If you’re an entertainer, a great way to boost your earning potential is to record a CD album and sell it at your gigs. Working in hotels and entertainment venues gives you a great opportunity to promote the cd during your act. Holiday makers are always in the mood for buying things that remind them of the great time they had whilst on holiday. In this case, a CD is a must have piece of merchandise.
What Do I Need FOR recording a CD album?
All you need for recording a CD album is you and your backing tracks. If your tracks are on a laptop and are MP3s, it’s simply a case of a drag and drop to get them into the computer system. Even if they are on mini disc, which many artists still use, they can be uploaded onto the system. This just takes a little longer, as they need to be recorded in what’s known as “real time”. But you don’t need to bother about all that stuff, that’s what we do.
How Long Will recordING a CD album Take?
The question we get asked on a very regular basis is, “How Long Will It Take?”. The short answer is, that everyone is different and it can vary from client to client. Usually recording the songs for the CD can be pretty quick and can quite often be done in a day. This would depend on how well you know your songs. But the fact that you sing the songs on a regular basis would mean you probably know the songs fairly well.
The Recording Process
Once we’ve downloaded your tracks into the system, we would then create a master recording template to do all the mixing and editing in. I would suggest that at least 12 to 15 tracks are a good ballpark amount for your CD. Before we start recording your vocals, we go through each track individually to clean them up. Getting the levels and the EQ right at this stage saves a lot of time a hassle during the latter mixing and mastering process. Of course, you won’t have any of these problems having already used our Track Balancing service previously!
With all the tracks now balanced we can then move onto the most important part – getting a great performance and vocal recording for you. This is your time to shine. We have a dedicated vocal booth to get a clean, noise free vocal sound. And to enable us to do this, we use an industry standard, top of the range Neumann U87 microphone. Usually, we would do a full run through of the song and record your first take.
Over the years I have found that the first take is often the best version. But we would also record a second take. This is to compare it to the first, pick the best bits of each and then comp them together. If the track or vocals need any form of Compression, reverb or effects, this is now added. And once you’re happy with the mix, the tracks are bounced down in to a pre master stereo file.
Mastering ready for The CD
With all the vocals and backing tracks mixed into their own stereo files, we then balance them up in the mastering process. This is where we listen to each track individually and compare their EQ, volume and any sonic quality that may be a little inconsistent. These can be only minor tweaks but can make a big difference to the overall balance and continuity of the songs on the cd. The final process is to run each track through a master limiter. This is set to stop any tracks going over 0db. Thus, preventing unwanted harsh digital distortion.
Full Recording Package Available
So, that’s the full recording process. Your tracks are now ready to be burned to CD and duplicated, ready to sell at your gigs. Duplication? I’m glad you asked. Yes, we run a duplication service too. Check out the duplication page. And yes, we do have a full all-inclusive recording package available.
If you need any more info and you’d like to record a cd album with the Media Music Recording Package, get in contact with us via our contact page. Don’t forget to ask about our Full All-Inclusive Recording Packages.