Making Music Twice, Because I'm a Chump

Cirrus

Two years ago I started making an album. I did a post at the time about it here and some people were kind enough to show interest.

I worked on it for 6 months, then had a further 4 months off where I produced an album for my Italian buddy, then I got back to finishing it. I fully recorded and mixed 16 songs, with multiple "start from scratch" mixes, re-recording guitars as my gear and tastes gradually changed... and finally, about 15 months after I lay down the first demos, I had it finished - the final 11 tracks, ready for mastering. The marathon was complete. So I sent it to friends, including people that I'm not as close to, ready for the feedback/ suggestions/ favourite tracks. I'm reasonably grown up so I was ready for some negative criticism. I even posted a track on here.

And nobody seemed that excited by it. A few of the more distant friends I sent it to never got back to me. My own dad managed a "So is this the finished article, then?"   I'll be honest, it knocked me back a bit, and I decided not to release it. What I did do, is leave it for a few months then got some mates into the practice room to play some of the songs.

And that's when it started to make sense. Working out how to play the songs with just drums, bass and guitar put a lot of things in stark perspective. Firstly, of the 11 songs, there were a few I didn't want to bother making the other guys learn.

Realisation no.1: If you don't want to trouble your mates with learning a song, maybe it's not as good as you thought it was.

The rest, I had an issue working out what I would play in the 3-piece arrangement: the songs tended to have loads of guitar parts, synths, massed backing vocals. How to condense all that down to one guitar, one voice, and a backing vocal from the bassist? Suddenly, I had to decide what was essential to the song, and what was just fluff that I could leave off, and had only recorded because I had unlimited tracks and unlimited time.

Realisation no.2: It's very easy to put too much stuff into a production, and smother the song. Playing it live forces you to decide what matters.

Of the 11 songs, I learned that I really, really believe in seven of them. I'm so proud of them, I think I'm not good enough for them. Hopefully if you've written music you'll understand what I mean.

But I didn't believe in my recordings of them. They're badly produced, lack focus, have too much fluff distracting from the actual song.

So, there's only one thing to do: Throw away 18 months of evenings and weekends grafting away in the studio, chalk it up to experience, and start again.  Because I'd rather spend two years and end up with some tracks I'm proud of than 18 months to make 16 tracks I don't like. 

TTony

Cirrus said:

Because I'd rather spend two years and end up with some tracks I'm proud of than 18 months to make 16 tracks I don't like. 

Wis'd.

Good luck with take 2!

Fretwired

Cirrus said:

Two years ago I started making an album. I did a post at the time about it here and some people were kind enough to show interest.

I worked on it for 6 months, then had a further 4 months off where I produced an album for my Italian buddy, then I got back to finishing it. I fully recorded and mixed 16 songs, with multiple "start from scratch" mixes, re-recording guitars as my gear and tastes gradually changed... and finally, about 15 months after I lay down the first demos, I had it finished - the final 11 tracks, ready for mastering. The marathon was complete. So I sent it to friends, including people that I'm not as close to, ready for the feedback/ suggestions/ favourite tracks. I'm reasonably grown up so I was ready for some negative criticism. I even posted a track on here.

And nobody seemed that excited by it. A few of the more distant friends I sent it to never got back to me. My own dad managed a "So is this the finished article, then?"   I'll be honest, it knocked me back a bit, and I decided not to release it. What I did do, is leave it for a few months then got some mates into the practice room to play some of the songs.

And that's when it started to make sense. Working out how to play the songs with just drums, bass and guitar put a lot of things in stark perspective. Firstly, of the 11 songs, there were a few I didn't want to bother making the other guys learn.

Realisation no.1: If you don't want to trouble your mates with learning a song, maybe it's not as good as you thought it was.

The rest, I had an issue working out what I would play in the 3-piece arrangement: the songs tended to have loads of guitar parts, synths, massed backing vocals. How to condense all that down to one guitar, one voice, and a backing vocal from the bassist? Suddenly, I had to decide what was essential to the song, and what was just fluff that I could leave off, and had only recorded because I had unlimited tracks and unlimited time.

Realisation no.2: It's very easy to put too much stuff into a production, and smother the song. Playing it live forces you to decide what matters.

Of the 11 songs, I learned that I really, really believe in seven of them. I'm so proud of them, I think I'm not good enough for them. Hopefully if you've written music you'll understand what I mean.

But I didn't believe in my recordings of them. They're badly produced, lack focus, have too much fluff distracting from the actual song.

So, there's only one thing to do: Throw away 18 months of evenings and weekends grafting away in the studio, chalk it up to experience, and start again.  Because I'd rather spend two years and end up with some tracks I'm proud of than 18 months to make 16 tracks I don't like. 

You're Steely Dan MK2 ... good luck. You're in good company ..

