Let's start off by listing the people who were a part of this track:
Vocals and Lead Guitar: Jon Gilley (@jongilley)
Synth/Keys: David Compton (@DCHopemusic)
Rhythm Guitar and Bass Guitar: Kevin Alexander (@BigKev53189)
Drums: Joe Cram (@Josephus92)
Now for the fun backstory of this track (as any good track has).
These four guys are friends of mine from the area surrounding Covington, Georgia (except for Jon). They were the band for a summer camp down in middle Georgia, and they needed a soundguy, so they called me. One afternoon, we've got some time to kill while the kids are off doing something fun, and David starts messing around with his keyboard. He comes across this sound, and we all think it's legit. Then we had the idea that it would be a great sound to be the basis for a cover of Our God as performed by Chris Tomlin at Passion 2011. Before we know it, the question has been asked: "Hey, we've got some time. Why don't we record it with the equipment we've got here?"
(Before we continue with this story, let's examine the equipement we had available)
1 Sennheiser e835 Microphone
1 Set of $10 Radio Shack Headphones
Various cables, connectors, etc
Here's the thing. The equipment we had was far from what is considered professional recording equipment. The major setback was that ourĀ repertoireĀ of technology did not include a multitrack recording interface, which meant that this song was going to have to be recorded one instrument at a time. We knew this, and we went for it.
Drums were up first. We had Joe Cram play with a metronome, which took some getting used to on his part, but he did awesome. I think there's one part in the beginning where he gets off by a bit, but he quickly found his way back on. He rocked it like no other on this track.
Next up Big Kevin threw down the bass line. He was solid, as he always is. At one point he accidentally stepped on a breaker pedal the bass guitar was ran through and the signal cut out, but instead of doing another take I just copied that bass section (it was in a verse, I think) from where it was good and fit it in where his guitar had cut out.
Kevin was also in charge of laying down the Rhythm Electric line. That was his dedicated instrument in the band. The bass player for the rest of the time, Rick Williams, couldn't make it that afternoon, so Kevin played both bass and Rhythm Electric on the track. It's also weird that this song is referenced as being by "Dr. JK," which stands for "David, Rick, Jon/Joe, and Kevin" since Rick was not actually on this track. We still love him, so he honorarily gets to be a part of the name :).
We recorded David on the synth/keys next. The keys being what led to this chain of events transpiring, we tried to make sure they sounded solid, and I think weĀ achievedĀ that. Now that it's months later, I wonder if in addition to the synth we should have layered some strings. I don't know if it would have made it sound better or worse, but it may have been worth a shot.
Jon Gilley was the only member of the band left to record anything, so he knocked the lead line out of the way first. It took him a couple of goes to get it the way he wanted, but he finished it up like nobody's business.
Vocals we the last thing up, and vocals are the thing I struggle with the most as far as mixing goes. Where the vocal sit relative to the instruments in a mix is something I am always have an internal debate about. But if I can be honest, I think I got it right on this track. Let me know if I didn't, but I like where Jon's voice sits.
Speaking of the vocals, there were a couple of vocal effects used in the track. The "auto-tune" at the end was something that was just inspired out of the name of "cool," I believe. I do feel it fits the track, and it doesn't sound bad. Garageband's "Limit to Key" feature provided that sound, along with the compression used a certain way.
Also, my favorite part of the whole process was the "radio" vocal effect used at the end of the first bridge. The repeat just sounded empty and redundant (which I know it's called a repeat, but still). I knew something needed to be done, and then I heard in my head exactly how it should sound. I think I ran his voice through an Amp simulator in Garageband to get that sound and just tweaked with the settings of it.
Keep in mind that every single instrument was ran through a soundboard and then the tape out of the soundboard ran into the line in of the computer. Also, the headphone jack of the computer was ran into the soundboard so that the sounds that had already been recorded could be played back for the next person in line, but only through the auxiliaryĀ monitors, because if it was played through the main out it would run back into the computer (see what I said about not exactly professional equipment?).
Right after I got the best sound I thought was possible to achieve using Garageband I exported the song and we had a listen. Considering we had done it the way we had over a span of only about 3 hours, we were pretty satisfied with ourselves. As soon as I exported the final product, I opened up the file one more time to just take a look at something and discovered that the individual tracks had gone corrupt. So the version we had exported was the version we had.
I recently opened up the finalized .mp3 in Logic in order to master it. One of the main problems with Garageband is the export volume for .mp3's is significantly quieter than any respectable track should be. In addition to boosting the volume, the mastering process I did in Logic also hopefully gave the track a little more depth through the use of a Multipress and Exciter.
There's a very significant reason that this track is the first one to be posted on this blog. It was after producing this track, going through the creative process of recording and mixing in order to arrive at something that is pleasing to the ears, that I discovered my passion for audio production. I had done a couple of vocal tracks just for fun with a friend a year and a half before (and I might break those out on this blog at some point), but this is when I discovered just how much I enjoy the audio production process. Even thought the equipment we had was notĀ conducive to an easy production process nor a professional sound in our final product, it was one of the most fulfilling projects I had been a part of in some time.
And, while I know it's not studio quality, for the context given above, I would say that this recording is pretty darn good.Ā
