Recording sessions:
To begin with, I had to find the right tempo for all of my tracks, as I was playing along to a metronome- so I sent all of my song titles with the tempos on it to Mr Clark in an email.
In the first session, I began by playing Crazy Eyes on the guitar to the metronome. As my guitar is just an acoustic and not an electro/ acoustic, I had to record my guitar through a mic. We had to test which part of the guitar sounded best with the mic in front of it. The best part to have the mic turned out to be in front of the lower neck of the guitar. This place the guitar sounded whole and had a nice ring. Before I recorded the guitar I needed to check the levels and look out for the green light so that I knew that it wouldn’t be too loud or sound messy (crackly).
The guitar to crazy eyes has both strumming and picking - Picking in the verses and strumming in the chorus'. I took three guitar takes of crazy eyes so that I could listen back and see which one I played best in. I went wrong in a couple of the takes, however, Mr Clark said that it was okay because he will go through and edit them, overlaping my mistakes with other takes we have done which I hadnt made a mistake on; this will make the song sound more professional and not ammature.
I then took another three takes of the vocals of crazy eyes. Me and Mr Clark decided to double up my voice as it is a trick which people use in the music industry to make the singers voice sound stronger and more whole, giving it more power. Once my voice was all doubled up, Mr Clark edeited the song, however, there is a guitar mistake near to the beginning which has not been overlapped.
Next I recorded my song called 'Hippy Girl'. I set up the recording equiptment in the same way. Most of the song is picked on the guitar, so this one is a disaster if I was to go wrong near to the end... Which is what happened. Once I had gone wrong one time- I kept going wrong in all of my other takes of this song. I ended up taking quite a few takes of this song so that I had definitely covered all of the guitar parts right so that Mr Clark could mix them together and cut out any mistakes. After recording the guitar to this song, I felt that I had wasted quite a lot of time! (almost half of a lesson!) which is valuable time in a recording studio.
A couple of weeks later when I stayed after school to record the vocals of the song, I realised that I wrote 'Hippy Girl' when I was 12 years old and some of the lyrics were really cheesy. After having a funny conversation with Mr Clark about the lyrics of the song we came to a decision that I should go home and think of some alternate lyrics for the song.
I went home and tried to figure out some lyrics, however it was a lot harder than it seemed and I had a terrible case of writers block! I decided to get rid of the song 'Hippy Girl' on the album.
After deciding to get rid of 'Hippy Girl' I recorded my next song which is called 'James Bond'. I wrote James Bond for my best friend named Elizabeth. The song is basically about me being there for her whenever she needs me and how she'd always do the same. The song is based on nature and has a few personal jokes in there as well. Again, I recorded the guitar first, the song is mainly strumming a particular riff but has finger picking in the very beginning. I took quite a few versions of this song on the guitar as after school, the orchestra was playing and I was able to hear them in the back ground as I was listening back to the recordings, so every time they stopped and had a break I tried to quickly record the song... But obviously this plan wasnt the best. It resuted in me getting quite frustrated about the orchestra and playing badly.
When I had finally finished recording the guitar for 'James Bond' I could take a few versions of the vocals. I tried to use variation in my voice on the vocal takes so that I had a lot of choice when listening back to see what sounded good and what needed improving or just cutting out so that I could mix and match what sounded good and put them all into one song. With this song all recorded I saved it into its own file and left for Mr Clark to equalise and add effects.
There was no major problems with this song and I was quite pleased with the outcome. Again, Mr Clark doubled up my voice to make it sound whole and more professional, however, in this song you can tell that there are two voices as both the takes are not the same. In some parts of the song, the doubled voice sounds good, however, not in all of the song. There are parts where it doesnt sound good with both of the voices as there is a little bit of a clash between what I have done with the two vocal takes.
Next we recorded my song named 'Who'd've knew' - Awful English I know, but oh well. I also wrote this song a couple of years ago so that probably explains the incorrect language. I have recorded this song before in the school studio, which I did in one take (one guitar and one vocal) so I had competition... With myself. Also when I recorded this song before Kye Voice, a member of the 6th form played the violin along over the top of the record and edited it for me- this sounded really good. So this time I had to make the song sound even better.
When it came down to recording the vocals for this song I had a cold, so my voice didnt sound very up to scratch, although I did try. I was very disappointed by this as my guitar takes werent as good either. I had to take a lot of takes of both my voice and the guitar, also no other instruments were added in the amount of time that we had. Therefore the version of 'Who'd've knew' was a lot better the last time I recorded it. With this song fully recorded, we took the best guitar take and again doubled up the vocals.
