Polkasound Productions - Recording Guide

2008 Polkasound Recording Guide
by Tom Brusky - Chief Engineer
Revised: 3/16/08

Chapter 1 - Terminology: Production vs. Engineering
Chapter 2 - The Polkasound Recording Process, Step By Step
Chapter 3 - How Much Does It Cost To Make a Recording?
Chapter 4 - Tips and Suggestions

Chapter 1 - Terminology: Production vs. Engineering

As the leader of your polka band, you probably also take on the role as the producer of your band's recordings. The producer is the person in charge who makes all of the creative and business decisions that go into making a CD. Based on his knowledge of the current music market, he chooses/approves the songs to be recorded, the musicians who will perform and the instruments they will play, the song arrangements, the graphic design, and all other decisions that lead to a quality product. A CD may have more than one producer. Anyone who contributes ideas that significantly shape the sound or look of a CD may be classified as a producer or co-producer.

By contrast, the engineer is the person who performs the physical recording of the music at the direction of the producer, however, the engineer and producer roles often overlap. As a polka musician and a producer, I'm always happy to offer production assistance while engineering a studio recording.

Chapter 2 - Recording at Polkasound, Step By Step

Step 1 - Planning Your CD:
As the producer of your upcoming CD, you'll want to have the entire project mapped out on paper--the song titles, keys, and arrangements--before stepping into the studio. Make sure your band knows exactly what to expect. The last thing you want to do in the studio is suprise your band members with arrangements they're not familiar with. The single, most common reason producers over-spend money in the studio is because their musicians don't know the songs or arrangements, so the producers end up spending $30/hour for what amounts to little more than "band practice."

Step 2 - Recording Click Tracks:
At Polkasound, we prefer working with click tracks, or scratch tracks. A click track is an expendable take of a song crudely performed with a metronome, melody line, and a bass line. Sometimes a rough vocal is added. What the click track does is allow the producer to set the tempo, key, and arrangement of each song for the band members to follow as they record their parts. Usually the first day of recording a new project is spent with the bandleader laying down click tracks for all of the songs. Copies of the click tracks should then be distributed to all members of the band for practice purposes.

Step 3 - Recording the Drums:
We always record the drums first. This is because drum tracks are not as practical to "fix" as solo instruments or vocals. The inherent ambience of drums, such as the ring of a tom or the decay of a cymbal crash, means that drum tracks should be fixed as few times as possible so that the tracks sound natural and smooth. Instead of having a drummer retake his parts over and over because he's having trouble locking onto the bass and banjo, it is much more practical to record the drums first, and then have the bass and banjo lock onto the drums as they record their parts later on. The drummer will hear the click track while he records, helping him stay on the beat and follow the arrangement set forth by the producer.

Step 4 - Recording the Bass:
After the drums have been recorded, the metronome and bass line are removed from the click track leaving just the accordion or concertina. My preference is always to record the bass or tuba next. What makes a recording solid is the tight relationship of the bass instrument and the drums as they play together. The bass guitar and tuba are the easiest instruments to fix during tracking, so single notes or entire sections of songs can easily be retaken until they align perfectly with the drum tracks.

Step 5 - Recording the Rest Of the Instruments/Vocals
With the final drum and bass tracks now recorded, the rest of the bandmembers have a very solid core onto which they can add their parts. There is no particular order at this point for which instruments should be recorded next.

Sidenote About Fixing Mistakes:
Gone are the days of old when bands had to record together as a group, and if one musician made a mistake, the whole band had to start the song again from the top. Because today's studio musicians can record their parts separately, fixing mistakes -- whether it's a few notes or half the song -- has never been easier. Using a standard recording technique called punching, you can retake just your mistakes instead of having to resing or replay an entire track. We "punch you in" where you need to correct a mistake on your track, and "punch you out" after the mistake has been corrected. The result of punching is a seamless track, possibly full of retakes and fixes, but one that sounds flawless as if you performed it perfectly the first time.

A staple piece of our studio's gear includes a pitch corrector. This processor will take your slightly off-pitch vocal or solo instrument and put it on pitch. It's not a miracle box that will make Barney Fife sing like Pavarotti, but rather a tool that will help, for example, a slightly flat clarinet be more in tune with the rest of the band.

