You and the Night: Mixing

Today, I went back to 800 East Studios in Atlanta to mix Godfrey and Guy's You and the Night album.  We reached the mixing stage about a month later than expected because our trumpet player, Hadrian Mendoza, was having some lip problems. It's a recurring injury that surfaces from time to time, and the only cure is to rest. Having experienced my own chop problems as a brass player, I could empathize, and I had no problem waiting for Hadrian's lip to feel better. It was worth the wait, because when Hadrian returned to the studio, he laid down some mighty tasty solos. Both Hadrian and the tenor sax player, Reed Lukat, did some great solo work.

As soon as we finished Hadrian's session, I scheduled two mixing and mastering sessions with Ken. Mixing is one of the final steps in the recording process. After recording all the vocal and instrumental tracks and then making fixes, the next step is mixing: adjusting volume levels so that instruments and voices are balanced, adding just the right amount of reverb, and generally fine tuning everything.

At the beginning of the session, I rerecorded my vocals. The night I laid down my original vocals, I was coming down with a fever,  and we often had to back up and redo phrases in which I had started coughing. Listening to the playback a few days later, I cringed at my vocals. They probably would have sounded okay to most people, but I could hear myself holding back a cough. I wanted to redo my vocals right away, but my cold and fever turned into a sinus infection, and I was unable to sing for a couple weeks. It wasn't until last week that my voice returned to form, and I happily rerecorded my vocals before we began mixing this morning. I'm so glad we took the time. The difference between the two recording sessions is like night and day.

Listening to the mix in the studio and again at home, I'm really happy with the results! As I mentioned earlier, Hadrian and Reed played terrific solos, and they nailed the ensemble parts I wrote for them. The drums and bass playing are super tasty. I had written some horn soli sections, with the guitar as the third "horn." These sections turned out nicely, and listening to today's mix makes me feel motivated to write more of these types of arrangements. I'm pleased with my own guitar comping and solo work.

Even with the extra vocal recording at the beginning of today's mixing session, we managed to wrap up seven of the eleven songs on the album. Next week's mixing will be a piece of cake. I'm very much looking forward to sending this album out into the world!

You and the Night: The Learning Never Stops

We just finished our third Godfrey and Guy recording session for You and the Night. The purpose of this session was to make fixes in the instrumental tracks. My goals for this rehearsal were met, thanks to the help of some great musicians and Ken Gregory, the owner of 800 East Studios and an amazing sound engineer.

Our trumpet player was having some lip problems and needed to take the week off. That threw a wrinkle into the proceedings, but Ken was able to fix several trumpet blips digitally. It won't take too long to make the remaining fixes when our trumpet player's lip is feeling better.

Aside from the thrill of recording our first album, this has been a huge learning experience for me in many ways.

Arranging
I often write my own arrangements for groups I perform with. When I was a trombonist, I arranged music for trombone ensemble. I often write arrangements for the church choir that I lead. I've arranged many, many songs for solo guitar, and now I'm writing small band charts for Godfrey and Guy. I've never written music for a jazz ensemble, and I've already learned a lot. For example, now I know how to write more usable parts for the drummer by writing instructions to play time for 16 bars rather than writing out 16 bars of slashes. For the most part, my writing for the two horns worked pretty well, and I'm especially pleased with the soli sections for two horns + guitar. Still, I heard a few problem areas when I listened to the rough mix. Sometimes the writing was a little too thick (even with just two horns), and I ended up writing unisons or leaving out a part or two. Now that I think of it, every single rewrite simplified the music and got out of the way of the vocals. We recorded my rewrites today, and I'm happy with the changes. For future arrangements, the basic lesson is that simple is good. I'm also thinking that I may seek out a teacher to help with jazz arranging. I've always had a knack for arranging music, and I'm sure I could learn a lot on my own, but I could learn a lot faster with a teacher.

Recording Process
While I was officially in charge of each session, I often followed the lead of the other musicians, each of whom has more experience in the studio than I. I was responsible for the general direction of the session…calling breaks, keeping everything on schedule, pointing out fixes to be made, etc., but I often left the details up to the other musicians, and particularly to Ken, our sound engineer. In today's session, I was truly amazed at how little we actually played. Ken was able to fix an amazing number of mistakes digitally, and the musicians were really only required to replay anything Ken couldn't fix, plus take another run at some solos. Lori and I plan on recording more albums in the future, and I'm sure I'll learn something with each new project.

Guitar Comping
While I feel the guitar parts sound pretty good, I know I can do better. Most of my playing is either purely solo (solo guitar or the sole accompanist in Godfrey and Guy) or as part of the Sentimental Journey Orchestra, a 17-piece big band. I rarely play in a combo situation. As a soloist, I play anything and everything. As part of a big band, I'm mainly restricted to playing quarter notes all night. Playing with a combo, I need to find a happy medium. The bass and drums are keeping time, so I have the freedom to play some pianistic fills or even lay out sometimes. While my guitar comping in the rough mix is perfectly acceptable, I plan to practice some more and then head to the studio one more time to lay down some tastier guitar tracks.

