This is a guest post from Cliff Goldmacher, a songwriter/producer with recording studios in both New York City and Nashville. Along with teaching workshops for songwriters around the country, he’s a regular contributor to EQ Magazine.  For more about Cliff, visit www.cliffgoldmacher.com

As a result of recording and producing literally hundreds of demos, I’ve learned that it is always better to “Prepare and Prevent” than to “Repair and Repent.” Here are a few steps you can take to help make your demo recording experience more successful.

Song Preparation:

It may sound obvious but make sure your song is FINISHED. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had clients come into the studio only to start rewriting a part of the lyric or melody. It is significantly less stressful (and quite a bit less expensive) to write a song when you’re not paying the studio an hourly fee.

You can also benefit from trying a few rough recordings at home before you get to the studio. The simple act of listening back to a song instead of performing it will reveal any weaknesses or issues that need to be dealt with before the studio clock is running. The last of these rough home recordings will become the definitive work tape.

The Rough Recording:

This is any simple, inexpensive recording that you do on a hand-held tape recorder, mini disc player, mp3 recorder, etc. Generally a piano or guitar plus a scratch vocal will do the trick. The key here is not a perfect recording but rather an accurate representation of the song structure. In other words, it doesn’t have to sound great as long as the chords, melody and lyrics are correct. The purpose of this work tape is to provide the demo vocalist and session musicians with a final version of your song that they can learn from.

The Players:

Let’s start with the demo vocalist. It’s always a good policy to get a copy of the work tape and the lyrics to the singer a week or so before the session. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the singer can let you know what key the song should be in to best suit their voice. This way, if you end up recording instrument parts before the singer does their part, you’ll know the correct key. Secondly, the more time the singer has to learn the song, the less time he or she will take to sing the song when the studio clock is running.

When you get to the session, it’s wise to have printed lyric sheets for the engineer, musicians and vocalist. The lyrics should be typewritten and have each chorus written out in full. The reason for this is that you’ll be using these lyric sheets to mark spots that need fixing (or spots on certain takes that you like) and having “Repeat Chorus” written for the second and third choruses won’t allow you to take good notes. The better the notes you take on the lyric sheet while the vocalist is recording, the easier it will be to tell the vocalist what works and what needs to be fixed.

The session musicians do not need a work tape in advance. They will be learning the song from your work tape when they get to the session. You can save a little time by writing a chord chart of the song if it’s something you’re comfortable doing. If not, the session musicians should have no trouble doing it for you quickly using the work tape you bring to the session.

After that, it’s up to the singers and musicians to bring your song to the next level. There’s nothing more fun than listening to world-class musicians and vocalists record a song you’ve written. The more you prepare in advance, the more you’ll enjoy your studio experience.

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both Nashville and New York City. Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News.

Cliff Goldmacher
Website: www.cliffgoldmacher.com
Email: cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com
Phone: 615.320.7233
Biography

The art of producing songs in the studio involves a tremendous amount of patience and focus.  Songwriters should strive to achieve a recording that will be appreciated for many years to come.  Crafting and perfecting your production process is different for everyone.  It’s important to be aware of what works and what doesn’t.  Learn from past experience and always strive to make progress creatively, technically, and professionally.

Today, I want to discuss the importance of using scratch tracks.  Scratch tracks are recorded parts of a song that have not been perfected yet.  They are meant to be rough takes, not to be used in the final mix (although sometimes they turn out to be your best take!).

Scratch tracks are useful as temporary placeholders, while you build the rest of the song around them.  They’re also great for listening back and fine-tuning how you want to deliver the part when you record the final version.  By taking the time to lay down scratch tracks, you can get a better idea of where the recording is headed.  They help you envision a road map for arriving at your final product.

An example would be to record a vocal scratch track early in the tracking process.  The sooner you have the lead vocal in place, the better because it’s often the most important element of the song.  You want to structure the rest of your instrumental parts around the lead vocal.  Having a scratch version in place helps you write parts that don’t interfere with the vocal part, but compliment it nicely.  Once all the other parts have been recorded and finalized, you can go ahead and record the final vocal part.  It’s best to save the final vocal tracking for last so that the singer can draw on inspiration from the all of the instruments and really feel the fullness of the music.

The real advantage to crafting your songs with scratch tracks is for listening back and soaking in your creation in progress.  The process if recording a song often lasts several weeks. During that time, you should be listening to your rough mixes outside the studio- in your car, in your headphones, home stereo, etc. The more you familiarize yourself with every nuance of the performance, the more seasoned you will be when it comes time to lay down the final takes.

Many bands actually take months for pre-production. That is, recording and mixing entire songs as rough drafts before starting work on the actual record. Most independent songwriters don’t have the luxury of endless studio time for drawn out pre-production sessions. However, it’s always a smart idea to factor in extra time for producing your songs with at least some scratch tracking of parts.

Recording multiple takes in pro tools

When recording in Pro Tools, you can easily record multiple takes of a part using playlists.  The playlists feature in Pro Tools allows you to record an unlimited number of takes on a single track.  For each track in a multi-track mix, you activate one playlist – whichever take works best for that part.

To create a new playlist, click on the up/down arrow to the right of the track name.  In the options that popup, choose “New…”.

Give your new playlist a name. Pro Tools automatically names it by adding “.01″, “.02″, “.03″ to the end of the track name. Personally, this naming convention works fine for me, so I generally just keep the suggested name and click OK here.

Re-record the part on a new playlist, and repeat the process each time you want to do another take. When you playback the song, or prepare for bouncing to disk (mix down), select the playlist you want to use by clicking the same arrow you used to create the new playlist.

Playlists in Pro Tools provides an easy way to record scratch tracks before laying down the final take. Record the rough take first, then flip the track to a new playlist when you’re ready for the real thing. Later on, during editing or mixdown, you may decide there were parts of that rough take you liked. You can always flip back to the first playlist, cut the parts you liked, and paste them into the final playlist on that track.

Over to you…

What’s your process for doing scratch tracks, and your method of setting them up using your recording software of choice?