In a double lesson of music I recorded my song named 'Numb' - again this is another personal experience I have written about which means a lot to me so I really wanted this one to sound good- as I did with all the others.
The riff for this song is based around the C chord with the capo on the second fret. By accident, when I recorded the guitar first, I recorded the guitar with the capo on the 4th fret. Obviously, when I came to recording the vocals, it was very high and I realized when it came down to me doing the harmony, the high notes might prove to be too high for my range. However, again in the time we had to record all of this, I didnt have enough time to record the harmony, so that wasnt an issue (although I was very dissapointed).
Finally, I recorded my song named 'Done' which was quite ironic to end on. Openig up a new file I recorded the guitar first, setting up as usual with the mic placed in front of the strings near the lower neck of the guitar. I took around 7 guitar takes as this song is very short so I had some time to get it right and also there is a lot of picking in this song so a lot of takes would cover the mistakes I had made when Mr Clark mixes the song.
The lyrics to this song were really carefully thought of from yet another personal experience that I have written about. So whilst singing it, I tried to ensure that I did the song justice. However, as there were music exams happening in the music block at that time, the studio is connected to A3, the recital hall, so I was not allowed to record with the lights on so that I didnt distract the students who were having exams. This was really weird as I was stood singing in the dark, but this created a mellow mood which was actually quite nice.
Again with this song, my voice was doubled up to the sound of my guitar with no other instruments added.
Things I would change: Next time I record a song or album, to ensure that I have enough time to add other instruments, harmony and edit my voice and guitar, I will use my time in the studio more wisely. I will do this by setting myself a time limit for each song and stay after school if I exceed this limit. Although I did this (stay after school), it was at a late stage and as my exams were coming up I couldnt stay many other nights after the couple that I did. Next time I will ensure that I am completely organised with my time keeping of all of the songs and be absolutely sure of which songs are going on the album.
Also, if I had more time, I would re-do the vocals, so that there was no need to double up my voice as to me sometimes it didnt work and it makes all of my songs sound similar and I would like all of the songs to have different qualities about them. I could make these different qualities by adding other instruments such as the violin or bongo drums.
I would also begin to record earlier so that I gave myself more time to get the songs perfect instead of having songs which I am not completely happy about.
Overall, I think that the final product is good... However, I am really dissapointed that it is only me who features in the CD as I was desperate to add other instruments in to my songs to make them sound original and I also had lots of ideas. Although I do think that for my first CD it is nice and something I can keep forever.
I hope to come back to school when my exams are over and adjust my songs and re record some things and finally when I am happy with the CD, I will sell it on iTunes and at school.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
The creation of my own CD
I have began to record my own CD. A couple of months ago I recorded a rough version of all my songs at the school studio. Since then i have been thinking about what I can name my product and how the artwork will be. Some of my friends have offered to help me do the artwork, all of which have taken art as a GCSE at my school. I am very excited to see what ideas we will all come up with! I have began to think of what i can name the CD... I was thinking 'Hippy Girl' as that is the name of one of the songs on the album and it is how poeple have described me in the past; it is also the only song on the album that is directly about myself, explaining who I am... All of the other songs are inspired by people/ events.
Monday, 9 January 2012
Tour Posters
I also like how his posters always symbolise himself... Ed always makes doubly sure that he puts something orange on everything, to symbolise his ginger hair, which he is clearly proud of, and he does so on both posters.
On poster 1: Ed takes a famous quote from the war 'keep calm and carry on' and changes it to keep calm and build a lego house. This is clever as Ed potrays a calm attitude on stage and in his videos, and lego house is one of the songs off his album, so that is the obvious hint to the poster. However he has added extra Ed-ness to his poster by making it 'ginger' if you like..
Not only has he put something 'ginger' on poster 2... he is thinking out the box by subtly taking something normal such as a cat and adding an intriguing factor to it - the cat is huge! Not something you see every day... There is also an element of irony to poster 2 as the cat chosen is.. you guessed it.. a ginger cat. However it is very important for an artist to have something distinct about them that gives the audience something to relate the artist to.
If i was to create a poster for myself, i would make sure that it had an element which would make the audience relate it to me- just like Ed does. This relation would be maybe a song name or a certain symbol or colour etc. It would have to be exciting to look at and eye catching, however not so much so that it is an information overload. The poster would be bright and happy, because that is a big element which i feel makes me relatable.
In comparison
Ed's CD in my opinion is the beginning of a great new genre of music! Rap mixed with folk mixed with soul! Great combo! What more could you ask for than a natural, down to earth new artist who writes about real things and makes a good variety of music?
