From a Beginner to a Beginner
From a beginner to a beginner: Things to consider when making your first record
I hope you’re really enjoying the festive spirit and have already decided on the New Year’s resolutions that you’re going to make. Chances are that those resolutions are going to fall short within the first three months, but I hope it won’t discourage you from trying new things and experiencing this magical feeling of a new beginning that each year brings us.
As always, when the year comes to an end, we look back to draw from our experiences. Some say that 2016 has been horrible: a lot of great inspirational talents died and the world went totally nuts with its crazy political decisions and never ending wars. However, on a personal level, 2016 has been actually pretty kind to me. It’s safe to say that a lot of things I aimed for, I achieved, and a lot of lessons that needed to be learned were finally realised. It was a year full of excitement, experiments and adventures. I played over 40 shows around the UK and was featured on a number of radio stations, including BBC Radio Bristol. I found management and then left them, having embarked on the adventurous journey of an independent artist – something that was rather daring and liberating at the same time. I met great artists that deserved nothing but admiration and talked to many knowledgeable industry people who really showed me the ropes of business. I got a chance to work as a journalist and, despite my own doubts, people received my work really well. Most importantly, I released my very first EP (extended play) – something that I have dreamt of since I was 14 years old.
2016 literally revolved around my new EP: “Visitor”. It was like my little baby that I guided through all the stages of production and then promotion. However, making a debut is hard! A lot of the time you feel blindfolded. You make a lot of silly mistakes that you could have easily avoided if someone told you about the pitfalls. I had no idea what to expect when I started working on the EP and had to learn my lessons the hard way. Some things had to be redone a bunch of times; some things were never even noticed until it was too late… I always wanted to share my experience of creating my EP, so you could see the process from start to finish. I released a Behind The Scenes video and constantly posted updates on my social media profiles – all because I really wanted to share the magic of creating something from scratch with those who might find it interesting. I also hoped that some of you might learn from my mistakes and avoid those pitfalls that I had to stumble over. So, here are some lessons I derived from working on the “Visitor” project. If you ever embark on a great journey of creating your own EP, I really hope you will find my “Dos and Don’ts” useful.
PROPER MINDSET
We’ve already established that making a debut is not an easy job! You want to show your best face to the world, but you also want to stay true to yourself. You want to come up with the best product possible but, as a beginner, there are just too many things that you don’t know. Therefore, you may want to listen to some advice, but are faced with the difficult decision of deciphering whose advice is helpful and whose is just going to mislead you. So, here is my first tip that I followed most of the time: listen carefully to everybody’s opinion but, before making a decision, listen to your own gut. And follow it! Your team is there to help you! There’s no doubt about that, otherwise why would you have chosen them in the first place? They are knowledgeable and experienced. However, at the end of the day; it’s your idea, your song and your name on the record. There was one time, when we did the radio edit for my debut single Dance With Me, that I was advised to exclude the slow drop in the bridge of the song as it was breaking the cheerful flow that was within keeping of the general track theme. The consistent happy vibe of the single made it more radio friendly but the song really lost something special about it… I really regret giving in and cutting that bit out. Don’t be that old version of myself and follow what your inner voice tells you to. However, don’t neglect the first part of my advice and listen carefully to others, as they might actually be right. During the same session, I was advised to cut out the intro to another song of mine, Trouble. Instead of a long instrumental beginning, the song went straight to the singing part – that was one of those little quirky things that really transformed the song and grabbed attention from the first second. As you see, my advice works both ways.
Despite the fact that I’m undeniably proud of my debut work, as it has opened so many doors for me, sometimes I think that if I were working on the same EP now, there would have been so many things that I’d have done differently. I went through the phase of absolutely loving that CD to almost hating every note, then I came full circle back to appreciating the thing I had created. This love/hate relationship with your own work must be familiar to many artists: we are constantly working on improving our art and things that sounded good just two months ago quite often no longer seem great. Sometimes, perfectionism also plays a trick with our creative minds turning us into the picky nightmares of every sound engineer. So, here is another tip that I had to learn throughout working on my first EP: striving for perfection is important, but so is the capability of letting your work go. It really is hard sometimes, but if you don’t learn how to stop the never-ending race of trying to outmatch yourself, you’d probably never release a thing… Setting some deadlines and actually sticking to them is a good idea to tame your artistic perfectionism.
TIMESCALES
This brings us to another important rule: set your deadlines realistically. There is no way you are going to make your record within a month or so, even if everything is already booked and arranged. Don’t listen to anyone who’s pressuring you to release as soon as possible. It’s just not going to happen. I know this because I had to push my own release date twice, changing it from the initial early May 2016 to mid summer. There is always something that needs to be altered and someone who has to cancel on you and your arrangements. There are always clashes, delays and misunderstandings. No matter how excited or pressured you feel, think carefully how long it will actually take you to record, mix and then master your tracks. After that add manufacturing timescales, which in my case were not considered wisely and then add at least a month to promote your finished product before you release it to the world.
It might sound silly, but you will be surprised how many aspiring musicians do not realise this simple and obvious rule: arrange all your promo before the official release of the EP, as it is your only proper chance to get press coverage as an unknown artist. Up until recently I had no clue what it meant. Ridiculous, I know. No one taught me these essential logistics back in the summer, so now here I am begging you to take it under consideration for your own good.
