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Tonight’s studio recording class at the community college was VERY technical. A look at how Pro Tools works.
My husband went with me to this one, as he’s interested in helping me record my songs. I’m very grateful for that because this aspect of the process makes my head spin. Or in tonight’s case, my eyes close because I was so tired and was having trouble staying awake. No reflection on the instructor, as he was energetic and funny and really knew his stuff. It had just been a long day of work and kids on not much sleep.
But it was interesting to learn about how this part of the recording process works, even if I didn’t understand much of it. I typically learn something better when I’m actually doing it, rather than listening to how to do it, so maybe if we get the interface needed to connect the instruments to the computer and we get ProTools, then I’ll get a chance to play around with it with my songs. Maybe use the metronome click to keep my tempo the same throughout the song and do some compression and EQ and use a gate to control the thresh.
Did you notice some of the technical terms there in the last paragraph?
Anyway, I have newfound respect for all the sound guys and producers and whoever else is involved in making songs sound good. Very impressive work.
One interesting piece of advice I heard tonight, too, is to listen to other songs in the genre that you want to work in and pay close attention to those that are successful to see how they are made. That seems like it should be obvious, but I’ve never thought of my songs in that way. I usually just get an idea or a melody or a first line and then go from there until I feel like it’s done – changing lyrics along the way, but not really planning which direction to go in.
So I’m going to try doing that – maybe actually trying to craft a song from the start and see what happens.