Recording For the First Time with Whitey and the Caucasians

CD is DONE

2005-05-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

So finally, after much ado...

the disc is done. The above is a set of pictures from the show we played, thrown together in neato style in photoshop. The photos were taken and filtered by Salina Jaffer, who is basically the band photographer. She does good work if you're ever looking for anything to get done.

We sold a solid number of CD's at a well-attended release show, and have heard good comments since that point. I'm glad that the proces is over, and I learned a whole ton about how to get a disc done when both time and money are supplied BELOW demand.

For the discs themselves, we ended up burning them ourselves in a computer lab at school. Ordinarily, I would have liked to get CD's with a printed set of words on them denoting teh name of the band, but as we were running TIGHT with time, we ended up sticking labels on them. They were supposed to be clear, however when you stick a clear label onto a shiny CD, the glue on the label reflects on the CD and the label looks white, and thus, ghetto. SO in future, I'd make extra sure to find somewhere to get blank CD's printed on. Apparently there's a special inkjet printer that does it. Which means I'm sure there's some people that own one that charge for its use somewhere.

The covers, we ended up going with a jewel case design. I'm not a huge fan of jewel cases, as they get lost in a pile easily. But as I said, we were short on time. In future, I'd most likely give up on trying to find cardboard packs with spines that you can print a label onto (ideal for radio stations where cd's are stacked so that the spine is all you can see...if you can't see the name, the cd will never get played). Instead, I would get something like this and stick that inside a piece of cardboard that you can get printed on and scored (cut so that they're easy to fold) at any office supply store.

Other than that, go nuts. Make a CD. Spend some money. I'll be quick to recommend the guys at Napier Park to make sure you guys get something good together. They don't have a website together yet, but it should be up shortly. If you want contact information, don't hesitate to call Steve Foster at 905.628.8258 or Napierparkstudio@cogeco.ca

They helped us get a good disc together, and made us feel like rock stars in the process. If you want a copy of the CD, email me at kris.somers@gmail.com. We're selling them for $7, and still have a few left.

Until next time...Whitey is signing out. Click here to go to our official website, which is very slowly being built. New stuff all the time!!!

Status Update

2005-04-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here we are, April 11th. Exactly 11 days before our CD Release show, which I'd booked at the Phoenix. No, not the Phoenix in Toronto, but our very own GSA Campus Pub here at McMaster. And with no CD in sight. The boys at Napier Park ran out of hard drive space, so we had to buy a new one. $120 bucks and a trip to Office Depot later, I had a Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm ATA drive. Dropped it off at Duke's, and they were good to start the mixing. Duke says that the mixing will be done by the end of the week, which fits in nicely with our timelines.

Whilst at Office Depot, I also picked up a whole whack of CD jewel cases. 200 of them to be precise, and this cost me $80. So that adds a fixed cost of $0.40 to the cost of each CD produced. Our plan is to get together on the night of April 18th and burn all the CD's in about 3 hours.

Thanks to Christina Santiago, we have a spanking new design for our CD cover. Can't show it to you yet because that'd ruin the surprise. Plus, it's not done. But it does kick ass which will ensure that we sell lots of copies, makes lots of money and get lots of chicks. Both of which are primary drivers for being in a band in the first place.

Except for Dionne and Shelly.

They're not interested in the money.

More news soon...

Groovin' like black chicks

2005-03-30T04:46:00.000-08:00

Finally I got my girls in!

