Fundamental Elements

Making A Tune

lukedejaynes January 28th, 2008
2 comments

So, in the spirit of documenting this recording process, I (Luke) found out that a lot of people are curious about how a song is put together and recorded in the studio….  So I thought I’d share with you a short step by step process of what a typical day in the life of a song looks like @ the studio. 

   The first step before we hit the studio is Pre Production.  We get together with our producer Stephen, and play him the song and parts we have written.  Then after he hears it a few times, he starts giving his suggestions for tweaking, and editing the song and individual parts.  This helps “trim the fat” before we get into the studio, so we maximize recording time. 

   Once in the studio, the first thing to happen is, we all agree on a tempo to make a “click track”.  Basically, we find the tempo that works best for the song and play along to a “click” track to help us stay at the exact tempo while recording the song, so we don’t speed up or slow down.  (usually speed up, right boyz….) 

   After getting the click set, we assume our battle positions.  We all play together just like we would in a live show, except we are in separate rooms, so the sounds will stay isolated from each other.   Mark and I are usally in the same room with headphones because it is important that the bass and drums be as together as possible.  We play the song from top to bottom with the full band, but we are really looking for bass and drum tracks.  Everything else will be re-recorded after we have the drums and bass we want.   Usually we play the song 5 or 6 times, until Stephen decides it “feels” good.  Then, he will go in and edit the best parts of each take to make the best performance.  He’ll also tweak any imperfections in the performance (not that I ever perform less than perfect.  ahem.. ahem.. right.)    

Then after the drum parts are perfect, we’ll punch in any spots where Mark may want to fix bass.  But we try to get as much on the first pass because we have the energy of playing together.  Plus we are brothers, so Mark and I follow each other well.

  After Mark has finished bass, we usually re-record the primary guitar part.  Then they can focus on finding the perfect tone for the part.  Joe has a few guitars, amps, and pedals to pick from, and to get even more possibilites, Stephen has an arsenal of amps and guitars as well.  So we usually spend the next bit of time “auditioning” guitars and amps to find the perfect combination for the tone we want.  Then Joe will lay down his part, a section at a time (verse/chorus), and usually end up doubling his parts with a 2nd guitar.  Joe likes lots of hi-hat in his headphones!

Next we do keyboards.  Dustin records his normal parts, but at the same time while recording, we take MIDI (digital) information from his keyboards into the computer.  This allows us to pick different sounds (piano,organ, rhodes) after the part is recorded, and we can experiment with sounds even after the part is recorded.  Dustin usually takes 1/2 the time of the rest of us to record….

Then finally after Russ has been sitting in a coma for 8 or 9 hours, he gets to start the vocal parts.   When recording the drum tracks, Russ will sing a “scratch vocal” track just so everyone can keep their place in the song, but when it is time to really record the vocals, they bust out the super expensive microphones, and stick him in a room.  (although, one of Russ’ “scratch vocals” was so amazing we ended up keeping it for the final cut of a song, I won’t tell you which one!)  Russ usually sings the song 4 or 5 times through and then comes in with stephen, to pick out the best parts of each performance, to build the best track. 

At this point we go in and add any fun extras like hand claps, tamborine (which Russ rocks) or other randomness. 

From there we move on to a new song, and in the end, they will all get mixed, mastered, and put into your CD collections forever.  Hopefully you will get to see some more video footage of the process I just described,  because it’s way more humorous than it sounds.     Hopefully this gives you a glimpse into our world of making this record we are so excited about… stay tuned for more.

Luke