You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Steps To Recording Your 1st Album - #112

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list 7 things to do to get your first album off the ground. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Today we're going to give you the seven steps you need to record your first album. Interesting. So are we going to record an album to do this? Are we just listing things we've already done? We're just going to list them. And it's amazing that we can shove everything into seven steps.

You know, whatever is. It's remarkable that, what a remarkable coincidence that so many topics in jazz require just seven steps. Exactly. So we thought this would be fun Maybe to inspire some of you that are thinking about Or have always thought about recording an album And haven't done it a little bit You know

Thought it was a little bit too daunting of a endeavor to do Adam both you and I have recorded quite a few albums You know for labels for ourselves With other artists even produced albums and engineered and stuff So we have a little bit of experience And we know how much it takes to do it So we really do it So we really did want to, all jokes aside, kind of break it down into some actionable steps and areas so that you can do it.

Because I think whether you're professional, semi-professional, amateur, student, it's a great thing to do. And I even hate those titles because if you're a jazz musician or just a musician, a creative musician, and you have something to say, this is our equivalent of writing a book. And you don't have to be William Shakespeare to write a book. Believe me, I've read plenty that aren't, you know. But you have something to say. Everybody, especially in the jazz world, because this is a creative and provisatory music. And it's just a great thing to have. And even in this day and age, I think it's still important to actually have an album.

I mean, whether or not it's a CD or online is a whole other discussion. But there's something magical about making that musical statement. And it can really inspire you to create or to kind of bring across to the finish line, maybe some music you've been working on, some really learning a tune, and it's just a great thing to kind of have on the books and then start to plan out. I always think of it as a way to learn more about yourself

and about your music. I mean, it's a great step in growth, making an album. I'm sorry? No, I mean, you learn all these skills that become handy in every other thing you do. Right, right, right. Okay, so let's start with, the way we kind of broke this down

is in seven different kind of areas, and the first ones are questions. So the first one is why. You know, why are you making the record? And this is going to sort of guide you on hopefully onto the later steps. So this is a good one, you know, kind of keep these in order if you can. So that's like why. You know, what do you want to use it for?

Is it going to be promotional? Is it going to be like a musical statement? Is it a suite that you're writing a composition? Is it, you know, do you want to do it to get gigs or whatever? So I think it's good to kind of think about that. Yeah, this is a great first step because it really does. does kind of help you steer where the rest of this is going to go. You know, this is the most kind of important part about doing anything is, why am I doing this?

No, it's a good question to ask. You know, I ask it down to like, why do I play this voicing? Do I like this voicing? It's just something I just know. Yeah. You know, why am I making this album? I'm making it just because to make it, do I really want to make this particular album? Why am I doing it this way?

It's a great question. I've actually been using the why question for some positive changes in my life. life. I meant to tell you, Adam, I don't know if this is appropriate to throw it in in the middle of this. No, please, please. Yeah, but like with the why, why am I ordering this large chocolate shake from steak and shake, you know, day after day? That's a great question. And so when I started asking myself that, I was like, you know, it ended up kind of changing some behavior, so that's a nice thing. I'm guessing to bury feelings. That's why I do it. Barry my spine, yeah, exactly. Okay, and so I would just say, too, from this first question, you may, the why may lead you to, I'm not going to do the record.

If it's like why, because it's expected of me, that would probably not be, because this is going to cost you some money most likely. It's definitely going to cost you some time to get through all this. So you want to make sure the why makes sense in your development and your lifestyle and your place and your journey. And when you answer the why question, it's going to lead to the next one, which is the what? You know, why am I doing this? Is it to make my musical statement? Okay, then what? What is that statement?

What are we doing here? What kind of music do I want to make? What kind of mark do I want to leave? What is this album going to be? Yep. And I mean, yeah, and the what can be about, you know, are you doing arrangements of tunes? Is there kind of a theme or whatever? What are you trying to, with the why, like what, if it's about promotion and really getting you into other gigs or to a certain tour or whatever, it's like, well, what am I going to

record then? And that's going to really start to lead to some interesting musical decisions, I think. Artistic decisions. This is an interesting time to have. this episode because I'm actually in the process of releasing my own trio record. And it's the first trio record I've ever made with my friends Montes Coleman and Bob DeBoo. And the why? Well, the why started out.

