Author: Ryan Voelkel

Since Monday and Tuesday this week were such full days of work, today was a little more of a break. This morning we put the finishing touches on the “Leave Me Out Of It” demo. We were also able to dig up an older recording of a song called “One Plus One” which is going to be featured on the EP and will work perfectly as a demo. I’ve already learned that being organized is seriously important for saving time, so I started a list of all of the equipment that I’ve borrowed from other people so that when the project is over I can easily return everything.

After nearly nine hours of recording and mixing, we are finally finishing up on our demo of “Leave Me Out Of It”, which is going to be the first track on the EP. This demo is basically a blue print, which we will send to all of the musicians that will be playing on the actual recording. This, along with the music that we wrote out, will give the musician a feel for the song before they come into the studio so we are able to spend our time as efficiently as possible. It also helps me to get familiar with Pro Tools and the various mics we have available.

Today we began setting up the control room in my studio at home. We acquired an older IMac from school and were able to put Pro Tools 9 on it. We are still working on connecting all of the new equipment such as the mixer and the new monitors we got. Here is a picture of what it looks like so far. 

Today I actually got to use ProTools (the digital audio workstation that TBeats uses) to mix a song that Brandy recorded a while ago. It was difficult at first but after a couple hours of EQing and compressing vocal tracks to get rid of unwanted frequencies and boost sound levels, I started to catch on. Then a rapper who is an artist on the TBeats label and a guy who works in the marketing section of the company that owns the St. Louis radio stations 104.1 and 95.5 came in to record a commercial. We had a brainstorming session to come up with exactly what we wanted to say in the 10 second long radio spot. After close to 15 takes we finally got it. Attached is a picture of the mixing console and the session I was mixing.

 

Today I spent about two hours in the morning writing out more sheet music (which I still haven’t quite gotten the hang of). Then I went to TBeats studios which was really amazing. I worked with Brandy and she started explaining the many knobs and switches of their 48 channel SSL AWS948 recording console to me. She showed me the live room where they record drums and piano and we briefly talked about the set up for a recording session (tomorrow I will be sitting in on a session). I also met Tony who is the owner of TBeats, and a couple other employees as well.

Today was the first day of my project. Before we can begin recording anything, we have to write out all of the parts for the instruments in each of the songs. As you can imagine, this is quite challenging and time consuming. I am hoping to finish every part in the next two weeks so we can start recording. The attached picture is of the sheet music I wrote for the bass.

A little less than four weeks before I hit the studio and press record! We’ll be learning cool recording techniques and end up with an EP of original music by St. Louis singer/songwriter Tyler Samuels along with a bonus track cover from special guest Meredith Foster. The EP is expected to be released in mid May and will be uploaded to SoundCloud for free streaming. Be sure to check the blog daily for updates and photos from the project!