How Do I Record My Song?

What goes into the making of a song that you hear on the radio? When you hear a band play a song live it takes all of 3 - 5 minutes, depending upon the length of the particular song. But how much time is really represented in getting the song to the point that you can hear it performed live or on CD or radio?

Being involved in the live performance and recording industry for most of my adult life I've talked to many people who want to record their band, or they're a wannabe songwriter who wants to produce their song for a demo. Since studios sell studio time by the hour they think one hour is all they need. Hey, it's only a 4 minute song, right? We'll be done in way less than an hour. Wrong!

So what is accurate? What is involved in getting a song from concept stage to a mastered finished product that you hear on CD? Allow me to walk you through the steps involved in the entire process of song creation and production.

It all begins with an idea. I get most of my ideas on my drive to and from the studios where I work. I have a 50 minute commute in the morning and in the evening. All that windshield time and a radio to listen to generally gives me some inspiration. So I come away with ideas. Do they all become songs? No way! Would that it were so, but in reality most ideas never go beyond the idea stage. But sometimes I get a strong idea that doesn't leave me alone. When that happens I usually sit down with my guitar and see if I can take it to the next step. That next step is to develop the melody and lyrics into a rough song with verses, chorus and possibly a bridge. At this stage the song is still an idea. I've done this with many song ideas, only to scrap it when I try to "flesh" it out on guitar. Sometimes it stays with me and later I'm able to do something with it, but most ideas like become forgotten ideas. But sometimes they make it through this next step. What's next?

So I've developed my song idea into rough form. It has the elements of the song, the verses, chorus, and a bridge. There is a melody and chords to carry the melody. Cool! I've written a song! But it still isn't ready to perform with a band or even solo, let alone go into the studio to record it. Assuming the song I've written is good, what needs to happen to record it or perform it live?

The next step is to arrange the song. This is where the exact placement of the verses, chorus and bridge are determined, along with the feel of the song, and the instruments that will make up the accompaniment of the song. The feel of the song will often dictate the instruments employed in the song. The feel of the song is the style it is to performed in. Will it be rock, country, classical, hip hop, urban, r&b, or some hybrid form? Let's say that it's country, since I'm partial to country music. Now we have to determine what kind of country song it's going to be. Will it be country swing, country rock, country ballad, country alternative, or maybe blues country? There's even the idea of pop country! See why I like country so much? Let's say we're choosing country swing for this new song. What instruments to be used?

Country swing uses drums, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar, fiddle, and could use harmonica, piano, mandolin, and any number of other instruments. Before we perform or record the song we need to determine which of these instruments we want to use to effectively produce our song. After we've determined that we have to decide, as part of our arrangement, where each instrument is going to play and exactly how it is to be played. Each instrument has to fit together with the other instruments to provide the feel for the song. Now we need musicians to play those instruments. We could use virtual instruments from a software program, and probably will on some songs and with some instruments, but we're better off to use live players as much as our budget and player availability allows us. Many times we need to write charts for the recording session musicians to use in performing the song for the recording. Most of these things will be done by a producer.

Now you can be your own producer, but I recommend that, even if you are producing your own song, that you get another producer to work with you, and that you are open to what the musicians have to contribute in creativity as well. If you don't have the ability to write either numbers charts or chord charts then you will usually need a producer or arranger to do all that for you, in most cases. If you have your own band that you perform with all the time then you probably don't need charts and as a band you probably have already worked out the arrangement for the song. Now to the recording process.

For the sake of the illustration, let's say your are a songwriter and this is your first rodeo. You contact a recording studio or a producer or musician you know, who may act as a producer and say, "Hey, let's record this song I wrote." This person, let's call him/her "producer," will then begin to help you arrange your song. After a suitable arrangement has been accomplished, you might do a quick synth demo of the song, with the basic rhythm instruments, to give the session players an idea of how you want the song to feel. The charts you write will reflect the arrangement and chords that make up the song. The chart will serve as the "roadmap" for the session musician.

Now we're ready for the first recording session. Yes, I said the "first" recording session. This will be the first of many, unless you're going to spend at least a whole day in studio, maybe longer if you are producing a song for national radio release. But, you say, my song is only 4 minutes long! How can it take a day to produce it? Well let me explain.

The first thing is to record all the basic rhythm instruments. Typically this will be the rhythm guitar, the drums, the bass guitar, and piano. You might possibly record some other instruments at the same time, depending upon studio space and musician availability. But you will still need to do overdubs. Overdubs are the other instruments that will be added to the mix. For the sake of our song we are going to record bass, drums, rhythm guitar and piano for our basic rhythm tracks. Depending upon the quality of the musicians employed, this can take as little as 15 minutes for a typical song, to up to an hour or more. For very inexperienced musicians it could take quite a bit longer. Playing to a click track (like a metronome) to keep tempo steady is very hard for a musician that isn't used to doing that. The session players we usually use at our studios, Sweetwater Productions, are very talented and experienced. They have national album credits included in their resume. Most songs will take 15 to 20 minutes for the rhythm tracks, maybe a little longer for a very intricate track.

So our session players have laid down our rhythm tracks for us. They had a good day and rhythm for our song was finished in 15 minutes. Now on to overdubs. We want to add a pedal steel guitar to our tracks. This can take as little as half hour to much more if the player is not experienced and talented. We also want to add fiddle and harmonica to our tracks. Each of them will be recorded separately so we can focus on getting each instrument just the way we want it. We can spend 3 to 4 hours of studio time getting this completed. Once we have all our instrument tracks recorded we're ready to record our lead vocal. For an experienced talented singer we figure at least an hour to sing a song. It takes a few times through the song to get warmed up and then we hit the record button. We may or may not get anything usable first pass. Seldom is first pass all a keeper. We take several passes and when we get most of it very close we will go back and "punch in" certain sections and focus the singer on just those small sections to get them just right, both performance and pitch wise. Most of the time we record several takes of the song, and several takes of an individual section and then later the producer will select the best of and comp them together to create the final lead vocal track. Then we are ready for background vocals.

This session can easily take an hour to 2 hours, depending on the amount of and complexity of the background vocal parts. The producer will assemble the background singers together and will have parts already planned and charted for them to sing. At this point you can really begin to hear the song sounding more like a finished product. But even after all the recording process is complete, we're still not finished. We have to mix all the elements of the song together.

Mixing is the art of taking each part, recorded on an individual track, and determining how it "sits" in the final mix. We're stirring all the ingredients in the mixing bowl now and we're determining just how much of each is to be allowed to be heard. In the mix stage we set tone, volume, and other dynamic processing of the sounds, and determining what makes it to the final mix and what is left out. This can take as little as an hour, but can take as much as 4 or more hours. Each song is different. Alas, now the mix is done. We're finished, right? Well not quite. We need to master it.

What in the world is mastering? Well mastering is the final stage prior to pressing CD's or putting your song on the internet at CD Baby or your My Space page or some other MP3 download service. Mastering is where the final polish is placed on your song. Good mastering is the difference between a national sounding recording that really punches and a pretty good recording. You want it mastered.

Finally we are done. The song is ready for you to distribute any way you like. Note the number of hours that it takes to end up with a great 4 minute song. It's a blast listening to the finished product, but it is a real rush going through the production process. Once you go through it you can't wait to do it again. So, develop those song ideas. Who knows. You might have the next platinum seller!