Making a new album

All done and dusted

2009-08-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the end of the road. Time to thank you for staying with me throughout the journey (I’ve had some interesting comments en route, thanks for those). Time also to hope that you’ve found at least a bit of what I’ve said useful and can apply it to your own music.

And time to thank everyone who’s contributed to the making of the Banging The Rocks album, not least Fran Ashcroft for mastering the record and helping with some great tips for the mixes.

All we have to do now is market the CD. We’ll start with CDBaby as they can get the record into all sorts of useful places, and we also have some contacts we’ve built up over the years we were with Rising Records that can help us distribute the new album. We’ve always done a lot of our marketing, so we’ve contacts there too.

I guess we’ll do some traditional stuff like playing gigs (if you want us in your town, you need to ask!) and then we’ll have to consider radio plugging, making videos, maybe something really modern like streaming a live show over the internet. Finally there are the reviews to gather and the media attention to attract.

So, the work doesn’t stop once the product is finished, does it? And what’s the point of making an album you’re really proud of if no-one gets to hear the songs.

To end with, a quick request. Please come and visit us at www.sharppractise.com and check out the songs on the Banging The Rocks album page. And please come to our myspace site and listen to the full songs there, which we’ll put up in rotation as the weeks go by.

All the best

Keeping songs fresh

2009-08-05T09:47:00.001-07:00

So, the lyrics are up on our website, the songs are now available there too, and one by one they’ll appear on our myspace site as well. So, there’s only one more job to do and this album is ready to roll.

That job is to make alternative mixes to keep the songs fresh for radio. For example, if you like a particular song you may get bored with it after a while, but what if you’re offered the album mix, an acoustic mix, a stripped down mix and an instrumental version? Four ways to enjoy the song and keep you interested? Four has got to be better than one!

So, it’s off to the mixing desk and, thanks to the memory in the auto mix facility, a relatively simple task to make those other mixes. It’s amazing going back to the basic tracks how you find little nuances that are there, building up the big picture of the album mixes, which come out in even greater detail when you strip some of the songs down.

So, an interesting exercise and one which brings us full circle.

Next time’s entry will be the last of this series as the album is now pretty much done and dusted and ready to roll. I‘ll talk about marketing to wrap things up next time – an often neglected area but one which really is vital to the success of a record. In a nutshell, it’s all about knowing and accessing your audience and not wasting your efforts and resources on trying to appeal to people who wouldn’t buy your music in a month of Sundays!

So, until then, I’ll wish you all the best.

Decided on the new album's title

2009-07-21T09:20:00.001-07:00

OK, the big revelation is …we’re going to call the album Banging The Rocks.

If you know the Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, you’ll realise that at the restaurant at the end of the universe the host says a big hello to all sentient beings out there and advises everyone else to keep banging the rocks together.

Once you do that you get fire, then you get technology and then you can advance to space travel etc. So, Banging The Rocks seemed the ideal phrase to use for the title of this album.

For the artwork, the cover features a pair of hands banging crude stones together on the front and the same hands rubbing polished stones together on the back – hopefully that’s not too subtle a change! And the CD label has a picture of a rockslide crushing a car, which is a photo I took in Cornwall, England, when I was down there once.

And we have the running order finalised too – we’re taking the approach of starting with the most radio friendly tracks and working back from there. So open with Sound of Rock, then it’s Question Of Love, My Revolution and Girls Don’t Look. The middle section is Nothing Is More, Screw The Earth, I Will Decide and Hook In My Heart. We bring the record home with Bring On The Summer, Monsoon Rain, Come To Know and Season Of The Rose in that order.

I’ll tell some stuff about the last of the pre-release jobs next time. Have fun and make good music!

Lyrics to website, artwork in prep

2009-07-07T08:59:00.001-07:00

So, it’s the first set of adjustments made, a cooling-off period and then a second set of adjustments. Very close to the finished article now that will be ready for mixing.

My wife has got to the state where, having heard these songs repeatedly for four months while I’ve been mixing them on and off, she would like to have a break from them for a while! Me, I’m still patient and full of enthusiasm – I really think we’ve got some strong material with good radio potential.

So, it’s time to tidy some other things up. For example, the Sharp Practise website needs sprucing up. And once again I’m very lucky to be able to call upon Mike Barnett’s services to keep the site something that we’re very proud of.

I’m also at the stage where I can send him the lyrics for the new album to display as a taster for the record – after all, those words aren’t going to change now.

The other thing to start thinking about now is the artwork for the CD cover – I have something that I think will work well, bearing in mind that no final decision has been taken on the album title yet. I want a title that reflects three things: one, this is a rock album; two, for all our efforts over the past ten years we’ve still not made the big breakthrough yet; and three, there should be a cultural reference that people will pick up on.

I let you know how we get on with this next time – unless anyone has any suggestions they’d like to make in the meantime?

Time to phone a friend

2009-06-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

OK, I’ve made those adjustments. It’s time, as in all the best game shows, to phone a friend. Or in this case, e-mail one.

Fortunately my friend is Fran Ashcroft, an experienced record producer with a great ear. And I’m very lucky that he is prepared to review my mixes before they go through the mastering process.

So, what’s the prognosis? Well, mostly not bad but could be better. Despite all my efforts I seem at times to have a dominant snare drum on some songs, so I need to back the stereo mix of the kit off to bring that into line.

Other than that, there’s the odd place where an instrument or a vocal is too loud or soft, or where there’s a touch too much reverb. Fran is very good too at giving precise adjustments e.g. b vox down 2db, 30% less reverb on the guitar and so on. So, with automix and the recall features on the AW2400 it’s fairly easy for the most part to make those changes.

And when you do, boy does everything noticeably sit better in the mixes. So, thanks Fran!

