Studio Weekend

The first time we started to record our own material in a studio

Absolutely buzzing with excitement, I packed my bag ready for the studio the next day. Being the singer, I didn’t have to take too much with me. How

ever, Steve, being the musician and brains behind the arrangements thought it would be best to take, two keyboards, three guitars and a bass, which was funny as originally he was only going to take the one acoustic guitar. He had already created the tracks on software at home, but always best to be prepared I guess 😊

Driving off to Rookly on the gorgeous Isle of Wight the following day, we were both filled with anticipation and questions.

What if we realised that what we had written wasn’t good enough? What if we had wasted our time the last 12 months trying to create something good to actually realise that it’s all pretty rubbish? Question overload, and I’m an overthinker!

It suddenly didn’t matter anymore as we were pulling up to the studio. I had researched quite a bit last year to find out who would be available and their rates of pay etc, and happily I found the perfect chap called Stu who worked for Hungry Hound Productions in Rookly. He had been amazing from the very first email sent.

Car unloaded, we settled in and began to work. First job was the vocals, aka, me! Off I popped myself into the little vocal booth which was completely decked out in grey sound proofing. Positive sign of a recording studio, not flaking out on the sound proofing aspect with all the expensive gear that was around here. I was quite happy in my little box, I could hear Stu clearly in my headset and we were ready to go. A few takes of a number I was quite confident with, nothing to belty (it was 9:30 in the morning) and we were away.

I loved every minute of every song I sang. I didn’t care if anyone would even like our music, I was incredibly proud of what I was singing. A couple of numbers in and we realised we required some harmony overlays. I asked Steve to play down a mic on his guitar into my headset which would be the correct harmonies for the specific chords. This worked quite well, although there was one harmony that just wouldn’t go in! It’s always the simpler ones that give you the most grief.

It was a good job Steve had bought all his instruments in the end. Over the course of two days he and Stu were busy creating more music to put on the tracks.

The funniest part was when Steve would make a mistake, swear and we’d hear it in the studio. Errr, Steve that's not the sound we are going for.

There’s still some work to do. The main body of work is laid down and the guys have been editing and compressing everything. We had managed to record several numbers and over time we are going to meet up with Stu again to finish off all the EQ ing.

While they were doing all the creative stuff, I’d set up an office behind them, tweaking our website, creating logos, potential CD covers, emailing photographers and researching into who could Master our songs once we are happy with them this end. Then, it’s distributor research, which platforms to use, potential radio stations to contact (if we’re feeling really brave), potential release dates and a whole host of other things on a to do list which is turning out to be as long a Steve! I’ll enjoy all of it. This is going to be a busy year. The lockdown has hit everyone hard, but we have managed to explore the idea of writing and dipping our toe into some music production of our own. Nothing may come from this, but if you don’t try, you won’t know. So we’ll try everything as we go along on our little music journey.

Keep it all crossed for us and look out for future blog updates!