The CD Recording

This past weekend has been a very busy one. The choir I’m in is recording a CD and we’ve had recording sessions at the church every night. This is the fourth choral CD I’ve been involved with -- the other three were with a big men’s chorus in Dallas back in the early 90s -- so it’s really interesting to me to see how the recording process has changed with technology.

It’s a lot easier and efficient these days. Trust me.

Back in the old days, editing pretty much consisted of splicing tape. Nowadays, digital editing software enables the editor to do lots of tricks. The intake of breath just before singing the first note can be edited down. Last night, we were recording a piece with the big pipe organ. Since the pipe organ was causing a lot of background noise, the recording engineer had us all be really quite so he could record 30 seconds of background noise that the organ was causing. That’s so he could later copy the digital footprint of that noise and edit it out of the final product.

Isn’t that cool?

Still, recording can be a very tedious process. You can come to the end of a perfect “take” and an ambulance will scream by outside. Helicopters will do the same. Everything needs to be put on hold for a thunderstorm to pass. A difficult passage will require a dozen takes, sometimes more. Shoes on a marble surface can squeak or clunk, causing another re-take. (Most of us just wear socks and no shoes.) A soprano’s tummy will growl during the silence just before the downbeat and it’s hard not to laugh.

Anyway, the CD will be available on the iTunes in October.

Do they even have record stores anymore?