You know, we had this weekly gig and it was like, oh, well, why we recorded? Well, we have these arrangements and it would be nice to have something to like sell the people on the gig and document what we've been working on. But that quickly turned into like why, because we have a musical voice now. This is after a year of playing together. And that has changed the what to where I've, you know, the music that we've been working on, I've started to add elements besides just the acoustic trio that we recorded. I've been really getting into, you know, working on the production side of things

and sort of turning this into something a little bit different than I originally had in mind. So this why question that leads to this what is a very important part of shaping it. And it's turned it into a much more exciting project. That's great. And I love what you said about documenting. I think that that's a good enough why answer at times. Like when you're already doing something and you're like, wow, this has some value to be documented for the listeners.

Or even if it's just for yourself. I mean, you're a listener too and that'll probably scale out. But that's a great way to think about it, I think. Yeah, every arrangement, every band has a shelf life and has an arc. And so it's good to document periodically for sure. So number three is going to be who. Since we're getting all these W questions, this will make it simple. And by this point, now, if you've kind of answered or getting some direction from the why and the what in terms of, you know, what it's going to be, now you can be thinking about who should I have doing that. Is that a group I'm in? Do I need to assemble some other players? But you want that to be done in service of the why and the what. So if you know the why and the what, that should guide you into the who. And I would say that it's like, you know, not just the musicians, but you're even going to be thinking maybe a little bit producer, engineer, even if that's you. Yeah, that's right.

This can be a difficult question, and this is one that I think takes a lot of maturity, the who, because our first inclination is to go with the people who are directly around us. And that could be the right call for sure, because you do want to always make sure that the vibe is right and you want, you know, I like working with my friends. I like work with people I like. But the older I get, the more I do this, the more I realize that sometimes my friend isn't the right person for the job. You know what I mean? If it's something that I want to make a musical statement on, I might have to find the right player first. Or play ya. Or play us.

But it is something to consider, you know, if you're making a straight-ahead record and your best friend is a bass player and he only plays Fusion, you might consider going with someone else even though that's, you know, maybe not your first instinct. But it could make a huge difference in your recording. After all, everything we're doing is serving the music first. So make sure you're making the right choices on all these fronts. And I think other things that may come into account when thinking about the who is if you're really doing this to promote a certain group

or to document a certain group and you want to use it to you know for gigs or to be sold you know at gigs which is great is to you know make sure that you're doing that that that material the what but also make sure you have those musicians on there too it's a lot of times people think well I'm going to get some big names as guest artists and spend a lot of money and if what you're using is to promote your group and you can't you know maybe you can get ryan Carter to do the recording, but you can't get them to do your little rinky dink tour, you might not want to have them on there. Yeah, that's so true. Or at least just think it through. There's a way that that can work, but you want to be thinking about those things. Now, that leads us to our next important step,

and that's where. This is a very, very important step. You want to pick the right environment to record in the right studio, or, you know, maybe you have your own setup at home. Maybe you have a mobile setup. Maybe you know an engineer who has a setup that can go anywhere. But choosing the right venue for your recording is crucial. For pianists, choosing the right piano is crucial. I mean, I've seen Mr. Peter Martin here bring Steinway's into nice studios. I will haul a Steinway in my Nissan. But that was the right choice.

We have since then, I'm not going to name the studio, but we've done a record in that studio with their house piano, totally different and not as good as the one that you had brought in. And that was a lesson learned for me of like, all right, you know what? Trust your instincts on the instrument. you know, make sure to have the right instrument for this recording. It's going to be around forever. You know, don't record on a piano you're not happy with.

Right, right. Yeah, that's great. I think, too, if you are, because there's so many great possibilities to record at home or yourself, that's fine, but really think about, you know, the advantages of being in a studio are that you are going somewhere that's already set up to be isolated. It's a workspace specific, if it's a good studio, to record. to recording. Now, you can fabricate that

at home or even in your own space somewhere, but don't like order all this great equipment and have it delivered the day before you're going to start recording and expect it to do it. Even if you know the equipment, because there's all sorts of things like animals and kids and just different things at home

that can get in the way. If you want to record it at home, so to speak, you want to have a couple of months, I think, experiment with the equipment, really checking sounds, before you start getting serious about recording. And then, you know, for me, I mean, I've never totally done a thing at home, but I've done some stuff at kind of like a home studio. And I always end up going in the studio or somewhere else just because in terms of workflow and the way that I've done recordings, it's great to be somewhere. It's true.