Some mistakes can also be fixed after everything has been recorded--right before the songs are mixed down. We can transfer recorded tracks to our studio computer and perform all kinds of precise editing, such as correcting the pitch and/or timing of individual notes. The tracks are then transfered back to our studio recorder for mixing down. This editing technique is time consuming, though, and should only be used as a last resort.

Step 6 - Mixing:
After all of the band members have recorded their parts, the parts have to be mixed down. The mixdown process means taking up to 24 tracks of audio and blending them all together. This is when the relative volumes of instruments and vocals are adjusted, and when they receive processing and effects such as equalization and reverberation. This mixing process is done for each song, and generally takes around 20-30 minutes per song. The songs are mixed directly onto the hard drive of our studio's computer to be mastered.

Step 7 - Mastering:
Mastering is the final process for your music. The songs, which have just been mixed down, are now prepped for CD duplication at this stage. This is where the songs are placed into the desired order, blank space is added between the songs, and the relative volumes of each song are finely adjusted. The end result of mastering is a master CD to be sent to the duplicator.

Chapter 3 - How Much Does It Cost To Make a Recording at Polkasound?

Estimating the cost of making a recording is not easy because of the endless variables, but if you familiarize yourself with the different options available to you, an estimate becomes a little easier to make. Below are the key expenses of making a recording at Polkasound Productions..

Studio Time:
The studio recording rate at Polkasound is $30/hour. If you want to whip together a live recording, studio time will be nominal. But, for a normal, multi-track studio recording, a typical polka band can expect to spend around eight hours recording in the studio per instrument/vocal. So, if you have ten instruments/vocalists (i.e. two accordions, two singers, banjo, guitar, sax, drums, piano, and bass) then you can estimate that your band will spend around 80 hours in the studio recording a typical-length CD. Keep in mind this is a very rough estimate. Great-sounding, full-length recordings have been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Polkasound in as few as 20 hours live ($600) although most recordings are typically started and completed within 75-125 hours ($2,250-$3,750.)

Mixing & Mastering Time:
A mixdown session at Polkasound for a typical 14- to 22-song CD usually requires 5-15 hours ($150-$450.) Mastering runs approximately $150 to $175.

Recording Media:
At Polkasound, the usual cost of materials for a full length recording runs about $75--the market price of a lower-capacity computer hard drive. This includes enough recording media to cover two to three typical, CD-length projects.

Hiring Talent:
Are you hiring any musicians to help out with your recording? Consider there may be expenses there too. Professional and semi-profesional musicians may charge $75/song or more, while others, especially musicians you know well, may not charge you a dime. (If you hire me to perform on your recording, I do not charge for my musical services. I only charge for the studio time.)

Graphic Design:
At Polkasound, we've been designing cassette and CD covers for years. (See our Graphic Design page for examples of our work.) Our fee for designing a complete CD project (insert, tray card, and label) is $30/hour, which averages out to around $150-$325 depending on the complexity of the design. We will work with your photos, liner notes, graphics, sketches, and ideas to create a fitting, eye-catching cover for your CD.

Duplication & Printing:
We have a solid working relationship with Media Service Group in Waukesha, WI. We recommend them for all of your printing and duplication needs because the quality of their products and services is top-notch. We'll work together with you and MSG so that you get the results you're looking for. MSG offers complete CD duplication and packaging services.

There are too many variables to mention that can affect the cost of the duplication and printing services, such as the size of the insert booklet, whether or not hard copy proofs are requested, clear trays vs. black trays, etc. For the sake of brevity, we will narrow down the pricing to what we consider a "typical" CD which includes the following:

Two-page (four-panel) color insert with black & white printing on the inside
Color tray card, no printing on backside
High-quality color printing directly on the CD
Clear jewel case with black tray
Packaging/overwrap

Quantity of 500 = Approximately $1,300
Quantity of 1000 = Approximately $1,550

Total Cost To Make a CD:
Studio recording media: $75
+ Studio recording time: $3,000
+ Studio mixing & mastering: $450
+ Graphic design: $250
+ Duplication & printing: $1,425
-------------------------------------
$5,200

Please use that number as a guideline only, as it is a very, very rough estimate. Actual costs will vary, and may vary greatly.