And it’s not like I did nothing to promote my EP. You surely saw some posts on Facebook and Twitter that I was about to release something. I surely told you about it in person if we met and on the radio every time I had a chance. However, did you see any reviews or blog posts about the “Visitor” EP? Did someone creditable include me in any charts of “rising and promising”? Did you hear my single on the radio months before the CD came out? No, you didn’t. The reason why is that many musicians, myself included, along with managers and agents are so focused on getting their music out there, they think that if you release something of good quality, the attention of the press will follow automatically. After all, there have been so many people excited about your upcoming EP, surely, word of mouth will do the trick… Unfortunately, the hard truth is that once your precious music is out there, it becomes old news for most of the bloggers and reviewers. No buzz. No attention. You really have to work hard to see your name in print.
EP OR ALBUM?
I keep saying “EP”, but why should you really choose that format over a proper album? The more songs, the better your chance to produce a hit, right? Hold your “creative” horses! EP is a perfect format for the debutants: do it first, make all those mistakes you’re bound to make, learn from them and then start thinking about an album. Some artists still prefer going for a debut album. However, in my opinion, it’s just a waste of effort and money. First of all, producing three or four tracks is definitely cheaper than working on the whole album. Let’s be honest: very few of us aspiring musicians make big profits out of our debut. In most cases, we don’t even make our production costs back… Choosing an EP format over an album also gives you more creative freedom. It takes less time to make and less time to promote, therefore, you will start working on your new material sooner. As an aspiring musician, you can’t really afford to just sit there and do nothing for two or three years. The urge to constantly create is why we’ve started music careers in the first place…
Selecting the number of tracks and the songs you want to record can be a real pain. You want to include all your best songs but, unfortunately, you do need to think carefully of those deadlines we’ve just chatted about… I’d say four is a perfect number of tracks for the debut as it allows variety but is still manageable. Besides, it has always been my lucky number and I’m quite superstitious. In the process I started entertaining the idea that I might still include an extra track and make it to five songs since I wrote something I really wanted to include in the debut EP. That was a greedy thought. We’ve already established I didn’t do well with planning in advance, so I never really got to the fifth track. In all honesty, at the end I was pretty glad that I didn’t because the “Visitor” project appeared to be so much more than just going into the studio and recording a couple of songs.
TEAM
I gathered a whole team of editors, photographers, designers and manufacturers around me because creating an EP is indeed a project on a large scale. There are artists that do everything by themselves; from recording to designing and, often you will see one name throughout the credits. For better or worse, I’m not one of those people. I highly enjoy interacting with other human beings and I strongly believe that not only will I learn more from working with others, my project will also benefit from the contribution of other creative minds. I used to be a creative controlling freak, (I still partly am) but I’d encourage you to collaborate with others as much as you can: involve your friends to help you with cover designs; think of artistic duets; ask fellow musicians for their opinions on your demos and, most importantly, be very picky when it comes to choosing your sound engineer or producer.
That last part is actually advice in its own right! While many musicians are hunting for a perfect studio with the perfect balance between price and quality, what they really should be doing is hunting for the perfect sound-engineer and/or producer. Not only should you have a similar creative vision, you also need to match well in terms of work ethic and personalities. I got pretty lucky and, despite not knowing my new teammate properly before the first day of recording, our collaboration worked out pretty well. Charlie Lintern was a young, creative and well-experienced sound engineer from 13 Sound Studios who really helped me turn all my buzzing ideas into reality. Despite me hitting the jackpot, I wouldn’t recommend testing your luck to anybody and, instead, I would advise on doing separate research on the sound engineer you have in mind. Bear in mind, that word of mouth is not your best source in this case, since every person has different needs and requirements! Be nosey and ask around for details.
Another thing to consider while choosing new team members to record with is their actual role that they are going to perform. Is it a solo sound-engineer you’re looking for? Is it a collaborator or an actual producer? I guess in the big bad world of real record labels these things don’t really matter. However, in the world of independent artists and freelancers, deciding on the exact scope work for each of you is crucial. If you want someone to press the buttons for you while you’re making all the creative decisions, you need to be clear about it straight away. If you want some advice but would still rather stay in charge, like it was in my case, you need to make sure that the person is actually interested in being your collaborator as opposed to the button presser. If you trust someone enough to pass creative control to them fully or partially, be even more careful!
Personally, I’m not ready to let go of my musical control yet. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I usually have a very clear vision of how I want my songs to sound or perhaps it’s because I’m a simple control freak. Maybe I haven’t yet met the person that I can entrust with my precious ideas or maybe I just have trust issues in general. Whatever the reason, it’s totally up to you how much in control you want to be and how much help you require. Some artists say that having a producer is a necessity in order to get the best out of your music; some say it’s their worst nightmare. Creative control should always belong to you and it’s up to you to decide how much of it you’re ready to let go. Whatever you decide on, make sure you are extra careful with choosing the right person for the job.
Speaking of creative control: some artists bring it to a whole new level. With the mighty world of technological progress, more and more people opt for full self-production. Is it really a good idea? I’d say it could be very handy if you’re lucky to have your own home studio and even know what to do in there. Imagine all the money you could save from not having to pay the bills for the studio hire? Unfortunately, I’d also imagine myself being totally stuck while trying to get a perfect take and then wailing loudly because I couldn’t make the software do the trick I wanted it to do. As you see, some people are just not cut out for work in isolation. Joking aside, I do prefer going to an actual studio and interacting with actual people as opposed to sitting in a home studio all by myself (beating my computer up in the outburst of anger). I think it gives me that extra buzz that keeps me excited and also stops me from overthinking too much. Thus, going to the actual studio was exactly what I did. And the work on “Visitor” EP started…
TO BE CONTINUED IN 2017…
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