7pitfallsofrecording-andhowtoavoidthem

7/29/2019 7pitfallsofrecording-andhowtoavoidthem

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A Guide to an Effortless Re-

cording

Photo credi t Philip Slowia k

by

Kevin Ward

KevinWardMusic

KevinWardMusic.com! pag e 1 of 32!

http://kevinwardmusic.com/




http://philipslowiak.com/

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Be Realistic About How much You Have To Spend !

5 Don’t Miss The Sma # Things-They Add Up! 6

Every Song Adds Up! 8

Ask Around.! 9

Interview people! 9

You're Not Hiring the Person-You’re Buying Their System! 10

More is Not Usua # y Better ! 11

Hire your Teacher ! 12

To get 10 Great Songs, start with 100! 13

Did I mention that Every Song Counts? !

14Can I see Your Paperwork? ! 14

A Prayer can’t Hurt ! 15

Don’t Be a Caterpi # ar -Work Smarter, Not Harder ! 16

Now, back to batching ! 17

Sometimes it can't be helped ! 17

It's just good planning, man! 18

limit your instruments.! 19

Astronomy 101 Report ! pag e 2 of 32



limit your time.! 20

Limit your vocals.! 20

Learn the “New Tools” ! 22

The Flip Cam! 23

YouTube! 23

Twitter and FaceBook! 24

When you "tweet" ! 24

Who rea # y went above and beyond? ! 28

I' # never do that again! ! 28

How can we better prepare better for next time? ! 29

What is YOUR system? ! 29






Foreword

First of all, let me say thank you for downloading this book. I know there's a lot ofinformation out there, and I really appreciate you trusting me enough to read afew things I have to say.

I've been in the music business for over 20 years. I started working for free at afriend's studio and ended up with my own studio, production company and recordlabel. The journey from there to here has had a lot of twists and turns and I lovetalking about them. Iʼve learned more from my mistakes than I have my suc-

cesses and my hope this that by sharing my experiences, Iʼll help you avoidsome pitfalls that cause a recording to go out of control and cause hours of frus-tration. I will also let you in on the fixes that help things go like clockwork.

So, let's dive right in!






1

Have a budget

“A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it.”

-William Feather

The quickest way to crush a budget is to not have one. How do you knowwhether or not you've overspent unless you have a budget? Creating a budget isa must-do before starting a recording project. There are a lot of hidden costs that,without experience, will suck your budget dry. I've seen people go over their pro-

ject budget by as much as two times because they never sat down and counted

how much it would cost. Write it all down!

BE REALISTIC ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO

SPEND

If you only have a couple thousand dollars, you probably shouldn't be thinking

about which string section to use. If you don't have a big budget, that's okay, butyou need to be realistic about whatʼs affordable in order not to frustrate yourselfand the people you will work with.

There are options for every recording budget. If you only have a few hundred

dollars, maybe your uncle, Enos, can play guitar and you can sing. Maybe yourcousin has a laptop with ProTools on it and he can record you and your uncle.






For a few thousand dollars, you can lease (sidebar about leasing tracks) somesound tracks from a record company and get your cousin to record it for you. Thesound tracks generally cost $125-$500 per track just for the lease. This does notcover the writerʼs royalty.

If you have a few MORE thousand dollars, you could cut some tracks with pro-fessional studio musicians, a producer, background vocals, etc. If youʼve neverdone this, I recommend hiring a producer to help you wade through your options.A good producer will not only help you with a realistic budget, but also give youpeace of mind while you are in the middle of your project.

DON’ T MISS THE SMALL THINGS-THEY ADD UP

Watch out for hidden project cost such as:• the price of your hard drives,• engineer charges (daily/hourly/included in studio charge?)• other assistants that must be paid• Hourly cost of going over the allotted studio time• Cost of CDs (get them at an office supply or Wal-Mart if not included free by

the studio. Any CD-R brand will work fine for demos, they donʼt need to belabeled “Music CD-R” as thereʼs no actual difference.)

Other budget crushers may include:.