Chapter 4 - Tips & Suggestions

1.) If you've never recorded before, do not assume your band will sound great in the studio because you seem to sound great onstage. When you play live, your ears miss almost all of all the small mistakes, imperfections and errors your band members make. Onstage, you can get away with almost anything, but in the studio, the musical performance of each band member is under the microscope, and those small mistakes are no longer hidden. Nine out of ten bands come into the studio feeling they know they music "good enough" to record, but when they hear everything played back, they notice that the guitar player is missing critical passing chords, one of the vocalists is singing a wrong harmony part, the drummer is playing through clean breaks -- all mistakes that they've been getting away with onstage for years. As a result, up to a third of their time in the studio is literally spent working out song parts and fixing those mistakes. That's some expensive band practice! Sit down with your band members and go over each song with a fine-tooth comb. Listen critically to what each band member is playing so that you can spot as many problems as possible and correct them before you enter the studio.

2.) Every musician has a certain level of proficiency, which means that they can only play or sing so well, and no better. Musicians at or near a professional level should be expected to retake several parts of a song until they get them perfected, but amateur musicians who are admittedly musicially-challenged should not. It is a waste of money to spend hours in the studio trying to get more out of a musician than what they can physically offer. There are a few studio tricks for making musicians sound a little better than they actually are, but you can't squeeze an Andrea Bocelli voice out of Homer Simpson no matter how hard you try. This realization leads to tip #3...

3.) Don't be afraid to hurt a few feelings if you need to hire better/different talent than what your regular band members can offer. If you plan on marketing your CDs outside your local fan base in hope of landing new gigs and getting radio play, you need to ask yourself this question: "Can my regular band members give me the quality of sound I want on this recording?" Your role as a producer is to make a product, and make it as good as possible. If your band has a Russian Dragon drummer, for example [repeat that to yourself a few times... it will sink in] don't let personal loyalty cloud your decision to hire a better drummer for the studio sessions. As the producer of your recording, you're going to have to make critical business decisions, and not all of them will be easy.

