that moment that I would never work with him again.
What was most disturbing to me in working with this engineer was that every recording session I did resulted in a different vocal sound. I was really waiting to hear the sound that I was after, and I had heard that only sporadically. I wanted to know that I could get the same result every time so that I could focus on the music itself and the singing. Everything sounded too muffled to me, more of a jazz sound, when I wanted the clear, reverberant sound that every classical singer wants, one full of overtones. It was very frustrating and stressful not knowing what I would get, and not being able to get him to give me the sound I wanted.
Having spent a lot of time and money on the recording, needing very much to have a finished product so that it would not all be wasted, and having gotten the takes I wanted with regard to my singing, I felt I had no choice but to have the mixing session with him to finish the recording. I have never endured such reprehensible behavior as I did in the hour I spent with him in that small engineering booth, with shouting, disrespectful and unhealthy communication, and angry energy directed intensely at me. A truly horrible experience.
So I got the Ronda clip finished, but it is not viable for my purposes. The richness of my voice seems to be missing so that I do not sound like the mezzo I am, and the sound is sometimes harsh. After three sessions and over $500 (not counting rehearsals), I don’t have a usable product. I put it on my BandCamp page anyway, because I needed to send it to a couple of people immediately, but I will be relieved when have a better recording to post!
Changing engineers mid-stream
After the unpleasant phone conversation, I immediately searched for another recording engineer. I started with the person I had almost gone to initially. After some initial email correspondence, which was very encouraging, I set up an in-studio appointment to consult with him and have a mic test. He talked with me about the sound I wanted and tested me with five different mics, giving me a choice of which sound I preferred. I felt very comfortable with this person and the way he worked, and I decided to record with him. I informed the musicians I was working with of the change and apologized for the wasted effort.
Then I called the current engineer and told him that I needed to get the session tracks from him, and that I needed only about 12 clips from the sessions. He said that he couldn’t do that, that he would have to give me all of them. At the time, I couldn’t understand why it would be difficult to give me just a few tracks; I was soon to discover the reason. I told him to put them together the best way he could and let me know when they were ready so that I could pick them up. When I didn’t hear from him, I emailed him, and a woman responded, saying that she was handling his correspondence, that the CD had been ready for several days, and that I would have to pick up the CD at a specific time on the street(!). When I went to meet her on the street corner, she stepped out of the shadows, I told her who I was, and she thrust the CD literally in my face, gave me a hateful look, turned and walked off without speaking to me. Sort of like being in a “B” movie from the 60s. Very strange.
When I popped the CD into my computer, I couldn’t believe my eyes. All the vocal tracks that I had recorded for all of the songs were named “Voice” or “Vox,” and of all the piano tracks were named “Piano L” or Piano “R” (for left and right speakers), with no reference to the song title or date of the session. They weren’t even in separate folders by session. They were on several separate CDs with song titles on them, but some CDs contained more than one song. This will require that I spend at least six to eight hours listening to each and every clip to figure out, if possible, which session they came from, label them and find the instrumental clips I need in order to finish doing overdubs and remixing The Water Is Wide. Now I understand why he couldn’t give me the tracks I requested: he didn’t know which ones they were because he had never titled any of the tracks. This is incredibly sloppy organization, which could be a disaster when a recording project goes on for months, as it sometimes does. I knew then that I had made the right decision in leaving, and that my initial feeling of discomfort about the person was something I should have listened to. I vowed not to make that mistake again.
New engineer
When I went to the new recording engineer, I learned that the first thing that should happen in any recording endeavor is a mic test. The mic has an enormous influence on the sound of the voice. At least several mics should be tried, and once you determine which sound you like the best, that mic should always be used. The engineer told me that although the sound can be altered in many ways after it is recorded, it is far better to get it as close as possible to what you want while it is being recorded. That way, the artificial change to the sound is minimized, and what you get is much closer to your own sound. It also gives him an idea of the sound you like. A decision should be made about the distance of the mic from the singer, as well. And the mic should not be right in front of the mouth, particularly for classical music – a great relief to me!
Then the sound quality that you need to hear through the headphones while you record (if you are doing overdubs, rather than singing live with an accompanist) is adjusted, and the point at which you stand in front of the mic is noted, and all of these things are notated so that they will be exactly the same in each recording session that you have. I even plan to have a mic test of the piano so that the pianist and I are happy with that sound from the beginning. I so wish I had known about these things when I first started recording. Taking care of the details at the start means that I will always have the same experience in the recording studio when I record, and I will always have the basic sound that I like in the recorded tracks before any mixing or mastering is done.
Another thing I’ve learned from the current recording engineer is that the basic sound I’m looking for vocally in the recordings is not different from one genre to another. So now that I have chosen the ideal mic, and once he finds the settings that work best for me, we won’t have to change anything whether I’m singing an aria or a Latin jazz number. And I know that I will have the sound I need, so I don’t have to worry about that when I’m recording.
What to look for
What I’ve learned from this whole experience, and what I would recommend for anyone recording for the first time, or even if you’ve done it before and want to have a better experience, is:
- Listen to any discomfort or instincts at the beginning of the endeavor that hint that it might not be the right match. While it’s not a personal relationship, you are going to be spending a lot of time with, and be in close proximity to, the person while doing something that requires that you relax and open yourself artistically. You need to have a good rapport with this person, much like you would with a teacher or therapist.
