Recording at EastWest Studios w/Charles Sydnor

Recording at EastWest Studios

In the modern recording industry getting a group of musicians together to record has become a very rare happening. Technology has turned peoples bedrooms and garages into everything from the simplest of home demo studios to mid size fully equipped studios. We can record anytime we like without having to worry about giant recording budgets. With e-mail and ftp we also have the opportunity to work with musicians that we may otherwise not be able too work with. I know this very well as I make most of my money recording for people I either rarely see or have never met other than an email.

While this is great and I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever there is still nothing better than being in the same room, at the same time, with the other musicians that you’re recording with. There is an energy that comes with playing live and it’s something that simply cannot be duplicated. That energy gets recorded and you can feel the ebb and flow of a group of musicians playing together, live.

Getting the right parts, i.e. feel, tempo, breaks, rhythm beds, is not only much easier but much more organic as well. And if the musicians are good the songs can come alive very quickly!

Case in point, I was in the studio yesterday recording with composer Charles Sydnor (Charles is a fantastic composer and has a looong list of credits including, Malcolm in the Middle, Three Moons Over Milford & The Pretender to name a few) for a T.V. pilot. The orchestration was drums, bass, dobro, piano and lap steel (I think) and we were all set up in the same room. Charles gives everyone a chart, tells me the tempo (126bpm with a half-time feel) and tells me to count the song off.

Awesome Sounding Room!

After a minute or two of grooving Charles stops us and make a few changes to the bass line, gives me a few instructions on my parts and we set off too read the chart. We do one take and Charles makes a few tweaks to the arrangement and we start recording. 3 takes later (for a total of maybe 15 minutes) we’re done. And it sounded and felt great!

Had we been doing this via email or ftp we still would have still would have been able to get a great song together but it would have taken much, much longer than the hour or so we were in the studio and it wouldn’t of had the magical vibe of 5 musicians recording together in the same room. Capturing a live setting like that (with drums and piano only 8 feet apart!) is not an easy task so it was nice to have engineer extraordinaire Scott Francisco manning the controls.

Now I know that most of the time it’s not feasible to record everyone at the same time. It can get very expensive and depending on your comfort level in the studio (the studio is a different beast than the stage) it can take a lot of time. Sometimes, depending on style, it’s not even necessary. But in this day and age when technology, as great as it is, seems to be keeping us musicians apart during one of the most important and magical parts of the musical process, I think it’s more important than ever for musicians to make an extra effort to play together as much as possible. If we don’t we are not only cheating ourselves of a wonderful musical experience but the music will suffer too.

Music was meant to be shared, between musicians and between the artist and listener. It’s the only way it works.

Now go jam!!