Cirrus

So step one - learn from my mistakes.

- Tighten up the arrangements. Get rid of the overproduction, the needless ambient guitar parts, the triple tracked riffs.

- Get rid of the Mesa amp. It's great, it's modern, it's heavy, it's not me. Get an AC30 back, because that's where your guitar roots are. Learn what good tone means to you again.

- Practice the songs with band mates, learn what makes them kick off in the practice room. Take suggestions from them.

- Don't record yourself on drums in said shitty practice room with carpeted walls and dead, stuffy sound. Get your band's drummer to play, he's really good. And record them somewhere decent.

- The hardest part of all: The one good comment that did come back a few times was that I had a nice voice. I don't think I do, and I realised a lot of the overproduction, in fact pretty much every decision I made, was about hiding my voice. But, for better or worse, it's the one I have and whatever I do people are going to like it or hate it. The only way I truly loose out is if I turn off the people who might like it by making it hard for them.

Step two: enact those lessons, and make music that I'm not ashamed of, in the form of a 7-track EP that only contains songs I think are worth showing to other people. 

August bank holiday weekend:


Left: Stupid Chump who wasted 18 months of his life on a shit album. Right: My friend and bandmate, Mez. Who plays the drums really well, and gave up his bank holiday to join me in a real studio ran by a producer/recording engineer who actually knows what he's doing. Here they are setting the drums up;



And here's Mez gazing in wonder at the mixing desk;

guitarfishbay

Cirrus said:

Two years ago I started making an album. I did a post at the time about it here and some people were kind enough to show interest.

......

So, there's only one thing to do: Throw away 18 months of evenings and weekends grafting away in the studio, chalk it up to experience, and start again.  Because I'd rather spend two years and end up with some tracks I'm proud of than 18 months to make 16 tracks I don't like. 

Know exactly what you're going through.  Good luck with it, I remember the song you posted and I thought the idea was pretty good IIRC.

With vocal driven music, one thing I've learned that works for me is don't start big, start small.  Most of the songs we've written were written on acoustic guitar and voice, or Roland Microcube and voice, and just recorded on iPhone voice memo.  In general, I feel like if the chords and vocal lines can't carry a song to where we like it, no amount of cool arrangements are going to make it a good song either.  It might make it a cool arrangement, but that's something mostly musicians care about, most people just want to hear songs.

I listened to an interview with the guy who produces Adele, and he said they write their songs with just a bass guitar root note and voice - so he's not even implying the chords, in case that will guide the melody of the voice too much.  He'll fill the chords in after the song sounds strong enough with voice and bass.  At the end of the day the vocal melody, delivery, and to an extent that varies by genre - lyrics, are the most important part of a song.  The arrangements of the instruments are just how you choose to present that

mellowsun

The best advice I can give is if the song works when stripped down to vocals and a single instrument (guitar or piano) then it's a good song. If not, discard it.

You have to be brutal 

Cirrus

We were in the studio for two days, and it was an incredible experience.

Firstly, I found myself in an unusual position. Mez and I had spent several sessions working up the songs ahead of recording, so all I had to do as far as he was concerned was to listen to him play and guide him towards a performance that I was happy with. Secondly, the Studio owner/ engineer, Alastair, was being paid by me to record said performance, so I didn't have to worry like I have in the past about tuning the drums, setting up mics, or the technicalities of actually tracking.

So that put me in the, for me, quite unusual position of just standing there, listening and commenting while they got on with the real work. I liked that.

I also liked that as we got to know each other more, Alastair started giving his opinions and suggestions. This culminated halfway through day 2 when we started the 5th song, the one I'm personally most proud of but would never have considered being a single, or an introduction to my music, because I don't think enough people would get it.

We did a practice run, and straight away Alastair became animated - I think we'd finally reached the point where he felt uninhibited to give his opinion to me; "This is a great song, it's all about that vocal melody, and this drum part is totally ruining it! You've got to simplify it, get to the groove, support the vocal! Trust me!" And out he went to the live room to start working out a different part with Mez, while my head spun.

But... my song... I'm attached to that drum pattern...

10 minutes later, Mez did another take and I was blown away. Suddenly it made sense. Here I am with a song I think is the best thing I've ever done, but I don't think other people will get it. HOW STUPID IS THAT? HOW STUPID AM I? What a retarded state of affairs to have created. And Alastair heard it once, with his fresh ears and fresh perspective, and immediately identified what the problem was. The drum part I'd written was getting in the way of the vocal, and the vocal is telling the story. He fixed it with a single great lance at the boil of pointless snare ghost notes and lolloping grooves that didn't work.

Because Alastair does this for a living. He helps artists fight the biggest enemy they'll ever face: themselves. And he helps shape their songs into something that other people can understand.

