If We Should Sing Together - AndyR Original

[BerryPatch]

Wow! My dad recommended me hearing this and I'm blown away! The vocals, the songcraft, the playing are all incredible. You've definitely got the McCartney flair going on especially when you sing hard. Reminds of a track off of Flaming Pie even. It's amazing what someone is able to do with just a Micro BR. So good

[tonyc]

wow what a track . brill recording , superb vocals , i have the same problems as you as i to live in a flat . this deserves to be on the radio , loved it andy well worth another listen ......cheers tony cee

[WarpCanada]

Okay.   This is AMAZING.  Can we get an All Time Songcrafters Greatest Productions List going and put this on it?  Are we being punk'd is this an A-level Pro Studio recording or something made with home recording gear?

Mind blown.  Whatever this was made with, Boss recorder, or PC, if this was made at home, it's AMAZING.

[launched]

Very good bump! Yes this is/was always... so... darned... good!!

[cuthbert]

Great bump, Berrypatch. I know the song and really thought I'd already commented.

This is amazing - a pro-level recording done on the Micro BR. Of course, the talent and work that goes into it has something to do with the quality level.  

Thanks Andy for the detailed breakdown of how you made it. I purchased the recording handbook by Karl Coryat on your recommendation, way back in the summer of 2009! Still thumb through it from time to time.

[StephenM]

and I'll be back to suck up some more of these tips on recording...

[Ted]

September 25, 2013 to February 07, 2021 – 2,692 days – with no comments, no bumps. That's astonishing.

I know I haven't heard every piece ever posted on this site, but if we were to make a list of the top 10 best productions ever submitted here, this would certainly make the list.

[AndyR]

Aww thanks folks

It's not actually my favourite song of mine, although it is up there in the list of "well, I've got these ones, if you're interested".

It's not even my favourite recording I've made of one of my songs. But then I've only got three categories for my own recordings:

• that's not too bad
• oh well, never mind, still good enough to post
• not posting that

(This one's in the "that's not too bad" category, in case there's any doubt!)

In fact, nowadays, every time this one gets bumped I have to restrain myself from replying "PLEEZE go and listen to abc as well, I'm MUCH more proud of that, and xyz, and er, THIS one, and what about THIS one..."

However, I do indeed love the song and like this recording, I'm just always slightly bemused by how much praise it gets - in my mind it's always been "I just did what I had to do on the MBR to get the song recorded close to what was in my head, I just got more lucky than usual".

I'd been recording on a DAW before this (and a 4 track cassette player years before that). And then this was something like my 3rd recording on an MBR, my first attempt to record a "real" song (ie one of mine and not a jam) with it.

This one, I suppose, is where I first cracked how to capture the "Andrew Russe Band" that runs around in my head when I write a song. All my previous home-recordings hadn't quite achieved this (nor had band recordings in studios, actually). The 4-track cassette recordings were closest, but you've got degradation on bounces, I had no compressors then, and the mics at my disposal were rubbish. The DAW recordings were interesting, I couldn't believe the freedom and ease of hacking, etc... but I think I was suffering from a) less than spectacular digital to audio convertors and b) TOO MANY BLUDDY OPTIONS.

The "Andrew Russe Band" is actually very simple: 2 guitarists, a keyboard player, a bassist, a drummer. We should be able to, and be allowed to, play anything we want in any style we can actually manage. As well as me (one of the guitarists), at least 2 of the others should be able to sing. Anything we do should be playable live by the 5 of us. Sometimes there's an acoustic set in the middle of the gig (drummer goes for an ice-cream or something). In the studio we've got the ability to overdub because the "live" take would be a bit a sparse on a record.

That band has always been there in my head on everything I've written ever since I was a teenager. It's one of the reasons I struggled with real bands - they either didn't want to, or weren't capable of, playing the parts in my head with the light and shade and variation I could hear and imagine.

If We Should Sing Together got rehearsed with the last band I was in, they liked the vibe but saw it as a straight rock song. They were not keen on some of the dynamics I was asking for, the bassist didn't want to play the progression I wanted in the bass part and, as far as I could make out... they ALL hated the "histrionic Bee Gees" ah-has... I got fed up, for various reasons, but mainly the fight to get my songs played the way they should be played. I gave up, "retired from music", and didn't play a guitar again for a good few years.

Because of all that, this one was the main song that was "hanging over me" when I started home-recording again, it had been the next song that was about to get on to the setlist when I stopped. So I was always going to attempt it early on, once I thought my recording facilities/techniques might be up to it... and I did it with an MBR.

My wife got me the MBR as a Chistmas present as a "songwriting tool". I still use it like that occasionally, but in those first few months I found it was capable of more than that. I liked the sounds it was creating, so I started If We Should Sing Together.

This song was always going to take a lot of bounces on the MBR, but my thinking was "if you organise them well and think ahead, should be achievable". It came out REALLY well, but the next song not so much.

The effort that the two songs took, and the results, made it a no-brainer to retire the DAW and buy the BR1600.

