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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