You know, and when you're home, it's the same thing like when you're working at home. There's a fine line between really getting something done and say, I'm going here to work at home. I'm relaxing or maybe practicing and working on music, but not actually documenting. So, true, very, very important. So now we're at number five. So now we're going to, we got those first four questions, why, what, who, where. Now, this is something I want you guys to think about because I've made the mistake, I don't know about you, Adam, of kind of, you know, giving us sort of an afterthought later than having to play ketchup. And that's all the extra stuff that you think doesn't have anything to do with the music.

And it doesn't, but it's very important for the overall recording. And that's like if you can have some video, you know, some photos, anything that's extra, the artwork, liner notes we talked about. if that's possible. And some of these things, and I mean, some of them can be done afterwards, but you at least want to be thinking them and if you can be planning them.

And actually, you're great about this. You kind of get a vision for like the artwork of the album from the beginning so that it becomes an organic part of the whole project. And for people buying and listening to your music, it really is a big part of it. Yeah,

I actually like to engage local artists whenever I make an album and I've done two different artists so far with like the 442's record, doing a different artist for my trio record that I'm making. I think it's a very rewarding part of the process for me because I'm not a visual artist. And so, like, I can have a vision on something, but if I have someone talented who I can trust is going to pull something off, first of all, it's less work for me.

But we've gotten such great reaction to the art. And, you know, it's just fun. I mean, you might spend a little more money on it. You're going to spend a little more money on it than if you just upload a photo to disc makers or whatever. Yeah. But it's so cool. to have like, especially if you are printing CDs, make it special. You know what I mean? Like,

I love to make it special. I love to have it delightful. And the reaction from the crowds when they have it in their hand makes it worth it for me. Well, I mean, we did a Christmas record several years ago together, award winning, I might add. And you had the idea of the CD being an actual ornament, which we all thought was crazy. But it was such a cool thing. And people love that and it's like a such I mean you you were really thinking of just not just the music the CD the art but you were thinking of like how is somebody going to like bring this into their life at this time and it's all about giving a gift maybe you like it and you want to give the gift for the music and what a better thing to have like a physical manifestation because for so many

people now they actually miss having a physical object as part of the music like an LP or or CD or whatever so it's cool when you can do a little twist on it yeah no and you know what's so cool about this is when you get into this, you start making relationships with artists who aren't musicians who are visual artists or graphic designers. And it can be really useful friends. You know, the guy, my boy Jim Walker, who is an amazing designer, who did that ornament art and just knocked it out of the park. I mean, he's like, sometimes he'll just call me and be like, do you want a poster or something? You know what I mean? Like, it's very cool to have these relationships with people that are, that you can work with and give and take. And just like you would with a, you know,

musician friends, it becomes a very symbiotic relationship. Nice, nice. Yeah, and then so one of the extras too, I think I mentioned too, was video, and this is like a whole other thing, and you may not be able to get into this, but even if you can just do, have somebody even with just an iPhone running

some video or something, it's so good now. It's so great. It's so many people, like, it's a great way to promo and bring in people to your music. You know, you can always stick some audio up on YouTube with like a still picture, but come on now. This is 2018. Step up your game. Yeah, I think at this point in music industry video is an essential

component of anything. We talk about this all the time but like you almost have to have something to promote your record so that's five, that's the extras. Now the last two I think that kind of covers all the areas, the general areas that you need to be thinking about in

advance and as you're doing the recording. These last two you can kind of get away with waiting until your recording process is done although if you've kind of at least got them on your mind a little bit it would help you. So the first is, and number six, is post-production. So this whole area is really about, you know, mixing the recording, mastering it, doing everything where you're taking the raw tracks of what you recorded and getting it ready to be the final product and all the things

that are involved. So mixing it, mastering it, choosing the tracks, what does that call when they put it? Oh, that's part of the mastering. When you put it in order, sequencing it, sequencing. Yeah, and this is, I think this is a, as crucial of a leg of the project as, the recording is itself. I mean, this can make or break your record. I like to, you know, if I'm working with a good engineer, I like to lean on them. They are usually mixing all the time more than we are. And I like to describe the sounds and make sure you have examples.

