Project Dave

Project Background

The brief for this project was to record, mix, and produce a song for local artist "Dave". Dave attends local open mic nights and has been aware of the services that I offer for a while. He has asked me before if it would be possible for me to help him record a song and produce it for him.

I met with Dave to discuss his exact requirements and suggested that as he was starting to write his own material, it might be pertinent to wait until he had an original composition to record rather that recording a cover version, to which he agreed.

Some weeks later Dave played me a rough demo of a song that he had composed himself, and I agreed to meet with him to plan what we needed to do to bring his project to fruition.

Planning

As this project just involved a solo artist, it might be considered that there would be less planning involved. However, this is not the case.

The first thing that I wanted to ensure was that Dave was well rehearsed and would have a clear idea of what to expect once he was in the studio. The other important thing that I wanted make sure of was that Dave was used to playing to a "click track" This ensures that the recording is in time and allows the producer to make a "composite take" at the production stage. This then allows the producer to assemble a track based on the best elements of each take.

Recording

We scheduled two studio sessions.

Studio Recording Session - 20th January 2026 - Completed
Studio Mixing Session - 10th February 2026 - Completed

When it came down to the recording session, it was difficult for Dave to play in time to a click track which led to a lot more work at the production stage. 

We did try multiple takes and I made the decision that I would have to work with the take that was most in time.

Had this been a project that the client was paying for, the project cost would have been substantially increased by the additional production hours involved.

(Some photos of Dave recording guitar parts)

Mixing

After the initial recordings I needed to grid them. This is when the musician has not played strictly in time, and by software manipulation in my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) I am able to snap the recordings to a fixed tempo. This is a rather tortuous process that takes a lot of time, so it really is important to try and get a tight in-time recording initially, as sometimes if audio has been time-stretched or time-shrunk, it develops characteristics that do not sound natural. 

As an example of the timing discrepancies, when gridding, I have to manually position a marker in the software at the downbeat of each bar. The software is then able to analyse the bpm (beats per minute) of each bar. This varied from around 93 bpm to 126 bpm where our benchmark was 120bpm.

(Gridding)

Once I had the guitar parts gridded, I was able to program some drum parts to the chosen bpm of 120bpm. Drum programming can be fairly complex as it is necessary to choose drum parts that will suit the song. There are also a wide number of software drum kits available so it is necessary to choose the right kit for the mix as well.

I also added a subtle hammond organ part to give the song some extra warmth.

On 10th February we arranged another recording session so that Dave could re-track some of the lead guitar parts that he was unhappy with. We recorded 4 takes of the lead guitar track. Once the gridding exercise has been done it is possible to make a "composite mix," which combines elements of the best take sections.

(Re-tracking some guitar parts and mixing session)

The following video demonstrates me mixing the track once everything had been gridded. It highlights the individual components being introduced.

Here is some client communication during the mixing process.

Reflection

In hindsight, this was probably my most difficult project to work on and all originated from the timings of the original recordings.

When it first became apparent that Dave was not able to play in time with the click track, I asked hime to re-record and try again, but after 3 or 4 takes when it became clear that he would not be able to do this, I should have clarified the situation, for example "I won't be able to program drums for you unless the guitar has been recorded in time"

My failure to do this meant that I spent a significant amount of time in "gridding" the guitar parts to a fixed beats per minute value and also resulted in a deterioration of audio quality as when audio files are stretched or shrunk they develop unnatural characteristics.

Having said that, I was pleased with the final outcome and the project highlighted some of the issues that a producer will encounter, although I would probably not include this track in a "highlights of my productions" portfolio.