Recently I had the pleasure of working with local Cardiff based artist Julian Blackshaw. Blackshaw’s been a fixture of the Cardiff open mic/music scene for the last few years, writing prolifically all the while, but up until now he hasn’t made the jump to recording and releasing a big project. He contacted me about a month ago with an extremely tight deadline – a 3 track EP to be recorded, mixed, mastered, and released by his birthday, August 9th. Here’s few thoughts about my experience recording to a tight time frame.
First of all I should say that while recording to a tight time frame isn’t inherently a problem, there are several good reasons to avoid it. A tight time frame doesn’t leave a lot of room for experimentation, so if an artist doesn’t have a clear vision of what they want to create they can be left disappointed by the end result. Similarly, they might have unrealistic expectations of what is possible in a short amount of time and again be disappointed. If there is a high probability that a client is going to end up disappointed in your work for reasons beyond your control then you should probably not take the job.
However, in this case Julian had three well written demos and a very clear idea of what he wanted out of the songs. On top of that, he also was very receptive to any suggestions I made. The combined effect was a number of very smooth sessions and an end product that everyone was happy with.
To work at speed I considered it essential to get the bare bones of the songs locked in as quickly as possible – drums, bass, acoustic guitar, and vocals – and then spend some time building and experimenting around this core.
(Speaking of vocals, I feel its worth mentioning how happy I am with the latest addition to my mic collection – the Aston Stealth. I genuinely think that (most of the time) I prefer the raw vocal sound I get from it to any mic I’ve used, including such legends as the Neumann U87 and the AKG C414! It’s got plenty of body, and more than enough presence to cut through any mix, which is incredible considering its low price point.)
Of the three songs, Nora & Dawn felt nearest to completion at this early stage. The final song, Hollow in Heaven, was a much longer song, with a harmonically ambiguous chord progression and a haunting melody at its core. When working to a deadline I find that it’s important to spend your time wisely – looking at each song and weighing up the time cost against the possible reward. Whereas the first two tracks could work really well with more straightforward instrumentation, I believed that it was worth spending some more time on Hollow in Heaven to fully bring out the soul of the piece.
After a brief period of experimentation we settled on three different effects to augment that atmosphere of Hollow in Heaven:
- Backing Vocals – There were two primary functions of backing vocals in this piece:
- There was the subtle use of backing vocals to reinforce the already present rise and fall of the song. This is most evident in the harmony at the end of the verses, the sexy low octave in the choruses, and the roomy distant howl in the middle 8.
- And then there’s the statement backing vocals in the outro, a faux gospel choir of Julian Blackshaws creating a heavenly call and response.
- High Treble Piano – To fill in some of the instrumental bridges without resorting to anything as in-your-face as a guitar solo, I suggested a sparse high up piano part. The performance of the part itself was key – loose and rubato, making use of plenty of colourful notes – but this was strongly helped with the use of a huge and interesting reverse reverb (check out ValhallaDSP’s free ‘Supermassive’ plugin!).
- Wide Chorused Guitars – The end of the song needed something to lift it, to create the peak that the whole song had been building to. We found that hard panning several different warm guitar tones helped create that climax. Some of the guitars were clean, whereas others were slightly driven. Most had a significant amount of reverb and delay on them, and some also made use of various modulation effects.
As I said at the start, working to overly tight deadlines can create significant difficulties. However, it can also foster an environment where offhand ideas are executed with total conviction, leading to a raw and authentic piece of art.
Nora is available to listen to on all major streaming services.
You can check it out here – http://hyperurl.co/m9bvvd
Go give Julian Blackshaw a follow on social media here
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JulianBlackshawMusic/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julian.blackshaw/
Ben Hughes Sound 
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