Mixing, and why not to show my husband before it’s finished

Everything has been recorded, except for those last few vocal re-do’s that I know are inevitable. The mixing stage has begun. It’s a weeknight and I have gone up to bed earlier than my husband Andrew, which never happens. I am listening to the first mixes from Dean on my super sounding Bose Soundlink speaker. When Andrew comes in, he catches the last part of one of the songs. I want him to say how great it sounds (of course), but instead I see a confused look on his face.

My very concentrated face while listening and making mixing notes

“It sounds different” he says, “What happened to the other version?” Andrew has heard the songs from their inception, just me singing them on guitar or piano. He has heard early demo versions, and he has heard the songs as they’ve been recorded and with parts and musicians added the way. He has grown attached to one ‘edition’ of the song, somewhere along its journey to completion. We’re both tired and I am feeling particularly sensitive, so this reaction sends me into a teeny tiny rage.

Mixing is where all of the parts that have been recorded are blended and placed, creating a cohesive song. It’s a mountain of a job, and takes a great deal of patience and an incredible ear. The songs have upwards of 30 different tracks, with vocal harmonies, keyboards, guitars, strings and percussion to name a few.  Mixing is the reason you don’t usually listen to a song on the radio and say “Gee, that horn part is way too loud,” or “That lead guitar is sticking out like a sore thumb.” A good mix means you are experiencing the song as the sum of its parts and none of its parts are out of whack.

A few weeks later, Dean is done mixing and ready for my notes. I have to listen to the songs on headphones, in my car, on my monitor’s computer, and on my iPhone. My biggest challenge is how self conscious and critical I am of my lead vocal. I have to try really hard to let that go and listen to everything else that’s going on.

Mixing notes

My first round of mixing notes

During one of my listening sessions, sitting in my favourite rocking chair in our sunroom, Andrew is within earshot at the kitchen table. After all 10 songs he says: “Yeah babe, it sounds really good, nothing jumping out at me at all. It just sounds like an album.” From my understated husband, this is as good as I’m going to get and I realize my earlier mistake: Never show your mixes to your non-musician spouse until it’s finished! Have a listen to this clip of one of the songs which had a total of 58 tracks!!

Recording The Bed Tracks for Living Proof

Day 1 of the recording of Living Proof

Walking to the recording studio on day 1,

The week had finally come to head into the studio and start recording the bed tracks for the album. The beds are the main instruments that lay down the groove and feel of each song, in our case drums, bass and keys. They provide the framework that everything else is built on. For me this week was when it really home that I was able to make this record. My producer Dean Drouillard helped put together a top notch group of musicians: Mark Mariash on drums, Robbie Grunwald on keys, and Dean on bass.  We were recording at the Lincoln County Social Club with the Juno nominated John Dinsmore at the engineering helm.

Dean took the gear and I walked up to the studio. It was a beautiful sunny spring day and I put my earbuds in and listened to our recording demos on the way up. I remember looking up and letting the sun warm my face and feeling like I would burst. Being a mom, it’s often hard to have those moments where you are totally and utterly doing something for yourself, so I let it wash over me.

Recording studio meeting between takes

The guys writing notes and looking very serious

When I got to the recording studio the guys were almost set up and we had a meeting about the first song. We listened to the demos, we played around with the tempo, and Dean gave some direction about other recording artists we could conjure up as influences.

Recording studio art

Recording Studio Art – Some of my favourites from the walls of the Lincoln County Social Club

My job for this part of the recording process was singing a ‘scratch’ vocal along with the band. Although I would go back in and record my final vocals later, it helps to have the singer so the band can feel the arc of the song, the push and pull of emotion, when to scale back and when to really give it. Once I had done one scratch vocal for each song, I was then there to listen, give notes, look at John’s many odd posters on the wall, get coffee for the guys, and search the internet for obscure musical gear with Robbie.

Three 10 hour days later, we had successfully recorded all the bed tracks and I was more exhausted than I had been since having my youngest child! I was able to record some footage of us in action so here’s a little video for you to enjoy with a sneak peek of some of the songs from the album.

Album Cover Photoshoot – Part 2

After spending the week prior running around the city trying to find the perfect wardrobe and booking hair & makeup, photographer, and studio & childcare all for the same day, I was finally feeling ready for the big photoshoot. I HATE having my picture taken, but my friend and amazing photographer Naomi Finlay makes it as painless as possible. She’s a pro, and dealt with all of the logistics so I just needed to show up.

Before Hair & Makeup!