I know we don’t all have the luxury of having an experienced producer to call upon but my tip here is to get someone else to cast a dispassionate ear over your mixes before you finalise them. You may get imprecise advice e.g. turn the voice down, the guitars are too far away etc, but any advice from someone whose ears you trust has got to be good.

Time to take stock

2009-06-12T08:57:00.001-07:00

So, all the mixes are done and it’s time for the final checks and adjustments. I’ve played the tracks on every type of system I can find, from the car stereo to the hi-fi via the computer and the studio monitors. I can now classify the material into three groups.

The first group is the good mixes. There are about three songs I can safely leave alone as they sound good under all listening conditions – the vocals are level, the drums aren’t dominated by one sound, the tracks are exciting.

Then there are about six songs where things are pretty good but could be improved. Little jobs like getting the relative level of the lead vocal right between verses and chorus, tidying up odd sounds, adding some more movement to the mix etc.

Finally there are the other three songs where the verdict has to be “close, but that’s not what I’m looking for”. These will need remixing, either to add the spark that’s got lost somewhere or else to achieve what the song is trying to say. Fortunately, with the mixes memorised, it’s simple enough to make the right adjustments, such as roughing up the too polite guitar on Question of Love or not overplaying and undersinging I Will Decide.

So, I’ll go away and adjust now while I’m still in hyper-critical mode and not prepared to accept anything less than the best I can make those mixes. I’ll report back later on how it goes.

Mixing under pressure

2009-05-27T09:19:00.003-07:00

I’m working on the final mix now, for Season Of The Rose. It’s a song we’ve played live for over a year, so I know it well, and the trick here is to keep it fresh for the record. So, I’m using lots of movement, lots of instrument changes in the deep structure of the song and not overdoing the backing vocals.

I’ve recently become aware that I’m under pressure with this album for a couple of reasons. One is the number of really good reviews that we’ve had recently after the re-release of Radiocity across Europe. This has built up a good deal of momentum and expectation and I really want this album to be our best yet. The second is that it’s highly likely that Fran Ashcroft is going to master the album – which means my mixes will be scrutinised by one of the world’s leading record producers before they go out to the wider world. So, as I say, there’s no pressure there then…!

One constraint is beginning to rear its head. I’m starting to run out of memory space on the 24-track. Let’s hope there are not too many adjustments to make before the album is finalised.

I’ll leave you for now on that note of suspense…

Mixing under pressure

2009-05-27T09:19:00.002-07:00

Mixing under pressure

2009-05-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

Anthem and sad song

2009-05-14T09:06:00.001-07:00

It’s full steam ahead on the next two songs now. Sound of Rock is a track that I want to make sound like a real anthem – I’m toying with a whistled intro (a little personal homage to the Scorpions there) and need to make four vocal parts sound like a full choir.

To do this I’ll be putting all four backing vocals through separate effects channels and panning not only each vocal but also each return through different parts of the stereo field, so that you are surrounded by harmony singing.

It’s also getting near the time when I start thinking about how to ensure the album sounds good overall. So, I’ll be revisiting the early mixes once the last ones are done, and playing the initial mixes on various types of systems, including the car stereo, the hi-fi and a portable CD player.

I’ve performed Come To Know at the local folk club a few times and the ladies there think it’s a sad song, so I’m trying to ensure that sadness is kept intact by not sweetening the track with too many uplifting backing vocals or thrusting guitar parts. Hopefully this will make a real contrast in moods after an anthemic track and keep interest alive in what is usually the graveyard shift of the next to last track.

I’ll see you on the home straight of the mixing stakes next time.

Cheers

Frequencies, monitoring and percussion party

2009-04-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

And it’s back to problem central. This time is a treble frequency, not a bass one – namely a clicking sound on an organ keyboard on the song I Will Decide. OK, same problem, same solution – well no actually, this time a bit of gain riding to drop the volume of the very front of the notes seems to do the trick.

Seems I’ll need to improve my keyboard technique and not bang the new chord as hard!

I’m also very aware from my recent experiences that backing vocals, their level and panning, are pretty critical to getting a really professional sound. So, I’m gain riding those as much as the lead vocals and making sure the stereo placement works well both in the headphones and on my nearfield monitors. I use the standard Yamaha NS20s and I’ll make a point of checking my mixes on the home hi-fi, the car stereo and the PC speakers before I commit my choices of mix to mastering.

At least Screw The Earth is proving easier to work on – get a good percussion party going, make sure those acoustic guitar parts move, put some interest in the form of short delay line on the vocals at the point where the song stops in mid-flow, and don’t let the electric guitar line that comes in late on dominate proceedings. Lovely!

More news from the front next time. Until then, enjoy your music.

Problemsville UK

2009-04-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Just when you think it’s all going smoothly, you hit problemsville UK!

Not so much on the big ballad Girls Don’t Look. That was fine to mix; in fact I had too many parts available to choose from and in the end found that a less is more approach worked well. I’m very happy now with an uncluttered mix that, had the song been put into a cheesier arrangement, could have boy bands all over the world interested in covering the song!

No, the problem was the bass guitar on Bring On The Summer. It sounded fine when I recorded it. It sounded pretty good when I was overdubbing vocals. But somehow it sounded terrible when I came to mix.

So, out with the toolkit. First, let’s look at the precise issue here. The bass, in the context of the other instruments, sounds boomy. OK, is it because the mix or the sound of another instrument is wrong? Let’s take all the bass part. No, everything else is fine, in balance and sonically grand.

Let’s home in on that bass then. It doesn’t sound right. The part’s fine, the volume’s fine in relation to the other tracks, it’s just boomy. Must be an EQ thing. So, it’s out with the trusty parametric and time to sweep across the frequencies on full boost. Yeah, here’s the little blighter. At this frequency the bass booms! So, let’s use the Q setting to determine how wide that frequency band is…pretty narrow.

