A permanent record

When you’re on your own, it never feels like there is enough time or money to get the job done properly. In a month I will be heading into the Pus Cavern for 8 days of recording, but even these daily 10 hour sessions don’t seem like ample time.

We will be recording 11 songs with 2 guitars, bass, drums, vocals, and some electronic instrumentation. Though this may be a simple set up compared with other types of bands and musical genres, it still takes an immense amount of time to track these instruments.

On the first day of recording, a band must first set up all of the equipment and get all the necessary microphones placed. This seems simple enough, but in reality this initial preparation can take hours. The drums have to be balanced and equalized and the tone of the kick and snare must be adjusted to fit in the mix. Guitar tones must be decided upon and the mics placed to reflect this choice. Finally, if acoustic guitars are to be used, other mics must be placed on standby so that they can be used when the time comes.

After setup is complete, the tracking process can begin. When a signed band records, they have the time to record each instrument individually. They start with drums and then add guitars, other instruments, and finally vocals. With a tight budget however, we will have to track multiple instruments on each take. For example, the drums, bass and rhythm guitar will all be recorded at the same time. Once these parts are finished, it is then possible to go back and add additional rhythm guitar tracks, leads and solos. While recording each instrument separately allows for greater flexibility when editing and mixing, a live recording can make the performance feel more vivid and saves valuable time.

The instrumental portion of recording will take 4-5 days to complete, not including the mixing. Following this begins the real challenge; capturing the vocal performance. Oftentimes this is the most challenging part of the recording process, but also the most vital. Vocals are what draw a listener’s attention and the thing that they remember in a song. They are what define the song. Because there can be so many different tracks dedicated to the vocals (harmonizing, doubling, etc), it takes a large chunk of time as well.

Once the vocals have been tracked comes the final part of the whole process; mixing and mastering. In this portion of the recording, all of the individual track levels are determined, effects are added, and the tracks are made ready to be put on a CD. Although making simple level adjustments and adding some effects would seem like quick undertaking, in actuality it also burns time faster than one might expect. As the band members sit in the control room with their tunes playing over the studio monitors, each person interprets how things should sound differently. One might think an instrument needs to come up, one might think it needs to be turned down, and another thinks it is fine the way it is. The democratic part of talking out these differences of opinion can eat away the clock rapidly. There’s also the business of getting the songs into the right order with the right amount of time in between and setting a standard volume for the CD. Ultimately mixing is a critical part of recording, that can get shorted if tracking runs longer than expected.

If you think about it in any other context besides recording, 80 hours is a long time. But from the moment you step into a studio that time chips away faster than you or anyone else can expect. As an independent band recording, you realize how much time and money a professional band spends to make their CD. For their recordings perfection is a must while an unsigned band must sometimes learn to not sweat the small things. With limited time the miniscule details are less important than the overall product.

This is my last blog entry of the semester, but feel free to check out my band’s page in January to hear some of the recording. I hope you have enjoyed my column and don’t forget to Rock On.

A Life's Pursuit

For many people music is a way to pass the time, a background noise that accompanies a car ride, or a radio buzzing away at work. For others it is a hobby; a fiddling with a guitar or an ingrained habit of tapping one’s fingers on a countertop. For the rest it is a way of life.

Bill “Buckwheat” Young is an example of a man who has lived with a lifelong obsession of music and all things music related. He has spent the greater portion of his life collecting vintage and new guitars and perfecting his bluesy guitar skills. One step into his shop, the Antique Rocker, and one is instantly confronted by musical trinkets and memorabilia surrounded by walls plastered with acoustic, electric and bass guitars. For Buckwheat this isn’t a job, but a kind of retirement. He spends his days tinkering on his guitars and conversing with his buddies that make their way in after work or while on lunch break while classic rock and blues music fills out the relaxed environment.

His obsession with guitars has led to a body of knowledge that outflanks many music store owners and equipment junkies. He can tell the difference between two Stratocasters made in different years or tell you how a particular manufacturer changed their production in separate years. He can help you straighten out a buzz on your fretboard or adjust the action of your strings to get the type of playability you desire.

For all his years spent in absorbing music and its many facets, one of the most impressive things about Buckwheat is the way his fingers nimbly move up and down the frets in rhythmic pentatonic figures. Upon sitting down to jam with him, he instantly picks out the sweet spot of a scale and proceeds to hammer out ascending and descending licks supplemented by soulful bends.



In the living room of his house there sits a single guitar and a small coffee table filled with paper parchments indicating chord progressions for songs and even some lyrics scrawled out in the evening hours. Downstairs in the basement, however lies the real treasure, a robust collection of electric and acoustic guitars amidst other coveted amplifiers. While it is not uncommon for musicians to have a couple of guitars or amps, it is obvious that this is an obsession. Stacks of black guitar cases lean against the perimeter of the walls while some guitars sit out on stands. In the bathroom sits a small amplifier for him to jam on while he sits on the toilet with the seat down to jam. It’s his own personal utopia.

