As industry insiders, we sometimes forget that when discussing
the recording process, the rest of the world really has no idea
what we are talking about. Hopefully this will provide an
explanation of the song formation process in layman?s terms so
that there may be less disconnect between the professional and
the consumer.
As with any creative process, there is no absolute hard and fast
procedure that must be followed stringently, but there is a
logical development that all recordings must go through, which
includes: Composition Arrangement Recording Editing Mixing
Mastering That being said, this is an explanation of that
general process and what takes place during each of these steps.
Composition Composition is really where a song or piece is born.
Preceding this step may be brainstorming and idea formation, but
the song actually begins to take a real form and become an
entity in itself during this stage. This is what separates ideas
and melodies floating around in the air from actual well-formed
songs. There isn?t a whole lot to be said concerning
Composition, other than it consists of forming a melody (and
often basic accompaniment) that flows chronologically from a
start to a finish. Lyrics (if applicable) will also likely be
written at this time.
Arrangement Arranging is taking the Composition that has been
created and determining what instruments will be used for the
recording, writing the parts that those instruments will play,
and the tempo (speed, beats per minute) that the song will be
played in. To best illustrate this point, think of the song
?What a Wonderful World.? The most famous version of this song
is arguably the one sung by the great Louis ?Satchmo? Armstrong.
Compare this to the Ramones version of the same song. Both are
based on the same Composition, but with entirely different
results based on the fact that they are Arranged differently
using very contrasting instrumentation and are at vastly
different tempos. (You can use any number of examples to
illustrate this principle; ?Yesterday?, ?Happy Birthday?, etc.).
Arrangement, as with Composition, may range anywhere from
informally assigning parts to instruments to drafting the parts
using musical notation, all dependent on the preferences of the
arranger and the formality of the project.
Recording Now we start to get a little more technical. The term
Recording is often used to refer to this and the following three
steps as a whole, but for simplicity?s sake, the term Recording
is used here to mean ?putting performances to tape? (or as is
the case now, a digital format). This is also referred to as
Tracking, Cutting Tracks, etc. Recording Studios have long been
somewhat of a mystery to industry outsiders, but basically what
takes place during Recording is microphones and various
(expensive) sound altering equipment are used to capture a sound
being produced in an acoustically tuned room or environment and
storing that sound information onto some sort of media (be it
magnetic tape, a computer hard drive, or, in the old days,
acetate discs). Generally, a process called Multi-Tracking is
used for commercial recordings in which each microphone (and
hence, each sound, be it vocals, guitar, or cello) is printed
discretely to the storage media to be manipulated at a later
time. To simplify it a bit, the ?normal? stereo recording that a
consumer would hear is comprised of two tracks or channels, the
Right and the Left. During the Recording or Multi-Tracking
stage, there are virtually innumerable quantities of tracks or
channels that can each be controlled separately from the other
tracks. For instance if you have recorded a vocal part on one
track and a guitar part on another, because they were recorded
discretely in a Multi-Track setting, the volume of the vocals
can be increased or decreased without affecting the sound or
volume of the guitar track whatsoever. In a typical session,
what you would be left with after completing the Recording stage
is any number of discrete tracks each containing an instrument.
An example of a track listing for a rock song might be: Track 1:
Kick Drum Track 2: Snare Drum Track 3: High Tom Track 4: Low Tom
Track 5: Overhead Left Track 6: Overhead Right Track 7: Bass
Guitar Track 8: Electric Guitar Track 9: Acoustic Guitar Track
10: Keyboard Left Track 11: Keyboard Right Track 12: Lead Vocals
Track 13: Background Vocals Meaning that each of these tracks
had a microphone assigned to it for the specific purpose of
recording the desired source. (Notice that tracks 1-6 are for
various parts of a typical drum set). Also (not to complicate
things further, but?) these instruments need not be recorded at
the same time. The bass guitar player could record his/her part
on Thursday, and the vocalist might lay down tracks a week
later. Basically, because they are on separate tracks, the
musicians do not have to be playing at the same time or even in
the same place to create a finished product that sounds like
they were looking right at each other. This also enables a
multi-instrumentalist to record all the instruments themselves
and create their own ?virtual? band where they are the only
member.
