Recording my demo tape

Hey, guys! Guen (Jenny J.) here. I did the most amazing thing last month on the 6^th! I recorded my demo tape. In a real studio!

Let me tell you about this studio. First of all, Stephanie S. came with me for this little adventure. At first, we didn’t find the studio. We followed the directions, which led us onto a dirt/gravel road in the woods. This recording studio is "out in the boonies!" On the way, we passed these little cabins and a little shack.

"What if it’s one of those?" My mom remarked, pointing out one of the little shacks.

Well, she was definitely wrong. The recording studio was in a huge building. There were two studios in the building: studio A, which was the big studio, and studio B, the small studio behind studio A.

When we first got there, I wasn’t really sure what to think. But we got out of the car and went into the studio. There was a dalmatian in front of the studio. It was cute ~smile~. It also started barking at us, but we went into the building anyway.

Inside, there were these guys who were in a band that was also scheduled to record that day. They took us into the studio, where Stephanie and I tried going in the sliding glass doors at the same time and nearly fell over ~smile~.

Well, when we finally did get into the room where they had the mixing board (which was about 4 or 5 feet long), all we could say for the first 15 minutes was, "Oh my gosh!" "This is so cool!" "Wow!"

After we calmed down a bit, we started asking a few good questions about the weird stuff in the room. Well, they were questions… I don’t know if they were good or not ~smile~.

"Look at the washer and dryer!"

That was Stephanie. And the washer and dryer were really 24 track, two inch dubbing machines. Talk about some awesome equipment!

We had gotten there early, and were kind of waiting for someone to tell us what to do and where to go. I sat down in one of the black leather chairs, which, by the way were very comfortable, and I waited. Stephanie sat in the other leather chair, and she told me about all the stuff in the room.

"Look at the cool blue phone!"

"They have a matching couch for the chairs!"

"Oh, cool! Fish!"

"What’s this thing for?" She asked me, pointing at what looked like a remote control. The guy there said that it was a remote… for the washer and dryer.

"Cool!"

The other band was setting up in the studio, which we could see from the chairs, and we noticed that they had little walls around all the instruments, separating them. Those are to isolate the sound, so you can go back and do only that part again.

Before we went back out to the car to get my keyboard, we took one more look around to "notice" anything else. They had a little TV built in above the window that looks out into the studio, and the speakers above our head were from Tannoy.

Anyway, we went to get my keyboard, and then the guy who had been patiently talking to us and answering our questions (along with dealing with our insane excitement) took us to studio B, where we waited.

About 10 minutes later, this tall guy with long, graying hair came into the room and introduced himself as Grant. He was the one who we’d be working with.

For the first while, we all talked about various things, for example the artist development program they have going, how the music business works, and the various parts of a song that I had no clue existed ~smile~. He lost me somewhere between the intro and the ending.

When we were ready to start, I set up my keyboard and he had me just play through all of the songs once, and he commented several times on them. I didn’t write down what he said, but I remember him telling me, "You’ve got good ears… I love your ears."

After that, we plugged the keyboard into the littler mixing board, and he started setting up the computer, which had an overly large monitor, and th program he’d need to record the songs.

"Wait," he said suddenly, before we started. "First, we need some lava love." He turned on the orange lava lamp in the far corner of the room.

When I got done singing "I Don’t Care," he said, "It was bad, baby!"

After we recorded the music, he complimented me several times.

"Nice melodies!"

"Cool dynamics!"

"Cool stuff!"

Now it was time for the fun part: recording the vocal parts. "I Don’t Care" was first.

Then we did "Star."

After that, we did "Always There."

Some time while I was recording, he told my mom and Stephanie his opinions. I didn’t hear them, but Stephanie wrote them down. In quotes.

"That’s incredible music!"

"She’s gonna be a gold mine!"

"She’s ready for a producer!"

After recording all the vocal parts, it was time to mix everything and get the right sound for the songs. You want everything to be nice and even, as if you’d put all the parts in a blender and mixed them all up to create a nice, smooth sound that’s pleasant to hear, yet still exciting.

He changed a few things here and there, took out all the background noise, and did a little experiment with "I Don’t Care." He took the ending, reversed it, and stuck it "on top" of the normal ending to make it sound a little more interesting.

While he was doing this, he told me about what he thinks of the music, how I could better it a bit, and various other comments.

He said that my songs come from the heart and there’s a kind of vulnerability to them. I could be even better with a little more knowledge about song writing. But I definitely have a natural talent. "You’re an old soul," he said.

We had to sit in the studio and wait for him to get things finished. We were really hyper. By now, it was about 11:00pm, so you can just imagine how "high" on studio air we were. We watched the other band, which had a very animated keyboardist, record their songs. We waved to various band members, who were probably thinking, Jeez, these chicks are WEIRD!

We also went outside to play the weird little video games they had in the front part of the room. The burger game and the "shoot the other space ships" game kept us busy for a while ~smile~.

Then we went back to see how "done" they were, and sat there to wait again.

At one point, Grant thought he saw Mr. Shelton, the boss, in the other studio, working on the five-foot mixing board. But he then realized that it wasn’t him, and he said, "Oh, no. That’s just another bald guy. Y’know, if they put their heads together, they could make a real @$$ out of themselves!" HAHAHA! Funny stuff ~smile~.

After getting scared by a guy from the other band, begging the other band people for a slice of their pizza, and calling Stephanie’s house about five times, Grant was finally finished with everything, even copying the songs to CD. Grant then told us about a site on the internet called "Dats Digital." He said that they would probably let me have a free web page to sell my music. Also, he told us about a book by Marvin Hamlish called, "If They Want You To Write A Song, You Can Write A Song." It’s basically a book full of tips on song writing.

Well, we finally got out of there at about 2:00am, and we were so tired. Stephanie’s dad had come to pick her up, so we went home seperately.

What surprised me most about the studio was the fact that the whole time I was recording, I wasn’t nervous at all ~smile~.

***If you’d like to get a copy of my demo tape, e-mail me at:

And I’ll give you all the info (cost, number of songs, address, etc.). Thanks for all your support, and I’ll be glad to have any comments on the article, or the demo tape. Whatever you wanna tell me! Put something about Guen or the demo tape in your subject line if you e-mail me, so I know it’s not junk mail. Thanks again! Ciao!

*LUVS*

~*Guenevere*~