I dropped Shel and Dee off at around 11:00 in the morning. I stuck around to hear them do the first track, and from what I heard they were smokin'. The two of them were placed into a different room from where I recorded (affectionately known as the 'vocal booth'), and shared a microphone between the two of them. Relative volume was taken care of by positioning the two of them closer or further away from the mic. I sat in the production room with the Foster boys from Napier Park. Here's Shel's, then Dee's impressions of the day:

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so what happens when two black chicks of varying heights get into a recording studio?? one of them has to stand on wooden blocks... that's what. After we were all fixed up height wise, we started singing something fierce... which for me means in a volume that's actually audible. That was probably the hardest part... having to find out what i ACTUALLY sound like. I'll let you know if that was a good thing or a bad thing once i hear the final mix. Anyways being in the studio itself was ridiculously cool... i totally felt my inner diva come alive while i had the head phones on...however, i was quickly brought back to reality as i stumbled off my make shift step ladder. that's right... my reality is that of a vertically challenged individual. but its ok. good things come in small pacakages.... i think. anyway it was all good in the hood... i could totally make a living off of this one day.... anyone looking for a jazz singer?????

p.s - kris bought us flowers to start the day. he's the greatest !!! ladies, definatley grab him before i decide i want him back !!

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Studio Session virginity is an interesting concept. We were both virgins to this experience, but it went fairly smoothly considering, I'm not gonna lie I was a litte nervous. The session started with some warm ups, Shelly with her extensive choir knowledge warmed up on scales, and myself with extensive sister act knowledge, a warm up based on la's. Next up, Riley the dog humped my leg, just to soften the mood, and before we knew it, iit was time to step into the vocal space. At first take it became apparently clear that Shelly is a midget, so they brought her some blocks to stand on...AHAHAHAHA. So when she was finally brought up to "my level" we balanced fairly well on the one mic. It was also unfortunatly apparent that I have way too BIG of a MOUTH, and so I stepped back to balance the vocals a little more for recording. Once all these logistics came together the real recording began.

As we did take after take I grew to realize how sereal the experience was. There we were, true divas, singing into the mic, while holding on to headphones; one ear on, and one ear off to maximize the quality and sound of your own voice. We also took advantage of getting into the groove by crazy dancing just to lighten the mood, good times! It was really great to hear what we were doing, and feel out differences that we could make to the songs. It also made me a lot more aware of things that I tend to mess up, or change on each take on myself, I certainly don't work like clockwork, but I'm sure there are worse things. In the end, Shelly and I were proud of a 3 hour run at 6 songs, about 3 takes on each, and a new knowledge that will help for future recordings...cuz you know this is just the beginning for WATC, lol, neways, the experience was wicked, can't wait to do it again...Peace out.

Ashley has some Sax

2005-03-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

Ash went in and recorded his saxophone parts. Here's his account of the day:

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5 solid hours later, the cd took casual steps closer toward a finished product. When we first fired up the tunes - Promise You - even the producers were impressed as to how good the product sounded before mixing.
some stats for ya:
- early mornings: 1 too many (started recording at 11)
- bruised lips due to excessive saxophonism: 1 slightly used set
- songs soldiered through: 7
- hours of song creation: 4.67
- quasi-friendly dogs that howled like a lovesick wolf every time the sax was played: 1
- incredible epics/experiences: 1+

The thing about recording is that you really don't know that you're "in the moment" until you really take a step back and realize that your performance may be listened to by more people than the producers that are in the room with you. It's a really uplifting, motivational, mind-blowing and surreal experience that makes you feel like you're contributing to something that, in some small way, is that much bigger than something you'd be doing on your own. This was my first time (kinda) recording and I've enjoyed it so much that I'm almost willing to do it again.

Droppin' Nollij

2005-03-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

What's up

Yesterday, it was finally time for me to go in and lay down some kickin' lead vocal tracks. Stumbles to avoid include:

-Don't go out late the night before and come in with even the slightest of hangovers
-Make sure that you bring coffee in the morning
-Eat more than 3 Boston Cream donuts over the course of the day
-Make sure you actually have words WRITTEN for the songs that you're going to sing that day

The day started off with Craig doing some feedback. Not like the constructive type that we learn about in school, but the type that angers parents and scares responsible citizens. That's right, he was cranking the distortion on his amp and overdubbing some serious guitar wails in some of our tracks. Groovy, rock and roll baby. Yeah.

