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More complaining
but informational complaining -
We still have a couple weeks more of touring, but we also need to start thinking about going into the studio this season for the first Merry Measure CD. Now, there are most likely military campaigns that go off with less planning than this. But between the fact that I am pretty darned good at organizing and getting shit done, AND the fact that most of this money for this puppy is coming out of my own pocket (well, off my own credit card to be precise) I want to make everything roll as efficiently as possible. The Beatles could AFFORD to dick around in the studio for 6 months. I can't.
Now I know a LOT of people who have offered to help record stuff for us, and I'm sure they are all very nice people. But I have also heard a lot of band's first CD's that, not to put too fine a point on it, sound like they were recorded in someone's basement. Well, it's cuz they were.
When Minstrosity was planning our first recording, we went to a bunch of studios to look at the facilities and talk to engineers. Mostly it was a pretty negative experience all around. A lot of them assumed I was someone's girlfriend and wouldn't even talk to me, and they were nearly all set up for garage bands with eeny-weeny individual booths. That's not the kind of recording we wanted to do. We do our best work when we play together, and while we may get a little fancy with some overdubbing and adding extra instruments here and there, our goal is to have the recording sound like you were at one of our shows. Well, minus the "Axe Throwing He-are" and people talking over their garlic mushrooms, that is.
The Engineer for all the Minstrosi-CDs and the one I plan to use on this one is David Bragman of Schu-Man studios. He teaches recording at Columbia college and the Old Town School of Folk Music and is also one hell of a kickass banjo player! Most importantly, as an acoustic musician and a recording guy, he has a great understanding of how these instruments produce sound and this how to set things up to capture that sound. When confronted with a bowed psaltery, or told that I want to play bodhran AND sing at the same time, he will blink for a minute, and then say something like "OK - play that thing for me for a minute". Then he will start fiddling with arcane pieces of equipment, and somehow it all works. He also has the coolest neatest blinky-light computerized recording setup (I'm pretty sure he has The Machine That Goes Ping in there somewhere). He's not cheap, but he's worth every penny and then some.
The thing is, at $75 an hour, you want to make the most of your time. So there is a LOT of stuff that has to get done before you even set foot in a studio. He once told us that he used us as an example of how a group SHOULD act in the studio. We are focused, have a plan of attack, and don't waste his or our time. I just called him to let him know we's be scheduling time in Nov or so, and he laughed when he heard I'd already started the spreadsheet!
Last night we spent most of the rehearsal time making a list of what we wanted to have on the new recording, who would be playing/singing what, and what overdubbing we thought we wanted to do. We're looking at about 18 tracks, plus or minus 1-2. I think that's a nice size. We're also working hard on making a nice mix of tempi, style, instrumentation, and lead singers.
That discussion led to the creation of an initial spreadsheet (yeah, I know it's geeky, but it's the only way I can remember all this shit!) that lists all the useful info in one place - song title, if we need to get permission/pay royalties, who's playing what, if there will be multiple setups needed. That was when we DO get in there, it's easy to see "ok, we'll set up the mikes THIS way and get these ones down, and then we'll move the mikes and lay down THESE tracks"
Now I have to think about production. In the past we've always gone with manufactured CDs. We wanted to be SURE that they would play in whatever people put them in, and wanted a nicer looking product than sticking a label on something. But things have changed a lot in the last few years, and I'm considering burning these ourselves. I like the look of the disks that Lightscribe drives produce, and they aren't all that expensive any more (I'm finding decently reviewed models from retailers I trust in the $75-150 range depending on speed). It would be a slow process, but I think the effort might be worthwhile to minimize the "I have 147 boxes of unsold CDs in my closet" phenomena. I can certainly do the cover design and layout on my own anyway, and if I can use my own software I won't have to convert it to whatever nifty design program the manufacturer uses. I can color print at the office for 9.5 cents per page, and I can certainly order stock either online or through the warehouse club. Media is about 5 cents each bought in bulk, so I think that even with the studio and materials costs this will prove to be a cheaper option for the quantities we are talking about.
Now to get through the rest of the touring season without falling over, and then on to the actual recording stuff....
