First Vocal Session - Posted on 2016-03-22 by Nigel Dean

In my previous class with my mentor, I finally got the opportunity to dedicate a whole session to record and work with vocals. In the time that I have dedicated to networking I was able to find a talented young vocalist named Noly who has an incredibly bright and driven power with his voice. Before I took him into the studio, I was able to have a meeting with him where I introduced him to the track at hand and gave him the guidelines as to how I wanted the vocal to sit and sound within the mix. After singing it repeatedly with him at my home studio I had him "take the wheel" and sing it to me on his own. The benefit and strategy with having this meeting before we stepped into the studio was that I not only got to hear him perform in person, but I was also able to pinpoint potential difficulties that would arise in are session. Upon listening to him sing by himself, I learned that my new talented friend has a difficulty overthinking while he performs which in turn makes him nervous, sloppy, and above all lost. Things that are not at all bad, for intimidation sometimes has the advantage of getting the best of us. However, having this problem makes it slightly difficult for someone like myself who is charge of leading and instructing him. After our first meeting, I advised Noly of things he should prepare for before the designated day that we would record and as he left home with his newly aquired homework, I was left home with mine. I needed to develop a strategy that would make Noly perform his personal best as to utilize every second inside the studio efficiently. I remember having a conversation with my mentor in which he discussed that sometimes the necessary thing to do when working with musicians who are struggling to perform, and especially when tracking vocalists, is to drop the nice guy persona and instead do the exact oppisite. In essence he said, sometimes the necessary thing to do is be a dick. He pointed out that the justification behind this is that if people are constantly being told "that was good" or "not bad" than they begin to become complacent and satisfied which in turn decreases the result of getting the BEST possible vocal with the BEST possible sound! So when I came into the studio that day with Noly and my friend Pauser, the other collaborating artist, I came into the studio with this strategy. I would be the nice guy for the majority of the session. Insuring that he felt comfortable with who he was working with and also to insure his commitment to the track. For the most part the session went great. Noly was able to hit the verse of the track spot on and as the session progressed so did his tension. The downside to the session was that Noly was unable to hit perfect pitch during the chorus of the song due to the inability to find a comfortable octave. Unfortunately, we were not able to record a necessary amount of takes for the project which requires us to return to the studio. But this is not an issue, for now that my new friend is comfortable with his environment I guarantee the next time we enter the studio his performance will be twice as good. This will be due not only because of his newly achieved confidence, but because the next time we step into the studio I will no longer be his friend, but his producer