Cartage

Most studio musicians these days own so much equipment, that it's just too much

work for them to have to worry about carrying it around themselves. Enter "cart-age". A cartage company makes sure that a musicianʼs “stuff” ends up at the stu-dio in good condition when the musician arrives.

The positive side of cartage is that everything is working when youʼre ready tostart. Nobodyʼs chasing down guitar cables or tuning drums. Itʼs already done.The downside is that cartage can be very expensive. I've paid as much as $1000






to get equipment delivered to the studio for a keyboard player, a guitar player,and acoustic guitar player, drummer, bass player, and even an engineer. You'repaying for the whole session yourself, so this can eat up a chunk of your budget.

Lately, I've been "buying in" to tracking sessions that already have the musiciansin place. In other words, they have already been playing that week and I will justgo in and pay a fair price for the studio, sharing cartage fees with the others thatare working at the studio that week.

Piano Tuning

If the studio does not include a piano tuning every day plan to pay $75-$125 foreach tuning. If I have a two-day session I will usually have the piano tuned eachday. An out-of-tune piano can be a real downer!

You can go to KevinWardMusic.com and download a sample spreadsheet that Iuse to put budgets together for my clients. I have all of the most common ele-ments covered in the spreadsheet and you're welcome to it.

Duplication

Itʼs pretty easy to forget that the expenses donʼt stop once the mixes are done.For example, during the duplication process we have expenses like taking pho-tos, graphic design, paying the songwriters, and duplicating the project. Itʼs easyto overlook these costs that arenʼt directly related to making music. Thatʼs why

itʼ

s important to factor these into your project budget, rather than discovering thatyouʼve got a great project and canʼt afford making copies to sell! Talk about asinking feeling.

Marketing

If you have a great project and no one knows about it, you don't have a great project. The good news is that you don't have to spend quite as much money as intimes past to promote your recording. The advent of social media and free orvery inexpensive web site software has made advertising less expensive.You just

need a game-plan and someone to keep you accountable to keep things up-dated.






EVERY SONG ADDS UP

Itʼs true, you CAN add another song to your recording pretty cheaply… if you

ONLY factor in the tracking of it. Most people forget they have to pay anothersongwriter, along with more vocals, overdubbing, mixing and mastering "onemore song". It adds up.

I'd like to wrap up this section with a thought… when you set a budget and thinkof everything that needs your attention (which equals time and money), you arereally setting an intention for the recording. You are "pre-enacting" best and worstcase scenarios. Itʼs just good business.






2

Hire the right people

Immersing yourself into a recording project can be intimidating. I know that. But,the only way you will learn is by doing… you don't necessarily have to learn from

your own mistakes though. You can learn from mine.

ASK AROUND.

When you first start to plan out your project, you wonʼt know whoʼs good at what.

It's good to do "due diligence" and ask your more experienced friends to guideyou. Most people will be happy to share their experiences and youʼll start to de-velop a sense of what you should do.

INTERVIEW PEOPLE

One of the best ways to get to know somebody is to spend some time with them.Some of the best projects I've been a part of happened as a result of spendingsome time with my client before we ever got started. Having an "interview" givesyou a chance to see if the person is the right fit with your intentions and expecta-tions. Set up a time to meet in person or by phone. And remember to be respect-ful of time. Everyone is busy.

KevinWardMusic.com! pag e 9 of 32





If you find the right person, make sure you have a clear discussion about yourbudget, their cost and a the timeline for the project.

Note: If Iʼm talking to a potential client, and they canʼt give me a clear idea of theirbudget, I am likely to steer away from their project. This is another good reasonto create a budget. Youʼll appear more professional.

YOU'RE NOT HIRING THE PERSON-YOU’ RE BUYING

THEIR SYSTEM

If you are not working within your own system, then you will be a slave to someoneelseʼs.

-Unknown

When you hire a producer to do your project, you should always listen to whatthey have done in the past, and obviously like it. If that's the case, then what

you're really buying is their SYSTEM.