Some people may not understand his unique style - however, Ed has such a big fan base that that doesn't matter!
Ed had an interview with 'The Wrap Up' and he stated what inspired him:
'TWU: You’ve been performing for four years plus, but who and what inspires you musically?
Ed Sheeran: I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 11 years old, so for about eight years now. It was my love for the guitar that first got me into music and singing. Growing up, I was inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Damian Rice was a huge influence for me musically. My dad took me to a small intimate gig of his in Dublin and I met him backstage afterwards and told him that I really wanted to get into songwriting. He gave me such great advice, and I can honestly say he’s one of my main inspirations.'
Ed has a similar style to Jason Mraz because it is a mixture of hiphop, folk and soul. Here is a video of Jason perfroming Geek in the Pink (one of his songs) to a crowd at the Ootmarsum LVR (Garden party) on July 15th 2007.
There are almost zero artists that can be compared to Ed because there is no one with the same style, however, watching Ed, he reminds me a little of an artist named David Gray, both artists are a massive inspiration to me as i am a singer/ songwriter myself. Ed reminds me of David because when he performs, everything comes out so naturally, there is no need for a band or backup because they can just produce beautiful music by themselves. They both have soul sounding voices and although their styles are totally different... a collaboration together would be magical!
Some people may not understand his unique style - however, Ed has such a big fan base that that doesn't matter!
Ed had an interview with 'The Wrap Up' and he stated what inspired him:
'TWU: You’ve been performing for four years plus, but who and what inspires you musically?
Ed Sheeran: I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 11 years old, so for about eight years now. It was my love for the guitar that first got me into music and singing. Growing up, I was inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Damian Rice was a huge influence for me musically. My dad took me to a small intimate gig of his in Dublin and I met him backstage afterwards and told him that I really wanted to get into songwriting. He gave me such great advice, and I can honestly say he’s one of my main inspirations.'
Ed has a similar style to Jason Mraz because it is a mixture of hiphop, folk and soul. Here is a video of Jason perfroming Geek in the Pink (one of his songs) to a crowd at the Ootmarsum LVR (Garden party) on July 15th 2007.
There are almost zero artists that can be compared to Ed because there is no one with the same style, however, watching Ed, he reminds me a little of an artist named David Gray, both artists are a massive inspiration to me as i am a singer/ songwriter myself. Ed reminds me of David because when he performs, everything comes out so naturally, there is no need for a band or backup because they can just produce beautiful music by themselves. They both have soul sounding voices and although their styles are totally different... a collaboration together would be magical!
People Who Helped..
Attatched to Ed Sheerans great CD '+' is a booklet of lyrics and extra information (e.g. who helped in making the songs/ cd etc.) I found a section stating this information:
'All vocals by Ed Sheeran,
All tracks Co-produced by Ed Sheeran.
Jake would like to thank Lucy, Joshi, Eli & Zuban & Tommy Clum for assisting at Sticky Studios as well as SE Electronics and Pocusrite.
Chris Leonard would like to thank Gibson Guitars.
Mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road.
Illustrations by Phillip Butah, www.philipbutah.com
Exclusive Production by Ben Cook and Ed Howard.
Managed by Stuart Camp at Rocket Music Management.'
On each song of the album, Ed has had people who help in some way:
The A Team: Produced, recorded and mixed by Jake Gosling at Sticky Studios. Piano, strings & programming by Jake Gosling.
Drunk: Written by- Ed sheeran/ Jake Gosling. Assisted by Edd Hartwell. Additional recording by Guy Massey for 140dB at Star Studios. Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing/ The Movement/ BDi Music Ltd. Mixed by Ruadhri Cushan for Z management at Rhubarb Studios, assisted by Grant Rawlinson & Marco Martini. Programming & keyboards by Jake Gosling.
U.N.I: Bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar by Chris Leonard. Backing vocals by Anna Leddra Chapman.
Grade 8: Written by Ed Sheeran and True Tiger. Programming and piano by Jake Gosling. Acoustic guitar and electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
Wake Me Up: Written by Ed Sheeran/ Jake Gosling. Recorded and mixed by Guy Massey for 140bB at Sarm Studios, assisted by Edd Hartwell. Electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
Small Bump: Programming & keyboards by Jake Gosling.
This: Written by Ed Sheeran/ Gordon Mills. Produced by Jake Gosling. Electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
The City: Written by Ed Sheeran / Jake Gosling (programming and keyboard also)
Lego House: Written by : Ed, Jake (Piano and programming also) and Chris (acoustic guitar and bass also).