Some people find their calling in other areas of life, but I doubt there is anyone out there who can say that Buckwheat isn’t doing exactly what he should be. He is the epitome of what happens to some who take on music as a hobby and ends up developing a lifelong obsession. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that a few little notes can have such a lasting effect on our lives, but there are worse things to be addicted to.






Hear a work in progress on my podcast

Fanatic

Despite what some arrogant musicians may think, they didn’t make their own success. The fans did. If there isn’t anyone listening then there would be no need for bands to make the music. If fans didn’t buy CDs there would be no money for tours or incentive to continue to write new songs.

With this in mind one of the most important elements for a new band is developing a solid fan base that will buy recordings, tell their friends about you, and pack your shows. This is a simple process for a signed band; their label has the money and people to adequately promote you to a much larger audience.

But for bands that act as their own promotion and management, getting the word out about your group can be a difficult task. Things have improved as new technologies have emerged including the proliferation of free web profiles such as those offered by Myspace. On this site a band can add friends to their profile and send out bulletins detailing show information and recordings. Bands can also post several songs that can be heard by anyone who stumbles onto their page. Myspace is truly becoming a one stop advertising machine that can reach a wider audience faster.

But just using this site doesn’t enable you to get people to go to it. You have to get your name out there first so that people know about your band and go to the profile rather than hoping that people will accidentally end up there and like what they hear.

With a small budget and no representation, this is where the aspiring musician has to put his time in. What’s the point of spending money on recording if you aren’t going to get people to hear it?

In late January or February my band will be ready to begin our own promotional campaign. To begin we will try to get some free press in local publications, and hopefully a CD review. This will require us hitting the pavement and plugging a short feature story on our band. Reno also has an entertainment publication called the Reno News & Review that often covers local bands and would be a perfect candidate for this type of article.

The next task –getting airplay – is a crucial part of promotion but the most difficult part to obtain. We hope to go to KDOT 104.5 and get one of the dj’s to play our material. The problem with this is the fact that stations have pre programmed schedules and are not apt to play your material over that of an established act. This station, however, has at times played local band’s recordings late at night.

Finally, we hope to talk with some of the club promoters throughout the city and hopefully convince them to let us play when larger touring acts come through. Often times local bands are used to open a show, such as at the New Oasis. This would help get our name out to fans of certain genres that come to see a bigger band but maybe become interested in us as a result of the performance.

Ultimately promotion comes down to time and hard work. Although creating the music is an extremely important part of being a musician, promoting that music is often overlooked and should be considered an equally crucial step. Fans make bands.

Hear some new stuff on my podcast.

Metamorphosis

Last week I was thinking about musical growth and this week that theme sort of continued, but in a slightly different manner. I was thinking about the way an idea or a set of related ideas become a song. I was looking back at some of stuff that I came up with when I first started playing guitar and comparing it to the newer songs that my band had started putting together. It was interesting to see how something really basic can become something new and different yet retain a tie to the original idea.

Many music fans don’t realize that writing a song can be an extremely long process before the writers are even happy with it. One simple idea can morph and mutate into countless side branches before becoming anything worthwhile. It is rare for the writer to bring in a song idea to the rest of the band that is completely finished or to use an original riff exactly as it was written.

But the fact that things change when band members get together is one of the best parts about music. The interaction between members and the contribution of each player are what make a song what it is.

In the case of my band, each song (all of which are still unfinished) has been through what seems like 5 versions a piece, each with different structures and variations of the basic theme. Through this exploration we hope to make each song stronger by giving it a chance to write itself rather than being satisfied by pushing it in only one direction. Some of the best material comes from each member pulling the song in a different direction than the others, sometimes to the point where the song itself tears and the band has to start over again.

While this seems relatively simple, this process is in fact slow, confrontational, and sometimes agonizing. Arguments about how the song should go and how parts should sound are commonplace and can slow down the writing pace to a slow crawl. One of our songs, "Panacea", has been around in various forms since 2004 when I first came up with the root idea. It has taken up until this very day for the band to reach an agreement on the song. We have argued for hours on what we think should happen where, which instrument should shine in which part, and how the vocals should augment the piece. While 2 years may seem like a long time for a song to come into being, progress was delayed due to the distance factor between the band and myself and the college academic schedule.

I do think that the extra time has allowed the song to grow and find its own identity. I’m sure that some great songs have been written in less than an hour or even a couple, however, I think for the most part that time benefits songwriting.

Here is a link to my newly created podcast. I'm trying to get the files into the right formats to get some stuff up, but until then I posted a filler/intro track.

click here to go to my podcast

"I've watched you change"

If you were to ask an older adult, say 60 years or so old, about rock music most of them would display a kind of scorn for it. Many would say that these musicians are party animals who flip the finger in the direction of authority while simultaneously corrupting the youth. This may be true of some, but not for all. There are positive elements in some artists out there who become better people by continuing to write music and others who have journeys of self discovery that lead to positive outputs.

The Deftones released a new record this week and it got me thinking about this growth in terms of both music and personal development. It is their 6th album and their music has changed a lot since the release of Adrenaline in 1995. In today’s industry it seems that there are many bands that stay in a comfort zone and never push themselves to try innovative things. Others continue to express the same things over and over rather than tackling new things in their lives.