At the very heart of any well-run business, there is a system. When you go toMcDonald's and order a hamburger, you're buying part of their system. Anyonecan make a better hamburger than McDonald's. But when you go to McDonald'sand buy a hamburger, you always know exactly how it's going to taste. It's part ofthe system.I'm not trying to compare recording a project to going to McDonald's (God for-bid:), but I want to emphasize the point that you ARE buying into a system.Knowing this, you can make better decisions and make your project go muchmore smoothly.

The producer you are hiring probably should have been working on their systemfor years. When you ask them to do something outside of the norm, it may not bea good idea. I wouldn't be AFRAID to ask them to do so, (I mean, it's good to do






new things and grow) but I would do it sparingly. Enjoy the fact that you ARE in asystem. Learn from it.

A few systems to look for in a producer are:

• a set of musicians that they work with on a semi-regular basis• specific start and end times for sessions (so you won't work all night every

night)• session scheduling (keeps things moving forward)• a system of communication (keeps you in the loop about progress)

I have worked with people who didn't have a system and it's almost alwaysproven to be a serious headache. The easiest way to frustrate a creative person

is to put them into a bad system. Everyone wants to know that progress is beingmade.

Make notes about your likes and dislikes about the system as you go along. Do-ing so will help you on your next project.

MORE IS NOT USUALLY BETTER

“Too many cooks in the (same) kitchen spoil the CD”

Old Proverb (adapted by me)

Occasionally, I work with a panicky client who thinks that 5 producers in the roomwill make their project 5 times better. WRONG! In fact, it's usually much worse.I'm not opposed to several producers on a project, just not on the same song. Ifyou want multiple producers, give each a song to produce. They will work just alittle harder because they want to out-do the other producers. Also, if you choose






to do it this way, you get to see several working systems in place. Talk about alearning experience.

HIRE YOUR TEACHER

Learning to record your band is a process. There are lessons everywhere if youlook. Whoever you hire should be willing to teach you. If you get the vibe thatthey are guarding everything they know, you may want to re-think using them. Ifyou canʼt learn from the process that they use, then it REALLY skews the payscale. I tell my clients that when we are finished with a project they will havemuch more than just a CD. I love to teach.






3Take a lesson from the Boy

Scouts- Be Prepared

I'm not sure you can ever feel fully prepared to do a recording, but there aresome things you can do to be MORE prepared. Iʼll cover a few of them in thenext section.

TO GET 10 GREAT SONGS, START WITH 100

You may realize that Dolly Parton has written dozens of hit songs and records.What you may not realize is that she estimates that she has written more than10,000 songs. If you want your record to really shine, don't just do the first 8-10songs that you come up with. Really think about the songs you put on your re-cord. Do the songs move YOU? Have you sung the songs live to see if there isany audience response? If you have, and thereʼs no response, you may want toreconsider using them.

Important Sidenote: This does *not* include your family and friends...try as theymight, theyʼre unlikely to tell you if a song stinks. :)

I find that someone who comes with 10 STRONG songs has usually listened toat least 100 songs to narrow it down to 10. I've even worked with artists who lis-tened to 500+ to get it to 10. Persistence pays off.

KevinWardMusic.com! pag e 13 of 32





A great recording starts with the song. You can produce an okay song well andstill have an okay production. A great song, however, doesn't mind who sings orproduces it (although, a great production on a great song with great marketingusually equals success).

DID I MENTION THAT EVERY SONG COUNTS?

The days of recording “filler” songs are gone. iTunes allows consumers to buy just the songs they love. If youʼre going to go through the whole recording proc-ess, you want to be able to sell all of your songs. So, if you only have 7 greatsongs and 3 okay songs, wait and find 3 more great songs... OR, just record 7

songs and call it an EP (extended play).

CAN I SEE YOUR PAPERWORK?

When you show up for your tracking session, itʼs always a good idea to havecharts with the song tempo, key and the arrangement. Have your producer orsession leader do this if you canʼt. I always do a day of “pre-production” before Iever set foot in the studio. Itʼs just too expensive to sit and talk about the tempoof the song while the clock is running in a real recording studio.