I think this is very important from the beginning, from the tracking sessions. If you're working with an engineer, give them examples of sounds you want to get. They probably know how to get them, but they don't know what's in your head. So give them physical things they can listen to. to draw on and in the mixing process, in the mastering process, do that as well. And I would say always have your project mastered by someone who has not been involved in the tracking. Right.

Fresh years. Yeah, because it's kind of like a proofreading in a lot of ways. It is. And mastering is something that is, I think, mysterious to people, but it's really the final sheen that goes on your project before the public hears it. So don't skip on that. No. You know, make sure you hire professional mastering engineer.

I use capital mastering in L.A. They're easy to work with. They're a little more expensive than some people, but you just send them their tracks. They have an amazing studio of vintage gear. Their roster is filled with people who have done everything from Michael Jackson down. You know what I mean?

Like they can do it for relatively cheap, and you have this like amazingly professionally mastered product. That's great. And I would say to your point of give the engineer an example of what you're looking for. That's wonderful advice. But make sure, like, if you're thinking about something for a piano sound, give them a piano. Like, don't bring a seashell in and say, you see how the vibe of this is? Make my record sound like that. Like, give him references that make sense to what your project actually is. Yeah, I've had, and I've been on projects where, like, a drummer has come in with a tiny little kit and then give an example of, like, John Bonham. And the engineer is like, well, you need to have John Bonham's drum kit if you want it to sound like that. You know, there is a little bit of that. But as far as, like, the tone of the record, you can, you can give them good advice. And it's the same thing. Like,

don't go to a great mastering engineer, you know, with, you know, a lot of times we use this garbage in, garbage out, like where people think I can record

anything and they're going to fix it up a dan. No, no, no, don't bring this crappy thing. You record it in your house on your spinet piano with garage band and say,

make it sound like kind of blue. It's not going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's actually, this is good advice overall. There's no fixing things later.

No, there is not. There's, people get in this mindset of the studio of like, oh, that sounds like crap. Well, we'll fix it in post. No, you will not. Right, right. And if you, I mean, even if you can, the things that can be fixed, you end up spending so much more time and money than just getting it right the first time.

You're better off. I mean, we've been there before where it's like, should we edit that? No, let's just go do the take again. So I guess we're saying number one thing is to listen. Listen. Yeah. Do we mention that? A why. So number seven, the last area, and we don't need to actually go in too deep on this because it could be a whole other thing. But that's marketing. Yeah. And that's really just, you know, once you have your product finished, like get it out to the world.

There's nothing wrong with that. And a lot of times as artists, as musicians, we think, you know, I'm going to make this great recording. It's just going to magically be sold. Not really because no one's buying CDs. But, you know, some things we mentioned earlier, having something that makes sense that you would actually do a gig and then you have documentation that's similar enough or interesting enough that somebody might want to buy that, that's a great idea. I mean, it's just like if you're at a restaurant, you've got hot dogs and fries, someone's going to be thirsty and want to buy a beer. So if your marketing is as easy as just having something available to them. So if you make like a postmodernist big band album and you're on like a hard funk gig and you're trying to sell that, that's not going to be good product market fit at all.

So marketing, I think, on just the highest level is find people that not only will just buy your CD. You know, your mom, your grandmother, your grandpa. Yeah, they're going to buy it whether they like it or not, they're going to love it. But, you know, actually try to connect with an audience that will like what it is that you're selling and want to share it. And it'll be like a must have part of their collection. Absolutely. I mean, there's a ton of stuff you can do in this day and age. The bare minimums are try to have some kind of CD release concert.

Yeah. You know. And invite people that actually would like it. Just don't invite people just have bodies there. That's right. Because it's really, it's going to be the same thing. Garbage in, garbage out. If you're like, you know, if you've made something that's, that's no good, it's going to be a lot harder to market it.

That's true. You know, try to get it reviewed. if you can from any publications, really. It doesn't matter. Send it to us. We'll review it.

We'll hear it. We'll hear it. But yeah. Oh, wait. Are we done? Almost. Every time I say that, we start to fake it.

Yeah, we're so conscious. All right, well, I guess. You'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question,

or just say hello. You can do that. Absolutely. All right. And if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below. Thanks.