- It’s a good idea to schedule a talk with the engineer before you have an actual recording session to see how they’re going to approach things, to see if you’re comfortable with the person, to be sure that they’re polite and respectful, and to be sure that they have good communication skills. All of these things are important. If any of these things don’t seem quite right, it would be a good idea to schedule an interview with another engineer before you make your decision.
- Everything – the mic, the sound, the settings – should be agreed upon before the recording ever starts, and it should all be the same every time you begin to record. Not having these things in place at the beginning will waste enormous amounts of your time and money (voice of experience speaking here). They should offer you a mic test and discuss the sound that you’re looking for and the purpose for which you need the recording.
- Be sure that they seem to be oriented toward customer satisfaction, i.e., making sure that you get what you want and need professionally and artistically, rather than satisfying their own taste. If at any time they seem to be personally offended or angered that you ask politely for any kind of adjustment to the sound or process, something is wrong; requesting an adjustment to the product you’re purchasing is not criticism or insult, and if they take it as such, you probably should think about working with someone else.
- I was impressed that the new engineer’s recording space has a professional-strength air purifier and no carpet or dust. My asthma always got progressively worse in the other studio, so that I was having more trouble breathing by the end of the session, which I came to believe was partly due to a dog being kept in the studio at times (I’m allergic to dogs, unfortunately), and partly due to dust, as well as a carpet that might have held mold or dust. The clean-air studio makes recording so much more pleasant for someone who has trouble breathing, and probably for everyone else.
- The engineer should have excellent communication skills and be organized. Although music is an artistic pursuit, recording is scientific one that is done with computers and electronics. Good organizational skills and attention to detail are critical. In a lengthy project, organization is key, and disorganization can cost you time and money.
- Make sure you get a high-quality, loss-less format file of every mastered recording (e.g. wav). Even if you plan to use only an mp3 or cda in the immediate future, you will likely need the larger file later. The engineer really should ask you what format(s) you need, but if he/she doesn’t, be specific.
- Give yourself plenty of time for each recording, both in rehearsal time and in studio time. One of my mistakes has been to assume that we will accomplish more than we do in a session. Make the goals for each session manageably small. You want to feel relaxed when you record, not pressured.
- Believe in yourself (yes, it’s trite, but it’s still true). If you don’t like the sound, don’t let someone convince you otherwise. Stick to your artistic vision no matter what. Just because the engineer has recorded this or that famous artist does not mean that they are better able to determine what sound you should have or the direction your project should take.
- I’ve learned that a good engineer can perform miracles in the recording studio. All those years that I listened to recordings of the great singers, often being inspired and amazed by their brilliant technical command, I didn’t know that it sometimes was the recording engineer who helped them sound so amazing. The more you know about recording, the more you can help the engineer help you to sound great and get the product you want. True, you don’t have to know anything about recording if you just want to record one or two clips to send to someone and you choose a good engineer, but particularly on larger projects, it really pays to know what you’re doing in the studio in order to maximize the result.
What happens now
While some of these experiences were unfortunate, I learned a lot from them. I am much more comfortable in front of the mic now (I’ve even started using the mic for effects that I can’t get in live performance), I have learned some terminology and technical information that will help me get what I want, and I no longer get nervous about being in the studio. I’ve learned how to manage time and resources better in preparing for and doing the recording. And the end result of all my travails was that I found a terrific recording engineer whom I appreciate so much more than I would have if he had been the first person I worked with!
So I’ll keep working on the two recording projects, full steam ahead! The first recording project will contain some of my favorite pieces from The Flavor of Spain concert program. I truly love this music and want to share it with people, particularly those who might not hear it otherwise. I revel in the Sephardic and Flamenco music, and I want to contribute to their dissemination and preservation. So I need to keep my focus on serving this beautiful music while I record.
The other current project is the Luna Guajira CD. This CD will represent some beautiful Cuban music from the 30s and 40s, as well as some contemporary Cuban or Latin songs that complement it. I love to sing Latin music and have a particular feeling for Cuban music. I want to keep my focus on honoring the Cuban people and their musical traditions while I record these wonderful songs.
Additionally, I want to record some cabaret songs that will eventually be part of a cabaret act I envision for the future. And I’ll be recording a number of arias along the way for the purpose of presenting my classical voice to those who might be interested in working with me.
What I want to do with my recordings is let people know me through my music, and to move and uplift people as I have been moved and uplifted by recordings all of my life. There is also the desire to leave a legacy, a statement of who I am musically and artistically. And I would like a permanent record of my voice while it is still at its best. But most of all, I want to have FUN doing this and create some beautiful recordings that give people pleasure!
I’m still sorting out all those takes from the previous recording sessions, and as soon as I’m finished, in the next week or two, I’ll do overdubs on The Water Is Wide and get that wrapped up. Then it’s on to recording Ronda from scratch again, and then two Latin songs from the Luna Guajira CD.
Wow, this is a long Post – I won’t wait two years to post again! I’ll continue to add to this Post along my recording journey, which I’m sure will be smoother sailing from here on out! I’d love to hear of your recording experiences and recommendations, too. Happy recording!
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