Before you record your final vocals, have lyrics printed out for everyone includingthe engineer, producer and all of the singers. Donʼt assume that everyone knowsthe song as well as you do. If you ask the producer, “Do you think I was flat onthe word ʻwasʼ?” he will either sing the song in his head until he gets to ʻwasʼ orhe will ask for the lyric sheet (the latter is better). This could take a lot of valuabletime. I always find it refreshing when someone comes in prepared. It makes me

rest easier knowing they are probably prepared in other ways too.






A PRAYER CAN’ T HURT

I think that prayer during a recording is probably one of the most crucial thingsyou can do. It is the ULTIMATE intention setter. It makes you verbalize what you

would like to happen and gets everyone on the same page.You are asking forguidance from the One who knows MUCH more about EVERYTHING than eventhe most experienced person in the room.

"You got to pray, just to make it today"

- MC Hammer

The kind of prayer that I'm talking about is the kind that is constant. Itʼs the pri-vate thought or utterance between takes. The kind of prayer I'm talking about isthe one that nobody knows you are praying. Itʼs intimate, itʼs NOT religious, andbest of all, it's real and it works. Enough said.






4

Batch it- Watch it

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim.”

- Annie Dillard

DON’ T BE A CATERPILLAR-WORK SMARTER, NOT

HARDER

There's a story that I heard in college byZig Ziglar, one of my mentors, about theprocessional caterpillar. He tells a storyabout an experiment with caterpillars thatgoes something like this:

A scientist put several caterpillars aroundthe rim of a terra cotta pot, lining them upend to end as a continuous train of cater-pillars just going in circles.

A few minutes later, they put a handful ofpine straw (their favorite food) inside thepot. Oddly, the caterpillars just kept walk-ing in a circle until they worked them-selves to death… with food only inches




http://www.quotationcollection.com/author/Annie_Dillard/quotes

http://www.quotationcollection.com/author/Annie_Dillard/quotes



away.

My point here is hard work does NOT necessarily equal success . You can feellike you are working hard and still not accomplish what needs to be done. This isone of the strongest arguments for hiring experts (musicians/producers, etc.) thatyou trust to take you in the direction you need to go...even if they cost a bit more.

NOW, BACK TO BATCHING

I see some people that want to record a few vocals, switch over to record a fewoverdubs and then switch back to lead vocals again. This can be a huge timewaster. When you record your soundtracks, you don't usually hire the musicians

to record just one song, you batch your tracking session to one day, along with afew musicians and engineer, i.e.You put the tracking of all your songs into one"batch".

Efficiency would dictate that you think of recording your vocals, overdubs, mixing,and mastering the same way. Quite simply, make a list of the things that need tobe done, and try to do like things together. Thatʼs a system!

SOMETIMES IT CAN'T BE HELPED

I have recorded the occasional project that, while we were mixing, we decidedthat a line or two of the vocals could be improved upon. Now, it can be a hasslein ProTools to go back in to "recording mode" when you are waist deep in "mixingmode". But, sometimes it can't be helped. Try your best to make sure that youare finished recording before you start mixing.

Same goes with tuning vocals. I either like to tune vocals while I'm recording

them, or separately… on another day. Tuning vocals while I'm mixing can com-promise both processes if you are not REALLY concentrating.

Use the tools (auto-tune, Melodyne) that you have available to you. Everyoneuses them. If you listen to a Whitney Houston recording from back in the 80's,you will notice that she (a world class singer then, and now) could have used a






little Melodyne love. Our ears have changed and most people want to hear somepolish on the record. The key is to keep it sounding real.

The only thing worse than a poorly sung record is a poorly sung record thatsounds like they tried to perfect it with Melodyne. A little goes a long way. Sodonʼt get carried away with trying to perfect a bad performance. alright?

On the flip side, if you want your vocals “super-tuned”, like Cher or Owl City ,make sure that your producer knows this. He may want to make arrangements tohire it out so that he doesn't get bogged down with it.

