Let's talk about vocals. When you are recording an entire record in a weekend, you have about 2 hours for vocals for an entire record. Well, now I take two hours to choose my mic if I feel this is necessary. Why? Because I don't care about time. My happiness is not dictated by how many minutes I used on a record. There is no race. I do everything the best that I can. I only compromise when I have to (I still have to face reality every once in a while).

I don't just blast through two vocal takes and then move on to the next song. I always had goals of competing with the big boy studios in my little home studio. Are the big boys completing vocals for a record in 2 hours? Are the big boys just blasting through song after song. No, they are not. They are consciously aware of each syllable and they will make sure that every syllable, pitch, inflection, breath, sigh, etc is consistent with their overall vision for the song.

If a song is amazingly well written and you are dealing with a singer who knows what he/she wants out of the song, it's totally possible to keep an entire first take. However, I find that this is exceptionally rare. Most singers do not know what they want out of the song. I'm always yelling “sadder, sadder, SADDER” if we are working on a sad song. I want real emotion. I don't want a person thinking about headphones and pitch when singing a sad song. I want them to relive the moment that their brother died. I want them to feel that exact moment when the singers significant other said “I cheated on you”. I personally want the singer to personally feel devastated when they sing a sad song. Just keep in mind that the mood should fit the song. The person's emotions should be screamingly obvious.

If you don't have that, what's the damn point? The records that mean something to me were able (using electricity and a sound wave reproducer known as a speaker) to alter my emotions. In a lot of ways, this technology is essentially a miracle if you think about it. However, you are not able to alter a person's emotions by simply hitting the record button. You need to capture that type of energy in the vocalist. If you just want to record sound, record the sounds of a door shutting or whatever. If you want to make music, you've got to find a way to capture a tremendous amount of energy and intensity on that recording. If you can make people feel something, you win.

If you can make people feel something, you are probably satisfying the reason that you chose to get into music recording in the first place.

Conclusion

This article was not intended to be the end all guide to producing. It was simply meant to illustrate that the love for quality music is what drove us to start recording in the first place and we should never forget that. If you are able to get the performances and intensity out of bands by blasting through records, then do it! However, if the recordings you have finished aren't doing that much for you, you may want to take a different route.

Find the best band / artist in your area and work together to create something so great that neither of you could have done on your own. Hell, even if you fail and no one likes the record, your next record will be better for producing this one. Just holding your work up to a higher standard and pushing yourself to get better will be the only thing that eventually gets you to your goal of making great music.