You need me, i don't need you: Drums and programming - Jake Gosling, additional drums and percussion - Charlie Hugall. Piano - Tom Greenwood. Drums - Ben Hollingsworth.
Kiss me (my favourite!) - Written by Ed, Justin Franks and Julie Frost. Programming by No ID. Vocals mixed by Jake Gosling. Recorded and mixed by Rob Kinselski.
Give me love: written by Ed, Jake (produced and recorded, programming, backing vocals and hand claps also) & Chris (acoustic guitar backing vocals and hand claps also). Violin by oli langford & louisa fuller. cello by chris worsey. viola - john metcalfe. Strings arranged by sally herbert and jake gosling.
A record producer's job is overseeing and managing the recording of an artists music. A producer has many roles that may include: gathering ideas for the project, selecting songs and/or musicians, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, and supervising the entire process through mixing and mastering. Producers also often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, and negotiations.
A programmer generates music through electronic devices and computer programs or sequences. Programming is often used is modern pop and rock music.
A mixing engineer - The role of the mixing engineer is to create the final version or the 'final mix' once all the parts have been recorded, eg. instruments, voices and sounds.
'All vocals by Ed Sheeran,
All tracks Co-produced by Ed Sheeran.
Jake would like to thank Lucy, Joshi, Eli & Zuban & Tommy Clum for assisting at Sticky Studios as well as SE Electronics and Pocusrite.
Chris Leonard would like to thank Gibson Guitars.
Mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road.
Illustrations by Phillip Butah, www.philipbutah.com
Exclusive Production by Ben Cook and Ed Howard.
Managed by Stuart Camp at Rocket Music Management.'
On each song of the album, Ed has had people who help in some way:
The A Team: Produced, recorded and mixed by Jake Gosling at Sticky Studios. Piano, strings & programming by Jake Gosling.
Drunk: Written by- Ed sheeran/ Jake Gosling. Assisted by Edd Hartwell. Additional recording by Guy Massey for 140dB at Star Studios. Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing/ The Movement/ BDi Music Ltd. Mixed by Ruadhri Cushan for Z management at Rhubarb Studios, assisted by Grant Rawlinson & Marco Martini. Programming & keyboards by Jake Gosling.
U.N.I: Bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar by Chris Leonard. Backing vocals by Anna Leddra Chapman.
Grade 8: Written by Ed Sheeran and True Tiger. Programming and piano by Jake Gosling. Acoustic guitar and electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
Wake Me Up: Written by Ed Sheeran/ Jake Gosling. Recorded and mixed by Guy Massey for 140bB at Sarm Studios, assisted by Edd Hartwell. Electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
Small Bump: Programming & keyboards by Jake Gosling.
This: Written by Ed Sheeran/ Gordon Mills. Produced by Jake Gosling. Electric guitar by Chris Leonard.
The City: Written by Ed Sheeran / Jake Gosling (programming and keyboard also)
Lego House: Written by : Ed, Jake (Piano and programming also) and Chris (acoustic guitar and bass also).
You need me, i don't need you: Drums and programming - Jake Gosling, additional drums and percussion - Charlie Hugall. Piano - Tom Greenwood. Drums - Ben Hollingsworth.
Kiss me (my favourite!) - Written by Ed, Justin Franks and Julie Frost. Programming by No ID. Vocals mixed by Jake Gosling. Recorded and mixed by Rob Kinselski.
Give me love: written by Ed, Jake (produced and recorded, programming, backing vocals and hand claps also) & Chris (acoustic guitar backing vocals and hand claps also). Violin by oli langford & louisa fuller. cello by chris worsey. viola - john metcalfe. Strings arranged by sally herbert and jake gosling.
A record producer's job is overseeing and managing the recording of an artists music. A producer has many roles that may include: gathering ideas for the project, selecting songs and/or musicians, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, and supervising the entire process through mixing and mastering. Producers also often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, and negotiations.
A programmer generates music through electronic devices and computer programs or sequences. Programming is often used is modern pop and rock music.
A mixing engineer - The role of the mixing engineer is to create the final version or the 'final mix' once all the parts have been recorded, eg. instruments, voices and sounds.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Promotion
Ed is interesting to look at as he has such a unique look. He has signature things that make him Ed (if that is understandable!) For example, a paw print tattooed on his arm- and the same paw print printed on his guitar! On an interview with the BBC he states that he likes to look like someone that people will know (a brother of a friend for example), but funny enough, Ed is the spitting image of Rupert Grint (who plays Ron Weasely in Harry Potter). Rupert plays the part of a crazed, starry eyed fan in Ed's music video Lego house; as Rupert is very popular with the public for being on such a world widely known set of movies (the Harry potters) i believe that Ed got a lot of publicity for this as in the video he looks so similar to Ed that for a second the audience really believes its him!
