The Recording Of Secret Love
Yesterday, I went to Sound Vision Studio to record the second song for my new album, Secret Love. Pepijn had graciously offered to drive my car-less ass over there, watch my back and take pictures. Here’s what happened:
The Most Important Ritual
Arriving in Arnhem right on time (how very un-musician-y of us), we are met by studio owner George Konings. The man has the calm demeanor of a brain surgeon who would operate with a steady hand, even while the building around him is being ripped apart by a tornado. After our hello’s, he takes us into the studio café for that most important of morning rituals: coffee. I gave up drinking the stuff some time ago, but my childlike the-night-before-Sinterklaas* anticipation has robbed me of a good deal of the previous night’s sleep. I say that calls for an exception - I need the boost.
*Saint Nicolas… short explanation: the Dutch version of Christmas
Everything’s Bigger Here
After coffee, we are taken into the main recording room, which is apparently big enough to fit 90 people. Today it will just be me. Me… and a ginormous piano (a Yamaha C7, 2.23 meters long). Goerge has already set up the piano with four mics - one at the tail end for the basses, two different mics near the front for the high notes (to keep our options open) and another one further away to capture the ambient piano sound. Last thing to do is to prep a mic to record my vocals with. We go with an AKG SolidTube, which is the big, nay, massive brother of the mics I use at home. It’s actually a bit intimidating to face a microphone that is the size of your head!
Me behind the piano. Note the head-sized microphone.
Crawling Deeper And Deeper
After a brief sound check, George gives me the go ahead for the first take. “This is the easy part”, is the blatant lie I tell myself before I start playing. I manage to get most of the way through that first take before I once again realize that recording stuff is actually the hardest part of what I do. Fortunately, after every take there is that calm voice on the head phones telling me to push a little here, give a little there and helps me crawl deeper and deeper into the feel of the song. In my mind, we did forty takes, but I believe the actual number was more like ten or twelve (I didn’t have the heart to ask).
The Perfect Take
At around lunch time (assuming you are the kind of person who has lunch at one), my part of the job is basically over. Now it is up to George to take the best of everything we’ve recorded and make one ‘perfect’ take out of it. The one I would have played if I was some infallible super-human instead of the mere mortal singer you all know and love. I wouldn’t dare cutting together what are basically five different live performances with no reference whatsoever, but our man pulls it off in no time. Then it is break time, because our producer needs to clear his head.
The Dolby Machine
After the break, we get to the mix. My voice is pulled first through an analog compressor that is ten years older than me (meaning it was built in ‘68) and then through what George calls The Dolby. I still haven’t figured out what the thing does exactly, other than that my voice sounds a lot sweeter after. Each and every new machine comes with a story just long enough to pass the time we have to wait for recording the analog effects. There’s certainly a lot of toys in this store! The coolest has to be the real plate reverbs we end up using on the piano. Step by step, we hear the song grow until, at around five, the mix is done. Time to head home.
Is that really me I’m hearing?
The story hasn’t finished yet. I have some time to give feedback on the mix, before George will send me the final master. Once the master is in, patrons will be able to download the finished song and I will probably also release this as a single… until that time, you can check out the pre-master mix here.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed!
