a song is born

7/30/2019 A Song is Born

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A Song Is Born

By John Roe

ARTI studios Studio A control room.

Music is a magical medium. It has a way of speaking to our emotions. A good song can

make us feel happy, sad, angry, melancholy, relaxed, spiritual, patriotic, or any number of other

emotions. When we first listen to a song and realize that the combination of music and poetry is

speaking to a place deep inside of us, it can be a magical moment that we dont soon forget.

Being there when that song is born can make that moment even more special.

I spent ten years, from 1987 to 1997, living in Kissimmee, Florida. The last six of those

years, I worked in the local music scene. I have worked freelance as a roadie, a promoter, a band

manager, a soundman, and a recording engineer for various local bands. It was an interesting and

exciting time in my life. The part of it that I enjoyed the most was working as a recording

engineer.

I had been working with bands for a couple of years when I decided to attend the Audio

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Recording Technical Institute in Orlando, Florida. ARTI is a comprehensive training program in

recording and sound reinforcement technology. My training qualified me for recording studio

and live sound mixing. I was the man who made the band sound good.

I was introduced to ARTI by Billy Field, a singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist

whom I had been working with. He had been through the program and was working as a part-

time instructor at the school. Although I am not a musician, he felt that I had a keen ear for the

nuances of music, the main talent needed for recording.

One of the benefits that Billy received as an instructor was unlimited use of a state-of-

the-art, 24 track, digital recording studio, anytime that a class wasnt in session. He was allowed

to use that time for his own projects or he could use the time to record other bands for a fee. Our

friendship and working relationship were such that we complimented each others styles. Even as

a student, if he was in the studio, I was there also. If he was recording another band, I would act

as assistant engineer. If he and his band Squish were recording, I was the one he wanted as

recording engineer. I was there to help bring a lot of songs to life.

Sunny Days was one song that we recorded, while I was a student that really stands out

in my mind. Billy had written the song a few months earlier, and had recorded it on a couple of

different occasions, but he was never satisfied with the results. He asked me if I would mind

staying after class one night to record the song for him.

After we got the studio cleared out, Billy ran for beer while I started setting up. For this

song, Billy was to play all of the instruments and sing all but the backing vocals. The first step

was to record a click track generated by an electronic keyboard. The click track would never be

heard on the finished song. It was used to establish the tempo of the song and to give Billy a

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timing reference while he was playing the various instruments. While the click track recorded,

we sipped our beer and decided in what order we were going to record the different instruments.

Since the piano carried the melody, we decided to record it, along with a scratch vocal

track, first. Billy could then listen to those tracks and synchronize the other instruments to them.

I plugged a Shure SM58 microphone into the patch bay, which connects microphones and

instruments into the mixing board, and set it into a stand in front of the keyboard. I took my

position in the control room and Billy started to play.

The first time through the song is used to set the various controls on the mixing board to

get optimal recording quality. I adjusted the faders, which sets the record level, tweaked the

equalizers, which controls the blend of the different sound frequencies, and adjusted the sound

mix in Billys headphones. We were ready to start recording.

When recording a track, you dont worry too much about the mix. The goal at that stage

is to get the track recorded as cleanly as possible. Generally, you dont have to play with the

controls too much. The most important thing is to listen very carefully for mistakes. With digital

recording, it is easy to fix a wrong note because of the accuracy of the timing, and cross-fading

capabilities that allow you to cleanly fade in a short section of music. It is much easier to catch

and correct early in the recording process, otherwise, you might find that a mistake has carried

over onto other tracks. Timing mistakes are best corrected by recording the track all over again.

After the third take, we were satisfied that we had a good track recorded. Billy listened to

the playback while I started miking the drums.

When miking a drum set, several microphones are used. A separate microphone is placed

at each individual drum, at the high-hat cymbals, and a pair of overhead microphones is placed to

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capture the sound of the ride and crash cymbals. Each type of drum uses a different type of

microphone to produce the best sound when recording. Microphone placement is also very

critical. Moving a mic one inch can make a huge difference in the recorded sound of a drum

because of the sensitivity of a microphone to low frequencies. Additionally, each microphone

hears all of the other drums at slightly different times, which can cause some sound frequencies

to cancel each other out. After carefully placing the microphones and running the cables to the

patch bay, I resumed my position in the control room and Billy started playing for the sound

check. He would hit each drum in a consistent pattern as I brought up each channel and tweaked

all the controls. In addition to the fader level and eq.s, I used a compressor/ noise gate on the

kick and snare drums. The compressor helps to keep the drums at a consistent level. The noise

gate keeps the drum hits sounding crisp by stopping the signal from dragging on into the next

note. After going through each drum one by one, Billy started to play the song so I could make

the final adjustments. It took nearly an hour to set up to record the drums, and less than five

minutes to actually record them. Billy nailed the song in one take.

The bass guitar came next. Recording bass is relatively simple. The guitar cable plugs

directly into the patch bay and the controls are easy to set. The bass and the drums work together

to make up the rhythm section of a song, so the sounds have to work together. Because both

instruments produce the same sound frequencies, equalization is critical. You must adjust the

sound of the bass so it can be distinctly heard through the drum tracks. Compression is also

important here in order to keep the level of each note consistent. It helps make the rhythm of the

song feel tighter. It only took two takes to get the bass line laid to tape and we were ready to lay

down the guitar track.

