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Having completed the recording sessions, modern technology provides a very high level of control to help you enhance your recorded performance. By understanding something of the processes available you'll be able to ensure the band's performance sounds as good as possible ... in fact you might even find that your finished CD is significantly better than you expect.
Following the sessions, the producer will listen to all the takes from your sessions. By referring to the scores and notes, decisions can be made as to which parts of the different takes should be edited together to produce the best results.
Digital editing is clever but can be expensive - time on the computer is generally charged on an hourly basis. Editing time varies from a few hours for simple productions to several days for complex projects; for an average CD between 20 and 30 hours may be necessary to piece together the takes from three sessions, so you should make sure this is covered by your package and budget.
Modern digital editing systems are computer-based, so the best takes will be loaded onto computer and edited together to produce a complete, corrected version of each piece. The result of this stage will be a completed version of the final album (known as the "First Edit") in the programme order you've specified.
It's important that you spend time listening carefully to your copy of the First Edit test CD, so you can identify any areas which can be improved on. Specific aspects to listen for include:
Even though the balance is generally fixed by this stage, there's probably a lot of flexibility because of the number of takes available. By checking alternative takes you may find a better version of a specific section, bar or even single notes.
Although the producer has made the first choices for you, some aspects are necessarily subjective so you may need to make the final decisions yourself regarding the best version of certain passages. It will help if you can make a detailed list of your concerns, referring your comments to specific bar numbers in the score or other references.
Once you've listened thoroughly, your list of concerns can be addressed individually to see if there are better versions. This might happen without you being present, with a Second Edit CD being supplied for your approval or further comments ... or you might attend an editing/mastering session at the studio.
The latter approach means you can audition the alternatives yourself and see the final version assembled "on screen" as it happens.
As mentioned above, modern editing systems offer unprecedented control over the recording, enabling you to improve your performance even further. Intonation, speed, articulation and ensemble can all be "doctored" to some extent - but you could easily end up spending many hours (and a fortune) in the editing suite to achieve a perfect result!
Once all the editing has been completed to your satisfaction, there may be some final adjustments to the overall sound and levels to optimise the recording for CD. This process is known as "mastering" and it's worth the time and effort to make sure the sound is as good as possible.
Finally a CD Master will be created, complete with final timing and track start positions. This "pre-mastering" process is the final step before your master tape is sent to the CD factory.
You should be able to approve a final proof copy of the master tape prior to manufacturing of the finished product. At this point it isn't easy to make alterations because the album would need to be remastered, costing you extra time and money.
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