| "THE
BETTER THE RECORDING SESSION THE BETTER SOUNDING THE
CD"
If
at all possible you should plan to record your CD over
the two days of a weekend. You can record a CD in a
day but it is hard work and people get tired and lips
start to go after playing for 6 hours. There is no doubt
that the more time you can spend at the recording session
the better the end result and having two days really
takes pressure off everyone and gives the time to listen
back carefully to make sure that any mistakes are spotted
and covered.
Initially it can be daunting having microphones in front
of you and I think it’s really important to put
everyone at ease and create a relaxed happy session.
I think that the recording process should be totally
transparent and you should forget about it after an
hour or so and just enjoy the event. My main job is
to encourage everyone and really back up the MD because
it’s really important to me that you have a great
sounding CD at the end of it all with no obvious mistakes.
The new technology is fantastic compared to a few years
ago and the greatest benefit is in the editing. Normally
we will run through a piece and the MD and I will listen
back on headphones and mark on the score any bits which
need redoing..... splits, tuning, bad entries and exits
etc. We then just need to just cover these bars until
its right and then move on and the great thing with
the new technology is that if the band play a first
time section better than the second time we can use
the first time both times as long as we have good first
and second time bars. The editing really is very precise
and its not uncommon to piece together a tricky cornet
solo from quite a few takes!
The week following the session I will send the MD a
number of CDs with all the takes and edits in order
as recorded on the session and the big job for the MD
is then to work through these listening carefully to
work out the edits list. For the editing session in
the studio I will try and insist that the MD or a band
member comes along as there will always be decisions
to be made on the day comparing different takes. The
editing facility is fantastic and we can put together
very complex edits from a lot of different takes but
like the recording session everything takes time to
get it all perfect.
I
allow for two days editing time in the basic package
deal which is normally enough though some projects can
take longer. REMEMBER the ideal number of tracks
for a CD is 12 and so if you want to have 18 pieces
on your CD then you need to realise that he whole process
will take half as long again and require extra days
in the edit.
At the end of the day my aim is to have a perfect (a
relative term) bar for every bar on the score and then
I know I can edit it together back in the studio. So
while I can’t do much about tuning I can make
sure that you don’t have any splits, wrong notes
or bad entries which will come round every time you
play the CD and ruin it for you.
Finally, remember I want to able to send your CD out
as an example of what I do and together we get a result.
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