Every Note

Producing, engineering, writing and performing an album on your own can evoke the grave specter of self-indulgence. With no one to tell you "No!" you might go over the edge. It might just look like you're showing off. Either you really are that talented, which seems unlikely, or you're really talented and nobody wants to work with you because you're a miserable human being. Or you're a real nerd, which in my case is probably right on the money. I want to do this merely because I can. Or rather, because I can't help myself.

I learned about audio production in the age of analog tape. I worked at WPKN, a community radio station in Bridgeport, CT when I was a teenager in the early 80s. I learned how to edit audio tape with a razor blade and soaked in the basics from guys with lots of experience. I learned about overdubbing when the first cassette multi-trackers came on the market and later got to record my own music at Webster University's 16 track studio. I've made several records in both analog and digital since then and I'm glad that my experience straddles both the analog and digital eras.

I still haven't lost a sense of wonder about it all. I'm still easily moved by chord progressions, easily excited by sounds, even ordinary ones. I love the very idea of capturing sounds for posterity. But I'm a musician and songwriter first and foremost, and I've long considered the recording process to be a natural outgrowth of writing songs. I've worked with good engineers, looking over their shoulders and learning their craft as they helped me pursue my own. This is the first time I've taken on the responsibility of engineering my recordings past the demo stage. If I had known when I was a kid what amazingly powerful tools would be available in the future, I would have been astonished.

No matter what the medium, setting out to play every note on a collection of songs--including real drums--is a daunting, time-consuming process. I'm making an album under difficult conditions, in a cramped space, with bare-bones equipment, some self imposed restrictions and raw inspiration...God, I love a challenge! But how I achieve the goal is secondary to the fact that I'm trying to get some songs out--songs that I believe are solid enough to warrant all this fuss. And I'd go through fire to put a song across the way it should be. I'm just like that.

So here are the basic guidelines, some self-imposed, others determined by circumstances and resources:

1. Methods
For the instrumental tracks, I'm treating my computer like an old analog machine--set up the mic and play the part from beginning to end, just like the old days. I'm trying to avoid excessive punch-ins or comping, resorting to those methods only when any given take is at least 98% there. Needless to say, it's a very time consuming process, but the result is a sound that feels closer to a band performing. I wont be nearly so rigid when the time comes to record vocals, however. I'll comp and fly in to my heart's content. I'm using Logic 8 Express on my Mac. for all tracking and mixing.

2. Gear
I have all the instruments I need including several guitars and basses. The drums are on a permanent mic setup after much trail and error. My firewire interface has only two inputs, so I have to be creative when getting the drums to sound right. This worried me at first, but now I see it as a good thing. I'm using classic keyboard sounds inside my Mac controlled by a MIDI controller I bought for $20. It works just fine.

3. Discipline
The lack of multiple inputs and outboard processing gear means I have to be frugal and creative to get the sounds I'm looking for. I want a very clean, direct, up-front sound on this album, so the limitations are a blessing in disguise. These limitations keep me from going overboard and keep my focused. Apart from some guitar effects, I'm using nothing more than EQ and compression to sculpt the sounds, and even then only to carve out space for each part.

I want to limit laying down parts to what is absolutely necessary to make the songs work. The backing tracks generally have no more than five or six tracks. Ideally, I want to sub mix vocal backgrounds when the time comes so that when it comes to final mixdown there are no more than twelve faders or information to deal with--and that's at the absolute maximum. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it.


I don't want to put too fine a point on the fact that I have a visual impairment, and while it's way, way down on the list of things I think about when working on these tracks, I'd be lying if I said it didn't make things a bit more difficult. I'm using Logic because it's the most visually straightforward option out there that I've found. I use screen magnification software, which means I often don't see the whole picture. I'm often zeroed in on specific areas of the scree. It's a challenge, but I'm becoming pretty proficient.

So those are the parameters. So far, it sounds pretty good. I may not have the best equipped studio in the world, but what I lack in luxury I make up for in time and gumption. So far, limitations have brought out the best in me. This isn't merely a blog about the process of getting an album done, although it is certainly that. It's the inner processes which interest me.

Faced with adversity, I hope to grow and exceed my own expectations. That's what this blog is really about.