Over four years, another Stony Brook Student (Marc Turin) and I wrote four songs that mark our progression in songwriting and in friendship. This past August (2013), he told me that he was going to be moving to Florida with family. Up until that time we only had laptop and Blackberry recordings of our songs (not even iPhone!). We are both passionate about music and knew these songs were good and felt that it was only right to document the music on record. Originally the idea was to have the music for ourselves, but eventually it became a project to be released on iTunes.

I contacted my cousin who is also a Stony Brook student who was building his home studio (in his garage) at the time. I told him that we had a few songs that were well rehearsed that needed to be recorded in a very short amount of time since Marc was leaving for Florida in three weeks. The songs were originally written acoustically and demonstrate Marc's fantastic and unique style, with different rhythmic playing and dynamics that inspired me to produce something even bigger.

My cousin agreed to let us complete the project in his unfinished studio over a five day period. My role as project manager was about to get very serious. After that conversation, Google Docs became my partner in life. There I would post project costs, song requirements, track order and mix preferences. I created a Facebook group to keep video and audio references for myself, my bandmates and the recording engineer.

I would be in constant communication with my bandmates and the engineer to set up recording dates. I then set up agendas for us to complete tasks in an efficient manner. I used spreadsheets in Google Docs and printed them out to cross out tasks as they were completed.

I like to work in a very systematic manner. That way I can make sure everything is done the way it's supposed to be done and be completed by a deadline.

Below are the Google Docs with instructions and agendas for the band and recording engineer:

Recording Instructions Google Doc

One of the problems we ran into while recording was schedule conflicts. Our drummer was just promoted to assistant store manager and thus had his working hours increased. As a result, he could not attend more than two of the recording sessions. Originally we had four songs that were electric (with drums), and because of this schedule conflict, we only were able to record one track with drums.

This was a very critical moment in the project even though it was early on. Only one song was recorded on drums so far, leaving three songs to go. We almost had to settle for one electric track. Randomly, a session drummer-friend of the engineer walked into the studio the same day we found out our drummer couldn't work with us anymore. There was no way I wanted a random person to come in and play our drummer's parts (and we'd also have to pay him). I am very up for collaboration, but when you have a gut feeling about something, especially music, you have to go for it. As the producer for this project, I had a vision for each of these songs and worked directly with our drummer in constructing drum parts. Considering I wrote down how each part should be played on the Google Docs, I had a moment of realization. I didn't need to show this session drummer the parts. I knew them. I went home that night and played drums for 3-4 hours. I am mainly a guitarist but I knew that only two people could play the part: our drummer who had to leave, and me.

I have a very weird approach to writing music. I write my best when I'm about to go to sleep, not when I'm playing music. For those couple of days, I could barely sleep. I was imagining new and improved parts and would either text myself or record me humming the drum patterns to play in the morning.

When it came time for me to record drums, I was so ready for it that I wasn't even nervous. I went in and finished the recording within an hour or so. I'm lucky it didn't take that long, because it is hard to maintain a certain energy for four and a half minutes at a time. I was ready to go home after that until my cousin said "wanna record bass?" I figured I would do all the bass tracks on another day (to keep things systematic). However, it was still early in the day and I decided to record bass on two of our songs. After one take each we listened back and I really liked the spontaneity of each take. I figured I would rerecord it anyway at a later date so that each part was to my likings. I then left the studio and went to dinner and celebrated with my parents because it was one of the most amazing days of music in my life.

We had two more sessions of recordings, guitars one day, and vocals another. Guitar day was a lot of fun because we were playing acoustic and electric and we were slowly hearing each of the songs come together the way we envisioned it. You don't know what it's like to see and hear something come together and be a part of it. It's the most gratifying thing to me. 

One issue I ran into on guitar day was one of my electric guitar parts. I played my part and thought I could do it better. Then something happened to me. I became nervous and couldn't play the part. I was hearing myself and waiting to screw up. While it's important that my individual part was correct, I was focusing too much on myself and had to listen to others. I told the engineer to make the rest of the band louder in my headphones so that I could barely hear myself play. After he did that I was able to play the part correctly and move on. This semi-contradicts my earlier statement in which I mentioned that one must listen to himself. Here I had to listen to others to contribute to the whole (the song). It's good to be caught up in oneself, but not all the time.

Then there came vocal day, or shall I say "vocal all-nighter". My cousin had an idea: "why don't you guys come in at around 7pm and sleep over and we'll record all the vocal parts and harmonies for all four songs?" I am not a great vocalist, but from a vocalist's perspective (hearing from Marc), recording all those parts almost perfectly in one night is extremely challenging and almost impossible. At several points, Marc (our vocalist) was very discouraged because he knew one night would not get the best takes out of him. Singing for more than two hours can cause serious vocal fatigue (even if you're singing properly). When a vocalist is not happy, he will not perform well. I was worried for Marc and I was worried for the state of our songs. It took about three hours per song, and many breaks were taken. We bought so much tea that night it was ridiculous. We went to Dunkin Donuts twice in 6 hours. I only had vocal harmonies and I'm not a tea drinker, so I was okay that night.

I hadn't pulled an allnighter in four years. In all my time of college, I've never had the need to pull an allnighter. While I love music and recording, the allnighter really messed with my mood. Around 4 oclock AM, we told Marc to go to sleep for two hours to rest himself and his voice. For the next two hours, I was to record my harmonies and add orchestrations on a synthesizer to one of our songs, "Castle". I stood in the vocal booth with eye-blinders on because I was so fatigued and didn't want to see light. I always saw the song as a mystical castle of sorts, but hearing it and singing with my eyes closed was really special. Forget "Behind the music", I was inside.

After vocal harmonies came time for orchestrations on synthesizer. I recorded two parts and my cousin deleted one of the sections because I was "doing too much at the ending". I wasn't making the song sound like an overproduced "Glee" soundtrack, I was just adding what I felt belonged to make the ending sound as big as it should. This is where the allnighter really got to me. I needed some air. I took a walk around the block at about 7 am because I spent a majority of the past twelve hours in his garage (and one Dunkin Donuts trip). After I came back, I confronted my cousin about the situation and told him that the part I recorded should be included because that was how it was written and that it was our song and not his.

The problem with working on multiple projects for 12 hours overnight is that there's no space and energy fades quickly. When deadlines need to be met, you need to give even more and push barriers aside. If we recorded two songs each day, I'm sure the energy in the studio would have been better. This was a very important learning experience for me and the others I'm sure.

After 7 am, we got more coffee and tea at Dunkin Donuts and I was saying to myself, "are we really here again, have I not slept yet?" We got back to the studio and had one difficult vocal song to record. After about four hours, it was done. All the tracks that needed to be recorded for four songs were complete. Five sessions, four songs. We listened to everything and rerecorded guitar on one song and that was it. It was 3pm on August 20th and I still hadn't slept. This was the last time I was going to see Marc before he moved to Florida and this moment marked the end of our recording. I wish I had more energy in our goodbye hug, but I can definitely say that energy was captured on record.

In the subpages to this Band Recording page, you will find stories about the Mixing and Mastering process and getting these songs to iTunes. 

Here's a link if you can't find it: Mixing/Mastering