So, the troubleshooter’s solution. Apply parametric EQ at the rogue frequency with a narrow bandwidth and bring that boom back into line. A few hours’ investigative work and problem solved. Phew!

I’m off to lie down in a darkened room until the next time.

See ya,

A steady voice

2009-03-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

Two new mixes to tell you about today. My Revolution builds on the acoustic guitar approach of Nothing Is More and goes from quiet to loud over the space of four minutes. It’s also the only track so far that lends itself to that old favourite of the producer, the fade out. Despite my use of automix I do like to make my fade outs manually so that you don’t get the feeling that the music is slipping away and you can’t do anything about it!

And this is probably a good time to talk about vocal levels too. Obviously you need them to not only sit in the track properly but also to be fairly consistent across the whole song. However, most singers (myself included) don’t sing at the same level even if their microphone technique is well developed. Clearly the usual studio application of compression helps but too much compression eradicates the soul of the performance. After all, someone who spoke at the same level all the time would have a really boring voice. My answer to uneven vocals is to gain ride the fader for the vocal track – and with automix I can even go back over a line and raise the first syllable or the last if I need to so that this part of the problem is fixed automatically in real time for me.

Lastly today a quick word about Monsoon Rain. After recording several colour parts I find I can add them in gradually to really build the song – not least around the solos where the guitar line can be put into different contexts each time (as an orchestral arrangement might do). Add to this the gradual addition of instruments and vocal parts and the whole thing builds to a crescendo (as a tropical storm would do) so I’ve high hopes for this track.

More from the twilight world of my studio soon – and no, I’m not getting out much at the moment!

Influences on my mixes

2009-03-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

Two more mixes to tell you about today. The first is Question of Love, which is a fairly standard rock idea, so I’ve decided to apply some Mutt Lange works with AC/DC tricks to it. The foremost of this is to leave the bass part out altogether in the intro and first verse so that when it does appear it really strengthens the chorus. Bear in mind that this song has a piano part (most unlike AC/DC) so the effect doesn’t actually sound like a straight copy of the technique!

This brings out a philosophical question I guess – when is an influence something you copy and when is it something that inspires you to look at an issue in a particular way? I’d be interested in your views on this. For my part I try not to clone ideas but to use them to develop a situation or solve a problem when I’m working on a track. I mentioned the importance of getting the drum balance right last time. This is something I’ve been influenced on – I try to get the drum sounds right at source so that in effect I have the right stereo mix as soon as the drums are recorded. The drum tracks then act as the keystone around which I build my mixes.

Before I go today I’ll just mention the mix of Nothing Is More. Can you imagine something that starts out like Santana and ends up like the Travelling Wilburys? If so, you’ll have imagined this mix.

See you next time.

Mixing with automix

2009-02-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

So, what do I do with those other two effects loops (keep your answers clean, please!)? Well, one tends to get used for backing vocals, with just a hint of room reverb and an extreme left/right panning placement. It’s surprising how much width and depth you can add to your bv’s this way. The other loop gets pressed into service wherever its needed - a bit of chorus to a pad keyboard sound or whatever.

Let’s see how this works out in practice on the mix for the opening track, Hook In My Heart. Although this is only a three minute song, it’s quite a complex mix, with instruments coming in and out and a restart after the second chorus. To cope with this (and the fact I only have two hands) I make a series of scenes (25 in this case). Each scene records the mix of a part of the song, e.g. intro, first half verse two etc. Then I use my automix facility to record this basic set of mix changes as I go along to create a rough mix. That way, I still have ten fingers free for faders to make any intuitive corrections as I mix.

I got one very good tip from Fran Ashcroft about making mixes on digital equipment, which is make sure the drum balance is right and get the vocal levels to sit well. More about this next time.

Dead centre, then loop the loop!

2009-01-27T09:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve been told that it should take about as long to mix a record as it does to get the material down on the hard drive so I’ve budgeted for that in this process. If you think about it, all what goes in has to come out, so a 50:50 time split seems logical.

The first thing I like to do with any song is to check that I have what I need before I start the mixing process. I don’t mean things like a notebook, cup of coffee etc although those sort of things always help – what I mean is that I have all the parts and instruments that the song needs and that the bits and pieces all fit together.

So, I start off by panning everything back to dead centre, setting all the faders to about the same level so I can hear all the parts and playing back a reference mix of what’s on the hard drive.

That usually tells me if there are any flat spots where additional parts, or different parts or instruments, are needed. If the song isn’t alive by this stage then there’s a problem and this needs to be fixed before I go any further.

I’ll also at this point decide which sounds need extra attention. I’ve got four effects loops on my desk and this will be assigned to the appropriate parts – quite often backing vocals will take one loop and the lead guitar sound in a solo will take another. This gives me a bit of flexibility with the other half of my effects capacity.

You’ll have to wait until next time to read what I do next. Bye for now.

Backing vocals that make all the difference

2009-01-08T09:07:00.000-08:00

Here we are in 2009 and I said I was going to talk about backing vocals, so here goes.

It can be awkward at times if you’ve only one singer in a band to make enough variety in the vocals to make them sit with the lead line. Fortunately I seem to be able to work out where backing lines should go and come up with harmony parts that work behind the lead line – at least, that’s what people have told me over the years.

The key things I keep in mind are (a) how to create variety from chorus to chorus (if that’s where the main backing vocals are going to be); (b) how to ensure that the timing is tight and (c) how to get enough harmonies to give the impression of space being filled by the backing vocals?

The first question is answered by a little bit of forward planning. The second is a matter of performance when the old red recording light comes on. The last is all about stretching the voice (bearing in mind that high harmonies are the ones that suffer if you sing a lot in a short space of time, so do them first!).