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For the guitar track, Billy had borrowed a nice Yamaha six string acoustic that had a rich

warm sound. In order to capture the warmth of that sound, we used a $2500 Neumann

microphone for the recording. After trying six different microphones in various positions, we felt

that the Neumann best captured the sound of the guitar. We were recording two different guitar

lines for the song. The first part was a picking pattern that added counterpoint the melody, and

the second part was some lead fill to round out the song. It took us four tries to get the first guitar

part down because Billy kept shifting on his stool which changed the distance between the guitar

and the mic. After solving that problem, we were able to get the second guitar down in one take.

The last part we recorded that night was the keyboard strings. Since the keyboard was

still hooked up, it was just a matter of assigning it to a new pair of tracks for stereo recording.

Two takes and we were done for the night. We had started at 10:30 at night and left the studio

around 4:00 in the morning.

The next night was a Saturday and we were able to start at 5:00 p.m. because no night

classes were scheduled. Billys friend Carol came by to record some backing vocals. Since she

only had an hour before she was to meet her husband, we quickly set her up in front of a vintage

RCA microphone that tended to produce good results with female vocalists. We ran through the

song twice and then started recording. Three quick takes, and it was time for her to go.

We spent the next hour or so trying out different microphones for Billy. He has a low and

raspy voice that he has never really liked, so he wanted to find the one that worked best with his

voice. We finally found an Audio-Technica that surprised us. We had saved it for last because

neither of us had liked it on other occasions when we had tried it, but on Billys voice it sounded

great. Billy had rested his voice and took it easy on the cigarettes before coming into the studio

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so he was ready to go. One take on the lead vocal and two takes on his baking vocals and the

recording process was completed. Now it was time to mix.

Mixing involves taking all of the parts that you have recorded and blending them together

with various effects to create a great sounding song. Mixing can be tedious and time consuming

and completely boring to someone who isnt into it. You have to listen to the song, or parts of it,

over and over again. Each time you make a minor adjustment, you have to listen to the results of

that change.

We started our mixing session by giving our ears a thirty minute break while drinking a

beer. I started the tape and brought up the rhythm section, eight drum tracks and the bass guitar.

Since I had taken the time during recording to add eq. and compression, the rhythm tracks

needed very little tweaking. All I had to do was balance the levels between the tracks and add a

couple of minor eq. adjustments and a little chorus to the bass and the rhythm was tight.

The next step was to add the two guitar tracks. We had three racks of assorted eq.s,

compressors, and effects processors at our disposal in order to get the most out of the song. This

is where we really started using them.

Every room sounds different. If you play an instrument in a large open room with lots of

hard, reflective surfaces it will sound different then if you play the same instrument in a smaller

room with a lot of heavy upholstered furniture and carpeting. An effects processor adds reverb,

delay, chorusing and other effects to the sound of a voice or instrument in order to create the

illusion of a certain type of room. I blended the sound of the two guitars together panning one

slightly left and the other slightly right, creating a stereo effect. I then sent the signal through an

ART signal processor that had a preset sound that I liked for acoustic guitars and blended the

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stereo signal from the processor with the guitar tracks to create a nice guitar sound.

The piano sound proved to be the biggest problem in the whole mix and it was the next

instrument to be added. The Casio keyboard that Billy used in recording the song had a really

cheesy piano sound that lacked any of the depth that a real piano has. I ran the signal through

processor after processor and preset after preset trying to create a piano sound that would work in

the song. After about twenty-five times through the song, I called for an ear break and had

another beer. I had almost talked myself into settling on an earlier preset, but after the break I

knew I would never be happy with the finished result if I did, so I pushed on. I started adjusting a

setting inside one preset that I thought wasnt too bad when I stumbled across a control that let

me add a Leslie Cabinet Simulator. The Leslie Cabinet was popular in a lot of 1960's rock. It was

a speaker cabinet that had two speakers which sat on a motor-driven turntable behind the

opening in the cabinet. It was used primarily on organs, and it created a classic wavering effect

caused by the rotation of the speakers. Out of curiosity and frustration, I punched the button that

turned on the Leslie simulator and started playing with the speed control. It created an interesting

effect when used on the piano. It reminded me of the sound of an old upright piano played in a

big open church. It added a melancholy sound to the song that the lyrics seemed to need.

I discovered a small problem with the vocals that I thought was going to keep us from

completing our mix that night. Billys lead and backing vocals were great but on all three

versions of Carols vocals she was consistently flat on the same note. We had been in such a rush

to get her out in time that we hadnt caught it. After deciding that the song had to have the

vocals, we were determined to find a solution. After bringing the keyboard strings in, an answer

hit me. Since the vocal part followed the melody of the strings, and since both parts used heavy

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amounts of reverb, I could bring the strings into a swell while pulling back on the dry vocal. By

leaving the reverb part of the vocal in the mix, it created the fill that was needed, but faded the

actual voice out before the flat note, which buried the problem in the mix.

We took another ear break before giving the song a final listen so that our ears wouldnt

be too fatigued for critical listening. We dimmed the lights and sat back in our chairs. I pushed

play and we closed our eyes while we listened. As the song faded out, I realized that a great song

had been born.

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a song is born

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