Should I Self-Produce my Album?

A couple of months ago I wrote about what impact a producer can have on your recording, from selecting and arranging songs, overseeing sessions and sometimes engineering and mixing the recordings and even helping write the material. Whether you're indy or on a major label, the producer takes on the stress of time and budget constraints and navigates all aspects of the business, from marketing, budgeting to technical etc.

On the question of whether you should Self-Produce your album (or EP, whatever), there are a few key questions you should ask yourself:

Do you know anything about marketing?

Do you have experience in recording?

Have you worked with session musos before?

Can you speak the speak with engineers?

Is saving money the only reason you're thinking about self-producing?

Even if you answered yes to all of these, it doesn't mean you're ready to make the plunge. You also need to consider that you are doing this for an artist with their money and their reputation – and that artist is you and you may not be the best judge of your own work.



Some general tips:

Be brutal – you may have to make some tough decisions that compromise your artistic vision – don't be precious, do what is best for your budget/sound/sanity. Don't be afraid to ask for help – in fact, where the budget allows it, hire the best. Their guidance will make you better at what you do. Compare your work with the best – whether it's mixing, mastering or artwork, you will benefit from having high standards and direct comparison and being brutal with your critique should make up for what you lack in experience.



Figure out your market
This is the first thing you need to do. For marketing purposes, you need to know who your fans are. For creating a sound you need to know, not only who to sell to, but how to position your sound and what the expectations of that style are. You can't do too much research on this.



Some Common Pitfalls
Thinking that marketing is some kind of yelling from the mountain-top to make people buy your product/go to your show:

“Hey Guys – We wanted to thank you all for coming out to our last show. We appreciated you guys being there and hope you can make it out to our next show at…”

See your fans as one person that you do it all for – it will help you understand their story and how it intersects with yours.

Over/under-estimating the value of your art

Not knowing the strategies that other artists use – whether they are similar to you or not, you should be able to pull apart Beyonces marketing campaign and why it works if you're to understand how to market your folk band.

Record the music
This is the aspect that you'll automatically concentrate on but each aspect relies on the good execution of the others to function. You need to be objective when listening to your own songs, accept any criticism from others and improve your songs without being precious. Some engineering and mixing knowledge is essential whether you are doing it yourself or just working with a professional.

Some Common Pitfalls
Making everything BIG!!! If you listen to hits from any era, you may find that there'll be three or so instruments or elements that are fat, bright, loud while other instruments are supporting these 'stars'.

Leaving decisions until later – partly to blame is the modern recording studio with computers that can save it all whereas tape limited you and forced you to have a plan. Vocals - Vocal production is probably the most important aspect - that's the bit that people relate to the most, and understanding the various techniques and sounds that aren't necessarily apparent when listening to other peoples music.

You're not the best judge of your work!

Cover Design
This isn't just a pretty picture, in fact the picture probably shouldn't be pretty – what's more important - people seeing your mug on the cover (although it is good for your ego) or to instantly understand what your music will do for them and to want to listen to it. The artwork lets potential customers know what to expect from your music – so start with broad strokes – metal albums don't generally have flowers and a pony on the cover. Check out what big brands think when trying to sell you cereal you don't need, colour/font/message are factors in these decisions.

Some Common Pitfalls
Typos – yep, something that shouldn't ever happen but does, a lot. Not print ready art – between bled edge, CMYK and DPI this is a minefield for the uninitiated.

Getting a friend who hasn't dealt with a printer before – see above - you're better off getting a rush job from a pro than laborious work from someone inexperienced.

Manufacturing/Pressing
Do you know the difference between replication and duplication? Replication is a professional process that creates a CD by molding the disk to be an exact copy of the original master. Data cannot be added or changed in this case. Duplication, on the other hand, refers to burning data to a disk, as is done in home computing. Replication is cheaper and more reliable for larger runs as burned CDs can still have errors that older players have trouble playing. As for Digital Downloads as an alternative to physical copies, sure you potentially reach a larger audience but now we're into the streaming vs download debate – streaming generates (next to) no income, but people may not already be aware of your music enough to want to buy it. Before you say YouTube, they are heading in the same direction as Spotify...

Some Common Pitfalls
"I can just burn this at home, right?"

If, after all of this scare-mongering, you're still keen to produce your own music, go for it.

Interview with Stuart Stuart (Sheppards Producer)

He started out like many musicians, gigging and messing around with a 4-track recorder; he produced the early recordings of The Veronicas, which lead to a US deal with Warner Music and international success; and now his work with Sheppard has garnered an Aria nomination for ‘Let Me Down Easy’ and across the board airplay for their latest single, ‘Geronimo’.