Another trick I use is to add artificial double tracking to the process by doubling backing vocals at a few milliseconds behind the main track to add depth to the sound. Don’t forget that the backing vocals should be in a different reverb space than the lead lines – I tend to use medium reverb times for lead vocals and longer ones for backing vocals.

Next time I’ll talk about tidying up the basic tracks before starting to mix.

Making vocals work for the song

2008-12-23T09:11:00.001-08:00

Hi,

I promised some more on making vocals work to show a lyric off to its best advantage.

Last time I talked about having a plan, and this is the basis of my delivery. However, unlike the performance of the music, where the plan is like a route map, the vocal plan can be delivered more flexibly. For example, the music plan might call for a suspended chord at a particular point, so if anyone deviates off and plays the wrong note the suspension is lost and the whole thing sounds wrong.

Not so for vocals – especially where the singer is acting as the story-teller, or the link if you like between music (the making of which can be foreign to some people) and words (which everyone can use).

So, while I might have it in mind that a given line of lyric is being sung to one person and needs the emphasis on a certain word, if I feel at the time an alternative approach works better I won’t feel constrained to stick to the original plan.

It’s by this mixture of planning and spontaneity that I hope to make a good performance to capture in the recording. If the words are merely recited it can sound inhuman and unexciting; if there’s too much vibe then the musicality of the phrases can get lost in the bad tuning!

So, in the end, it’s a balancing act to make things sound right and as if what is being sung is truly meant. Once I’ve captured a performance with those criteria properly met then I’m one happy singer.

I’ll be doing backing vocals next and will turn my attention to them next time.

Planning to record vocals

2008-12-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about being a record producer is that you get to do things other guys cannot imagine with girls they can only dream about! That’s been the case recently, as my side project with a female singer has developed. We originally set out to do a few demos with a view to getting publishing on a couple of songs. It now looks as if we may be making an album in 2009 and launching a new artist.

I want to talk about my voice this time. If you look at any sheet music you’ll usually find the legend “words and music” at the top, which suggests that the words (and therefore the singing of them) should have equal prominence with the music. So how do I start to get a balance between all of the instrumental performances and the lead vocal?

Again, it’s all down to planning and my planning takes three stages. First, are the words right for the context of the song i.e. is ‘I am unable to obtain any satisfaction’, while grammatically correct, accurate in terms of meter and for the character who’s singing the lyrics? ‘I can’t get no’ is so much better…

Secondly, what is the right voice for these words? Is it one with a shout in it, a cry in it, clear diction or slurred? Do certain phrases or words demand a different delivery?

Finally, to whom am I singing? Is it me, one person or a crowd? Again, this will affect how I deliver any given line, as a song may change audience from section to section or even line to line.

I’ll talk more about how I make this happen in the next instalment.

Cheers

Keyboards to the front

2008-11-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

As I said before, it’s been my turn to be busy over the past couple of weeks.

Keyboard parts first. Mostly nothing fancy, although I do try and avoid the blindingly obvious block synth wash wherever possible. I see the keys as pretty much a colour instrument behind the guitars in the band, so I like them to play a mainly supporting role.

Sometimes that role is standard – for example, on the ballad ‘Girls Don’t Look’ the song cried out for a string part and so it got one which lifts the second half of the verses nicely and swoops into the big choruses. Having said that, this song is an exception in that the piano is the major instrument and acoustic guitar takes the secondary part.

There’s also moments where the keyboards step out and take over – on ‘Come To Know’ we break out into a Bruce Hornsby style solo and the piano takes the lead line for a change. And that’s my point – it is for a change; for me it’s all about striking the balance between featured instruments.

I like the odd rock organ sound as well – so when you hear the record keep your ears peeled for a touch of the old Hammond coming subtly to the scene in several places.

Brings me to the instrument that’s always featured – the voice. While laying the keyboard parts I’ve been working out the last lyric changes, where the melody is going to move and how I’m going to interpret the songs.

All of which I’ll tell you about next time!

Never the same pattern twice

2008-10-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

OK, I promised to talk about techniques for putting core tracks down, so here goes.

I guess the first advantage is we know pretty much what the melody line is from the guide tracks, so we have an idea about how the orchestration of the song is going to work – in other words, where to leave space for backing vocals, keyboard parts, colour parts etc.

This makes it simple enough to decide on some key aspects for keeping the basic tracks interesting – when to reharmonise a final verse or chorus, when to slip an unusual chord in, and just as importantly, when to keep the chord structure nice and simple.

For example, the opening track on the record is going to be Hook in My Heart and that will be at 212 bpm. At that speed, there’s not a lot of room for anything fancy, so simple approaches like restating the main hook as the solo break work fine. Later on, when the album slows down a bit, we can look at everything from playing the reprise chorus a tone higher to using completely different chords under the same melody line for a reprise chorus.

Our watchwords are ‘never the same pattern twice’ – in other words we’ll change an inversion, or substitute a chord, or add further instrumentation; and never the same technique too often – in other words, not every reprise chorus will rise a tone, not every song will fade out into the distance.

It’s time now to live with the basic tracks for a few days and then move on to vocals and keyboard parts – looks like this will be my busy time as the singer and keyboard player in the band!

I’ll tell you all about it next time,

Cheers for now

Rhythm guitar and bass

2008-10-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are back at my place recording rhythm guitars and bass parts.

Why the two together, I hear you asking. The answer is inversions. Being a guitar based band with a songwriter who also plays keyboards can lead to some tricky situations. I might write something that hinges on an inversion that’s really easily to play on the keys, but twists a guitarist’s hand into a distorted mess.

Fortunately I also play the guitar so I’m aware of the risk – not that this stops me from wanting to use these types of chord positions. So, the approach I adopt is to ask my guitarist to play the normal chord shape but to ask my bass player to move his low note around to invert the root of the chords.

