Three Canta Vocalists in a Row
It’s been a few weeks since our debut album’s release, and it feels great! A little scary, considering we’re out there… in the global marketplace… our voices and sounds as representatives for Hideo… and for game/anime music…
…
…but great!
The amount of time spent recording the Canta Per Me vocals was shockingly longer than I’d anticipated. With a trio recording instead of individuals (as with the instrumentalists and the vocal solo for Aria), I knew it would take more time than usual (with three times the variables), but three hours? For a three-minute song? How did the time go so fast?
There was so much more to it than I’d realized. We had to set up the microphones several times due to standing arrangement, heights, best capture of both our sound and the other singers’ sounds, and switching vocal parts, which was easily 30-45 minutes in total. There was the warm-up period where no recording was happening. There’s the ten-minute and other breaks to ensure we don’t lose purpose and the goal.
Canta itself is three minutes, which is 20 back-to-back takes per hour; seems like it would be plenty of time. But that doesn’t factor in the between-takes action: listening to a take, discussing a take, adjusting something external or physical to change the take, rehearsing prior to recording a take, etc.. The list goes on and the minutes add up.
Did I mention I also lost my voice for the whole week prior (after coming back from Disneyland with 70+ students)? It was not a pretty week (though I did learn how to silently command a group of 150 people, which may or may not have been worth it). It made recording for Canta and the Aria also difficult, and added a layer of “can we please do a re-take because I couldn’t hold that note/ran out of breath/cracked on that note/crescendoed stupidly/etc.” to the session.
It was all worth it, completely, all three hours. Speaking of time, though: it’s nothing compared to what the editors have to do afterward… Stephen Berke had to spend each session (3 hours times how many performers?) with us, and then there’s the editing, mixing, and designing that takes even more time. And he did it all with kindness, ease, and a smile. Berke Sound was wonderful, and I owe Stephen a sincere thank you :).
Until the next recording!
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