It Never Stops
I told my guitar teacher, Dave Frackenpohl, that I was taking a break from guitar lessons while I completed this recording project. I couldn't focus on the recording and lesson material at the same time. I felt that I was putting my education on hold, but that wasn't the case at all. I've learned so much these past few weeks that I almost feel like I've gone through another semester of music school. The learning never stops.

You and the Night Recording

Last week, Godfrey and Guy went into the studio to start recording our upcoming album, You and the Night. I was a bit nervous going into this. I've never organized a recording project of this size, and I wanted to make sure it went smoothly. I wrote the arrangements, printed out parts, and set an ambitious schedule for our first session. I had planned on laying down rough recordings for seven of the eleven songs, but we actually got through all eleven with five minutes to spare. Yay!

Although I was nervous in the days leading up to our first session, I felt relaxed and loose once we started recording. Truth be told, I had a lot of fun! If I had a bottomless bank account, I would have no trouble spending the money on extra studio time.

A few days after recording the basic instrumental tracks, we recorded the final vocal tracks. Normally, we would clean up the instrumentals first and save the vocals for last, but a Thursday night session would have wiped out some of our band members who have busy schedules. Lori and I recorded vocals last night, and it went very well. Lori sounds amazing! I feel my own vocal tracks could be better, not for lack of singing talent, but because I was coming down with a cold. I had a sore throat and was getting chills – not the most ideal recording situation. We had to rerecord a few spots because I would start coughing in mid-phrase. To the average listener, I probably sound fine, but I can hear all through my songs that I'm trying to hold back a cough. Once we've finished up all the recording sessions, I'll wait a week and take another listen. If I'm satisfied, great. If I feel I should give it another go, I'll schedule some more studio time when my voice is at full health.

I spent most of today listening to the rough mix, marking my musical scores when I heard something that needs fixing. It was very helpful to have a CD to take home. While in the studio, I was mostly focused on keeping things running smoothly and nailing my guitar parts, so naturally I wasn't hearing everything. Tomorrow, we'll all reconvene at 800 East Studios and clean up the instrumentals.

You and the Night Prep

A few days ago, I finished writing the last arrangement for an upcoming recording session for Godfrey and Guy's You and the Night album. Now that I've finished the arrangements, I've been learning my own parts. We perform most often as a voice/guitar duo, so there's usually not much for me to keep track of, but this album will include bass, drums, trumpet, and tenor sax.

The more I play this music, the more pleased I am with what I wrote. (This isn't always the case!) Most of my guitar parts involve simple comping, but I've written sections where the trumpet, sax, and guitar play unison and harmonized lines together. After literally getting up to speed on my own parts, I began playing them with a MIDI file that I created as a practice tool. The MIDI playback sounds very stiff compared with the way live musicians would play, but it's a great way of getting a sense of how it will feel to play my part with the full ensemble.

I'm having fun playing with the robotic MIDI file, and I can't wait to put this together with live musicians! Tomorrow I'm working with Lori and our bass player, Mark. We'll use this time for Lori to get used to the arrangements while Mark and I work out good grooves for each song. If the rhythm section is strong, we'll have a better chance of having a smooth rehearsal with the horn players.

This is such an exciting project! We'll rehearse with the full group in just over a week, and then we'll hit the studio a week after that. In writing the arrangements, the music was all in my head, but it's about to get real!

Back Up

A while ago, I began recording backing tracks for myself. I had completed a couple, but then I got sidetracked. I don't remember if I was preparing for a musical or if I just had a bunch of gigs. For whatever reason, I forgot about recording for a while.

Lately, I've started recording backing tracks again with the iPad, and I'm having a blast with it. I'm using Garage Band for the iPad. As recording software goes, it's very scaled down, but I don't need much for what I'm doing. For most tracks, I just record bass, percussion, rhythm guitar, and sometimes a keyboard part. Sometimes I also record a second lead guitar part to harmonize with my live solo guitar. One handy thing about using the iPad for recording is that I can record anywhere. For example, I often record bass and drum parts on Wednesdays at NWUUC after dinner while waiting for my choir to show up. The church has a huge porch, and it's relaxing to sit outside, fire up the iPad, and record a few tracks.

When I perform for background gigs, I mainly play and sing solo with no backing tracks or loops. Two or three hours of purely solo guitar is rough on the hands. Playing with a backing track allows me to play single notes for a while and give my hands a break.

Yesterday, I had a chance to use my backing tracks for the first time on a gig. I played at Tessitura for the 2012 Oakhurst Wine Crawl, singing and playing background music as literally hundreds of people filed through for a glass of wine. Every 20 minutes or so, I threw in an instrumental with a backing track. Not only did this rest my hands, but it provided a nice stylistic change. My music tends to be smooth and relaxing. Even the uptempo tunes come out that way. My backing tracks have more of a groove to them, and they allow me some space to jam. Overall, it was a successful event for both Tessitura and me. I think Tessitura will get more business out of this, and a substantial number of my cards were snatched up. After the wine crawl, I was told that lots of people were commenting on the music. Hopefully those comments, plus the missing business cards, will turn into future gigs.

