| Are you a singer-songwriter based in Southern California?
Would you like to record your songs to sell at gigs and on-line? Have you been having a tough time accomplishing that or been disappointed with the results? Do you have a good feel for what you want to achieve but not for how to do that on your budget? If this sounds like you, you're not alone. Maybe I can help. |
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We singer-songwriters tend to be solitary animals when it comes to our music. We write our songs alone, and we get up and perform them alone at open mics, coffeehouses, and anywhere else we can. Some of us also record our songs alone, though many of us get far from our comfort zones once we get past just laying down a live guitar/vocal or piano/vocal performance.
We may have tried one or more of the common routes to making our recordings, such as:
Whatever approach you or I may choose, we ultimately hope to achieve the level of quality we demand at a cost we can afford. If the results we achieve aren't up to snuff, we're unhappy. If the costs are too much, we may be stuck at the starting line, looking for other options.
I happen to be one of those singer-songwriters who is comfortable with home recording. It wasn't always that way, but I've now been recording for a long time, having my own home studio since the mid-1980s. Suffice it to say I've learned a lot over the years/decades.
Recently, though, I was among a group of singer-songwriters attending a seminar with an established recording engineer who specialized in mixing others' recordings. I was expecting most of the questions for the engineer would be technical, along the lines of studio tips and tricks for achieving various high caliber results. Instead, most of the questions focused on how to get started recording their songs beyond the "work tape" level. What instruments should be added after the guitar and vocal? What parts do you record first in a home studio? And so on.
I should mention that almost everyone in the room already had some level of home studio. Some had produced and released their own recordings, but most were not satisified with the results they were achieving. Others had hired people to produce recordings for them, but they, too, were not satisified with the results they'd achieved.
Separately, I'd heard a few singer-songwriters complaining about having paid good money to record their songs in a way that should have gotten them serious, customized attention to their creative visions. However, when the results were delivered, they were more about the producer's or studio's sound than the singer-songwriter's vision. They weren't looking for canned, radio-ready tracks, but rather something that matched their vision, albeit taking into account the creative and technical experience of the people they were hiring to help realize it (and being radio-ready to boot).
It struck me then that there was something of a void in the area of providing budget-friendly music production and recording services specifically geared toward singer-songwriters. Key requirements of these services would include:
Of course, not every singer-songwriter would need all that. Besides the obvious case of those who had already found a solution that worked for them, some might be comfortable enough with the recording side of things but just need help dealing with instruments they don't play. For example, since most singer-songwriters I know play guitar, they might specifically need help with playing keyboards or playing or programming drums. Or they might need someone to handle a wide variety of specialized instruments, from orchestral strings to ethnic instruments such as the bagpipes.
Before putting out serious money to record their songs, some might also look for help in making sure their songs are strong enough to warrant the investment. It's one thing to bring a song per month to a peer critique group for feedback or to try a couple of songs at an open mic. It's quite another to get in-depth, dedicated feedback on a song, no less to make sure an EP's or album's worth of songs is ready to go.
If you've gotten this far, you probably have a suspicion for what's coming next -- i.e. the notion that I can somehow fill at least some portion of the needs identified above. I also have a suspicion you are a singer-songwriter who hasn't been happy with your recording options thus far. You're correct. Am I, too? If so, let's investigate whether what I can do may be right for you.
As I mentioned above, I am also a singer-songwriter -- or perhaps songwriter-singer as my priorities have gone back and forth at times on those fronts -- who has also been recording for a long time -- probably 35 years or more. I've had my own home studio since 1984 or 1985. Most of my recordings to date have been of my own songs, be that making my own recordings for independent release, demos of my songs to pitch to other artists, or recordings of other artists covering my songs. However, there have also been some project where I've produced, engineered, arranged, played keyboards on, and/or done vocals on someone else's recording. Since I have not actively solicited business in thatlast area, such projects have been few and far between, and always in response to someone else asking me if I'd help them out. My initial creation of this web site in late August 2010 represents the first time I am actively hanging out a shingle to let others know I am available for outside production work.
Here are the key things I bring to the table for helping other singer-songwriters realize their projects:
Perhaps above all, I will bring a consultative approach to your project to try to realize your creative vision. On the one hand, it is ultimately your project, and what you want to achieve must be foremost in the goals for the project. On the other hand, not everyone knows exactly what they want to achieve, and, even if they do, they may not know how to express it. My job is not only to try and understand what you want to achieve, but also to help you figure out what that is if it isn't already crystal clear in your mind. I don't want to make you sound like Mary Chapin Carpenter if what you're going for is a cross between Alanis Morissette and Bette Midler with a bit of "Eleanor Rigby" mixed in. We may have to go back and forth a bit to figure out just what all that means, but that is precisely the nature of what I would strive toward in helping you realize your vision.
You can read more detail about the various packaged services on the Services page of this web site. It might help, however, if I give an overview here.
