Over The Hill E.P - Production Evaluation
Previous to recording this E.P I had a number of experiences recording my music, but I had not been completely happy with any of the results. My first taste of recording in a studio came when I was sixteen, my guitar teacher at college had a portable studio, lots of good gear and expertise. We recorded six songs in one day and the songs formed my first E.P. As I had never recorded to a metronome before and because of the time constraint the tracks were recorded without one; guitar first then vocals. There are lots of elements in the recordings that I am unhappy with; my voice in the recording sounds very different to how it does now and has improved a lot since then. You can hear my plectrum hitting the guitar as I strum making an annoying click sound. The main aspect though is that the songs, other than two which I still play now, are not fully developed to there potential.
Whilst I have been at University I have been constantly writing songs and refining them, honing my songwriting ability. I have also delved more in to the world of recording and being able to record adequate quality demos has really helped progress my songwriting. For this E.P, Over The Hill, it is the outcome of years of work and I now finally have a product that I am happy with and I think shows off my songs to their full potential.
There were a number of people who without them it wouldn’t have been possible. The main one being Daniel Evans who’s studio the E.P was recorded in. First of all we decided that we would record four of my songs and make sure that they were as varied as possible. I had been playing as a band back in Southampton and we were playing two new songs, ‘Over The Hill’ and ‘Come Back Round’ and I had decided these were definitely going to be recorded. The other two were old songs that I felt hadn’t been shown their full potential when they were previously recorded, ‘Right For You’ and ‘Secrets’. Revisiting old songs and revitalising them turned out to be a really rewarding experience and I am pleased I didn’t decide to record newer but weaker tracks just for the sake of them being new.
The pre-production stage was very important to the work being a success. Now the songs were decided I sent Dan a dictaphone recording of the band playing through the songs we were going to record so he could get to know them a bit and start to think of any suggestions. When it was time to record, my drummer Robert Purkiss came down to Cardiff to record drums once I had laid down a guide track to a click. This is something that whilst at Uni I have become more comfortable doing and now I can adequately play to a click. Rob then laid down the drums. We used Todd Campbell’s studio to record the drums as neither Dan or myself had the resources to record it to a good enough quality ourselves. Todd then made sure all the drums were in time. The rest of the instruments were then recorded in Dan’s studio, with myself laying down guitar and vocals.
Background, concept and ideas that designed the work
Before going in to record I knew that I wanted a natural sound. The sound of my music has been described as ’60’s’ and ‘vintage’ and whilst I can hear this flavour in my music, as it is a reflection of some of the music I listen to coming out, I want my music to be more than that. Artists such as Mac Demarco, The Growlers and Happyness are some artists that I really enjoy listening to and who inspire me. All of these bands record to tape and have a low fidelity sound. This was a route that I was tempted to go down as using this recording method the music has a warmth to it. In the end I decided that without having the expertise or resources it wouldn’t be achievable. Also, as mentioned earlier I had struggled to achieve a recording that I was happy with. With this in mind I decided that going down a more polished production route was the right decision for this moment in time. Another consideration and something that I definitely wanted to achieve with this work was for it to be played on the radio. Having a more polished sound would make this more likely. A large proportion of the music I listen to does have more polished production and I’m not ashamed of having pop-sensibilities. As long as the production is not tacky or over-powering I was happy for it to be more polished.
One artist who informed my sound in a big way was Glen Hansard. Making parallels between his and my work he underwent a similar process for his album ‘Didn’t He Ramble’. He went through a long process of refining his songs and improving them till he got to a point where he was happy with them. An example of how I did this is with the song ‘Right For You’, which I was recording for the second time, the original version not doing the song justice and feeling energy-less. Immediately this was partially resolved by Rob’s fantastic drumming but the song also took some serious tweaking. In the studio Dan was seriously insistent that the end needed to be ‘bigger’, all the instruments in the band were going full pelt and I was just singing as normal, so I felt as if my voice needed to be louder and in a higher register. I then experimented with singing higher and louder and achieved exactly what was missing. Dan also suggested swapping the middle 8 and the coda around, which also made a lot of difference. Glen Hansard was given the same brutally honest feedback from his producer and thought he could do better, sometimes that is what you need. These sorts of improvements are what makes the pre-production stage crucial.
