Brass Band Logo

NJH Music Logo

Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2016 NJH Music
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Recording - Arghhh!!

David ROBERTS wrote...
>Can anybody give me a bit of advice about making a CD recording of my band
(Pangbourne)...


Well, Dave, our band (Bilton Silver - 1st Section) has made 3 cassettes.  (I
won't list all the details here - they are on our website
http://ds.dial.pipex.com/agc.and.jah/bilton/bsb.shtml if you're interested.)

We did the 1st one when we were 2nd section - we used the music room at a
local school.  It was recorded by a BBC local radio engineer.  It took all
weekend (Fri evening and most of Sat and Sun).

The 2nd was recorded in a school hall.  The 3rd was a Christmas tape,
recorded in a church (in April - groan!)  This one also featured a school
choir and soprano soloist (some items accompanied by the band).  These both
took a lot less time, although we did put the whole weekend aside in case.
I think we cleared these on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.  I don't
think we came back on the Sunday.

The choice of venue is important.  It needs to be free of distractions and
noise from outside.  Don't forget the noise from inside too - our second
tape had to be recorded with the heating switched off because we discovered
on the first evening of recording that the heating system was being picked
up on the tape!  This was less than ideal!  Try to see the room you choose
in a quiet time when you can listen for the lights, the traffic noise and
the heating.  The church was OK, but the choir used the organ and this too
was a bit noisy.  The school music suite was the best overall IMO.

The recording company we used for the later 2 tapes was Doyen.  I cannot
speak highly enough of their performance!  Alison Childs was completely
professional and helpful throughout.  Because she is an experienced bander,
she knew exactly what was good and what was not so good, and told us exactly
which bars needed re-recording, to cover slips, extraneous noises and any
untunefulness.  The final editing was seamless.  This experience was the
single biggest difference between our first tape and the others.  I would
say - if you want a good result, you can't afford not to choose a company
that can help you like this!  Their efficiency meant it took a lot less
time, and it took some of the strain off us, because we knew that if we did
make a slip, it was not a big deal to put it right!

As for costs, I can't remember the details, but we considered CDs against
tapes for the Christmas recording.  The minimum order for CDs was twice that
for tapes, and we felt that it would not be viable to go for CDs in the end.
Doyen did produce some CDs for those band members who wanted them, and we
sold a few, but the main product was cassettes.  We sell our tapes at all
concerts, the local music shop has some, as does Bilton Social Club.  We've
sold a couple via our website.  I suspect that most bands, apart from the
top few, cannot afford to consider recording as a money making venture,
unless you have some real whizz-bang marketing.

We made our tapes for a few reasons:  e.g. to record our progress as a band,
to help us improve (we don't contest much), and for us and our fans ;-) to
enjoy, but not really to make any money.  Pitch the price sensibly and plug
them at every concert.  We allowed for every band member to have a free
cassette.


Good luck!

Jud.


--
unsubscribe or receive the list in digest form, mail a message of 'help' to
  • Follow-Ups:

[Services] [Contact Us] [Advertise with us] [About] [Tell a friend about us] [Copyright © 2016 NJH Music]