I'm so excited

My band's been working on our first album for months on and off, and now we're within a few weeks of it being done. Soon it'll be off to mastering and I'll have a copy in my hot little hands for real.

It's exciting for lots of reasons, but mostly because it's the first band I've been the primary singer and songwriter for. I recorded one album with my old band in the mid 90s, but this is such a different experience.

We did the basic tracking at a very cool vibe studio in the city (Chicago), and have been doing overdubs at another VERY posh place downtown. Even though we're self financed, it's been a first class ride. I could so get used to this level of treatment. Plus, working with credible professionals is a joy. Working at a miserable job that pays the bills is worth it for this experience alone.

I'll let you all know when it comes out. I just wanted to share.

Sounds great man! I'm weeks away from my band's debut as well, but we'r eself financed, produced, recorded, engineered, and basically experienceing nothing you are, but I can only imagine! Good deal.

Thanks SuperRad. So tell me about your project, I'm curious. Specifically, I'm interested in how you approached self-production, how much time in studio, did you do it all at once, are you having it mastered?

People don't get into the guts of their projects enough on the BBS I think. Feel free to ramble on. I think we can all learn from each others experience.

Good to hear about your project Jonosing. My band is gearing up for our 2nd record. I've been missing the studio environment. Like you, I also have a job I don't care for...but it allows me to throw money into the band.

Will you post mp3s when you get them done?

I'll put something out there. I don't actually know the process of turning songs from CDs into mp3s, so if you have advice on that...

So tell me about your project Scham. What was your experience, how long did you work, high points and low, funny stories, etc. I want to hear it all.

Good Luck.

Since what I'm aiming for is a discussion of studio experiences, I'll start.

Producing your own album is hard. Period. We did our basic tracking last December, and have been doing overdubs roughly once a week since that time. We had been together in our current line up for only a few months, and really had no idea what to expect out of the studio. We cut 13 basic tracks (bass, drums, lead and rhythm guitars) over two days. After we got the basic tracks to the overdub studio, we listened to what we had and tried get some ideas for how to make what we had work.

This to me was the big success in the whole process. We decided against trying to make the songs into something they were not. Our lead guitar player is a studio pro, and he had lots of ideas for how to flesh out a song without just doing overdub after overdub. We nominated him producer.

The real delay in the album has been my singing. I sang weekly for roughly three months before we started getting keeper takes. I was just not a pro, and had never sung in a studio for real. It's a shocking thing to hear yourself in a studio for the first time, whether you're a good singer or not (and I'm not much of one).

After a while, we decided to cut five tracks off the album because they just weren't happening. That was the other real success to me, cutting tracks that didn't belong. We were left with only eight songs though, so we decided to get experimental and create two more more tracks in the studio from rough ideas we had played with. Now they're two of my favorites.

There's been lots of joys, but the real test will come when we put it out there to see what people think. It's not perfect but it's pretty good. I'll let you know when it's out.

Actually my project is nothing big. It's mainly me doing everything, but I have help from a couple other people, which I guess makes us a band. Either way it's fun. We've been working on this for about a year now, and finally, within the next month, it should be done. It's a short cd, but we're not calling it a demo or anything. The idea was that we aren't trying to make any money, so when it's done, it will either be free, or maybe cost a few dollars to help cover shipping/materials. I just used Sonar to record the tracks. Since we're not making any money, we don't really have money to spend either, so I'm not having it mastered, I'm trying to do it all myself. It's actually not turning out too bad either, I mean it's not as good a quality as if we would have had it mastered, but I think it's much better quality than most of the bands in my area have been releasing. Anyway, the "studio" was just in my home. Like I said earlier, I used Sonar, and simply a few microphones. This didn't give the horrible results one might think. The only thing that seems a little "iffy" to me are the drum tracks, but they're not that bad, and there's not too much drums on this cd. It's mostly synthesizer driven, and the synth sound is as good as I could ever ask. I used Photoshop to make the cd design, insert, and tray liner, and just got a ton of cd making stuff. I also have it set up so when it's done, it can also be bought off cafepress.com, and their system is quite a bit more high quality than my doityerself way. And as songs are relseased, we put them on our Iuma or MP3.com pages for people to hear, and give feedback. Overall, even if this is a low-budget, ghetto way of doing things, I learned a ton of stuff, and more importantly my friends and I had so much fun doing this project. It's had frusterations, but it's all worth it. Quite a few people also like the results. Which surprised me!

I've made plenty of ghetto recordings too and working in a pro studio in essence is not that much different. The thing I like the most about recording, which you get to do alot when it's DIY, is sitting there and just hearing the music and trying to work parts over what you've got.

I love the vibe when you just have a bunch of guys creating music and going right to tape with it (ala Neil Young). I'm convinced that's the real value of DIY recordings. It's just people going at it on a gut level.

Yeah, that's what we do, and if we're not having fun, or running out of ideas, we stop. We all think it will show on the recording if you're not enjoying yourself while you're making it. And the beauty of not having to work around studio time is that we can start and stop whenever we want. Basically, we jsut want to make a cd that if someone is having a rough day, they listen to it, and after hearing our blaze of stupidity, bings up they're mood. It might sound corny, but it's true.

Hey,

Congratulations on your experience. I've recorded at all levels, and being in a nice studio is nice.

I'm curious though, what your plan is once you've made copies of your CD?

Ken

Uh, plan?

I originally thought a big marketing hit right at once would be a good place to start, but now I think that's wrong.

First thing we'll do is to get it to some critics. We've had some decent reviews in the past, and I think we'll get at least a couple good ones here.

We'll try to have some shows booked so that when the reviews run, they can mention the shows and of course, the website.

We've got an email mailing list, so I'll be dropping a note out to our subscribers when the album's ready and offer them some kind of incentive to order it online.

After that, we'll go to local radio and start touting our sales shows and reviews, keeping in mind that we DO NOT want to end up on the local show (except for one very highly thought of local show).

Lastly, try to network with some like-minded acts and put some group shows together at the local venues.

And of course, have lots of fun.

Having a plan is key. On our first record we were just happy to put it out. we tried a few things to promote it, but ultimately they were all poorly planned and always an afterthought. gearing up for our 2nd record, we're starting to plan months even before we've started recording vs. a week before the record comes out.

all and all, our first record achieved what it should have, now we've got to think a little bigger.