Jessica Morgan finds out that Elvis is alive and selling ice creams.
One of our clients, The Eyes, had a song called 'Ice Cream Man in Winter'. So when Paul the ice-cream man came in to record, I had to ask him what he did in the winter. "Doughnuts," he replied. When he's not selling ice-creams in summer and doughnuts in the winter, Paul has a PA set up in his garage and likes to get the lads over for a rock'n'roll singalong. One of the lads is his next door neighbour so that takes care of any potential neighbour warfare!
Paul planned to surprise his mates one day by putting on not Elvis as usual but a CD with himself singing instead. And this is where we were able to help. He called us up to find out how long it would take to record all his favourite songs. We had to negotiate from 15 down to a manageable four or five in an hour (NOT something we normally advocate), after explaining how the process works.
He came in a few days later complete with CD of backing tracks and sunglasses and blasted through five tracks in an hour. Of course it takes a little time to mix and bounce the tracks to CD, so he sang for half an hour and we mixed for half an hour.
Ideally we would have allowed some time to settle in, as by the fifth track he was starting to get into the swing of things and sing with more confidence. It takes time to get used to a different type of microphone, wearing headphones, and hearing yourself sing.
So how does the process work? We import the backing track from a high-quality MP3 or CD (preferably not minidisc as the compression is too much) into a ProTools session. We use one session for each song. Then you go into the booth and don the 'cans', checking that you're comfortable with the levels. The first take will be so that we can set the levels appropriate for your voice and note any loud bits or quiet bits. You can have a listen to the first take to see how it sounds. Then you do as many takes as you need to get the best performance (Paul did one per song although he could have done with more). We can drop you in to patch up any dodgy bits. Even the top professional singers do a few takes and it's not expected, although it is possible, that the first take will be the best. We'd recommend an hour per song at least. If you want to do more that's up to you!
When you're happy with your performance, adding backing vocals if you want, we'll mix the vocal with the backing track, adding reverb or other effects if needed. Then we'll bounce the tracks to MP3 or WAV and you get to take home a CD. Bouncing has to be done in real time, so you get to listen to the song one last time in the studio.
Hopefully Paul will be back to do my favourites, 'Suspicious Minds' and 'Teddy Bear'. I don't usually allow clients to call me "baby" but I let him off as he was in Elvis mode.
If you fancy recording your favourite songs, or know someone who would, check out our Space Experience.
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