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Tenoch Villa
This was the first day I sat in on a hip hop session. I'm glad I sit in on so many different of music stles of music during my lessons. The approach changes when dealing with a variety. The focal points shift and priorities are changed. Hip Hop is vocal oriented. The voice NEEDS to sound right. Not just right, it needs to sound great. The artists knows this, the producer knows this, and you better know damn well the potential casual listener knows this.
This brings us to the recording session. The artist who came in that day was named David, but he callled himself D Bird. Simple but easy to remember. Prince had recieved the beat they were going to be using by email and set up the track in Pro Tools. I need to ask exactly how you go about doing that the next time I have a chance. The song is called "Wings", a melody pushed by a strong and present horn section repeating a refrain over an electronic drum beat. Before they got into recording vocals, Prince Strickland did a quick pre-mix of the track to give it a little more depth. It was lacking a beat in the lower frequencies, so he boosted them and pulled back the horns a little bit. I didn't realize how much work the original mix needed until I heard the touchups by Strickland.
So David went into the booth and laid out a few takes of the first verse. I don't remember if i have mentioned this before but Strickland is always checking on the volume of the mic as it is recording. Always adjusting, always going back to it to avoid the vocals peaing but also to make sure they don't get too quiet. He told me how important it is to have that balance visible and at the forefront of your mind when redcording something as important as vocals.
When David would do another take, Srtrickland would take the approach like this: He'd tell David that he would play the recording about two measures ahead of were thy will be recording, and in that, David will go along with the vocals so the punch-in woud be harder to pick-up on. This is so simple yet I have never thought of that, as shown by my old vocal recording.
Strickland also told me that it is important to have the song whilst recording should be kept at a volume that won't be picked up by the mic in the room or pick up on the vibrations. The sound could vibrate the glass and that could get caught in recording.
He also kept all the old takes in case David liked any of them so he could just plop it into the mix. He took quiet a bit of takes on the verse, it took some time, vut it would have took longer if Strickland didn't do all the tthings he did while recording. The main vocals took about two hours to record. That could drive the impatient people out of the idea of producing music. Seriously, the song was about half way done and it took energy and time. Way more energy than it leads on.
They then go through some more light mixing and ad ad-libs into the song where David wanted them. Obviously they wanted them to sound perfect and perfection takes time. Again. And taking your time is fine, it shows they care and why wouldn't they? It's a cool song.
The truth is they could have gotten the whole song in about 40 minutes. But that isn't what music is about. I'm sure the song would sound okay but not nearly on the level it is now.
You need to be patient if you want to be taken seriously in the music industry. Strickland admitted after the song was finished that it took a lot out of him mentally and on his sences. Loud music get's to the noggin.
We finished out the session with him telling me a memoir. He once had a client who went in not mentally preparred for the session. He would make bad desicions and his recordings would slowly get worse and worse. But it was not Pronce's job to make him do better, it is his job to do what the client wants him to do. Pronce Strickland said, "even though I'm supposed to do what they want, it dosen't mean I can't offer a life raft when the ship is going down... But it is up to them to take it as help or go down with the ship..." Seriously a great story to learn from as an aspiring producer.
I told him how during each session I pick up on a new overall occuring theme. This one being, "Practice Patience." He seemed pretty prud that I'm taking these experiences seriously. I told him it is easy when you are serious about what you want out of life. And I do want this so I'm gonna keep an ear and eye for all that can and will help me.
Wings by D Bird- https://soundcloud.com/dbirdman/wings
