Recording Session: Part 1 - Preparation
Later this month I am going to be traveling to Prague to record some of my music! This is the finale to the ThinkSpace Education course I completed last year. For more on that click here. As this is a pretty exciting moment, I thought I would start a series of blogs on my experience doing this. This blog will be about how I prepared for the recording, and future blogs will be on the theme of expectations vs reality and comparison between my mock-ups and the final live recordings.
The Score
One of the most important parts about preparing for a live recording is the score. The musicians and conductor will both be sight reading the music, so musical intentions have to be as clear as possible. If a player doesn’t understand something in your score, they will raise their hand and valuable time will be wasted in answering the question. This music will be recorded at a shared recording session, meaning I’ll have 30 minutes to record my music. As a result, I will need to be as efficient as possible to get all of it done.
Page 1 of my first cue - ‘Call To Adventure’
The first page of my first cue ‘Call To Adventure’ has some important details on it. You can see that it is a concert score – that is written in concert pitch, and that the players are to expect a 2 bar click into the first bar. I have seen different approaches to this – including leaving the first 2 bars of the piece entirely empty and starting the cue on the 3rd bar of the piece. I personally feel that approach is a waste of ink, but it will be intriguing to see which way is more successful. The next thing to notice is the huge time signatures; this is particularly helpful for the conductor, as it makes these important changes hard to miss. Likewise I have bar numbers on each bar, which appear at 3 points on the score. As I’ve mentioned, we don’t want the musicians or conductors having to waste time counting bars, so this approach streamlines things. For this recording, I was asked to submit just one Pro Tools file (more about Pro Tools later), and as a result each of my cues had to use one set of bar numbers. Call To Adventure begins at bar 1 and ends on bar 28. The second cue ‘Starry Skies’ begins on bar 35 and ends on bar 58. Why the 6 bar gap between the first and second cue? This is to allow any reverberation to die out at the end of the first cue.
The next thing to point out is that I am using a non-condensed score. Condensing is where you combine the same instruments into 1 or 2 staves to allow more space. It is generally a preference for conductors, however, to have one line per instrument. Most of the time that is fine, but if you look at the page below, you can see it becomes quite a challenge to keep everything clear.
Page 5 of my first cue - ‘Call To Adventure’
I should mention that I am using A3 (11.7” x 16.5”) paper (in the US they use Tabloid (11” x 17”)), and it has been recommended to me not to go below 5.5mm stave size. I aim for 4 bars a page, sometimes 3 if lots going on, or 5 if not much is going on. Ultimately the goal is to make the score as legible as possible for the conductor. I was also advised not to hide unused staves. For example on page 1 of Call To Adventure I could have left out the Brass and Percussion to save space, but this makes the score unpredictable to the conductor. With hidden unused staves, instruments end up jumping up and down the page, making it hard to fix your eyes on one instrument from page to page. Remember to put your name on each page you produce and to use page numbers. It is incredibly easy to mess up the order of the pages once printed, and if it isn’t clear which page goes where, you’re going to be wasting a lot of time.
For my percussion I had 1 Timpani player and 1 Percussionist. The Timpani is displayed normally as it creates a definite pitch, though it is worth pointing out that you need to give Timpani tunings at the start of the score. These pitches are ordered from lowest to highest pitch. (As a side note, you also need to do this for the Harp - I prefer showing the Harp tunings on the full score). For the Percussionist, I have seen loads of different approaches. The approach I’ve taken feels like it saves the most space whilst remaining clear. If you look back at the screenshot of page 5 you can see it in action. I use a 5 line stave, and then label each different instrument in bold writing.
Make sure your dynamics are neat and clear. Any dynamics that are left up to interpretation will produce a question from the orchestra wasting time. What clear dynamics mean is making sure that your crescendos and diminuendos all have a target dynamic. So if we’re at p and you use a crescendo, then make sure you tell them how loud to go! Is it p to mp, or is it p to ff? Also use double bar lines at the start of each new section. This gives players some warning of any changes coming up, and also breaks up multiple bars of rest for players not doing much, making it easier to count. Put tempo markings on each new section, and be as descriptive as you can. The players won’t be able to rehearse these pieces, so any shortcuts into the emotion you want to convey are welcome.
Flute & Piccolo part to Call To Adventure
Once the full score is done, it’s time to work on the Individual parts. For this orchestra, that means working on 22 separate parts!
