New CD - Recording Process Part 2

Filed in News on December 04, 2008



While recording is a very rewarding process, I often say that it is the hardest work I do.  That is especially true when the orchestra is done and I am just trying to get my part right.  We work long, long days.

Jason Prisk will engineer that part of the project for me.  We have worked together a lot and he knows what to expect.  That means he knows I am going to make a lot of mistakes and he is going to have to splice things together.  In the studio, musicians do not have to play through a song perfectly.  Today's software allows pieces of music to be seamlessly merged together. 

That has not always been the case.  Forty years ago, such technology did not exist, and as a result, there are numerous mistakes on old records.  Sometimes, it is shocking how many errors you hear on old projects.  In today's world though, there is really not a reason to have any noticeable mistakes on a final recording.

As hard as trying to play music perfectly is, the hardest part about that part of the process is the critical listening to myself.  Like most musicians, I hate listening to myself, especially when I have to listen very critically.  In fact, I never listen to my first CD and very rarely listen to much of my last CD.  However, in the studio, I have to listen very carefully and make the call when I think a song is really finished.

Once the recording is finished, we will start mixing right away.  Mixing refers to the process of merging together all the tracks in a way that sounds good.  A track refers to an audio input, normally from a microphone.  When recording the orchestra, we will use close to forty eight tracks.  Most of the musicians will have individual microphones and there will be section microphones and room microphones.

As you can imagine, trying to merge together that many tracks in an optimal way is a tough process that is very work intensive.  For example, in different parts of the song, different instruments need to have more volume.  In some cases, a instrument that makes a mistake might need to be dropped from the mix.  As Jason says, mixing is an art that is never completed on any particular song.  You finally just have to agree to stop.

Once mixing is done, a project is mastered.  Mastering is the final process before burning CDs and it involves some technical things that I will not go into here.  After that is done, a CD is duplicated and ready to release.  My target date for the release of my new CD is mid May, or about two months after the actual recording is finished.

So there is my timeline.  It is about to get exciting and I will keep you up to date as we move into the recording process.



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