The same with the next track - "This doesn't suit your voice as is, all the other songs have melodies and you tell a story, this one doesn't make sense. If it's going to work at all it's got to be more straight ahead on the drums, punky, support the vocal." Again, it took me a few minutes to realise he was right. I was electrified. I went out into the live room armed with a Strat taken from the wall of the control room, plugged into a little vox AC10c1 (and as an aside, I was blown away with that little amp!), cranked it and reworked the song with Mez behind the kit as I stood in front of the bass drum. - cast aside endless hours working on the previous version, all my expectations of what the song would be, and just played with the attitude and heart that we had in the room that day.

I was, frankly, schooled that weekend in what it means to work with someone with fresh perspective. Genuinely changed the way I'm going to think about making music, and what it means to be true to myself, going forward.

mellowsun

^^ what a great post, inspiring stuff, keep 'em coming. Love reading about the creative process 

guitarfishbay

Sounds like a great experience.

I think taste, approached from a neutral angle, is one of the biggest advantages of working with a good producer.  Anyone can learn technical skills to a decent enough level but taste, and objectivity towards it, are often pretty uniquely tied to individuals, their experiences, and circumstance.  

kin

Thanks for posting @Cirrus , that was really interesting and enlightening

AlexC

This a great post. A genuine man with a plan and a real musical journey. Thanks for posting.

BigMonka

This is really exciting stuff to read! Hope the final output captures everything you felt on the day.
Looking forward to you posting some clips too!

Danny1969

I think a lot of artists don't see the value of a good producer and why they are essential. Most artist are too close to their own songs, they laboured on them and often want to keep certain parts purely because they found recording those parts difficult rather than keeping parts purely based on their value to the song. With bands who have collectively written material it can be worse .... they have a vision of how they want it to sound ... they won't let you make it more palatable to the casual listener but then moan because the download isn't popular !!

The best thing you can do is build the frame of the songs with chord sequence \ riffs \ lyrics etc and then let someone else take over, a good producer will generally guide the whole ship in the right direction, but it can be hard for the artist to trust and follow ..... some people are just too close and attached to their own material. I spent months with one artist, a friend of mine who has some great songs but he can't let anyone change or rearrange anything about them. We didn't get anything finished in the end recording wise but have now built a band to gig the songs live before recording. 

Having heard a bit of the stuff you posted on here I would say you have some good songs that deserve attention

Cirrus

Thanks for reading, all 

Yes @Danny1969 , your feedback on the overproduction of my last effort was part of the realisation - I'd come up with about 8 tracks of guitar (two mics a track, so 16 tracks sitting square in the middle of the mixer) variously coming in and out, as well as organ, two synths, shakers, tambourines... at the time it made sense... 

So, not having the budget to do the whole thing at the studio, I planned to do the bass and guitar tracking on my lonesome. Hopefully I'll have some spare dosh next month to track vocals at least with someone else in attendance to guide me - that's the next biggest mistake I made, besides all the others, with the first effort: tracking the vocals alone, where there was no one to point out that if I was having to take a big run up to almost every line, it might be because I've arranged the songs 2 to 3 semitones too high for my voice. Genuinely, that realisation didn't hit me until I actually tried to sing them from start to finish multiple times with the band and nearly died of exhaustion! Sounds utterly stupid to type it out, but this is the kind of lack of perspective I think could happen to anyone doing a whole thing like this totally alone. I internalised the struggle and rationalised it as being just that if it wasn't really hard to achieve, it couldn't be good!

Which is, of course, nonsense and probably the opposite of reality more often than not.

So, bass guitar was pretty easy. The nice thing about an active bass is that the pickups are pretty immune to what they're plugged into, so I recorded the basslines at home in comfort, just used an amp sim to give me some feel. Then I reamped that in the studio through what's become, for me, a basically infallible bass setup: Sansamp classic set to slight grit, Ampeg SVT and 1x15 miked up with an Electrovoice RE20. It delivers - it's just about finding the spot where the mic hears the fret clank/ pick attack just right - not to clacky, not too woolly. Job done! Also had fun making grittier distorted versions for a couple of the louder songs - I love experimenting with that sort of stuff, this time it was Barber LTD std set really bright, into Xotic BB booster set to cut loads of bass but also shave off some treble, into 30 watt guitar amp with the preamp totally cranked and the output set just below output compression, so it didn't completely mush out, into the same 1x15 and RE20 setup to try to minimise phase differences between the Ampeg and Guitar amps tracks.

Which was a crazy noise, and the kind of thing I'll only sneak up for extra bass grind in the denser parts of the mix, but reamping when you've only got a one room studio means a couple of hours of sitting in gig-level volume with not a lot to do while the tracks play through. It's enough to make you go a bit... mad...