Most of the parts will look similar to this Flute part. I label all bar long rests with the number of bars rested (including if it’s just 1 bar). The big thing to notice is that the bars look slightly different here. I prefer to put them underneath the dynamics and on the bar line (unless they are bar number ranges). Make sure the messaging at the start is consistent with the full score, so if it says 2 bar click into bar 1 on the full score, make sure it says the same on the individual parts.
Again the individual Percussion score will look a bit different, and I suspect there are a range of differing opinions on how to present it. Here is my take (see below). The first thing to notice here is that it’s landscape. Unlike the full score, I present the different percussion instruments on separate lines, making it visually clear what instrument is required at which moment. There are even prompts telling the Percussionist where to head to next. I also list the different Percussion instruments on the top right hand side of the page.
Page 1 of Percussion Score to Call to Adventure
For more information about score presentation have a look at Composer, Conductor, Orchestrator, and Arranger Tim Davies’ site. Elaine Gould’s ‘Behind Bars’ is an excellent resource on how best to present clear and easy to read music. I’ve also found Samuel Z. Solomon’s ‘How to Write for Percussion’ useful for percussion instruments.
Mock-up Preparation
I’m not going to go into much detail in this blog about how I produced these mock-ups - that’s for another time and place. This section is more about how I prepared these files to help with the recording session. You can listen to all 3 pieces here:
The key thing is when setting up your template, make sure it is easy to create stems from it. I decided on 5 stem tracks: Woodwind, Brass, Percussion, Harp, and Strings. These will be used to check parts of the orchestra or to accompany a section of the orchestra that might be playing on its own. Hopefully the recording will go smoothly, and they won’t have to be used too much, but you never know. The way they are set up in my template means that they don’t have any of the reverb that is on the demo track, but I did copy over my stereo output mastering settings onto each track. I exported these stems and a demo track as wav files, with bit depth 24 bit and sample rate 48kHz. It is always important to find out what is required with these two settings when exporting your music.
I also created a MIDI file for each of the 3 pieces. This is specifically for the Pro Tools file. What it does is export a tempo map, along with time signature changes that are identical to your mock-ups, meaning there is less room for human error when setting up in Pro-Tools. As I’m using a single Pro Tools file, this process was a little more complicated than usual. It involved opening up a new Cubase file and importing all 3 MIDI files there. With a bit of manoeuvring, which involved moving tempo information around (as each MIDI file ended up importing to bar 1), I was able to sort this out.
Pro Tools
The Pro Tools file will be sent directly to the Pro Tools operator at the recording studio. It is vital to make as clear as possible, so that they can follow your intentions with the music. It needs to match the score bar for bar.
There are a few key elements needed in a Pro Tools file: Correct format, Correct Tempo Information, Audio Click Track with 2 bar clicks and extra provisions for any tempo changes, Demo and Stems, Cleared I/O settings, colour coding and clear presentation. Here’s a screenshot of my complete Pro Tools session:
My Pro Tools session
The correct format is vital – in my case that’s 24bit/48kHz. This can potentially be an easy thing to mess up at the start so be careful to check. Once the new session is open, import the MIDI file getting rid of any MIDI tracks that appear as a result. Make sure to check that the new tempo information and time signature changes match up with your score. If, like with my score, your 2 bar click begins before bar 1, you will need to select the bar at the beginning of the project, click the Event dropdown menu and select ‘Renumber Bars’ to change it.
The audio click track is probably the thing that takes the most time to prepare. I have in fact built in some audio click into my template to save time. But what you need to do is add a click track (Track dropdown -> Create Click Track (at the bottom)). This loads in a track with the plugin Click II. From this plugin you can choose your click – either MPC unaccented or UREI unaccented should be fine. I’ve been told that the musicians don’t like accented beats. You can then route this click into another audio track using a bus. Then hit record, and you should have some audio click! Once you have 1 or 2 bars recorded, chop it up into boxes which contain one beat at a time. Then change the audio track from samples to tick.