After a few tries, Craig was finally able to get the wail that he was looking for. I think the fact that he brought a groupie, in the form of his friend Jess (shown below) must have helped.

Jess has nothing to do with this story. I just posted this to show you that yes, girls do hang out with us on occasion.

That's Dan from the Rayburns and Napier Park Studios working hard on the 1's and 2's. Napier is in the basement of a house in Dundas, and is where we are recording the melody parts of our tunes.

Rock and roll isn't all about standing up and showing how angstful you can be. Sometimes you get to sit down and be thoughtful. For the 5 hours I was in the studio yesterday, I spent around 2 hour's worth of that actually singing. the rest of the time was spent sitting in that foldup chair. Most of the songs went off fine and without any kind of a hitch, but some of them took longer because I normally just make up the words to them as I'm singing them. What? My dad's from Africa. I was FREESTYLIN y'all!!! But when you have to double tracks (record two different versions, then track them over top of each other to add body and depth), the words have to be the same in both cuts otherwise you end up with a whole lotta mumbly Joe.

Eventually, I was rockin' out so hard that the microphone I was using fell apart. Enter the Napier Park boys, who luckily had some blue masking tape on hand to hold the thing together. I figure that having taped up gear gives me an extra 6 Indie cred points (a scoring system that gives you more points of credibility as an independent musician based on how ghetto your setup is). As we all pointed out, most of Hamilton's music scene is held together by tape and glue. But that's what makes it Hamilton, right?

All in all, a good day's recording. The tracks sound like ass as is, but that's pre-mixing so hopefully the black magic of the Mighty Macintosh will sort all that out. If I smoked anything, I'd smoke it to celebrate a job well done. But I don't smoke, so I just watched startup.com instead, which isn't a bad movie if you're in the mood for a documentary. Just don't rent it for a date.

Timmy drops some MORE tunes..

2005-03-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

Here's Timmy's thoughts from his second day of recording.
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well karma is at it again. In response to yesterday's mess, today ruled. They found a new guitar which I was playing around on, it was ok, but didnt sound nearly as good as my own. Luckily, after some emergency repair on my baby (which was royally messed), one of the techs got it prim and proper. Shes never sounded better, plus I ruled that studio today. We did all 7 songs in under 5 hours, which is incredible if youve ever done any recording. Practice payed off huge, as I was able to wail out three takes for each song almost right after another. We spent some time adding recording tricks and beefing up the sound by overdubbing on some tunes. So far Ive been really impressed with the dudes at Catharine North and Napier Park studios. they know what theyre doing, and they add some really nice ideas to the tunes. Nothing crazy, but just enough snazz to make your eyes bulge when you hear it. We also did a a couple acoustic takes, which was fun, I always prefer playing my acoustic. and from what i heard, it sounded pretty nice. So in recap today totally made up for yesterday's garbage. the songs are shaping up beautifully, and we even have just over half the band on the tracks. Im super pumped for the final product.

Rock out

Timmy drops some Tunes

2005-03-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

Tim went in to do some lead guitar overdubs the other day. Here's what he thought of his experience:

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Well, it was my first experience in the studio and it was a rather frustrating and unproductive one. Although I flew through the first track, which is the hardest that I'll be laying down, my gear sounded off. like real off. luckily the two guys engineering the recordings are both guitar techs (one's for Biilly Talent right now, I hope he knows what hes doing) so they were all over it. first checking intonation, and seeing that one of my strings was way off (for those of you who arent following, just replace the last sentence with "Something that makes any guitarist sound like shit") they were not getting what they wanted from this guitar of mine, so they called up people they knew trying to get information and/or a sweet lefty that I could se for the sessions instead. There were no lefty guitarists handy (how many do you know?) and it took a couple hours of me watching them turn knobs and plugging into tuners for them to find the real problem and remedy it. In the meantime, I layed down tracks for 2 others but it still sounded bad. Before I knew it, it was time to go. I was rather disapointed with how thigns go, but I definitely learned how to check gear. on the bright side, I got a professional course on guitar repair and maitenence. Im going in tomorrow with a repaired guitar or a beauty waiting for me. Regardless, I'm pumped for the fun day of recording tomorrow. Its a really intense but great process.

pictures!!! and more...

