How To Sing Silently In 150 Hours Or Less
This past weekend I finally put our choir's CD project to bed. It's done! Mixing (and re-mixing and re-mixing until each sounded as good as I could make it) each of the 13 songs consumed approximately 150 hours of my time within the last six to eight weeks. And it took probably an additional 150 hours spread out over the last 2.5 years to record everything.
Factoring in all of time devoted to this project by the many musicians (vocalists and instrumentalists alike), several thousand person-hours have gone into what will end up being not quite an hour of recorded music.
Although I did take a couple of vacation days during the last month, most of the time I still had to work my day job for the usual 40 to 50 hours each week. Which meant my free time was likely prioritized into sleeping and CD mixdown -- though not usually in that order.
I'm tired, yeah, but I have an enormous sense of accomplishment. Our last CD raised $15,000 for charity and this time we're hoping to raise $20,000. So it was worth it.
Brad, our director, announced in front of everybody at last week's routine rehearsal that the pastor and he have named me as the CD's "producer" and that I'll be credited as such in the liner notes. Although I sought no public recognition, it was a very nice gesture, and it also makes me feel good to receive credit in the CD booklet for my work. Now I can put the project on my resumé.
If the pattern holds, we'll start work on our third CD next spring or summer. I'm already dreaming about modernizing our recording methods, retiring our faithful but old Roland digital studio workstation (we got two CDs out of it, but it is oh-so-cumbersome to use) with a modern Macintosh, an appropriate Mackie mixer, and the right software. These tools would likely have cut in half the time required to mix down the CD. Anybody got, what, the five grand we'll need?
Meanwhile, while we wait for the CD to come back from duplication, I'm glad to get back to the usual three to four hours of music per week. It's a light load by comparison.
Factoring in all of time devoted to this project by the many musicians (vocalists and instrumentalists alike), several thousand person-hours have gone into what will end up being not quite an hour of recorded music.
Although I did take a couple of vacation days during the last month, most of the time I still had to work my day job for the usual 40 to 50 hours each week. Which meant my free time was likely prioritized into sleeping and CD mixdown -- though not usually in that order.
I'm tired, yeah, but I have an enormous sense of accomplishment. Our last CD raised $15,000 for charity and this time we're hoping to raise $20,000. So it was worth it.
Brad, our director, announced in front of everybody at last week's routine rehearsal that the pastor and he have named me as the CD's "producer" and that I'll be credited as such in the liner notes. Although I sought no public recognition, it was a very nice gesture, and it also makes me feel good to receive credit in the CD booklet for my work. Now I can put the project on my resumé.
If the pattern holds, we'll start work on our third CD next spring or summer. I'm already dreaming about modernizing our recording methods, retiring our faithful but old Roland digital studio workstation (we got two CDs out of it, but it is oh-so-cumbersome to use) with a modern Macintosh, an appropriate Mackie mixer, and the right software. These tools would likely have cut in half the time required to mix down the CD. Anybody got, what, the five grand we'll need?
Meanwhile, while we wait for the CD to come back from duplication, I'm glad to get back to the usual three to four hours of music per week. It's a light load by comparison.