IT'S JUST GOOD PLANNING, MAN

Going about your recording project like a kid with a butterfly net is one of thequickest ways to waste money and frustrate creative types. Obviously, the alter-native is to have a good plan, with good notes.

If you have to leave a song, make clear notes and come back to it later. I try tohave an excel spread sheet available, or at least a list of what needs to be doneon every song to make it complete. You can download my checklist by going tomy resource page and use it on your next project. I'll admit that sometimes, Ikeep the list is in my head, but on occasion, on complex projects that have a lotof loose ends dangling, I resort to the written list. It's good planning, makes youlook like a pro, and it just works.


http://kevinwardmusic.com/7-things-resource-page





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5

Define Your Limitations- ThenWork Within Them

So, what do YOU think when you hear the word “limitations” ? It's usually per-ceived as a negative thing. I don't think it is... if applied correctly.

There are limitations in sports. You have boundary lines, referees, time limits andrules. If you didn't have the limitations, it wouldn't be a game, fun or interesting. Itwould just be a bunch of people running around in an open field. Limitations de-fine the goals of the event.

As we have discussed before, a budget is a basic limitation. How many songsyou put on a recording is a limitation. How many producers on a song is a BIGlimitation. So, as you can see, limitations are already making your project better.

Now, letʼs apply the concept of limitations in a way that can make your next re-cording better and even more fun (yes, fun).

LIMIT YOUR INSTRUMENTS.

If your budget is a little on the skinny side, you could say "only 4 instruments- pi-ano, bass, drums, and guitar". If you are tempted to ask for steel, say no. Workaround it. Same thing with strings. You can ask the piano player to add a pad orsomething, but tell him you are not doing strings on the record, is there anythinghe can do as an option. If you can get people to "play the game" you will be sur-prised at what creative people can do when you limit them a little.






LIMIT YOUR TIME.

Occasionally, one fun thing I do in the studio is say, "Okay, it's 2:00. This is a

pretty straight-forward song. I think we can be done by 3:10. Do you think wecan?”

Hopefully, by now I've gained their trust and they know I'm not just rushing them.So, whether or not this works for you is to be determined. The point is to make itfun and challenging for them and me. Youʼll find that when you do something likethis, people get more focused than normal because there is a challenge athand... a mission that needs to be accomplished. Most of the time, people rise tothe occasion.

Even if we donʼt finish right at 3:10, we know about how long it can take us if wetry hard. The point is that we are setting goals and having fun.

LIMIT YOUR VOCALS.

In todayʼs world of endless takesi and playlistsii (home of the eternal vocal over-

dub), sometimes itʼs refreshing to just record one pass and fix the lines that wemissed. Or, just do 3 passes of vocals and comp iii them together. Keep in mind

when doing multiple passes of vocals, you are not just adding one more pass.Someone has to listen and decide if that's the pass to keep or not. If you are notcareful, this can waste serious time and subsequently, money. If you limit yourselfto 1-3 passes of vocals to comp, it will make you listen closer and be more atten-tive to how the performance sounded the first time. Sometimes when you do toomany passes, you "check-out" and let some really good performances get "play-listed" and never heard again. (unless of course, you spend time to go and digthem out).

Another thing you can do is to limit stacks iv. Some harmony singers like to "stack"parts. In other words, they will sing the same part (I've seen as many as 7 layersfor a single part!) on another track. Again, doing this makes things sound a littledated by today's standards and will take a ton of extra time to choose, tune, andmix. So careful with the stacking thing. limit your amount of vocals.







i take=separate vocal performance

ii define a playlist

iii Composite vocal- where you record multiple performances and pick the best parts of each

one to make one “perfect” take.

iv Recording multiple performances until it sounds choir-like.





6

Do Your Marketing

"If you have something someone else needs, and they don't know about it, you have amarketing problem."

-Guy Kawasaki

Not long ago, it took a lot of money to make people aware of what you were do-ing. Now, we have Twitter, FaceBook, blogs, YouTube, podcasts…. itʼs almostendless... and growing every day! I want to share some ideas that could make adifference when it comes time to sell your CD.

