Recording Music at Home with Logic Pro X
A long, long time ago, my high school band recorded a couple of EPs at a local Rockford studio called the Noise Chamber. It was a big and expensive deal, especially to a bunch of broke 16-year-old kids. I think we spent $2,000 on each recording, paid entirely upfront by our bass player and repaid via $5 album sales at our high school.
The studio was famous — or maybe I just made this up, I don't really know — for recording Cheap Trick at some point. The owner and chief engineer's name was Jimmy Johnson.
I say was not because Jimmy died, but because the Noise Chamber was demolished a few years back. The property is now just a grass lot. It honestly makes me a bit sad whenever I drive by.
I'm pretty sure Jimmy hated us, mostly because we were stupid teenagers, but also because we were terrible at our instruments. He was as patient as he could be, and even pulled me aside once to let me know that he thought I was talented. But Jimmy also knew the job included a bit of babysitting and handholding, which he didn't love. Fair.
My favorite anecdote: When we finished recording the first EP, Jimmy handed us the master and said, "Here you go. Here's something you can give to your girlfriends." Ouch.
I don't exactly hate the music we created during those recordings. We were kids, and we had only been playing our instruments for a year or two. If you listen to the songs through that lens, they're perfectly fine.
But the thing about recordings: They're forever, and they offer no context. So when you listen to them now, you don't know that the folks on the record have grown and changed and evolved. I imagine it's a little like being a child actor.
Strangers I haven't seen in decades still stop me at the grocery store to ask if I have a band, which isn't the humble brag it probably sounds like I'm trying to make. The look of "wtf" on my wife's face when it happens is fun, though.
For the record: I still play guitar, bass, and drums as a hobby. But it's tough to get a band together when you have a full-time job, family, and household to keep up with.
So what's with all the backstory?
During 2020, when we were all in lockdown because of Covid-19, I decided I was going to learn how to record music at home. I'm good with computers — especially software — and figured it would be an easy hobby to pick up. It was not.
I've half-finished dozens of songs since I started, but this weekend I might have finally finished something that may sound reasonable enough to share publicly: An acoustic cover of Gods Reflex's "Careering", a song that I've loved as long as I've known how to play a guitar.
So here's the thing: Recording music is hard.
There are plugins. So many plugins. There are hundreds of decisions to be made, both on the technical side and creatively. And if you're recording yourself, you have to try to do it all with a level of dispassion and self-awareness that can be difficult.
I've been telling my friends: This recording is fine. There are imperfections that drive me crazy, of course. There are some weird artifacts in the vocals that pop up, which happens when you move portions of a phrase around for timing purposes, or you use auto tune to adjust a word that's slightly sharp or flat. Compression can exaggerate those artifacts, too. It's especially noticeable on AirPods.
What do you want from me — I'm not a great singer.
But as a starting point? I'm happy. It feels like I can get a little better each time and stop being the 16-year-old kid on those Noise Chamber recordings.
E-mail me. Let's start a band.