I'm enjoying the process of recording, and I'm learning a lot. The main thing I learned at the gig was that I need to check the overall balance between tracks using the amp through which I'll be playing the tracks. Headphones aren't enough, especially my cheap headphones. Through the headphones, my tracks sounded balanced. Through the amp, though, I got just enough percussion, a little too much bass, and not quite enough rhythm guitar. I don't think it was noticeable to people standing in line, chatting, and waiting for wine, but it bothered me a little. I'll use my amp and balance out those parts before next week's gig.

*Side note. The only weird part of the gig was when a guy shooting video got up close and personal while I was performing. I often use background gigs to work in new material, and he could have started filming while I was performing something I wasn't entirely comfortable with yet. Fortunately, he got up in my face while I was performing Autumn Leaves, which is a song I can probably perform in my sleep.

Going High Tech

It's Superbowl Sunday, so of course I spent my evening recording some music.

A few months ago, I wrote about my mild case of G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome). Thanks to a very large music engraving project, I've been able to acquire some new goodies. Since I began taking piano lessons, I purchased a new keyboard, but that's the only instrument I bought. This time, I got my hands on some high tech goodies, starting with an iPad.

My iPad has quickly become an incredibly useful tool for making music. As soon a I purchased the iPad, I bought the DeepDish GigBook app. Over the past few years, my songbook has become pretty thick. After adding hundreds of pages, it's a major pain to carry my songbook to gigs. With GigBook, I can store all of my sheet music in my iPad. I've made it a habit to copy all my songs in Finale and save them as PDFs so that I can email music to other musicians. In addition to my own files, I also have PDFs of about 15 fake books. It turns out that I can export all of these PDFs directly to GigBook. Within minutes of installing GigBook, I literally transferred thousands of songs to my iPad. Now, instead of using a small backpack to tote my songbook, my music library fits in my guitar's gig bag.

What's even more amazing about GigBook is the ability to organize all my music. I've set up separate folders for my own songbook, Tea for Two, InTown Band, Unitarian Hymns, etc. You can also easily organize set lists, allowing you to scroll through the music, song by song, in set order. There are more ways to organize my music that I haven't even begun to explore. You can also write notes, by hand, directly onto the pages in GigBook, which is handy if you need to leave friendly reminders in the music.

The only downside to GigBook is that you can only see one page at a time – not that you'd want to try reading two pages side by side on the small iPad display. If a song is long enough, you're going to have to turn the virtual page, which is not so easy when both hands are busy playing guitar. Fortunately, there is the AirTurn BT-105. This is a rather unsexy name for a handy gadget. The AirTurn is a Bluetooth device that allows you to turn pages with your foot. Very cool.

Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there! I can record music with GarageBand for the iPad. There are some pretty good virtual instruments built in, including drums, various keyboards, basses etc. You can also play directly into the iPad thanks to iRig, and you can sing directly into the iPad with the iMic. While this app doesn't have all the features of ProTools or Cubase, it suits my modest needs, and I'm finding it quite easy to operate. I'm using iPad's GarageBand to help a friend record a vocal demo. I just laid down some backing tracks for her, and then I began recording a backing track of my own for one of my favorite tunes, Little Sunflower by Freddie Hubbard.

None of these high tech toys take the place of real musicianship, but they sure are useful…and they look cool. My G.A.S. is relieved…for now.

Short Recording Session

This weekend, InTown Band had a short, four-hour recording session at Earthshaking Music. It was indeed brief. Although we reserved a four-hour block of studio time, only half of it was spent actually recording music. We spent about an hour setting up, and we spent another hour of time after recording to get a rough mix (balancing the volume levels of the instruments and voices). That left two hours to record. Amazingly, we knocked out seven songs in two hours, which is quite a feat if you consider that we rehearsed a bit, talked through a few things, and so forth.

I couldn't be happier with the result. We recorded nearly everything in one take, and we just had a few minor problems to fix along the way. Most recordings these days are highly overdubbed. Someone will record the rhythm parts first (to a click track), then someone else may overdub guitar or piano parts, and eventually the vocals will be added. It's a very precise way of recording, but it's also easy to create recordings that sound artificial. InTown Band basically created a live recording. We didn't add any special effects after the fact, and we didn't overdub layers of instruments. We wanted to capture our live sound, and we succeeded. What you'll hear on the recording is how we sound when we play live and in person, and I'm so happy with the way it turned out.

We still have work to do on the project. We'll most likely reserve another block of studio time to fix a few small things and then fine tune the mix. In another month or two, we'll have seven songs available for download, and we plan on recording a full album by the end of the year.

InTown Band is such a fun group. I love everybody in the band. We have a great time rehearsing and performing, and I feel we have a lot to offer with our original music. This short recording is a big step for us, and I hope it's just the beginning.