Producing "Wrapped in Happiness"

This is the longest post I have ever written and may well be the longest ever written on Chordie (1080 words) so please accept my apologies beforehand. I hope it might be of help anyone who decides to attempt a recording project such as this.

I wanted to include as many Chordie members in this project as I could so I wrote and posted a chorus and asked for verses. I deliberately asked for them to be sent to my private e-mail and not be posted on the Forum, which has usually been done, as I did not want anyone following on from another's idea. I hoped it might work, and it did. I was sent more material than I could use but I was able to use a verse from everyone who contributed. I made some minor adjustments to line length and to the rhyming pattern to fit the song. I should have made it clear in my original request that I wanted the second and fourth line to rhyme. I also decided that I must have an instrumental part in the song so that the musicians I intended to include could be heard in their own right without vocals over the top.

The music I decided to write myself and not ask for help. I have a programme called Band-in-a-Box that, if you write the chords into the correct place in the bars it will produce a backing track and with nearly 3000 different styles to choose from, and the ability to change the instruments used it is a pretty handy tool. I set to and made a backing track for the song and recorded it as an mp3. I then used the same track and laid my vocals over it to give me two recordings, one with vocals and one without. This was to give the musicians either just a music track or one with vocals for the melody to work with. The vocalists of course would only need the one with vocals for the melody as each was to sing one verse and we all were to sing the chorus.

I sent both backing tracks to everyone who had offered to help in this type of project, some I had to ask to perform on their secondary instrument to produce the kind of sound I had in mind. The backing track was just to give the feel and tempo of the kind of music I wanted and I told everyone that it would not be present in the final mix except possibly the strings. This would mean that everyone would be able to keep time with each other without them hearing anyone else's part. I got a fantastic response from everyone I asked, Russ suggested that he play harmonica instead of guitar, an instrument I had not thought of including, but I realised that it would add to the song. I asked everyone to remove all of the backing track except the count-in and mix it with their recording to make it easy for me to synchronize the individual tracks and this worked very well. I now eagerly and very regularly checked my e-mail and very soon I was getting responses. It was almost like Christmas come early.

I had pre-planned where I was having the instruments and vocalist panned so it was easy when I started mixing. Scott (Fatstrings) was the first with his bass track. I already had Audacity with the backing track and my vocals as separate tracks and I added his bass to it. I added the others as they came and was soon able to remove the backing track. I must admit that more tracks I got the better it was sounding and the more impatient I was getting to have it finalised but I had told everyone that I would not rush them as I wanted them to produce a track that they were happy with and not a rushed one because I was pressurising them. As the vocals came in I was able to replace some of my vocals.

The mixing and balancing is the hardest, most frustrating but ultimately the most rewarding part. It is very time consuming as certain instruments and certainly vocals will have peaks which sometimes prevent amplifying the track enough. This then means that the peak has to be decreased in volume so that the rest can be increased. Even in one person's recording, sections have to be increased in volume so that it is not drowned out by the other tracks. I have attempted to make every instrument and every voice heard throughout the song and it is a tedious and painstaking task.

So for any one else that decides to produce a song this way be prepared to spent a lot of time at it. It is very much easier to use fewer musicians and vocalists. Make it clear what you are asking of them and give them a track to work with to ensure that it will blend together when you come to mixing. Also make sure that you ask for an unmixed track or tracks. If one person is playing more than one instrument or playing and singing, what may sound fine to them will probably not be right when other voices and instruments are mixed in so you need to be able to mix and balance tracks individually. Do not mix any tracks until you have them all in as you sometimes have to re-work tracks you thought you had OK. Only when everything is in and you are happy with the effect should you do any mixing. I deliberately kept the music tracks' volume rather higher than normal until they were all in and then mixed them, lowered the volume to normal to do the final balancing of the vocals before completing the final mix.
 

There may well be other ways of doing it but this worked for me, so now I look forward to someone else producing a song in this manner.

Russ, writing this has given me an idea. You have a list of Members who are prepared to play and sing for someone else. So why not see if anyone is prepared to produce a recording for others. If so, you can then go to the Songwriting section as there are several writers of songs who have no means of recording, you can offer them the services of the Recording section. Just an idea!

Roger