I was reminded of where I started out as a musician way back in elementary school with the violin and the snare drum. In middle school I focused on the drums and continued up through high school. As with most people I wasn’t great when I started out, I was just looking to make as much noise as possible. As time went on I improved and began trying things that I had never been able to do before. That was my first experience with purely musical growth.

When I joined my first band sophomore year in high school I ended up writing some of the lyrics while holding down my drum duties. As I look back at the words I wrote, I am reminded of the person that I was at the time and the limited experiences I was drawing on. Flipping forward in the spiral notebook at the things I have written recently, it feels as though I have in fact become a better person and expanded my views. I don’t feel like I’m the same foolish and naive person that I was at that time.

A perfect example of this type of emotional and personal growth is in the career of the band Tool. When they started out in the early 90's vocalist James Maynard Keenan was full of anger and even hate. His lyrics were bitter and biting as they erupted from his throat. Jumping ahead about 10 years, the band grew enormously in terms of musicianship and also lyrical content on 2001’s Lateralus. The album had many positive themes laced through the tracks and Keenan has also said in interviews that the record is largely about healing. When asked why he no longer seems as angry, Keenan said that if his music can help heal others then it can also heal himself.




Tool in 1992. Video from rev79 on youtube.com





Tool in 2001. Video from Beast6 on youtube.com


I hope that bands, no matter how known or unknown they are, will try to achieve both kinds of growth and continue to push music and their own potential. If this development ever ends then the art will be at a standstill. I hope that I can also follow that same path as I continue my musical endeavors.

Good Luck

As I watched the U of A battle of the bands last week I was reminded of the hard luck that one encounters as a member of a local band. Just as the second band took the stage, the Arizona sky decided to let loose.

As an owner of musical equipment, I instantly thought of the damage that the rain could cause to the band's instruments and amplifiers. A guitar half stack can cost a few thousand dollars and a drum set is no drop in the bucket either.

This reminded me of the experiences I had while playing in my first band in high school. It seems now that we were bombarded by bad luck more often then we were blessed.

I recall the time that we were set to play a big show with some popular local bands including Fall Silent and December. Club Underground (formerly called Ark a Ik) was full of anxious kids ready for a night of live music. As the opening band it was our job to get the crowd excited and kick the night off right.

It seems simple enough to hop up onstage and play a quick 25 minute set. But as soon as we were ready to begin, our guitar player's amp decided to malfunction. We instantly knew that this was going to be trouble. After several minutes of tinkering and troubleshooting, there were no results and some people in the crowd began to turn on us. There was some booing and a few shouts to get off the stage. As a bunch of high schoolers with no money we had no way to simply switch out an amp. As an independent band we couldn't just rely on some guitar tech to fix the problem; it came down to whether or not we would be fortunate enough to have things go our way on any given night.

I can remember other times where a power or guitar cable would be lost in transport and we would have to search out someone from another band kind enough to lend us one. Sometimes while drumming I would break sticks for no apparent reason and be left to finish out a set with cracked or completely broken sticks. There were times when drum hardware would break and I would have to find ways to make it through.

Going back to the battle of the bands I couldn't help but think what a bad feeling it must have been for the band to know that their equipment might be getting damaged. But the band didn't stop playing right away and run to cover their instruments. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that although they hadn't lucked out in the weather department, that band was lucky enough to be able to take the stage and share their music. Eventhough band members can look at any situation in a negative light, they should realize that they have to take the good with the bad and the misfortune with the good fortune. It's not an easy lifestyle and things aren't always going to go your way, but when they do, it can be the best feeling in the world.

A battle ensues

The U of A will be hosting its annual battle of the bands contest starting this Monday on the mall at 5 pm. The bands will play twenty minute sets in hopes of getting the most audience votes at the end of the night. Scheduled bands include Sketching In Stereo, Slingshot Automatic, Class Project and Skitn.

When I found out the battle was going to be this week I started to think about why a local band would want to participate in such a contest. My past experiences have been that they are lack luster shows in front of curious people rather than die hard fans. The prizes are minimal, usually the University gives a gift certificate to the winning band, which then must be divided between the members.

Some people might think that these contests are a good way to make some new fans and gain some recognition, but this is not usually the case. "First place in the University Battle of the Bands" isn't likely to turn any industry heads or instantly boost a band's popularity. Most people who watch on the mall are merely passing by or taking a break from studying rather than showing up specifically for the bands. The few fans that are there are usually friends of the band members.

So why then do bands even participate? The answer is rooted in our very instincts. Humans are competitive. We feel the need to compare ourselves to everyone around us in order to evaluate who we are. We value self pride.

A band competes in these contests to gauge themselves against other individuals who are undertaking the same activity as them. They want to see how they stack up and win so that they can be proud that they were able to take the stage and get more votes than the other bands that played. The winners may also be filled with a new kind of hope that they are better than what else is out there and can make it in the world of music.

So whether or not it is a solid gig that helps get their name out there, a band can always take away a better understanding of where they stand in music compared to other bands in their area.