2005-03-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Click here to head to Craig's ever popular photo site and peruse through some of the shots we took whilst recording down at Catharine North (I'd post a link to their website, but they don't seem to have one). They do good work there, I'd recommend them to any friends. I'd recommend smashing yourself in the head with a brick to enemies. Damn enemies.

We're still looking for album cover submissions. Email anything you got to whiteyandthecaucasians@gmail.com !!!

Part of putting together a CD is getting the discs manufactured. What we want to do is get a single color silkscreen done on the top of a lot of CD-R's, and then gathering around the TV and watching Superman 2 while we burn copy after copy on our laptops. Hey, it beats paying some company to do all the pressings for us. Digital quality stays the same no matter how many times you copy it.

For the casing itself, we're not entirely sure what we're doing yet. We looked into a whole bunch of different styled covers, and what we're going with is a card type material with an envelope inside of it. The reasons for this include: It's cheaper, it's different looking, it still has a horizontal surface for the title to get written on so that even when it is filed in a vertical slot you can still identify what the music is from amongst a lot of other discs. This is important because this is how radio stations store CD's. If you can't find a disc, how are you going to play it?

That's all for now.

Day 2

2005-03-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

I've got blisters on my hands in places I've never had blisters before. We were at the studio today for a solid 7 hours. We finished off the bed tracks of the last 4 songs, and started onto the Saxophone parts a little bit. The mood today was nowhere near as light as it was yesterday, and in my opinion, we were dragging ass a little today. I guess that we were drained or something. Until you've actually done it, dont' think that playing guitar for 12 hours over 2 days is easy. It's a very physically and emotionlly tiring experience. By the end, people were snapping at each other, and the end of the session couldn't come soon enough.

On a lighter note, the bed tracks all sound really solid. I'm quite excited to go through the rest of the week and put the rest of the parts down. I'm doing vocals on Thursday, and hopefully the lead guitar parts will be in by then. Here's some pictures from today:

Day 1

2005-03-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

Whoah...what a day. 5 intense hours of recording. We did the bed tracks (bass, rhythm guitar, drums) for 3 of our 7 songs today. Each song took well over an hour, followed by a short break, then next tune. Tomorrow we're heading back in for the remaining 4.

To explain the experience...we all had headphones with click tracks and mixes of each other's instruments in them. There were three lines run off of each of our amplifiers (one DI, one mic, one other thing that I don't really get. Probably some other kind of DI box), and the amps were put in different rooms so the drum mics didn't pick them up. I'm pretty happy with the way things sounded, despite the fact that I couldn't hear my bass at all through the headphones. Luckily, I'm amazing so I can play based on just hearing a click track. My camera crapped out really early, so this is the only picture that I was able to snag:

Brutal, I know. But Craig's got better ones that we'll show off later.

1 tip for recording: Make sure you send someone for a coffee run every now and then. Otherwise bass players fall asleep on the floor.

ok..

2005-03-04T08:11:00.000-08:00

So I never got any of the pre-production stuff up. What can I say, it's a tough like juggling a muli-million dollar acting contract from Sony, workign for the government as a ninja, and still finding time to breed Alsatians as a hobby. Basically, I just plain didn't have time and you people are goign to have to deal with that. I'll do my best to get them up eventually.

It's day one of recording. We've been killing the tracks at practice lately whilst playing to a metronome. I think we're ready, which is lucky. Today, Craig, Andrew and I will head in and lay down a live-off-the-floor recording of rhythm guitar, bass and drums. It'll be funtastic. The church where we're recording is absolutely radiculous, and I think today will be quite a good day. I'll let y'all know how it goes, and hopefully post some pics up.