		2008 Polkasound Recording Guide by Tom Brusky - Chief Engineer Revised: 3/16/08 Chapter 1 - Terminology: Production vs. Engineering Chapter 2 - The Polkasound Recording Process, Step By Step Chapter 3 - How Much Does It Cost To Make a Recording? Chapter 4 - Tips and Suggestions Chapter 1 - Terminology: Production vs. Engineering As the leader of your polka band, you probably also take on the role as the producer of your band's recordings. The producer is the person in charge who makes all of the creative and business decisions that go into making a CD. Based on his knowledge of the current music market, he chooses/approves the songs to be recorded, the musicians who will perform and the instruments they will play, the song arrangements, the graphic design, and all other decisions that lead to a quality product. A CD may have more than one producer. Anyone who contributes ideas that significantly shape the sound or look of a CD may be classified as a producer or co-producer. By contrast, the engineer is the person who performs the physical recording of the music at the direction of the producer, however, the engineer and producer roles often overlap. As a polka musician and a producer, I'm always happy to offer production assistance while engineering a studio recording. Chapter 2 - Recording at Polkasound, Step By Step Step 1 - Planning Your CD: As the producer of your upcoming CD, you'll want to have the entire project mapped out on paper--the song titles, keys, and arrangements--before stepping into the studio. Make sure your band knows exactly what to expect. The last thing you want to do in the studio is suprise your band members with arrangements they're not familiar with. The single, most common reason producers over-spend money in the studio is because their musicians don't know the songs or arrangements, so the producers end up spending $30/hour for what amounts to little more than "band practice." Step 2 - Recording Click Tracks: At Polkasound, we prefer working with click tracks, or scratch tracks. A click track is an expendable take of a song crudely performed with a metronome, melody line, and a bass line. Sometimes a rough vocal is added. What the click track does is allow the producer to set the tempo, key, and arrangement of each song for the band members to follow as they record their parts. Usually the first day of recording a new project is spent with the bandleader laying down click tracks for all of the songs. Copies of the click tracks should then be distributed to all members of the band for practice purposes. Step 3 - Recording the Drums: We always record the drums first. This is because drum tracks are not as practical to "fix" as solo instruments or vocals. The inherent ambience of drums, such as the ring of a tom or the decay of a cymbal crash, means that drum tracks should be fixed as few times as possible so that the tracks sound natural and smooth. Instead of having a drummer retake his parts over and over because he's having trouble locking onto the bass and banjo, it is much more practical to record the drums first, and then have the bass and banjo lock onto the drums as they record their parts later on. The drummer will hear the click track while he records, helping him stay on the beat and follow the arrangement set forth by the producer. Step 4 - Recording the Bass: After the drums have been recorded, the metronome and bass line are removed from the click track leaving just the accordion or concertina. My preference is always to record the bass or tuba next. What makes a recording solid is the tight relationship of the bass instrument and the drums as they play together. The bass guitar and tuba are the easiest instruments to fix during tracking, so single notes or entire sections of songs can easily be retaken until they align perfectly with the drum tracks. Step 5 - Recording the Rest Of the Instruments/Vocals With the final drum and bass tracks now recorded, the rest of the bandmembers have a very solid core onto which they can add their parts. There is no particular order at this point for which instruments should be recorded next. Sidenote About Fixing Mistakes: Gone are the days of old when bands had to record together as a group, and if one musician made a mistake, the whole band had to start the song again from the top. Because today's studio musicians can record their parts separately, fixing mistakes -- whether it's a few notes or half the song -- has never been easier. Using a standard recording technique called punching, you can retake just your mistakes instead of having to resing or replay an entire track. We "punch you in" where you need to correct a mistake on your track, and "punch you out" after the mistake has been corrected. The result of punching is a seamless track, possibly full of retakes and fixes, but one that sounds flawless as if you performed it perfectly the first time. A staple piece of our studio's gear includes a pitch corrector. This processor will take your slightly off-pitch vocal or solo instrument and put it on pitch. It's not a miracle box that will make Barney Fife sing like Pavarotti, but rather a tool that will help, for example, a slightly flat clarinet be more in tune with the rest of the band. Some mistakes can also be fixed after everything has been recorded--right before the songs are mixed down. We can transfer recorded tracks to our studio computer and perform all kinds of precise editing, such as correcting the pitch and/or timing of individual notes. The tracks are then transfered back to our studio recorder for mixing down. This editing technique is time consuming, though, and should only be used as a last resort. Step 6 - Mixing: After all of the band members have recorded their parts, the parts have to be mixed down. The mixdown process means taking up to 24 tracks of audio and blending them all together. This is when the relative volumes of instruments and vocals are adjusted, and when they receive processing and effects such as equalization and reverberation. This mixing process is done for each song, and generally takes around 20-30 minutes per song. The songs are mixed directly onto the hard drive of our studio's computer to be mastered. Step 7 - Mastering: Mastering is the final process for your music. The songs, which have just been mixed down, are now prepped for CD duplication at this stage. This is where the songs are placed into the desired order, blank space is added between the songs, and the relative volumes of each song are finely adjusted. The end result of mastering is