LEARN THE “NEW TOOLS” In my opinion, THE most important thing an artist can do is to educate them-selves. Marketing tools are abundant now. There was a time when you had tobuy TV commercials, magazine ads, radio promotion etc. While some of theseoptions still work, none of them are as effective as they used to be.

Right now, social media is running the marketing world, and if you don't knowhow to use these tools, it's time to learn. The best part? Theyʼre almost all *Free*.To get started, check out some online courses like EmPower Your ministry,Lynda.com, and of course, Visioncraftacademy.com. It could be a more soundinvestment than anything you could do "production-wise".




http://empoweryourministry.com/letter

http://empoweryourministry.com/letter



THE FLIP CAM

Weʼve all noticed, the but media world has become a *very*

visual place. Your fans want to get to know you, and one ofthe things they never get to see, is how things are done inthe studio. Even after 20+ years of recording and seeing theinside of a recording studio every day of my professional life,I STILL stop on the channel that has a recording studio on it.I'm sure that your Aunt Ethyl, who has never been in one,would love to see you singing on your record too.

Another bonus is that if you record some video of the process,you can hire a video editor to put those clips over one of your

songs and voila!, you have your first video to put on YouTube or Vimeo.

Just a side note: I prefer the Kodak Zi3 because it has a mic input on it. That way

you can get a headphone mix going to the camera and actually use the audio.

The Flip...Not-so-much. I keep a camera around my studio every time we do vo-

cals.

YOUTUBE

Did you know that YouTube is the one of the most searchedengines on the web. Having video of your band on YouTubemakes you more relevant and easy to find. If you pique peoplesinterest on YouTube during your recording, and you put a linkback to your website where you are selling your record, thenthe promotion is already paying off. (It's easy to pay off FREE!)


Kodak Zi-8





TWITTER AND FACEBOOK

Just because many people don't understand Twitterand (to a much smaller degree) Facebook, it doesn'tmean using them for promotion doesn't work. With hundreds of millions of activeusers, there are plenty of people who DO understand it and can use it to bringMUCH NEEDED attention to your project.

I personally use both mediums. I "tweet" and the "tweet" is automatically for-warded to my FaceBook Status. These simple mini promotions have attracted the

attention of people who didn't even know me before. Those people have becomeinterested in what I do and they eventually called or contacted me about workingwith them.

WHEN YOU "TWEET"

When you use Twitter, make your “tweets” interesting. Why else would someonefollow you? If you are like me, you tend to want to be around interesting people.So, with that in mind, how much time would you want to spend around someonewhose week looked like this:






To me, itʼs pretty BORING!

Even if what you are doing seems a little mundane, try Tweeting or FaceBookingsomething more interesting.. like this:






When you tweet this way, it gets people interested in the project. Further, if youget their attention and a way for them to buy, they often will.






7

When You’re Done - Evaluate

The thing about learning to record your band is that it's an ongoing process. As amatter fact, every project that you record should be a learning experience. Ifyou're not learning from every recording that you do, you're not getting better.

At the end of most projects, I sit down with my clients and talk about what couldbe done to improve the next record. I think this is a key part of actually learning torecord.

Some of the things we've learned are:• This singer shouldnʼt sing slow songs.• Guy X should sing harmony most of the time.• The band needs to work on cut-offs, breathing, timing, etc.• I've even recommended some of my clients look for a voice coach.

One one occasion, I even asked a client to FIRE their voice coach...as they hadthe vocalist singing so weird we had to re-do almost everything they sang.

I have asked clients to think about writing their own songs. and some to haveother people write more songs for them.

One of the things I normally say (especially with a band I'm working with for thefirst time) is "this is the worst record you'll ever make with me". I don't say this toscare people, or to make up for shortcomings. I say it to encourage. If I've donemy job right, I should know a lot more about this group now. This group should

now know a lot more about the recording process and working with me.






WHO REALLY WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND?