Of course if you’re doing this to set a song out it makes sense for the guitarist and bass player to work together in putting the core tracks down. So, rhythm guitars and basses go hand in hand for me.

It also a nice change to spend time working in sub-groups rather than the full four-piece. Spending some time with just the guitarist or just the bass player gives me a chance to maintain our working relationship and keep the social side of the band firing on all six cylinders too.

I’ll talk some more about the sort of techniques we’ve been using in putting the core tracks down in my next entry. Meanwhile, it’s back to work on getting the basic songs down in an interesting form.

Bye for now,

Getting the drum tracks down

2008-09-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

At last the talking is over and the recording has begun!

And don’t you just love drummers? They may be the butt of an easy joke (they always turn up on time but never in time etc) but I’m always in awe of how they remember exactly what fill they put in the song at point X last time and execute it again exactly at the same point this time.

Anyway, I took my AW2400 down to our rehearsal room for this week during the daytime, when it’s quiet, and set up. Seven mics – dedicated ones for snare, hi-hats and bass drum, two overheads and two ambient.

First problem – the bass drum sounded very boomy but after some trial and error I got it tamed. The rehearsal room is a bit of a box (this affected the ambient mics too) and in the end I did have to break my golden rule about recording with the EQ flat and apply just a little cut to the deep bass frequencies.

The good news is that the drums I’ve been recording are very well maintained and that makes getting good snare and tom sounds very easy. The rehearsal complex has drums available for hire and we often use them to practice with, not only saving wear and tear on the ‘real’ kit but also the hassle of transporting lot of drums on practice days. Also, judicious use of practice heads (not least to keep your neighbours happy) does wonders for the life of your skins.

So the drum parts are down (all in one take per song, I always feel drop-ins on drum tracks are really obvious and sound unnatural).

I’ve taken the recording equipment back to my own place and it’ll be rhythm guitar and bass parts next – the anchors and chord structures of the songs need to be established.

More about this next time.

Latest on the new album

2008-08-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

Well, the plan to record guide tracks is going OK and again has identified some areas to work on, even though we haven’t spent as much time on it yet as we would like.

The biggest problem has been that I’ve been doing a mini-tour to support my solo Americana album that I made with Fran Ashcroft last year. I’ve been travelling through northern England with it, starting at a very nice club in Birmingham and finishing up with a hometown gig in Manchester.

Anyway, I digress! Playing the guide tracks has been a boon in confirming that the songs are going to be in the right order and with enough variety to hopefully keep the listener interested. I think we’ve made the right choice to go for a running order that builds the record to a couple of climaxes rather than go for the modern approach of putting the most likely singles up first. After all, with CDs and mp3s people can easily change the running order if they think we’ve got it wrong.
We’ve needed to pick our times at the rehearsal room carefully to avoid spillage from the other rooms – at one time we used to practice there next to an enthusiastic young band we named the hamster stranglers, on account of their singer’s approach to getting his lyrics across.

What it has brought to the forefront of our planning though is that, when we go there to record the drum tracks, we better have exclusive use of the whole site.

I’ll update you on that, which is the exciting first step of actually tracking the record itself, next time.

All the best for now.

Tempo and keys

2008-08-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

It’s been a busy couple of weeks – not least because the side project with the girl singer has taken off and we signed a publishing contract for some of the material. So, a confidence boost, and a distraction!

Work in the rehearsal room has concentrated on two aspects – key and tempo. I want this album to sound energetic and I need my voice to be stretched to get high levels of energy into my performance. So, much of the work with the new songs has entailed raising the key a few semitones until they sound just right – vibrant but not strained.

Similarly, we’ve been trying out the tempo of the songs to keep them bouncy but not frantic – bearing in mind that you don’t want an album of a dozen tracks all at the same tempo (or in the same key).

So, we’ve expended plenty of sweat with only a few changes to show for it. However, these are hopefully the few changes that will make all the difference to the end product.

The next step is going to be to record the guide tracks and, when we’ve lived with those for a couple of weeks, start tracking the album properly. Since my studio is in a residential area I can’t record live drums there – but my equipment is portable so I plan to set it up in our rehearsal room and get the drums tracked there.

I’ll let you know how this plan works next time.

Running Order for the new Sharp Practise album

2008-07-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

My topic this time is running order and guide tracks.

I’m pretty keen on getting the right flow to the new album. We’ll kick it off with Hook In My Heart – it’s a song we’ve played live, already made a video for and has some success with in that it’s reached number 37 on the UK's original weekly unsigned chart.

Next up will be another song we’ve played live, Question of Love, so we keep that recognisable rock edge to the start of the album before we branch out a little. We’ll go via Nothing Is More, which is more a travelling band kind of song, and My Revolution, which is an acoustic style track to Monsoon Rain, which is the nearest we’ll get to world music in a prog rock sort of way. Thinking about it, I’d quite like My Revolution to segue into Monsoon Rain.

We’ll put the ballad Girls Don’t Look in next I think, then I want us to go all jangly guitar on Bring On The Summer, moving through a more British sounding I Will Decide to the fast acoustic bitterness of Screw The Earth.

We’ll bring the album home with the anthemic Sound Of Rock, followed by the lush strings of the rock ballad As I’ve Come To Know and finishing with a bouncy version of Season Of The Rose, another song we’ve been playing live.

So, now it’s time to take this plan to the band, and the rehearsal room, and try it out to see if it works!

I’ll update you on this next time.

The twelfth song

2008-06-26T09:32:00.001-07:00

So, this article is going to be about the choice of songs. As promised!

I’ve gone through all the contenders and picked out the eleven songs that best suit what the new album is going to be about, which is sensible but not virtuoso playing, topical subjects for the lyrics, a bit of social comment and something about relationships.