I use the BR1600 in much the same way I used the MBR (and a DAW could be used the same way now that I've learnt to do it) - I plan ahead, leave space, make submixes (fully effected and compressed bounces) that could be redone from individual tracks if necessary but rarely need it.

I create stereo layers - here's the guitars, here's the keyboards, here's the backing vocals.

Then I mix these with the drums and the mono parts (lead vocals, lead instrumentalists, bass).

I sometimes mix this lot in one go, sometimes I'll submix the guitars and keys - whatever it takes to guarantee I've got the moves and effects I want on the final master mix.

I saw a video a while back about how you can use a technique like this on a DAW to recreate the restrictions that everyone in the 60s/70s was forced to embrace in order to do what they did. And that, if you do embrace these restrictions, you can bypass the "too many options" of a DAW by making decisions and committing earlier in the process... the effect is that you focus on the artistry - the song, the parts, the arrangement, the sounds, the finished production - rather than the technology. The video explained how with this technique you could end up with, say, 6 complete and well-organised guitar parts to imitate the two live guitarists rather than 20-30 tracks that need severe work on to bring under control in order to imitate the two guitarists.

The guy in the video also pointed out that even in the 70s they were constructing "a guitar part" out of several recorded takes - double-tracking, overdubbing, recording a part in two halves, etc, etc - it's just that they had to bounce to do it and therefore commit early to production decisions.

I was quite interested to relate this to my experiences over the years (by the time I was recording, we all knew the grown-ups were using 32 track studios which was way beyond our amateur means):

• The 4-track cassette recorder experience (and recording band demos in 8 track studios and later a 24 track studio) showed me the restrictions and awakened the desire/instinct to get-round/over/embrace them.
• On a DAW I jumped free of these restrictions, not knowing what they'd brought to the party.
  I suffered some of the drawbacks - 50-odd tracks recorded, couldn't make a decent mix.
• The MBR taught me to embrace the restrictions and how to take advantage of unlimited bounces as efficiently as possible.
  Still a lot of tracks got recorded, but only the ones required, and the production issues and decisions were dealt with before mixing.
• On the BR1600, I was able to take what I'd now learnt from experience and use it, with a much improved workflow.
  I can now bounce for musical reasons, not just because I've run out of free tracks.

I've realised while writing this essay, there are always two other things going on:

• When I record, I'm always recording a song, not constructing or exploring it.
  I know what the song is and what it sounds like before I start.
  This is even when I've used the recording machine to help write the song earlier - in this case, all the writing parts are usually replaced, I'm still recording a song not exploring it.
• I'm always recording a particular artist - Andrew Russe and the Andrew Russe Band - I know what this act wants to sound like and how to record them.
  Sometimes they show up with an outlandish idea that further pushes the boundaries of the music they're apparently allowed to play.
  But, basically, it's the same 5 dudes, one of them the crazy bloke at the front, doing their same old thing.

As with the recording "restrictions", I suspect these two things help focus the recording and make the early commitment and production decisions easier.

Anyways, works for me... Sometimes I wonder about someone else's technique - especially when they've made something that makes me go "WOWSERS!". It makes me experiment a bit maybe, but I always come back to the old Andrew Russe way:

• Get me a song worth recording
• Figure out the arrangement
• Turn the machine on
• Now, where's the Andrew Russe Band got to?
  Get off your arses lads we got stuffs needs doin...

In this case, all those years ago, it was the same thing. The ones I've currently got lined up are the same. They're stalled between 2 and 3 - they could easily get overtaken if I accidentally write a song that I prefer or that I think might be easier to record (now that I'm out of practice by 3 or 4 months!).

Finally, with regards this one, I know we are appreciative of recording and production on here... But I personally believe it's the song itself that drives all these return listens... (it's why I listen to it) ...might be wrong though!

Have I explained in this thread about the song itself? I can't remember, I suspect not, it's always the production that seems to get focused on. But I think it's the song that's doing it to us.

[StephenM]

Andy,
I always enjoy reading your stuff...at least most of it...just because it gets really deep sometimes and I can't quite grasp all of it...  but your thing about the band I know first hand... ultimately it's why alot of pros make solo albums...at least partially... but  I would say for me the song is good...but the recording is excellent and a great example of what can be done...albeit alot of your songs (pretty much all 6 or 7 I have heard) are excellently recorded....but this is especially impressive as it was on a 4 track...to me that is... and Greeny always gets big results as well....
right out of the gate this reminds me of the wonderful vocals of three dog night and of course the early music in the song....as it goes on it gets more later decade sound to me.... this could easily be used or have been by boss as an example of what can do....but you have special patience and talent too...so not everyone can achieve this level...and thats ok... we always reach higher....
thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us....they are valuable... obtw... I also had a tascam 4 track cassette... I did killer stuff on that....wish I could find those old tapes because I had some really fun stuff...but man the BR16 blows that away....
and I might add that because it is a special song to some others...that makes me want to hear it...