Recording Questions

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

Well....if you're not signed to a lable; and pressed them yourselves, do the math...
You sell them to the distributor for $7, they cost about $1 to press....that's roughly $6 profit x 20,000

That's $120,000

I wish I sold 20,000 Fuzzbubble CD's....Damn, that'd be sweet :-)

It was so long ago, I don't remember where the money went. We sold a many of the 20K out of our own merch box. All I do know is that I never saw a dime from merch sales, our national distribution or any of our gigs. And I wrote about 80% of our music.

All of the money we made went directly back into the band. My pay was beer and whatever food the club provided. It seems like a million years ago now, and I can't imagine how I actually lived like that for so long.

There is one exception. When we were sitting on a $15K chunk of change, money we were saving for our relocation from Honolulu to the Bay Area, Shon, who drummed on the record we're currently recording, and I took our then-girlfriends out to the North Shore for a camping trip. It began to rain. Hard. We appropriated band money for a cottage at Turtle Bay. It was awesome. We never told the band.

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

Well, I'm supposed to go back into the studio on Saturday to do my overdubs. I've got rhythm and lead guitar parts to put down, as well as lead and backup vocals. I'm looking forward to doing my lead vocals, but I feel a sinister chest cold coming on. Any suggestions from the pros on whether it's better to get the vocal overdubs down first, or the guitar parts? I'm sure I'll be able to sing on Saturday (I better, because I have a gig that night, too). I wanted to get my vocals down so I can punctuate the vocals later with tasteful guitar phrasing. What say you, wise HT studio vets? Vocals or guitar first?

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Recording Questions

Assuming you'll be doing mixdowns at a later date, it won't matter which one you do first. If you plan to have a little aural interaction between your vocal and guitar lines, just have a rough idea in your head of what you will do with the one you'll lay down second, as you record the first. (Of course, when tracking the second part, you'll be able to hear the first, thus making it easier to interact.)

If you don't feel your vocals are up to snuff that day, then do the guitar session, and vice versa. If you think you'll have some guitar licks that will play off your vocals, then go with your plan of laying down the vox first. But don't do the vocals if you don't feel you're in top form - as we discussed before, any compromises you make now will stand out in the final product, forever.

Would you do me a favor and PM me about what kind of music you're doing (and why specifically getting to Ireland with it is a dream of yours?) You've got me very curious.

(Tikiyaki - I haven't forgotten that I still owe you some details on my work...apologies for the delay.)

[akrauth]

Re: Recording Questions

I just wanted to ask you, do you play an instrument, sing, or both? And what will your album be like?

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Recording Questions

Hi, akrauth - I'm guessing that you are asking jdub about his album (he plays guitar and sings in an Irish rock style (from what he tells me - I haven't been fortunate enough to hear him in person yet.)

But just in case you were asking me: I sing and play `ukulele and electric bass for a hula halau in Seattle, so I do lots of Hawaiian and hapa-haole songs. No album in the works for us, though we have recorded a few songs recently for a demo, which was engineered by guitarist Charlie Recaido, from Kohala.

One of our recordings was just used on a segment of the "CBS Early Show" a little over a week ago, however, to accompany a dancer (our kumu hula) who was there to tell a Seattle contestant that she had just won a trip to Hawai`i. So I guess I can sorta kinda say that I've played music on national television. (Yeah...right.)

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

One of our recordings was just used on a segment of the "CBS Early Show" a little over a week ago, however, to accompany a dancer (our kumu hula) who was there to tell a Seattle contestant that she had just won a trip to Hawai`i. So I guess I can sorta kinda say that I've played music on national television. (Yeah...right.)

Wow! I just sold that clip. One of my clients had a vested interest in that coverage. Amazing, Leo!

[akrauth]

Re: Recording Questions

Wow! I just sold that clip. One of my clients had a vested interest in that coverage. Amazing, Leo!

Jdub, pomaika'i with your album!

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

Jdub, pomaika'i with your album!

Thanks a ton. It's going well. Igot a couple of lead guitar parts down over the weekend. It felt good. Long way to go, though.

[damontucker]

Re: Recording Questions

One of our recordings was just used on a segment of the "CBS Early Show" a little over a week ago, however, to accompany a dancer (our kumu hula) who was there to tell a Seattle contestant that she had just won a trip to Hawai`i. So I guess I can sorta kinda say that I've played music on national television. (Yeah...right.)

And our HT ALERT/HEADS UP was where?

I like see/hear!

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Recording Questions

And our HT ALERT/HEADS UP was where?...I like see/hear!

I didn't know about it until after the fact, but I did get this link.

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

I didn't know about it until after the fact, but I did get this link.

Leo-That's just crazy. I work for a broadcast news monitor, selling various news tracking and clipping services. I had no idea you were involved in any way with that story, which I sold to more than one client. Crazy small world, brah.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Recording Questions

Leo-That's just crazy. I work for a broadcast news monitor, selling various news tracking and clipping services. I had no idea you were involved in any way with that story, which I sold to more than one client. Crazy small world, brah.

I've heard it said that, in much of the world, there are, on average, only six steps that separate you from anyone else (the proverbial "six degrees of separation.") But if you focus on a place like Hawai`i, it ends up only two degrees apart.

I had heard, a couple days before the event, that our halau would be providing a dancer or two for "a national tv broadcast" - but I didn't know the circumstances, or realize that they would be using the music we recorded not too long ago.

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

I've heard it said that, in much of the world, there are, on average, only six steps that separate you from anyone else (the proverbial "six degrees of separation.") But if you focus on a place like Hawai`i, it ends up only two degrees apart.

That's funny, Leo, because I've long maintained the "2 degrees of separation" theory when talking about Hawai'i. When I was on the road, I found it to be categorically accurate.

[jdub]

Re: Recording Questions

Well, I'm supposed to go back into the studio on Saturday to do my overdubs. I've got rhythm and lead guitar parts to put down, as well as lead and backup vocals. I'm looking forward to doing my lead vocals, but I feel a sinister chest cold coming on. Any suggestions from the pros on whether it's better to get the vocal overdubs down first, or the guitar parts? I'm sure I'll be able to sing on Saturday (I better, because I have a gig that night, too). I wanted to get my vocals down so I can punctuate the vocals later with tasteful guitar phrasing. What say you, wise HT studio vets? Vocals or guitar first?

And now it's happened. We've run through our outside funding, and we're not even half done with the record. We've got some cake stashed, but it certainly won't be enough to cover the nut. Time to get down with some creative financing.