Ed also posts a lot of videos onto youtube for promotion; the first time I ever saw Ed was over the internet, when a friend showed me one of his videos called 'wafering stranger', a song where him mic is on loop and Ed beat box's and sings over it - brilliant!
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| Rupert Grint (left) Ed Sheeran (right) |
Ed also posts a lot of videos onto youtube for promotion; the first time I ever saw Ed was over the internet, when a friend showed me one of his videos called 'wafering stranger', a song where him mic is on loop and Ed beat box's and sings over it - brilliant!
Recording Sessions
As I was searching the web about Ed's album '+' - I came across 'JamieOpenMind' s blog. It states:
'Ed Sheeran Recording Session 1 Reveiw
Set Up of the session went well and got us back into the studio mindset. We set up the vocal booth and guitar mics in one space and found that when recording the guitar the Superlux picked up the acoustic guitar ambience so we left it live for the guitar takes. We moved onto the vocal tracks and found there is a chord slightly out of place in the last chorus which put out the vocal tracks so we need to go back and re take the guitar track another time. However we are happy with the mic placement and set up.'
Another post was made by JamieOpenMind about the recording of Ed Sheeran's song 'The A Team':
'Ed Sheeran - The A Team recording session
Monday morning 9am - 11am me and Ross will be going into the studio to record the acoustic guitar and vocal racks for our version of Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' For the vocals we will use a large diaphragm condenser microphone and a AKG C1000 condenser pencil mic as an ambience room mic to pic up the vocals interaction with the room. For the guitar we will use an sm57 to close mic the guitar at the 12th fret, the same AKG C1000 as an ambience mic and a DI box from the guitars pickup to give us maximum flexibility and mixing options once we get it into pro tools for mixing. All going well we should get this song recorded comfortably within the two hours we have booked but we may need to use the whole two hours. This is the offical 'The A Team' Music Video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ '
Thursday, 5 January 2012
An interview with Ed was uploaded on to youtube on the 10th June 2011, with Virgin Red Room.
Although the interview was very informal, Ed shows personality and jokes with fans by answering their questions and even stating that the most embarrassing thing he has ever done is walk in to lamp posts. ‘I do that a lot’ he said with a smirk on his face. Ed also reinforces the truth in his lyrics by saying that he does sofa hop a lot and keeps a casual attitude throughout showing fans his true self.
Another interesting interview with Ed Sheeran, only shows him – the audience only see Ed and do not hear any of the questions being asked.
First of all Ed introduces himself as an acoustic singer/ songwriter, he chats about how he has been ‘living in London for a while doing writing, recording and gigging’. He talks about how he likes to make people think with his lyrics and give them a meaning. He later states that his style of music is ‘acoustic hip hop with a little twinge of soul.’ –Hip hop being the lyrics and making people think and he lets his fans know how much he loves soul and that he tries to add it to his songs. He talks about how he likes to ‘convey an image of just a regular person, rather than being very glossy’ and he’d like to look like ‘someone’s kid or someone’s mate or someone’s brother’ – showing his fans how down to earth he is. Ed wraps up his interview by stating that in five years’ time he would like to be writing songs for other artists and playing with people that he admires and finally finishes with telling the BBC how his dream is to create a song that spurs up people’s emotions and be successful.
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| Print screen of Ed's interview with asylum |
‘www.asylum.co.uk’ interviewed Ed Sheeran on ‘being number one, music piracy and getting bad press’
The written interview begins with: Sitting opposite Ed Sheeran in a Dublin hotel room, it's hard to believe he is a 20-year-old still enjoying only his first months as a certified pop star.
The interview goes on to talk about the number of gigs he has done in the past and how he is sick of talking about that, Elton John and Jamie Foxx (who are great fans of his).
He also chats about his song ‘you need me, I don’t need you’
"That song wasn't just about one particular person, but the industry in general," He says.
Ed also shows examples of how he was treated by the press and others and how he decided to go his own way (good for him!)
"I came from a small farming town in Suffolk and just wrote songs and did gigs, and suddenly I was being told: 'other people need to write your songs, you can't be looping, you can't be beat boxing, you need to dress like this and have that image'. I was like: f**k that, I going to do what I want."
Photos of the interview:
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