Recording music is a philosophy
Music is everywhere. It circulates through cars, it blares in eardrums and it even pesters customers at restaurants. Music arrives through a complicated process of creativity, writing and recording.
For Alex Black, recording equipment is the most important part. Money can only buy so much, Black said, but it can buy quality. With the proper monitors or speakers, the right computer, a musical instrument digital interface (MIDI), a digital audio workstation (DAW) and an audio interface, a rough song track can be laid down right in a mere living room — which is exactly where Black makes his music.
Black is a singer, songwriter and guitarist for the Lewiston rock-and-roll band Homewreckr. The band is producing its first extended play, or EP, which explains why Black works from his living room. The computer and speakers take up half a wall, with black boxes and flashing lights on a shelf. A wooden rack holds four guitars and three more stand up around the desk chair. Cords create a maze to walk through to approach an empty chair.
Amelia C. Warden | Rawr
Alexander Black demonstrates how he mixes music for his band Homewreckr Feb. 22. Alexander has a music recording setup at his home in Moscow.
“This is the shit that makes this run,” Black said staring at his screen.
The most important piece of equipment amateur recorders need is a computer. Black said certain specifications required for a computer capable of recording cannot be found on most home computers. A powerful graphics card is unnecessary, but the amount of disposable RAM is important. Black continued with several specs just for the computer needed to record at home.
He mentioned the sizable speakers, which faced either side of his head. He called them studio monitors and said it was important these monitors didn’t act like headphones or regular speakers. Those clean up the sound, but studio monitors play the raw sound, emphasizing every flaw, Black said.
Black said these tracks are not for direct consumption by consumers, but for preproduction purposes. These tracks will go to an audio engineer who can adjust channels and volumes in a full recording studio. It will help the audio engineer familiarize the tracks, so the band can come in and play without having to spend half an hour trying to do sound checks.
Black lays down the bass line on his computer first to give him something to work from. The first and second guitar parts layer with the bass line. He then plays drums on little touch pads inlaid into the MIDI keyboard. He plugs a purple electric guitar into his audio interface and begins working on a guitar solo in the middle of his song.
Different methods work for different people. Local celebrity Simba Tirima of Simba and the Exceptional Africans has a more tricked out way to record music than Black’s small desk in a living room. He remodeled his basement to make a full recording studio. There are two vocal booths, a cubicle for the drums, a place for guitars and other instruments and a full, separate recording workstation. Tirima said he could record up to 16 channels on his workstation, but since drums take up half at any one time, this leaves little space for other instruments.
Tirima, unlike Black, has a specific philosophy when it comes to recording.
“There are three things you need in the middle,” Tirima said. “The kick drum, the snare and the lead vocals. Everything else you can spread right or left along (a) spectrum.”
Tirima said he spent much of his time reading about how humans perceive sound to understand what kinds of effects he could play with. If he wants a choir effect, he’ll add vocals all the way around or if he wants to make a drum sound further back in the room, he’ll create reverberations. With his DAW program ProTools, he can change the beat so everything hits exactly in time. He can move a snare hit that is nanoseconds off so it matches hit for hit with the kick drum.
When Tirima was attending the University of Idaho, he worked as a DJ at KUOI. Someone overheard him mixing his own beats, and Tirima started recording tracks with students and visiting musicians.
“I would always ask people why they want to record,” Tirima said. “And if they said they wanted to be famous, I’d send them elsewhere.”
He would only record for those people who want to share their music — their emotions — with the world.
Tirima has since left recording behind him. He said he found himself fixing human flaws and inconsistencies so much, he felt like he was growing cynical of music. Instead, he plays live at several local venues and tours around the Pacific Northwest area.
Meanwhile, Black has just begun his recording career. He hopes Homewreckr, with the help of his preproduction recording, can produce their first EP June 27 and break into the rock-and-roll scene.
Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected]