OK, we are making our first CD. Rock Star Daughter went to the first recording session last week. She is making a "scratch track." A scratch track is a recording that is unlikely to be used in the final product -- hence the name, scratch. The producer had her record both her acoustic guitar and vocals to a click track. A click track is a metronome sound that allows you to seamlessly integrate new music over old. This scratch track will be used as a base for other professional musicians to play along with so Rock Star Daughter will be able to come back to the studio and record a final vocal track over the complete instrumentation.
Now, for the background. Rock Star Daughter quit her band a while ago (see Why Bands Break Up for more about this phenomenon.) Let's just say they didn't have the same goals. So, she is doing this project pretty much solo. Part of the reason for her doing this now is to be able to find other kids like her and be able to say, "this is the type of music I am interested in, are you in?" The other part is for her to get experience. My part of this whole thing is to try to learn to do what it takes to successfully promote the Indie project.
Finally, this summer she played in a garage band with this producer, who has had a top 20 hit on the Billboard Charts and a long and wide musical career, and he suggested that she was ready. He said that her songwriting and voice was mature for her age, that she was vulnerable, not canned, and that her young age would likely get interest. She also had great pitch and timing. (If your daughter or son wants to be a singer, give them drum lessons in elementary school for four years!)
So we started this roller coaster ride. We are paying a minimal fee for the producers time and for the session players who will play with her. We will own the master. We will copyright all of the songs (with two of them co-written by her old bandmates. At least one of the old bandmates will play a track on both of the songs.) As we go through each stage of the process, I'll try to document it so others can learn as well.
The first thing that I found out is, your first time in the studio is really easy if you only have to deal with one person at a time! My daughter asked her father, Rock Star Dad, to play guitar for her for the scratch tracks. The producer heard Rock Star Dad play, and he plays with finger picking. Rock Star Daughter tends to play power chords. The producer wanted Rock Star Daughter to play everything on the scratch track to help get her sound as "her sound" so the session guys could use that as the base. Some songs, Rock Star Daughter was able to play guitar and sing at the same time, one take. Other songs, she played the guitar and then went back and added the vocals.
One word about the guitar... it is a "once in a lifetime guitar", a truly beautiful one with outstanding attributes. It even has a woman's name inlaid on the fret board. I'm sure it will become her signature guitar.
With her first time hearing the click track, she was able to put out one song every half hour. It turns out that the last song had a problem with the "form" because she did that one first with the guitar and then added the vocals and there were extra riffs in there. It will be easier to go back and do it from scratch again rather than trying to edit them out.
The next session is this week...
(Note: we are not using union players for this. A great article about working with union session players is found here. The guys who will be playing on her CD are friends of the producer. We've heard all of them play and they are excellent. I don't know how common this is? Anyone with more experience, feel free to chime in.)
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