At around 8 in the morning on shoot day, I got a text from Naomi saying she had been up all night with either the flu or food poisoning, but she was on her way to the studio with her assistant – and photographer in his own right – Stefano Barbara. When I have food poisoning, I’m usually not going to work the next day, so the last thing I wanted was for Naomi to have to come, but she is way tougher than me. I arrived and she was sitting on a chair on the side of the room, completely white in the face and leaning forward with her head down. It didn’t look good! My best friend and retoucher Martha Snyder came along to help, and between her and Stefano, they set up with Naomi giving pained yet detailed instructions.

Onna Chan, the transformation lady

Both Naomi and Martha insisted on me getting professional hair & makeup done for the shoot and I now realize why. First of all, I would never in a million years have put that much makeup on my face and also, my hair looked like Farrah Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels, so there’s that. Onna Chan was an absolute artist and not only made me look stunning, but was there primping and fixing between photos throughout the day.

Our goal was to get a cover for the new album and also some promo shots to use for singles and for press. For the album I wanted the feeling of strength but also erosion, as this album is all about how life erodes us but how we can persevere. At the very end, Naomi pulled out the big guns with an idea she had had to do a double exposure, which would get two of me in the photo. A strong me in the foreground and then a ghost me in the background. The result of this experiment was breathtaking and I said “That’s it, that’s the cover!”

I am sharing a few of the shots from the day here, but you will have to wait for the big reveal to see the album cover.

The first of 7 outfits

The Making of the Emma Cook Voice Instrument

Although my voice is already an instrument of sorts, this week we created an instrument using many layers of my voice, and it sounds dope! (Yes, I just wrote the word dope, and?)

My producer Dean Drouillard and I are trying to get the first single from Living Proof finished so I spent a few hours this week recording vocals. Dean had this amazing idea to make an instrument out of my voice that he can play as an added backing track layer on the album. He got this idea from the iconic 1975 hit I’m Not In Love by 10CC. Take a listen to the first 45 seconds of the original version of the song and you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about. There is this really cool sounding effect made up of layering the bands voices and ‘playing’ them so they swell up and down. In order to create this instrument back then, it would have taken days as they didn’t have computers and were recording to tape!

In our case, Dean made tracks for just shy of two octaves and had me sing Ah’s, Oh’s and Ooh’s held for as long as I could and without any vibrato. He then cut off the beginning and ending of each and spliced them together so there was essentially a never-ending sound. I had to do this for each note, going down chromatically from a high A. I was really thankful for my classical voice training for this exercise, because it sure took a lot of breath control to hold the notes and stay perfectly on pitch AND not have any vibrato.

I am super happy about the way it sounds and can’t wait to see what Dean does with it on our first single I Will Stay. Take a listen to the example Dean sent over of how the instrument sounds with my voice.

Writing Songs for Living Proof and a Battle for Recovery

 songs and lyrics

“No Choice At All” lyrics: a song about feeling exhausted by struggle.

When I began writing the songs for this album, I was in a very dark place. I had been struggling with lasting concussion symptoms for 3 years, I had two young children who I was struggling to look after the way I wanted to, and a husband who was working himself to the bone trying to hold everything together. Around the same time I lost a close family member to cancer, another to suicide, and I was dealing with the crumbling of my relationship with a dear friend. I was reeling from the sheer pain of it all, from living with chronic illness for so long, and from the many losses. The head injury made it difficult for me to go out and do the things that I would normally do to stay positive: see my friends, go out for dinner or even go to the gym. My once very social self had been cut off at the knees, and to this day I don’t know if I will ever be the same as before.

Songwriting exercise, lyrics, songs

A list of all of the metaphors I could find for death. This eventually turned into a song called “I Don’t Want To Wait ‘Til Its Over”

 

Writing songs has always been the thing that I have turned to in times of struggle, but this time I was so far gone I didn’t even have the will to write. But something finally shifted ever so slightly, and I decided to learn how to play the piano. I got a beautiful Roland keyboard on monthly installments from Long & McQuade and the floodgates opened. Around the same time I began working with amazing songwriting mentor Debra Alexander, which helped to focus my songwriting and give me the extra push I needed to write on the piano.

All of the pain of the last few years, all of the loss and frustration, came pouring out of me. I was playing and writing every spare moment and when I felt anxiety or sadness creeping in, I would start playing to ease myself out of fight or flight mode. That piano, and the songs that came as a result, have been a saviour of sorts. I am not totally better, but a huge part of me that was lying dormant has been awakened and I have been able to work through much of my pain in the process.

