The approach I have taken so far is, "Oh, I like that song! Yeah, I'll cover that one now!"
Well, maybe it's not that casual or random, but... the point is that I have recorded songs as I choose to put them on the album.
I have two songs recorded already! One of those I have edited, produced, and finished, while the other one is still in the editing/producing stages. It is so exciting that, in three days, I have one and a half songs completely done!
I do not plan to reveal what the songs on the album are until the album in finished in its entirety, and I am in the heavy-advertising stage. When I reach that point, I think it would be a good idea to feature 30-second samples on this blog, and probably the Head Indie Clouds Facebook page, too. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, aren't I?
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| My professional recording studio. Oh, yeah. High-tech stuff, right there. |
Let's focus on what I have done already: these two songs. But really, in these past few days, I have accomplished so much more than that. For example, in order to record, I had to figure out some means of high-quality recording. If I am going to try and sell this album, the quality has to be professional. However, I do not have the resources that professional musicians have, like a high-tech recording studio.
I had to get pretty creative, actually. I haven't spent a penny on this project yet; I used only what I already had in my house. I dug up an old RadioShack microphone that plugs into the headphone jack. I have found that it is best to use for recording my keyboard and my piano. It is especially useful for recording click tracks and drum loops; I create the loop on my electronic keyboard, then stick this microphone pointing right at the keyboard's speaker. That way, every time I record a track for the same song, I can play the click track/drum loop on my laptop with my ear-buds plugged in, and I can play an instrument or sing to the beat of the loop. This ensures that, when I put all the different layers of the song together in editing, they are all at the same tempo and on the same beat; they fit together perfectly.
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| My favorite way to capture my piano's rich, full sound |
The downside to this mic is that, when you play back something it recorded, there is some static in the background. Thankfully, the music editor software that I have been using for the album is awesome and diminishes it to virtually non-existent.
Now, recording the vocals is a totally different ball game altogether. It is a lot easier to eliminate background noise from an instrumental recording than from a vocal recording, so, because of the background static, I found that using the RadioShack microphone is not the best way for me to record my singing.
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| This mic is perfect for the job: sturdy base, adjustable angle |
Still very interested in not spending money on equipment, I started hunting around my house for mic alternatives. I found a few microphones similar to the RadioShack one, but the quality was about the same or worse. There are "in-line" microphones at my house, but I didn't have an adapter to make that size fit into the microphone jack on a computer.
Somehow, I had a stroke of good luck and remembered that we have a Wii game -- Sing It -- that came with a USB microphone to plug into the Wii console to play the game. My inventive ways paid off when I plugged the mic into my PC, pressed record, and sang a bit into it; the quality was great! It was just what I wanted: professional-sounding.
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| And to think it is a Disney microphone that came with a Wii game! |