My expectation at this stage is that there are two key needs I may be able to help singer-songwriters fill. The first, and most likely, is to make a full production recording with multiple instruments and harmony vocals in addition to whatever the singer-songwriter might normally do (e.g. sing and play guitar). The second is to more or less document, but also polish, what they do live. The reason I expect the first need is likely to be more prominent is partly because many singer-songwriters are already comfortable recording simple guitar-vocal demos and partly because most needs for music beyond just documenting a song or trying to solicit live coffeehouse work require fuller productions. For example, if you want a song to be on the radio, generally it needs a full production, and most music listeners are also used to listening to full productions. I'll take these needs in reverse order.
The Singer-Songwriter "Virtually Live" Production package on the Services page is the package that basically takes what you do live with one instrument and turns it into a polished recording. The idea is to capture a solid, natural sounding and exciting, performance, and then put whatever level of sheen on it your style requires. Laying down tracks in a recording studio isn't a very natural thing for many singer-songwriters, so capturing a "natural sounding performance" may be anything but natural in terms of what goes on behind the scenes. For example, it may involve having you sing the song 3-5 times straight through, then creating a natural sounding flow from the best of the takes, tuning any notes in those takes that need it, and adding processing to smooth things out. The idea is to achieve a live-sounding performance, independent of what went on behind the scenes to achieve it.
The Singer-Songwriter Full Production Package goes beyond the "Virtually Live" package to provide the additional instrumental and background vocal tracks that will be sufficient for many recordings. For example, you might use your five instrumental tracks to include your acoustic guitar alongside drums, bass, piano, and electric guitar -- a fairly common configuration for certain types of singer-songwriter recordings. On the other hand, there's nothing saying you have to use the tracks that way. For example, my own recording of "Portadown Rain", which is a Celtic song, used piano, fiddle, cello, Uillean pipes, and frame drum -- it's whatever your song needs. I also recognize that five instrumental tracks and two background vocals may not be enough for all recordings, so additional tracks are available for an extra per-track charge.
In both of these packages, I have avoided using hourly charges. Ultimately, you will want to know how much recording each song is going to cost you, and it is too unpredictable to use hourly charges for creative work. Of course, if I am offering budget-friendly pricing, I have to ensure that the time I will need to devote to projects is commensurate with the cost of my time. It is my expectation, though, that some projects will just need a bit longer than others, and my hope is that things will even out as long as my prices are in the ballpark. Also, because I am using my home studio, and will be doing all the work other than what you, the singer-songwriter on the project, are doing, my overhead is minimal. I won't need to communicate needs to other musicians and vocalists; I will only need to communicate with you. This should create a fairly efficient process.
There are also a number of other packages listed on the Services page. The Full Production Song Demo and Piano/Vocal Demo, respectively are like the first two packages, except that I would do all the singing and playing. While my focus here is offering services to singer-songwriters who want to be featured on their own recordings, these particular packages make similar services available to non-performing songwriters, local or otherwise, who would like my production and, importantly, my singing, on their song demos. At this time, I am not offering general song demo services using other demo singers. I figure there are plenty of options for that already.
I have also listed remote keyboard sessions -- i.e. if you'd like me to play keyboards on a project you're producing somewhere else, and can deal with transferring files electronically -- and e-mail song critiques. These services can be used by anyone anywhere. If you'd like me to play keyboards in person at your local recording studio, home or otherwise, that is also a possibility, but I don't have a packaged service for that, or any number of other things I could do but don't have listed, because there are a number of variables that enter into pricing that kind of service. I'd need more specific information on your project to quote prices on that. In general, if there is something you want that isn't shown as a packaged service, feel free to contact me to discuss your specific needs.
If you're tempted by what you've read here, I encourage you to contact me to discuss your needs at your earliest convenience. Even if you're not ready to move on a recording session just yet, it may be helpful to get some sense of how I might, or might not, fit your project so you can decide if you'll need to find other alternatives. Similarly, from my end, if I find that what I'm offering isn't hitting the mark for most singer-songwriters who might have been interested in my services, perhaps I can adjust what I am offering to come closer.
If you are ready to get recording ASAP, I'd encourage you to contact me all the sooner. As of this writing (late August 2010), I am just starting to offer these services. If they go well as they are being offered right now, I might well be offering them for a long time to come in much the same form as they are outlined now. However, if I find that the projects are taking me significantly longer than I'd budgeted, I might need to raise the price or adjust the packaging. Or if there isn't enough business to keep me going, I could end up going back to a full-time day job, which probably would not leave me sufficient time to offer these services at all.
It may be worth mentioning that I have intentionally priced these services very aggressively (i.e. on the very low end of the range I felt might be feasible). I am hoping I can deliver them efficiently enough to keep them within the budgets of singer-songwriters who might not be able to afford higher-priced options. As with most anything, the more money you have to spend, the easier it is to find services to meet your needs. I am hoping to meet the needs of singer-songwriters whose needs are not being met by the options they've had available to them until now.
Thanks for your time and consideration. I hope to be able to work with you in the near future.
Rick