 

Songs, songwriting, lyrics

A songwriting exercise where you free-write without lifting your pen from the paper to solidify what you are trying to express

 

How I Picked the Right Producer

Emma Cook - Same Old Song, producer Mitch Girio

Same Old Song (2016), producer Mitch Girio

Finding the right producer for an album is quite possibly the most important part of the whole process. The songs have to be there of course, but having badly produced songs is like having mushy pasta: there may have been nothing wrong with the pasta itself, it was just overcooked. I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing producers, including Mitch Girio for my last album Same Old Song. There is a magic that happens when someone brings out the ‘true’ nature of the songs, or can bring forward some truth that you didn’t necessarily even know was there when you were writing them.

Producer Dean Drouillard

Dean Drouillard

I came across producer Dean Drouillard by happenstance. Although I didn’t meet him on Yelp as he likes to joke, our kids became friends in JK at our local public school. An amazing musician and composer in his own right, he is also a sought after guitar player and has played with everyone from Royal Wood to Buffy Sainte-Marie. I asked Dean if he would produce a few demos for me to use to for licensing opportunities and to apply for an Ontario Arts Council grant. Working with Dean for the demos was a pivotal time for me. I hadn’t really admitted to myself that I was ready to get back out there and record another album. I wasn’t sure I could do it with my continuing health struggles, and I felt a mixture of fear and self-doubt.

The songs however, and what Dean was able to bring out of me, told a different story altogether. Listening to the finished product, I heard someone who had both a story to tell and the drive to tell it. I heard power and intimacy and sadness and strength. It was then that I finally admitted to myself that I had to do this. It was Dean who pushed me to apply for the coveted FACTOR Juried Sound Recording Grant which I later received and which is making the dream of Living Proof into an exciting reality.

Album Cover Photoshoot Wardrobe Woes

 

I spent the day last Friday searching for the perfect wardrobe for my upcoming Living Proof cover photoshoot. Shopping when you have a specific thing in mind is always hard, but shopping with an “I’ll know it when I see it” is even harder. After meeting with my friends Naomi Finlay (photographer) and Martha Snyder (retoucher)  for lunch to go over the cover photoshoot concept, my head was swimming with ideas, and off I went in search of the perfect outfit. I am lucky enough to know Heidi Sopinka, designer extraordinaire and co-owner of Horses Atelier. She was kind enough to lend me something, but its always good to have a few options on shoot day.

A vintage dress for my cover photoshoot

A vintage dress I found that is a definite contender, although I was hoping to wear dark blue or green instead of black.

Shopping for cover photoshoot

Vintage gold and navy. Cute but not perfect!

I want the Living Proof cover to embody strength and perseverance, but also hardship, and how life erodes us over time (I know, super light right?)

 

I also really didn’t want a straight up head-shot, but possibly layering photos for an interesting effect like Hannah Georgas’ latest record For Evelyn or adding illustration like this photo I found on the web.

 

One idea I had was to have one half of my face look like it is eroding. This would require finding an illustrator, so I am now on the hunt for someone who can make this dream come true without an insane price tag.

Photo Shoot for cover

Gorgeous jumpsuit from Horses Atelier.

 

After a few hours combing stores on Queen West, I gave up and went home empty handed. So much effort for something I don’t even know will be visible in the cover photo, but it has to be right, just in case. I have four more days and only a few hours without my kids, so wish me luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video Shoot for CBC Searchlight Competition

Yesterday my family helped me to record a video for the CBC Searchlight competition. I am submitting one of the songs from Living Proof in an effort to get some exposure for the upcoming album and also to possibly win some much needed prize money to put into the album! My five year old helped by singing “Let It Go” at the top of her lungs in front of the camera, my two year old helped by spilling her potty (which was full of pee) during one of my takes, and my husband helped by, well, doing pretty much everything, including very complex lighting with a kids nightlight as pictured below.

My adorable husband helping to set up the lights for the video shoot

My husband helping me set up professional lighting

This kind of thing is WAY outside of my comfort zone. I don’t wear a lot of makeup, I am uncomfortable on camera, and I have actually never shot a music video before, professional or amateur. It ended up being a pretty fun family activity and we were not only able to finish, but I sent in the video later last night (working mom win!!!).

Makeover for video shoot for CBC Searchlight competition

Me with more makeup on than I have ever worn in my life!

The highlight of the shoot for me was having my whole family involved, as music is something I usually go off quietly and do by myself. The best take is the one where you can hear Charlie yelling about wiping her bum in the background. Classic. I can’t share the final video for CBC Searchlight quite yet but it will be up on the CBC Website on Feb 14th at 3pm. The first round is based on votes, so I need friends and fans to vote once per day from Feb 15th-Feb 27th.

I made a two minute video of ‘bloopers’ from the days shoot, so I hope it will give you a little chuckle. Included in the YouTube description are a few sentences about why I should win the CBC Searchlight competition 🙂