STUDIO LINGO AND LETTING GO...
Here are some tools of the trade.
By Jimi Heath Whitelaw

Since I have started my own studio business (which is chugging along quite exceptionally) I have had the experience of watching many songwriters step behind the producers desk for the first time.  I get genuinely excited when I see their eyes light up!  But sometimes, I see some other stuff in their eyes that I'd like to address...confusion.

I remember how frustrating it was for me in my very first sessions when I was trying to explain what I wanted to hear and the engineer looking at me like I was on fire or something.  Or when I would just get a little overwhelmed when the musicians and the engineer would talk back and forth and I didn't understand what they were talking about and how it might affect my song.  I've learned a lot since then and I thought it might be nice to pass some of the info along to you when you go in to record your song demos, so here goes...

Here is a very short list of lingo to get you started in the right direction:

Tracking Session
Pretty simple.  This is the 3-Hour block of time where the musicians will record the basic instruments or "tracks" for your song all at the same time..  Usually, Drums, Bass, Electric and Acoustic.  Sometimes they track more than that on a the tracking session, for instance: Drums, Bass, Electric, Acoustic, Piano and Pedal Steel.  It's really all about what the studio can accommodate as well as what your song requires.

*In Nashville there are two basic tracking sessions, an Morning and Afternoon.  Usually a morning goes from 10am to 1pm and an afternoon goes from 2pm to 5pm.

Overdub Session
This is a block of time allotted to adding additional instruments to your song.  Ie: Strings, Pads, etc.

Vocal Session
This is a block of time allotted to adding vocals and harmonies to your song.

Terms You May Hear:

"Let's Burn It!"
Don't worry!  They aren't gonna nix your song off of the session. This is just a slang term you may hear after the band runs through your song once,  meaning they are ready to record your song.

"Punch Me In."
Nope, not fight club.  This just means that the musician or the vocalist wants the engineer to record over a small section of the song that they already recorded to correct a flaw.  A good punch is where it matches up seamlessly to the rest of the recording.

"I'll go down again." or "We'll go down together."
Wow, you are perverted!  Just kidding. This means that the musician wants to take a new recording pass at the song that will record over what they just played.  Going down together means that more than one musician wants to take another crack at it and for the sake of time in the studio (which costs money) its just more effective to record everyone at the same time.

"I'm gonna stack that."
While some musicians do have a day job stacking up sandwiches at subway (hehe) it has nothing to do with the culinary arts. "Stacking" just means that the musician wants to record another track of music in addition to whatever they've already recorded.

"Let's just chunk it out."
If you hear your session singer say this, it means that he/she would prefer to approach the song one section at a time.  This can mean they want to sing each section in order or they may want to sing similar sections in order.  Similar sections meaning that they want to do all the verses (because the melodies are the same) all the chorus (for the same reason) and then the bridge, etc.

"Cans"
Cans are headphones"

"Talkback"
A microphone like device that allows you to talk to the vocalist without them having to come out of the vocal booth.

"Let's just A&B it."
You will sometimes hear this from the engineer if you are trying to decide on a part of the song be it instrumentation or vocals and there are more than one option that you need to choose from.  In this case, you would record all the options then play them back to decide which works best.

"The vocal is dry."
This means there is no reverb on the vocal.

"The vocal is wet."
This means there is reverb on the vocal.

"Grab it again"
Re-record it.

"Can we fly the choruses?"
This means that once the singer has sung a chorus exactly like you want it, instead of having them strive for vocal perfection 2 more times, the engineer will copy the perfect performance and paste it in the sections where they would be singing the other two choruses.  Or verse, or phrase, etc.

Obviously this is the very, very short list but I will put some more terms together as we go along. 

Since we are talking about recording and all, I did want to pass on a few things that I personally practice in the studio that makes for a great demo.

1. Overdubs after the vocal.  While some overdubs are fine to put on before the vocal (string pads, etc) I personally prefer to wait until after the lead vocal is recorded to add such instruments like fiddle.  Reason being is that a good overdub should ply around the vocal and accentuate the emotion of the song and that is hard to do without the vocal on there first.

2. Jesus take the Wheel.  Well, maybe not Jesus, but definitely let the musicians and the vocalist play around a bit with the song.  I have found that 9 times out of 10 this makes for a better song. I just always remind myself that I am not the only creative person in the room.

3. Playlist it baby!  When I'm recording with a session singer, many times they will give me some options to choose from.  Instead of trying to decide right then, I just have the vocalist comp the line in different ways and keep each approach on different playlists so I can choose later and not waste any studio time.

4. Go with your gut.  I always let the singer take a stab at the entire song top to bottom before we chunk it out.  I keep this first recording on a playlist because many times there will be some great moments in parts of the performance that I might want to fly on to the master later.

Write a Hit!
Jimi