“Hey now you're an All Star, get your game on. Go play”

- Smash Mouth

You always want an all-star player on your record. Hopefully, if you picked theright producer, he introduced you to a TEAM of all-stars.

But, if you didn't get that opportunity this time, notice the people on the project

who made the job easier. Maybe you can recommend them to your friends or usethem on your next project. The ones who made it stressful or harder, and didnʼtbalance that with making your project better... should be fired.

I'LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!

If yours is a typical project, you will also have a list of "things to never do again".In the course of learning the art of recording, learning producers and singers (oryour band) you WILL do things that will cause you to say "never again". That'sokay. It just means that you are "outside-the-box" a little. The cool thing about try-ing people, ideas, and new ways to do things is THAT ʼS where the cool stuff is.Its okay to mess up as long as you learn from it.






HOW CAN WE BETTER PREPARE BETTER FOR NEXT

TIME?

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

- Edmund Burke

After the project is done, itʼs usually beneficial to make a list (either in your head,or on paper) of a few things. What really caught you off guard on the project? Af-

ter all, even with a checklist and a budget, things creep in that you didn't knowwere coming. That's okay too. That's why you budget. So that the little oversightsdonʼt add up too much.

WHAT IS YOUR SYSTEM?

Remember I told you that when you hire somebody, that you are not hiring themso much as you are buying their system. People that you hire DO have a system,but you can incorporate their system into what YOU are building too.

For example: Let's say that you have an engineer who has a new baby at homeand he doesn't want to work past 5pm. You, however, like to work late into thenight. Could you hire the engineer's 2nd to work late for you? That way you aregetting the most out of a day. Maybe you could overdub late. or the 2nd couldtune and tweak vocals after the main engineer left for the evening. These are justa few examples of building your system.

I wouldn't try to do these sort of things without first talking to your producer, engi-neer, or 2nd engineer about it. I wouldn't even attempt this until you have re-corded a few projects too. The last thing you want to do is to impose your (brand-new and untried) system on some unsuspecting team of talented people.








Post WordSo, there you have it. A few tips that can make your next recording project a little

easier. I sincerely hope that it helps you to define your next project a bit more,and achieve even greater success with it. Writing this all down even helps me tofurther define MY own system.

If you have any questions about the book or any tips that Iʼve included, feel freeto drop me an email at [email protected] or come by my websitekevinwardmusic.com and leave me a note or call me. Iʼd love your feedback.I sincerely hope to talk to you soon,






mailto:[email protected]?subject=I%20read%20your%20book,%20I%20have%20a%20question.

mailto:[email protected]?subject=I%20read%20your%20book,%20I%20have%20a%20question.



About the Author

Kevin Ward's permanent record says he's the owner of kiloWatt Productions,the VP of Vine Records and the co-creator of EmPower Your Ministry. (Hismom would want you to know he's also a Dove-Award-winning producer who's been nominated for his songwriting as well.) In real life, he's a happyhusband, soon-to-be father, a seeker of knowledge, and a pursuer of great

people.Online, you'll find Kevin striving daily to be a mentor and thought leader with

his blogs at KevinWardMusic.com and EmpowerYourMinistry.com, where he

uses his gifts as a success and life coach to help others do just that. Connect

with KevinWardMusic on Twitter and FaceBook to join him on the journey.


http://twitter.com/kevinwardmusic

http://facebook.com/kevinwardmusic









Daddy-K-tion (Dedication)I would like to dedicate this, my first book to the love of my life Janna. You are a

constant source of support and inspiration. You believed in me when no one elsedid. You still believe. Thank You, baby.

I would also like to thank my unborn daughter, Kaelyn Sarah Ward. You, little girl,have made daddy re-think EVERYTHING. Everything that I do is so that I canspend as much time as I possibly can with You and your precious Mommy. Youhave already changed my life.

To my Family, I love you all. You silently watch, pray and support me and I appre-

ciate it more than you know.

To my friends. You are my family too. Each ONE of you are playing a key role inmaking me the man that Iʼm becoming. You are irreplaceable!

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