We still have a couple weeks more of touring, but we also need to start thinking about going into the studio this season for the first Merry Measure CD. Now, there are most likely military campaigns that go off with less planning than this. But between the fact that I am pretty darned good at organizing and getting shit done, AND the fact that most of this money for this puppy is coming out of my own pocket (well, off my own credit card to be precise) I want to make everything roll as efficiently as possible. The Beatles could AFFORD to dick around in the studio for 6 months. I can't.
Now I know a LOT of people who have offered to help record stuff for us, and I'm sure they are all very nice people. But I have also heard a lot of band's first CD's that, not to put too fine a point on it, sound like they were recorded in someone's basement. Well, it's cuz they were.
When Minstrosity was planning our first recording, we went to a bunch of studios to look at the facilities and talk to engineers. Mostly it was a pretty negative experience all around. A lot of them assumed I was someone's girlfriend and wouldn't even talk to me, and they were nearly all set up for garage bands with eeny-weeny individual booths. That's not the kind of recording we wanted to do. We do our best work when we play together, and while we may get a little fancy with some overdubbing and adding extra instruments here and there, our goal is to have the recording sound like you were at one of our shows. Well, minus the "Axe Throwing He-are" and people talking over their garlic mushrooms, that is.
The Engineer for all the Minstrosi-CDs and the one I plan to use on this one is David Bragman of Schu-Man studios. He teaches recording at Columbia college and the Old Town School of Folk Music and is also one hell of a kickass banjo player! Most importantly, as an acoustic musician and a recording guy, he has a great understanding of how these instruments produce sound and this how to set things up to capture that sound. When confronted with a bowed psaltery, or told that I want to play bodhran AND sing at the same time, he will blink for a minute, and then say something like "OK - play that thing for me for a minute". Then he will start fiddling with arcane pieces of equipment, and somehow it all works. He also has the coolest neatest blinky-light computerized recording setup (I'm pretty sure he has The Machine That Goes Ping in there somewhere). He's not cheap, but he's worth every penny and then some.
The thing is, at $75 an hour, you want to make the most of your time. So there is a LOT of stuff that has to get done before you even set foot in a studio. He once told us that he used us as an example of how a group SHOULD act in the studio. We are focused, have a plan of attack, and don't waste his or our time. I just called him to let him know we's be scheduling time in Nov or so, and he laughed when he heard I'd already started the spreadsheet!
Last night we spent most of the rehearsal time making a list of what we wanted to have on the new recording, who would be playing/singing what, and what overdubbing we thought we wanted to do. We're looking at about 18 tracks, plus or minus 1-2. I think that's a nice size. We're also working hard on making a nice mix of tempi, style, instrumentation, and lead singers.
That discussion led to the creation of an initial spreadsheet (yeah, I know it's geeky, but it's the only way I can remember all this shit!) that lists all the useful info in one place - song title, if we need to get permission/pay royalties, who's playing what, if there will be multiple setups needed. That was when we DO get in there, it's easy to see "ok, we'll set up the mikes THIS way and get these ones down, and then we'll move the mikes and lay down THESE tracks"
Now I have to think about production. In the past we've always gone with manufactured CDs. We wanted to be SURE that they would play in whatever people put them in, and wanted a nicer looking product than sticking a label on something. But things have changed a lot in the last few years, and I'm considering burning these ourselves. I like the look of the disks that Lightscribe drives produce, and they aren't all that expensive any more (I'm finding decently reviewed models from retailers I trust in the $75-150 range depending on speed). It would be a slow process, but I think the effort might be worthwhile to minimize the "I have 147 boxes of unsold CDs in my closet" phenomena. I can certainly do the cover design and layout on my own anyway, and if I can use my own software I won't have to convert it to whatever nifty design program the manufacturer uses. I can color print at the office for 9.5 cents per page, and I can certainly order stock either online or through the warehouse club. Media is about 5 cents each bought in bulk, so I think that even with the studio and materials costs this will prove to be a cheaper option for the quantities we are talking about.
Now to get through the rest of the touring season without falling over, and then on to the actual recording stuff....