Early Days

Stuart Stuart is known around Brisbane as producer with a real passion for all styles of music. He has been playing guitar since age nine, started working with computer sequencers at age fourteen and by the end of high school was recording with a four-track. While pursuing a career in advertising, he was gigging as part of a duo and by necessity, learned about sequencing midi tracks with 1 sequencer and 1 keyboard the hard way. By 22 he was a full-time musician and progressed to having his own studio on the Northside of Brisbane where many interstate artists travel to record.

A veteran user of Cubase, Stuart also isn’t a massive gearhead, preferring to really know the few items he does use, like the Joe Meek preamp that takes pride of place in his minimalist rack. His microphone collection is similarly tidy with a strong preference for Rode, with the NT2 usually working well for female voices and Classic for male voices. He also loves the sound of the UAD cards from Universal Audio and Waves plugins as he mixes his productions ‘in the box’.

His deal with Mushroom Records producing dance music eventually lead him to collaborating with other artists and later using his keen ear and multi-instrumental ability to produce other artists. Using these skills, he worked with The Veronicas from the ages of 15 or 16 and was instrumental (pun intended) in their rise to fame and subsequent work with renowned international hit-makers, Max Martin and Dr Luke.

Talking about his wide taste in music and artists he works with, he says “I’m always just trying to surprise myself… my approach is that I can’t stand still and keep doing the same thing.” It is this ethos that saw him start working with Sheppard in 2011.

Shepparding in a new era

Sheppard is a 6 piece ‘alternative pop’ group from Brisbane, Managed by industry heavyweight Michael Chugg. Made up of three siblings – George, Amy and Emma Sheppard, and three friends – Jason Bovino, Michael Butler, and Dean Gordon. Their sounds that are reminiscent of a beach party have visited South Africa, the UK, India, Bali, and the US twice.

Platinum selling and Aria Best Independent Release nominated Let Me Down Easy, has been blasted on commercial radio and TV, and as George describes it, features ‘emotional , heartfelt lyrics of a man who has just had his heart broken, but it’s being sung to an incredibly catchy, happy sounding melody!’

Prior to working with Stuart, the band had a bad experience with a previous producer and had to scrap an entire album. This turns out to be a smart move, as Stuart explains, “Pretty much from the first song I realized that this was the best thing I’d worked on in ages…”. The disparate influences of each of the production team of Jay, George and Amy with Stuart combine to make records that take it from the hipster to the suburbs - commercial indy that features group vocals, acoustic guitars, hand claps and infectious electronic rhythms.

Early on, a typical workflow for production on a song would take a day, whereas now the perfectionist nature of the team can mean that they spend ten days and up to three versions of song that doesn’t even make the final cut.

The team worked on Let Me Down Easy in mid 2012 and made some pretty radical decisions early on – they banned snare drums in the production and only used hand-claps to contribute to the signature sound of acoustic guitars and group vocal lines. They used a fairly typical workflow by starting with the demo and recorded the drum track (sans snare) to build the rest of the track upon.

Geronimo

The upcoming album is being whittled down from an initial list of 40 songs and is more detailed in it’s production, as can be heard in the new single currently being played across the board on B105. Stuart broke it down for me and shared what each of the 150 tracks added to the sound of the most requested song.

“We really had a surplus of ideas…” as he explained the process, starting with the kick and acoustic guitar and continuing the layering with a surprising sound added to the rhythm of the acoustic guitar - knee slaps recorded by Jay and George. The acoustic guitars were recorded with one of his favourite techniques, a spaced stereo pair of NT2s while a number of the electric guitar parts had multiple effects including delay to give a spacey ambient sound.

A major difference with this song is that the band played the song live on tour before they had finished recording, whereas the songs are normally finished before the rest of the band come in and work out how they are going to replicate it live. And for that reason the electronic drums that were already laid down, were then augmented with live drums at the end and then mixed with predominantly room mics and the occasional spot mic blended in for the snare.

The vocals were recorded in the vocal booth with the Rode Classic, while the group vocals and other hooks were recorded in various rooms for different sounds. One of these is the “bombs away” hook that particularly impressed Stuart. The amount of layering and craft in these sessions is astounding and the end result is a catchy pop recording that contains enough subtlety and surprises to withstand multiple listens and is obviously proving popular across commercial radio, both here and overseas.