All of which left me with a strong collection of songs and some contrast, but one area where I wanted to draw a deeper distinction between light and shade. I felt the album really needed a ballad – not a big production, wailing solo type of song, more of an understated, piano and guitar piece.

I’ve always been a big fan of Maria McKee, right back to the Lone Justice days, so I turned to her music for inspiration. I think I’ve got the right piece now, a short ballad based on a piano part. It’ll be nice to feature the ivories for a change, as the keyboard player in the band I rarely get the chance to push my playing to the fore – I might even get to play some of the black notes. (For those non-rock band keyboardists out there, if the guitarist is playing power chords or chugging along on first and fifths it helps if the keyboard player leaves the third note of the chord, usually the black note, alone).

Anyway, Girls Don’t Look For Love is now all set and completes the set of twelve songs for the album.

Next time I’ll talk about running order and guide tracks.

Cheers,

Movement in a mix

2008-06-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I did promise to talk about the final choice of songs for the new record this time but I’m still working on the twelfth song and I want to talk about that in detail so I’m going to veer off slightly at a tangent and tell you about getting movement into a mix.

As you know, I’m working on a side project involving a girl singer. One of the pieces we’re working on has a synth pad and also some lovely backing vocals that echo the main melody line in places.

Synth pads – aren’t they great for solidifying a track and making it boring? Well, my approach to this problem was two-fold – (a) make sure it sits under the more rhythmic parts so that it is a colour part and not a feature i.e. make it do what it’s designed to and (b) when the rhythmic parts stop and the synth pad part emerges, ride the faders so that the pad appears to move from right to left and then back again across four bars. The easy way to do this is record the part across two tracks and then play with the levels at the appropriate moment.

As for those backing tracks, again a bit of forward planning is required but here’s my recipe. Put four tracks down, two to be mixed in different areas of left of centre, two for use right of centre – that gives a left to right movement (department of the obvious strikes again). Here’s the twist though – add different reverbs to ach of the left hand parts , and mirror this with the right hand parts, so the backing vocals also move front to back. Simple enough to plan and record, and a really good feeling of movement to add interest to your mix.

I’ll keep my promise about the choice of songs next time. Happy music making!

Mixing in practice

2008-05-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry I’m a bit late with this entry – it’s been a busy week. I got called in to do the Sunday live show on BBC Radio Manchester – I played three songs live and took part in a discussion about current events with a local politician and a comedienne. It all got a bit lively when we started off about the Sex and The City movie…

Anyway, this side project I’m involved with is with a girl singer – I’m the music writer working with a lyricist and acting as the engineer/producer on the sessions.

There’s a three song demo coming out of this and the important thing is to showcase the songs, so one of the keys is to get the balance right between an emotive performance and a clearly sung lyric. That takes a bit of psychology with the singer, and I find that if the performer understands what the song is saying then the appropriate performance follows. It certainly has in this case – what was a recital of words suddenly took on a life of its own.

Since any artist covering the songs will put their own spin (and producer) to work on them I’ve kept the featured instrumentation to a minimum – no long guitar solos need apply.

Also, no signature effects – more of a balance engineer’s role, making sure every instrument can be heard, is in its own place and space (left/right, back/front) and with the vocal sat into the song so that it is featured but doesn’t dominate.

All of which makes me think it’s easier to play something than say something!

I’ll be talking about the final choice of songs for the new album in the next entry in this saga, so please check back in a couple of weeks’ time.

Cheers,

My theory of mixing

2008-05-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

I always like to take my time mixing – usually as much time as I’ve taken to get the songs down on the recording machine in the first place. Also, I like to be in the mood to mix – I don’t like to start when it seems like it’s a chore.

Like everyone I guess I’ll start with a reference mix. In other words, I’ll pull all the faders up to unity and remind myself of exactly what I have got recorded and available to play with.

I tend to start my mixes from the back; in other words I’ll get the drums sorted first, then add the bass, then the backing parts like rhythm guitar, keyboard pads etc, before adding the main vocals. After I’m happy with the individual sounds, the spacing and the relationship between all of those parts I’ll start seeing when lead instruments, backing vocals etc should fit.

The one thing I tend to always have in mind is the end product. How does this song link to the previous and next one on the album? Should it stand alone or stand out? In which case, which instruments need to be featured? What is the core of the song and do I actually need the seventeenth overdubbed guitar part – does it add anything to the arrangement or sound?

So, that’s the theory. I’ll talk through the practise with an example from a side project I’ve been working on recently – but that’s for next time!

See you then.

The melody palette

2008-04-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised to talk about melody and the mix so here goes.

My starting point is the guitar, since it’s the basic instrument on which most of my writing is done. I’ll be looking to layer a couple or three guitar parts on most songs on the new record; some of those parts will be on the acoustic and it tends to give a better contrast of tone and playing style than too many overdubs of electric guitars.

I do like, however, to get the grittier guitar parts down with their distortion and reverb settings already chosen. As you know, a part with distortion, or a great deal of sustain, tends to be played in a different way to guitar parts without those treatments. Adding them afterwards makes the part sound pretty weird and I like to avoid that.

Similarly, if I am adding a little distortion to a keyboard part I like to have it in there from the start; again, it does affect your playing style.

However, I’ll always hit the bypass button on reverb settings for vocals. I like to leave them untreated (although I will set up a reverb in the monitor mix, again because it’s so much better to perform the song in a more natural sounding environment) because I use reverb as one of the ways to sit a vocal in the final mix.

I’ll talk about mixing in the next instalment. Cheers for now.

A palette of sounds - part one

2008-03-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

I promised to talk more about what might be described as the palette of sounds from which we aim to compile the next record so it sounds like an album and not a collection of sounds.