The sound of Glen Hansard’s record ‘Didn’t He Ramble’ was also a big inspiration for how I wanted my record to sound, it having a less-produced and more natural sound with only the harmonies being over-dubbed afterwards. Singing harmonies was quite a new thing for me and thankfully Dan Evans was good at pointing them out.
Culturally informing my decisions was the music I listen to, such as Bob Dylan, Glen Hansard, Van Morrison but also The Libertines and Nirvana. These are the type of artists I aspire to be like and hopefully my work could add to this body of work.
Audience and Market
Without going to focus groups and finding out who the main audience is that enjoy my work, it is hard to find out specifically, but from looking at similar artists it can give a good indication.
The audience intended for this work is hopefully a wide variety of people and ages. Despite this it is mostly aimed towards the 20-25 bracket of men who enjoy going to watch shows and listen to 6 music, who will be quite often in bands themselves. Location specific, I would say around the south of England as well as in Cardiff, South Wales, where I currently reside, as there is a great music scene where people go to watch new music. As well as this I would say there is another main audience for my music of 45-60 year old males and females who like troubadours such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Van Morrison, who have the time and money to buy records and go out to watch shows. They understand my work as it is nostalgic but hopefully offers something fresh and new as well.
It was also be logical to assume that artists who’s music are similar to mine like Mac Demarco and The Growlers would have the same audience. A radio show that this type of music is played on is Steve Lamacq’s late afternoon/evening show which plays indie music and a large proportion of it’s demographic are 20-25 year old males.
As my music has a more commercial appeal than some of these acts, Radio 1 could also be an outlet for my music to be played. According to Radio 1’s website “It should reflect the lives and interests of 15–29 year olds but also embrace others who share similar tastes.” Radio 1 could possibly enable me to reach a different, younger audience.
Media sources that back up this understanding -
Blogs such as ‘The Line Of Best Fit’, ‘D.I.Y’ and ‘Louder Than War’ to name a few are all websites that feature new alternative music and are all places where my music would fit in.
Youtube channels: Mahogany Sessions, La Blogotheque, The line of Best Fit each feature indie bands and acts that are similar to me. My music is very friendly to these sorts of platforms.
Record labels that similar artists are signed to are:
Moshi Moshi that Slow Club and Meiylr Jones are signed to.
Bella Union - Father John Misty, John Grant
Domino Records/ Bill Ryder Jones, Arctic Monkeys
Magazines such as : Crack, NME, So Young all cover indie music similar to my own. D.I.Y zines that feature new music are also now very popular, such as So Young. These would also be a good place for my music.
Document promotion strategies
In order to promote the E.P I will email blogs, play shows around the country, sell C.Ds and use social media. I will have a blog like the ones I have mentioned above to premiere the video for the single ‘Over The Hill’. This will increase the amount of people who will see it and give it some exclusivity ‘D.I.Y premiers the new Owen Hackett single’ etc.
Having a music video is a great way of getting your music seen by more people as it has a visual element and is easily shared on social media.
Conclusion
Overall I’m incredibly happy with how the E.P has turned out. It features songs that I am very proud of and the production, I feel, does them justice. It stretched me as a musician and at times brought me out of my comfort zone; having to record to a metronome and sing harmonies. If I was to undertake the process again I wouldn’t do anything differently although for future work I would like to try different and new methods of recording. For this E.P I used multi-track recording gradually built up from the drums, but I would like to record as a band live in the studio. This method could potentially suit my music which I think is best live. I would also like to explore analog recording techniques.