Thoughts on Recording
Nov 21st, 2007 by Doug Berch
I just got home from an afternoon in the studio. I will soon have some sound bites of what I’m up to on these pages.
The process of recording always leaves me with mixed feelings; on one hand I find 
it creatively inspiring, on the other hand I am sometimes uncomfortable with the thought of freezing a moment of musical time into a musical still life.
During a live performance an occasional small mistake is of little consequence if the overall performance is good. A small mistake in the studio can seem like the audio equivalent of having a portrait photographed with spinach on my teeth!
There is also the balance of capturing a performance that is passionate yet technically excellent. It can sometimes require several takes to get a balance of both.
My playing and listening skills always evolve during the recording process.
I am constantly surprised with how different it can be to hear myself play as a listener rather than listening while I am playing. I often can’t really know how successful a take was until I listen back to it. I have been surprised in both directions.
I know about that imperfection thing and recording. I was trained as a voice major in school and I’m very hard on myself in the studio. Live, I’m really OK with how things go as long as I have an audience to connect with. Perfection is not expected on stage, though it’s always a good goal (if passion is not absent, anyway).
In my case, Brian’s part of the team, too… and he is more likely to choose a take with more expression even if the vocal is not textbook perfect. I tend to over-choose on the safe side. There is something about knowing that it can be listened to a hundred times, that any hiccup in my work will be open to discovery. On stage, this is just not an issue.
Great post!
Hi Lynn,
Thanks so much for your comments. It is helpful to hear your thoughts about recording.
I tend to vacillate between the “safe” takes and the ones that are most alive and find it difficult to make a final decision as to which I will keep..
Sometimes I have rerecorded a piece later on during a project knowing that I have a more or less acceptable take already and I feel more relaxed about playing. Its like having a bit of a safety net.
Sometimes I end up with a better take, sometimes I find that I have already played the piece as well as I can at this time.
I have occasionally chosen to leave a piece out of a project because the experience in the studio showed me it was not ripe yet.