Samples and Tick icons
Looking at the screenshot, sample is the blue clock icon, and tick is the green metronome icon. This will allow you to snap each click to the grid like with MIDI, so you can be confident it will always be exactly on time. I tend to create two separate click tracks, one ‘main’ click which is the starting point, and an alternative click, if the conductor doesn’t like the main click for any reason. The main click is usually a crotchet (1/4 note) click, and often the alternative click is a quaver (1/8 note) click. Once each click is in place, highlight all the audio using the selector tool, then go to the Edit dropdown menu and click ‘Consolidate Clip’, to make it one audio file. The reason we go through the hassle of creating audio click tracks is that there is a general consensus that relying on a plugin can be dangerous for latency reasons, while simple audio will always work and will always play on the beat. The plugin also stops us from doing the next thing on our checklist.
That next thing is to create extra provisions for tempo changes. When an Orchestra wants to start a cue midway through the piece, what tends to happen is the recording will start 2 bars back to give them a two bar click into the new part. This is a pretty straightforward thing to do unless there is a tempo change. Without provision, what will happen is the orchestra will hear a 2 bar click in a different tempo to what they are about to play, which frankly is pretty unhelpful… My answer to this problem is create a ‘Pre-roll’ track. At any point where there is a tempo change, I insert 2 bars of click in the new tempo two bars before the tempo change. These audio files start off muted, and are only unmuted if needed during the recording. I also create a cut in the Main click, so that when using the new 2 bar pre-roll track, we can easily mute the click we no longer want. Here’s a quick tip on how to create the 2 bars of click at the right tempo:
Example of Pre-roll Track in action!
1) Copy the 2 bars of the new tempo, selecting audio that is at least two bars further on from the tempo change.
2) Then paste this directly at the tempo change on the new ‘Pre-roll’ track.
3) Use the ‘Trimmer’ tool to expand your pasted audio back 2 bars.
4) Then get rid of any audio on the ‘Pre-roll’ track after the tempo change.
The next job is to import the demo and stems. Important!: when importing audio into your Pro Tools session select Copy, not Add! If you select Add, the audio will not be copied into your Pro Tools file folder, meaning that when you send the session off to the recording studio, the audio files will be left behind, leading to disaster! What Copy does, is create a copy of the audio so that the files both remain in their original location, but also in your Pro Tools folder. Now when you send over the folder, the audio will come along for the ride.
Once everything is in place, now test that all the audio is working. Double check at this point that the file matches with your score. Once done it’s time to look at putting in the final touches.
First clear the I/O settings (in the setup dropdown menu), this is to make it easy for the Pro Tools operator to import the recording studio I/O settings into your session. I tend to keep one output open, so I can still hear the audio, but everything else should go. Now I move onto colour coding my tracks. Have a look at the screenshot at the top to see what I did, but you’re free to go with whatever you like, as long as it clearly separates the different types of tracks. Be sure to change the colour of the track AND the audio files (for some reason they don’t change together).
Neat Clip Window
The next job is to clear the clip window of any unused audio files. First click the dropdown arrow to the right of the clips window, and click select -> unused. Then click the same dropdown and select clear. When you click Remove you may get a box that says “‘Click_audio_xxx’ is used in a track, in a plug-in, in the undo queue or in the clipboard. Do you still want to clear it?” If you are worried you are clearing something you’re using, select no and check. The way to check is to first make sure nothing is highlighted, then click on the clip in question via the clip window and see if anything in the session ends up highlighted. If it does, then it’s being used. If not, it isn’t being used, and you can safely click remove. You want your clip window neat and tidy. Most greyed out clips aren’t being used, but sometimes they are. For the ones that are, highlight that clip and click the edit dropdown menu and select ‘Consolidate Clip’, to make them bold.
Once all audio clips are in their final place, make sure to lock them in place, so they can’t be accidentally moved and then name them. Aim to name all tracks and audio clips in a way that groups similar things together. If you look at my neat and tidy clip window to the right, you can just about see that the name for each ‘Call To Adventure’ audio file starts with the cue name. This means that all ‘Call To Adventure’ audio clips are grouped together and are easy to find. Another thing to add are markers. (see below). This makes it clear where the beginning and end of the cue are, but also significant moments in the piece. It helps the Pro Tools operator to follow along with the recording session.
Finally, what I like to do is quit Pro Tools, copy and paste the complete Pro Tools file folder into a new location (or even better, onto another computer that runs Pro Tools) and see if the file still opens. This can be a life saver if you’ve accidentally deleted an important audio file without realising!
Markers in action
