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Old 12-18-2009, 10:38 PM   #135
yep
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan View Post
It helps immensely thank you. You've covered just about every one of my 100 questions that stemmed from my original question (including that). And stuff that have been troubling me for many years. So yeah, thank you!

btw, I was indeed asking about my own music/production, not about producing bands and albums in general.
Glad to hear it was helpful.

Something I can't believe I forgot to mention:

Broadly speaking, I know of two ways to approach recording an album:

1. Artist comes in with an "album" number of finished songs, and you record them all as best you can.

2. Artist comes in with a massive quantity of ideas, and you hammer them into songs as you go, gradually weeding out the ideas that aren't working (regardless of quality-- it's just a matter of keeping the stuff that is making progress and setting aside the stuff that's just spinning wheels).

I have heard tell of a third type of album project, one where the artist comes in with a small handful of unfinished "ideas" and a general vision to work out in the studio. I have never actually seen such a thing all the way through to completion, but my impression is that they tend to either be extremely high-budget, or extremely unsatisfying projects, or both.

In all cases, it's always good to come into the studio with an excess of material. If the goal is a 10-12 song album, it's good to have 15-20 songs. Chances are that one or two of them will have a hard time coming together-- maybe they are a bit too ambitious, or too simple, maybe the guitar player or the drummer can't quite figure out a good part, or maybe everything they're trying to play is a bit beyond their current abilities.

Often some of the songs will either sound too similar to something that's already on the album, or just won't have a good "place" on it-- those make great B-sides or "extras". Examples might include one ballad too many, a song in a similar key with a similar melody and riff as the main "single", an "offbeat" song that just doesn't seem to fit anywhere, a neat little acoustic/vocal number that nobody has developed any accompaniment for, and so on.

It might be great material, but that doesn't mean that Hamlet would be improved by having a lightsaber fight and a death star in the background, nor that Star Wars would be better if Luke Skywalker sat down and gave a soliloquy on "Alas, poor Wedge, I knew him well...".

The natural progression of a real touring live band often makes album construction fairly obvious-- the band's gradual evolution from playing together every night leads to its own obvious vibe and gestalt. A solo musician trying to fabricate an album out of whole cloth may have a bit more work to do on the particulars.
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