GuitaroJam News

By Indie Joe 

The computer revolution of the last ten years has radically changed the tools available for individual content creators. I recently spent an hour talking to Vicki Silbert of Bittybox, who recorded much of her indie album “Smalltime” in her home studio. I wanted to know what can really be accomplished these days with home recording, and can an indie project come anywhere close to the quality big budget recordings?

Indie Joe: Just to set the groundwork for this discussion, maybe you should tell us briefly about the Bittybox project?

Vicki Silbert: Sure… I had been through the whole band experience in the 1980’s. We played the Los Angeles club scene for 6 years, but we never had much opportunity to record. Years later I was making my living on the Macintosh computer and it occurred to me that maybe there was software for recording music. So I looked into that and sure enough there was! This was the start of Bittybox, I made a decision to learn about digital audio recording software and finally record an album.

I.J.: So you had no previous experience recording?

V.S.: Well, my band had been in the studio a couple of times. We recorded a pretty good single, and another time we spent way too much money to record a bad demo, but that was in the days of 24 track tape. We also did some 4 track cassette recording with a Fostex X-15. Don’t know if you’re old enough to remember those? Strangely enough we were happier with the X-15 recordings than when we paid a bunch of money to record with a producer. I guess it was partly that experience that led me try home recording. But no, I had no previous experience with recording on the computer, and I was certainly not an engineer. I didn’t even know what midi was at the time!

I.J.: How did you get started?

V.S.: I got on the internet and researched the different programs for audio recording. When you’re totally new to something it can be pretty confusing, and you don’t really have much to base a decision on. Ultimately I chose Digital Performer Software, mainly because of the Motu-Mac Mailing List. It’s a mailing list of Digital Performer users who network and help each other with the program. It looked like a great resource, which is what it turned out to be!

I.J.: At that early stage did you think you would record a project for commercial release, or were you just experiementing?

V.S.: I always had the idea that I would record the album I had always wanted to release. I was actually way over-optimistic about how long it would take me to finish. I thought I would have a CD to release in 6 months, but it actually took me years!

I.J.: How many years?

V.S.: Don’t ask! I think I made pretty much every mistake in the book that home recordists make. I was working primarily with samplers and didn’t really know what was possible. So I spent endless hours programming drum tracks, all of which got thrown away in the end. Also the recording software is very deep and there are endless technical challenges and a huge learning curve. You have no idea when you start, what you’re getting into. Truthfully if I had any clue I probably wouldn’t have even tried!

I.J.: All the drum tracks got thrown out! How much of the stuff you recorded at home got used in the final album?

V.S.: I think maybe about half of my programmed tracks got used. We kept all the keyboard parts. Most of the programmed horn parts are still there under the one real horn part, there’s some programmed cello under what Novi Novog played on viola, one or two of the programmed bass parts got used, and some of the scratch vocals I recorded at home got used. Also a couple of my guitar parts made it onto the final CD but mostly it’s Ken Lasaine on guitar.

I.J.: Was this because the parts weren’t good enough or the recording quality wasn’t good enough?

V.S.: I really didn’t understand to what degree getting some live players would contribute to the final sound of the CD until after I started down that path. What really turned me away from trying to finish by myself was how long it was taking me. I started trying to record guitar parts, and realized that at the rate I was working the album would never get finished. I had played guitar back when I had my band, but hadn’t really kept up with it, so it was really a struggle for me. Once I got into the studio with some session players, it was like a huge weight lifted.

I.J.: So what do you think about the question of whether a home recording can stand up to the big budget projects?

V.S.: I’m sure there are people out there who have the skills that would allow them to do that successfully. It would be different for a band that just wants to make a record of the songs they play live, as opposed to a solo project like mine where all the parts had to be created from scratch. But unless someone involved has an audio engineering background it would be pretty hard to do a completely professional job in a home studio. At least in my case, the decision to use some session players and an engineer in a real studio made a huge difference in the final outcome. And even so there are things that could have been better, but at some point you have to stick a fork in it…both because of the expense and because you totally burn out after a while. You just want to be done with it! So in the end my “Smalltime” CD is about half home recording with samplers and half in the studio with real players. At least in this case that turned out to be a nice balance.

I.J.: Well thanks for taking the time to chat about the project!

V.S.: Yeah, you bet! Thanks for writing about it!

Links to sites/resources mentioned in this articles: Bittybox:
http://www.bittybox.com/
http://www.myspace.com/bittyboxfriends Motu-Mac Mailing List:
http://www.unicornation.com/ Digital Performer Software:
http://www.motu.com/About The Author:   Indie Joe writes about independent music and local bands for fanzines and blogs.

Share This