I guess the first place to start is in space – or at least with reverb. One trick I picked up from working at New Rising was the concept of close and ambient miking the drums. So, in addition to separate mics for the snare, bass, hi-hats and a couple of overheads for the rest of the kit I’ll look at also using a couple of ambient mics to pick up the overall sound of the kit in the room. One of the reasons live recordings sound so different from the studio is of course that the onstage mics pick up reflected sound from the venue, hence you seem to get more depth to the sound. Logically, the same approach, using ambient mics, should help get a fuller drum sound in the studio.

Bass sounds traditionally have little artificial reverb added to them – I see the consistency here coming more from getting the EQ and compression right. I like to get as good a sound as I can at source and then any changes during mixing can be purely for creative purposes.

I also like to keep the rhythm section working together, so I try to tie in what the bass drum sounds like with what the bass guitar sounds like (and the left hand of any keyboard instrument too) to get that sonic cohesion I keep banging on about.

I’ll talk about the melody instruments and the overall mix next time.

Bye for now.

Making a series of songs sound like an album

2008-02-27T09:09:00.001-08:00

This time I’m going to talk some more about making a record sound like an album rather than a compilation of songs. One of the key components in this has to be the choice of sounds.

Sharp Practise has been pretty eclectic over the years, in that we’ve dabbled with every influence from heavy rock to folk, with one or two diversions along the way. In that respect the mix has been quite healthy, but underpinning it all has been something that has defined the band’s work. I guess it’s to do with the sound.

Whatever the style of playing, the drums have been in the same room from one song to another, the guitar sound has been based on the same instrument and amp combination from track to track etc. This has pulled the work together and given it shape and an identity.

So, in preparing the new record, it’s clearly going to be an important step to decide what sounds should be in the palette. Judging by the material, it’s going to turn out a contemporary, rock album, so we’ll need to steer clear of some of the more classic sounds such as Hammond organ or saxophone as featured instruments. The guitars will need to be crisp and clear, and the long-hair solos will have to be kept to a minimum!

I’ll talk some more about this next time, because it is such an important part of the process. Catch you then.

Working up a song with a band

2008-02-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

One of the great advantages of working with a band is that you’ve got other musicians to bounce your ideas off. Sometimes this will result in them picking up your song and taking it off in directions you never intended.

With a bit of common sense all round, and a willingness on a writer’s part to experiment, this is usually a good thing. For example, if you’re locked into thinking ‘this is a rock song’, and you’ve got three verses all rumbling along doing much the same thing, it might not occur to you to try another genre mid-song.

Then someone in the band plays a verse funk style, or reggae style, and whoosh, off you go with that verse in the unexpected direction. Great if it’s done for variety and the end result is still recognisably related to the rest of a song. Disconcerting if the stylistically different verse feels like it’s been parachuted in.

How do you tell whether that’s the case? I guess it either is or it isn’t, and your instinct tells you if the change of style works or not.

Of course, other ideas may come up from jamming the song, such as an overall speeding up or slowing down of the song, or a mid-song tempo change. Again, I guess experience tells you when these ideas work and when not.

As long as you don’t overdo the variety and as long as the band don’t want co-writer credits (!), I’d say give any idea a run for its money and see what positive impact it has on your song.

How I go about writing a new song

2008-01-30T09:05:00.001-08:00

So, let’s look at how the song Magnet is shaping up.

When I first had the idea, all I got was the chorus tune and the lyric to go with it, which I soon amended slightly to take out an obvious cliché. However, this early burst had set the key and the tempo of the song, so it made a good starting point. Pacy, punchy, so a good fit for the new album’s overall feel.

The next problem was, OK I’ve got a fixed chorus but how will that work with a verse beside it? So, I approached this from the musical point of view first, and picked out a chord sequence which compliments that of the chorus. Same key, slightly lower register, so the song will pick up in the chorus. So far, so good.

Now we need some words to go with the verse music. The song chorus is about a guy who’s drawn irresistibly to a girl that he knows is bad for him, but he’s got to go to her. No great problem there; think about how to tell that story in sixteen lines of words with a natural break in the storyline half way through.

Next problem – is there a need for a bridge or middle eight? The answer to this came from jamming the track, looking for substitute chords for the verse. And that answer was no, because a natural melodic link part suggested itself that will introduce, break up and close down the song in a way that makes sense in the overall context and yet adds the necessary variety.

So, the job’s a good ‘un, but you’ll have to wait for the album to see exactly how well Magnet turns out!

Last instalment on new songs

2008-01-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m still wittering on about songs this time (although I will change tack next time, promise). I guess it’s because songs are, funnily enough, quite important to a songwriter!

I’m into a batch of new songs now. One, Nothing Is More, is quite powerful and features a through composed verse, which is basically saying that the hook line appears in the last line of the verse rather than in a discrete chorus.

Sound of Rock is more anthemic, yet in an atmospheric way with very sparse lyrics and not a stadium sized sound despite the power of the guitar line. Magnet is still under development but is a traditional melodic rock song with a singalong chorus.

So I’m quite hopeful that I have a good batch of songs as the basic building blocks of the album. Obviously these will need to be polished over the coming weeks and months to form a coherent piece of work.

And I write pretty much all the time, so there may be more to add to the stock while I’m getting the framework of the new record into place.

I’m going to be working on Magnet quite a bit between now and my next entry, so what I thought I’d do is talk through the process of how I write a song – it’s a question songwriters often get asked so I may as well answer it.

See you for the next instalment in a couple of weeks’ time. Keep strummin’!

New year, new songs

2008-01-02T12:05:00.001-08:00

OK, new year, new songs.

I Will Decide is a song that merits consideration for the new record. Although the structure has a lot in common with the Chili Peppers’ approach to song writing, it has a distinctly British feel to it so I think we’ll try to not to lose that Britishness in the arrangement or production of the song.

