how to record and produce an album in a week
TRANSCRIPT
HOW TO RECORD AND
PRODUCE AN ALBUM IN A
WEEK
Step 1: Be good enough that you
sound good live
This won’t work unless you have prepared your music to the point that you can play as perfectly as you desire live
Live recording is difficult but captures the essence of the music better
Step 2: Give Yourself a Deadline
You will never get this done if you just think, “I’ll release it when I’m done.” You have to give yourself a deadline.
I would recommend working backwards from a show you know will be popular.
Step 3: Borrow Zooms
Ask around to see if anyone has a Zoom.
H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 = audio recorders
Q4 is the camera and it has amazing condenser mics!
Step 4: Strategically place your zoom
recorder(s) in the room
Put one in front of the band as first priority
One on the drums (because they will sound distant)
One on the piano or any other acoustic instrument (because it will sound distant) Lay it on the metal part with a cloth underneath, aimed toward the strings.
One on the bass (although if you use a more recent zoom, the bass frequencies will be present in the recording)
Example of zoom recording quality:
One O’Clock Jump from the Bullettes live: https://app.box.com/s/6m9kmvfcwu97820yy6u3
Timothy Whalen “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” quartet
Timothy Whalen “For Chick” Solo piano
Start recording 15 minutes before you play so you don’t forget. Bring batteries and plenty of card space. Record to wav at 16 bits 44.1 kHz.
Step 5: Record and then Match up the
recordings if you have multiple zooms
Be careful of phasing
You will need good quality software that allows you to see up to the millisecond to match up the sound waves.
If the sound waves are even a millisecond off, it will have phasing issues
Suggested Software for Matching
Syncing Audio Files
Cakewalk Sonar
ProTools
Audacity (free)
Reaper (free)
You will not be able to do this in Garageband, it doesn’t give you enough detail
Example
Step 6: Master the Audio
Add a small amount of compression to even out the loudness
Add a small amount of reverb to make it sound tighter (reverb forgives)
Adjust the levels of each song so that they flow in to each other in the order of the tracks on the CD
You may need to EQ each song as well
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Example Mastering Template
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Example Reverb and Compression Template
Suggested Mastering Process Note: you need to know the track order before you
master Put all of your tracks in order in one file Listen to the first track and get the levels,
compression, EQ, and Reverb correct Listen to the flow into the second track and adjust the
levels of the second track to match the first track Solo the first track, export it as a wav file, then solo
the second track, and apply the same effects, repeat Burn a CD and listen in as many speakers as you can
as a full album Listen in the CAR
Step 7: Release to the world!
F – Follow O – One C – Course U – Until S – Success If you focus on the post production for a week, you can get it
done in the 3 – 4 hours each night you have after school. Plan this at a time where you don’t have anything going on at
night for 4 – 5 days straight Stay off of video games, tv, internet, and phone for a week
How to Make A CD Cover
Have someone take pictures during the show
http://picmonkey.com
Square
Upload that image to the duplication site
A Word About Duplication http://kunaki.com = cheapest, but only from your
CD:ROM drive on a PC (doesn’t work for mac), automated, 24 hour rush is included in price
http://discmakers.com = fast
http://oasiscd.com = same as discmakers
Make as many copies as you think you can sell on the first date. Try 10% of audience. So if you have 500 people, make 50. If you have 100 ppl, make 10.
Make more copies once you sell enough to recoup cost
Get Your Music Online - For Free
http://musickickup.com will distribute your music to Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, etc. for free
We used http://tunecore.com in the past to distribute to iTunes, this requires a subscription fee of about $50 per year
Most people use CD Baby http://cdbaby.com which is a one time fee to get your music on iTunes, etc forever. Or http://discmakers.com will do this too.
You should definitely have a bandcamp account, no credit card necessary http://bandcamp.com
You should also have soundcloud http://soundcloud.com
Things to Ponder
Wu-Tang Clan creates one copy of their new album
Sleepify album (a european band asked all its fans to stream their album of silence constantly in order to find out where people were listening and get royalties to pay for a tour)
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