The pre-prod recordings are done!!!

2005-02-22T19:07:00.000-08:00

And I've heard them. They sound pretty good, although I'm really looking forward to how the properly recorded tracks will sound once Catherine North and Napier are done mixing them to perfection. To clarify, what has been done so far is all of our songs have been recorded to a single track digital recorder so that they can get a feel for how the songs sound, and can accurately gauge the speed of all of them. This speed will be played into a clicktrack (metronome) that will be fed into the headphones of us while we're recording the actual recordings. This ensures rockstardom, if nothing else.

I'm at a conference in Alberta right now, but I promise to post a link to some of the pre-production files as soon as I get back!

Step 1

2005-02-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

Catherine North and Napier needed a rough recording of our 7 tracks which we were recording. So, they sent Duke and Steve Foster over to set up a stereo microphone connected to a Sony DAT recorder. Now, our practice room is already smaller than an Oakville woman's walk-in shoe closet, so with the 6 of us in there, plus two recording agents, and a microphone, and the shiny aluminum case that they brought everything in, it got a bit cramped. Wow that was a long sentence, but it needed to be said.

So we played through all 7 of our songs, and pretty much nailed each one. That's what happens when you play nothing else for a period of around 3 months. I was VERY proud of my guys for being able to get through everything so professionally and quickly. Steve commented on how pleased he was that we had all of our arranging done properly and that he thinks that we'll just rip through the recording because of all the time we've put into it. It's nice when things pay off. Hopefully I'll manage to get copies of some of the rough tracks soon and post a snippet or two up here.

So you want to be a rockstar...

2005-02-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Kris. I sing and play bass in a band called "Whitey and the Caucasians". That's me in the middle, red shirt with the beautiful smile. No, we're not some radical white supremacy group, click on the site and scroll through the band members and you'll realise that we're actually quite a diverse group. It started out with myself (I'm of African-Indian Descent), and a few white guys, aka the Caucasians. And I wasn't a caucasian, so instead people were calling me Whitey. We added a couple black girls to sing backup (blackup singers I call them) and called it a day. A rock legend was born.

But, you can't have a rock legend without having at least a few songs recorded onto an EP. So after about a year of playing together, the 7 of us have decided that it's time to cut a disc. We decided about a month ago that we were going to record 7 tracks, and started practicing them religiously. It's getting to the point where we can play the songs in our sleep, which will hopefully save us a good amount of time once we actually get to the studio. Which equates to saving us a good amount of money.

Over the past year, we've managed to save around $1000 from gigs. Rather than split money we make at shows, we put it all into the band account, aka a gym sock that I keep under my mattress. Because once money is split into 7, it becomes easy to spend on candy and pornos. but if it's stored in a sock, it gets saved because lets face it, who wants to go through my old gym socks?

With that $1000, and a to-be-determined amount of our individual pocket-money, we set about the process of shopping for a suitable studio. Characteristics we were looking for included proximity, available at all hours, could get us a finished product before the end of the semester, wasn't too expensive, had good products, came strongly recommended, were reasonably cool people to hang with, and most importantly could make us feel like rock stars.

We ended up choosing a collaboration of Catherine North Studios, run by Dan Achen of Junkhouse and Napier Studios run by Duke Foster of The Rayburns (CFNY New Music 1994). It's going to cost us around $2000 to track 7 songs, but at the end I'm fairly confident that we'll have something that we can feel good about.

A few caveats to the reader: We are not looking to make something that is going to rival a $50,000 recording from Metal Works. We're looking to create a good independent record that reflects the level that we're at - a 7-piece band with an unequally distributed 20 years combined band experience that we can sell to friends and fans of the music.

The recording process that we go through over the next couple months will be documented here. So check back often, and enjoy learning from our leaps and stumbles.