Editing Had this exercise been written 15 years ago, I would not
have included Editing as its own section as it generally takes
place during Recording and Mixing on an ?as needed? basis. But
with the evolution and general industry acceptance of digital
and non-linear recording formats, Editing has become a much more
important and functional stage in the creation of a musical
work. Simply put, Editing consists of changing the original
recording by way of altering the timing, pitch, or speed of an
individual track, or tracks to change the performance. One such
common practice is referred to as ?comping.? Comping is the idea
of recording multiple takes of one instrument with the intent of
compiling all of the takes into one cohesive take for the
purpose of eliminating errors or creating a ?perfect? take. For
instance, a vocalist may sing the same part over and over again
making mistakes in different parts on each take. Rather than
continuing to search for a complete perfect take, or settling
for the best take and having to live with the mistakes, the
recording engineer (the guy turning all the knobs ) will
choose the best take and then after identifying each mistake
within that take, pull the line, phrase, word, or even syllable
from another take where the mistake did not occur and paste that
into the correct spot on the best take essentially eliminating
the mistake and making it sound like it was performed and
recorded without it. Digitally, this process is simple and can
be completed with just a couple of mouse clicks. Using analog
tape, it becomes much more cumbersome and requires a series of
meticulous tasks to record to a third track while muting and
un-muting the source tracks, or pulling out the old razor blade
and slicing away. This is just one example of the use and
purpose of Editing. To go into the virtually infinite uses would
be long and redundant as the editing limits in the digital
domain are nearly limitless.
Mixing The Mixing stage is necessitated by the differences in
the format that is used in the Recording stage and the format
that the end consumer is able to use. If you recall, when we
finished the Recording stage, we were left with (for example) 13
different tracks, each with it?s own instrument. Each of these
tracks by now has been edited to contain the best possible
performance during the Editing stage, but they are still
individual tracks and not one cohesive song that a consumer can
pop in the CD player. For argument?s sake, we will only discuss
Mixing down to stereo and not touch upon surround sound, 5.1,
7.1, 9.1, or any other format as stereo is currently the most
generally accepted format (for now?). Mixing is the process of
taking all of these individual tracks (in our example, 13) and
by way of using sound altering effects, changing volumes, and
manipulating perceived position Left and Right (panning),
creating a stereo (two track) recording. Think of it in terms of
a funnel. The individual tracks are the wide end, and they must
be brought together to form two tracks (the narrow end). Again,
we will not go into the intricacies of Mixing in practice, but
in order for all of the tracks to sound good together (play nice
kids?), they must be twisted, manipulated, affected, squashed,
and combed so that they sound just right and like they are all
playing together in one space just for the listener instead of
all separately and in padded booths like they actually were.
Once this is accomplished, we are left with a stereo (two track)
recording with all the instruments sounding great together and
the song is nearly finished.
Mastering This is the final and most often overlooked step in
the song creation process. In fact, if you were to ask a group
of musicians what mastering is, chances are a good portion would
not be able to tell you what it is and why it is so important.
Essentially, Mastering is preparing the final stereo recording
for commercial consumption by pumping it up to a usable volume
and making sure that the song will sound good on any sound
system it plays on, from a home theater system that costs
thousands of dollars, to your little tiny, terrible laptop
speakers. Mastering is most important if you have multiple songs
and are creating an album or if you are preparing your recording
for commercial release. This is because when the Mixing stage is
complete, the stereo recordings you are left with were mixed to
sound good on the speakers that they were mixed on regardless of
how that sound translates to other spaces and speakers. Also, in
the case of making an album, you don?t want Song #1 to be a
whole lot louder than Song #2 or even Song #15. Have you ever
listened to a CD where you were constantly adjusting the volume
just to maintain a consistent pleasant playback level? This is a
CD that has not been mastered (or was mastered poorly). The same
applies for making the songs sound like they belong together in
that you don?t want one song to sound ?tinny? (a.k.a. too much
high end equalization) and another ?boomy? (a.k.a. too much low
end). So that explains why Mastering is important for album, but
what about commercial releases? Imagine if your un-mastered song
were on the radio between two wonderfully mastered songs. You
would get swallowed up. Your song may be too quiet, or have too
much low end and basically just sound unprofessional by
comparison. As mentioned before, Mastering will also make sure
the final product sounds good no matter where it is played or
what system it is played on. When making a presentation of your
final product to a client, record label, or even friend, you
don?t want to say, ?Sorry, I can only play this through Yamaha
NS-10 speakers.? And you certainly don?t want to be taken by
surprise and find out that it sounds bad everywhere but in the
studio.
So there you have it. The real deal on how a song is created
from Composition to Mastering and now the final product. No more
mystery and technical jargon. So now that the cat is out of the
bag, everyone can do it all on his/her own right? Wrong. Just
knowing an automobile works on an internal combustion engine
doesn?t mean you can start building your own cars. Audio
professionals have spent years learning what to listen for and
how to make things sound ?right.? Not information that can be
gained in a four-page discourse. Contact your local audio
professional to get your project started, but at least now,
you?ll know what you?re in for.
About the author:
Ben Blakesley is the Chief Engineer for Philadelphia based
Javboy Records, which specializes in creating custom music
solutions for production. Visit them at www.javboyrecords.com
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