a master CD to be sent to the duplicator. Chapter 3 - How Much Does It Cost To Make a Recording at Polkasound? Estimating the cost of making a recording is not easy because of the endless variables, but if you familiarize yourself with the different options available to you, an estimate becomes a little easier to make. Below are the key expenses of making a recording at Polkasound Productions.. Studio Time: The studio recording rate at Polkasound is $30/hour. If you want to whip together a live recording, studio time will be nominal. But, for a normal, multi-track studio recording, a typical polka band can expect to spend around eight hours recording in the studio per instrument/vocal. So, if you have ten instruments/vocalists (i.e. two accordions, two singers, banjo, guitar, sax, drums, piano, and bass) then you can estimate that your band will spend around 80 hours in the studio recording a typical-length CD. Keep in mind this is a very rough estimate. Great-sounding, full-length recordings have been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Polkasound in as few as 20 hours live ($600) although most recordings are typically started and completed within 75-125 hours ($2,250-$3,750.) Mixing & Mastering Time: A mixdown session at Polkasound for a typical 14- to 22-song CD usually requires 5-15 hours ($150-$450.) Mastering runs approximately $150 to $175. Recording Media: At Polkasound, the usual cost of materials for a full length recording runs about $75--the market price of a lower-capacity computer hard drive. This includes enough recording media to cover two to three typical, CD-length projects. Hiring Talent: Are you hiring any musicians to help out with your recording? Consider there may be expenses there too. Professional and semi-profesional musicians may charge $75/song or more, while others, especially musicians you know well, may not charge you a dime. (If you hire me to perform on your recording, I do not charge for my musical services. I only charge for the studio time.) Graphic Design: At Polkasound, we've been designing cassette and CD covers for years. (See our Graphic Design page for examples of our work.) Our fee for designing a complete CD project (insert, tray card, and label) is $30/hour, which averages out to around $150-$325 depending on the complexity of the design. We will work with your photos, liner notes, graphics, sketches, and ideas to create a fitting, eye-catching cover for your CD. Duplication & Printing: We have a solid working relationship with Media Service Group in Waukesha, WI. We recommend them for all of your printing and duplication needs because the quality of their products and services is top-notch. We'll work together with you and MSG so that you get the results you're looking for. MSG offers complete CD duplication and packaging services. There are too many variables to mention that can affect the cost of the duplication and printing services, such as the size of the insert booklet, whether or not hard copy proofs are requested, clear trays vs. black trays, etc. For the sake of brevity, we will narrow down the pricing to what we consider a "typical" CD which includes the following: Two-page (four-panel) color insert with black & white printing on the inside Color tray card, no printing on backside High-quality color printing directly on the CD Clear jewel case with black tray Packaging/overwrap Quantity of 500 = Approximately $1,300 Quantity of 1000 = Approximately $1,550 Total Cost To Make a CD: Studio recording media: $75 + Studio recording time: $3,000 + Studio mixing & mastering: $450 + Graphic design: $250 + Duplication & printing: $1,425 ------------------------------------- $5,200 Please use that number as a guideline only, as it is a very, very rough estimate. Actual costs will vary, and may vary greatly. Chapter 4 - Tips & Suggestions 1.) If you've never recorded before, do not assume your band will sound great in the studio because you seem to sound great onstage. When you play live, your ears miss almost all of all the small mistakes, imperfections and errors your band members make. Onstage, you can get away with almost anything, but in the studio, the musical performance of each band member is under the microscope, and those small mistakes are no longer hidden. Nine out of ten bands come into the studio feeling they know they music "good enough" to record, but when they hear everything played back, they notice that the guitar player is missing critical passing chords, one of the vocalists is singing a wrong harmony part, the drummer is playing through clean breaks -- all mistakes that they've been getting away with onstage for years. As a result, up to a third of their time in the studio is literally spent working out song parts and fixing those mistakes. That's some expensive band practice! Sit down with your band members and go over each song with a fine-tooth comb. Listen critically to what each band member is playing so that you can spot as many problems as possible and correct them before you enter the studio. 2.) Every musician has a certain level of proficiency, which means that they can only play or sing so well, and no better. Musicians at or near a professional level should be expected to retake several parts of a song until they get them perfected, but amateur musicians who are admittedly musicially-challenged should not. It is a waste of money to spend hours in the studio trying to get more out of a musician than what they can physically offer. There are a few studio tricks for making musicians sound a little better than they actually are, but you can't squeeze an Andrea Bocelli voice out of Homer Simpson no matter how hard you try. This realization leads to tip #3... 3.) Don't be afraid to hurt a few feelings if you need to hire better/different talent than what your regular band members can offer. If you plan on marketing your CDs outside your local fan base in hope of landing new gigs and getting radio play, you need to ask yourself this question: "Can my regular band members give me the quality of sound I want on this recording?" Your role as a producer is to make a product, and make it as good as possible. If your band has a Russian Dragon drummer, for example [repeat that to yourself a few times... it will sink in] don't let personal loyalty cloud your decision to hire a better drummer for the studio sessions. As the producer of your recording, you're going to have to make critical business decisions, and not all of them will be easy.
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