Now we come to the first big decision. There are two standard rock songs that are vying for one spot on the record. (I’m aiming for a 12 song record, although it’s always handy to have two extra songs in the can either for use as bonus B-sides on singles or for the Japanese market – the Japanese usually demand two extra songs on their version of an album).

So, one of Eyes Grow Dim and Trouble Is will make the album, and the other won’t! Eyes Grow Dim is favourite at the moment, although it will have to be at a quicker tempo than the demo and sounds like it would benefit from having its middle-eight removed. The chorus lyric needs to be simplified too.

Trouble Is needs the hook to arrive earlier, so half the first verse may have to go. Also, it’s middle-eight could do with only being half as long. I guess the thing with both these songs is to keep improving them until we’re satisfied that they really work well, and then make a final decision later about which one makes the cut and which loses out.

More about songs next time. See you then.

More about the new songs

2007-12-11T09:36:00.001-08:00

OK, three more songs to discuss today.

The first is Monsoon Rain. I see this as a focal point of the new record, in that it’s likely to be a longer track and quite a production number. It should be mean and moody, reflecting the tension in the atmosphere before the rains break, and it will sound a bit different from a lot of the more straightforward song structures that we’ve used before.

Next up, I think we need a slower, softer track somewhere on the record to add contrast. Come To Know fits that bill, and this is quite a sad song anyway, with its closing lyric line of “As I’ve come to know, I can’t love anyone”.

The last song I’ll talk about today is a song called My Revolution. The lyrics for this have been inspired by a review of our first album, Hiya, and to keep in spirit with the title of the song the track is in 12/8 time. I think it’s important that we have some contrast with the tyranny of four (4/4 time, four bars in a phrase, four repetitions of a phrase to make a verse etc) somewhere in the new record, so this is an ideal opportunity to break ranks and do something different. It’s a song well suited to a modern rock/pop style, so our existing audience should be able to join the revolution on this occasion.

I’ve loads more songs to talk about, but this will have to wait until the holiday season. I’ll catch you then.

Talking about some songs

2007-11-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

I promised to talk about the songs themselves this week so here goes.

The first to talk about are those which we’ve already played live. These are Hook in My Heart, for which you can grab a video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu89TxqFRZA . Do you like the hat I’m wearing in the video? I’ve taken some stick for that. It’s supposed to make me look like Indiana Jones and some people have accused it of covering a bald head (which it doesn’t!).

The video was filmed by John Wheeler and Tarquin Sutherland of Big Video Productions in the grounds of Alexandra Palace in London last November. Fun to make, and John and T are good people to work with too.

Anyway, Hook has always sounded good live at about a million miles an hour, so I think a faster version of the song may end up on the new album.

The next song to consider is a song called Question of Love, which appears on the Hook EP that we’ve recently released through Turmic Records (http://www.emusic.com/artist/Sharp-Practise-MP3-Download/11680471.html). Again, we’ll remake this recording although I’m pretty content with the arrangement of the song as it stands.

The last song I want to mention today is a song called Season of the Rose. You can get an Americana version of this song on my solo album that Fran Ashcroft produced (http://dittomusic.dloadshop.com/artists.asp?martist=188&gid=) and it also works really well when you put it into a rock arrangement with the full band behind it. So that’s definitely a track worth developing.

Next time I’ll discuss more of the songs that I’m considering for the album. Bye for now.

Getting the concept together

2007-11-15T10:02:00.001-08:00

They say the first thing to remember about making a record is to have the end product in mind from the very beginning. We didn’t apply this tenet to our first album, Hiya, which is an eclectic exploration of many styles from hard rock through to folk. However, everyone seems to like at least one track from it and it does well as downloads of single tracks.

Hiya opened many doors for us. We acquired our webmaster after appearing on Ground Zero TV in Australia, and our website at www.sharppractise.com has won two awards in October.

So, when we came to make our second album, Radiocity, there was a definite decision to make a record in a distinct style. Classic rock suited us best, and classic rock is the only way to describe our last record. Working with well regarded rock producer Mark Daghorn at New Rising Studio was an education and I’ve acquired a few of Mark’s tricks. I’ve also learned many lessons working with Fran Ashcroft – the value of each part having a purpose and how small things make big impacts are two of the most valuable.

Anyway, I want the new record to be a contemporary rock album, with a very modern sound and subject matter. There’s a couple of songs which we’ve already played live that need to brought on to this record, I’ve a few ideas already written that will suit and then it’s down to me to write the ‘missing links’, the four or five songs with this record specifically in mind that will bring the whole piece together.

I’ll talk about the songs in greater detail next time – see you in two weeks!

Making the new Sharp Practise album

2007-11-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's time to get round to making the new Sharp Practise album so I thought I'd put the process into a blog and share the trials and triumphs with a few other people. Hopefully people might find it interesting to read how a record is put together. I'm going to write updates once every two weeks and if anyone wants to comment along the way about any aspect of the blog they can contact me via admin@sharppractise.com .

The idea is to make a twelve song record, all original songs, and record it in my own studio in Wigan. I've just taken delivery of a Yamaha AW2400, 24-track digital machine, to upgrade from my old Fostex DMT-8. The old machine has been great – I made my solo album Book Of Days on it (with a great deal of inspiration from my producer Fran Ashcroft) and we only took the material to a bigger studio to add some analogue warmth and make the final mixes.

I'm feeling very upbeat about the whole recording process. Apart from the good results achieved from my engineering the solo record (dusting down some long forgotten skills from early in my career in music) I've just made some demos with a cracking local girl singer called Claire Pilling. Although self-praise is no recommendation, the results are better than some I've heard from so-called professional studios.

On top of which I'm still on a high from the band winning a UK New Music Award this month. Anyway, that's it for today – I'm off to sort some songs out and that will be the topic of my next blog entry in two weeks' time