Making A Second Album

Okay, this is already accomplished for my 2nd album. But what has gone into this is a lot of time and creative energy.

This second album will have more tracks than my first, which means more prep and bigger commitment.

This is where you prepare to turn written songs into produced songs. It requires getting a producer, (thankfully I already have an incredible producer.) It requires selecting tracks and determining the overall story of the album. It requires scheduling and coordinating a timeline. It takes financial commitment before we can move into production.

Some people go the route of signing with a label. A label would then be the one putting up the finances to fund the production. But with that comes a loss of creative control and copyright ownership for the artist.

For my first album, I decided to self-produce, meaning I did not sign with a label because I wanted to keep ownership of the songs and have complete control of what I sing and how it sounds. I'm going the same route with this second album.

This is when things start to really happen. Once a contract is signed for production, we are officially making an album.

Even though a lot of the work (i.e. writing the songs) is done, the artist still has a lot of involvement and investment of time in this. I need to record scratch tracks, which are a vocal & guitar recording of each song, in the key and tempo that I want the final produced song to be in.

My producer gets the scratch tracks and starts creating rough drafts for each song. Time is spent between us in collaborating and communicating about what the feel should be, what the composition should be, what kind of instrumentation should we have, etc. This period of time is for figuring out the sound and structure of the album.

Once the drafts are in the right direction, more musicians are brought in. This is part of the cost of producing an album. If you want top-level musicians to contribute, it costs money.

When the instrumentation is all recorded, we then plan for in-studio vocal recording sessions. I don't live in any of those big music cities, so I need to travel to my producer's studio to record vocals. That takes a few days to get all the vocal parts recorded.

Once everything is recorded, it needs to be mixed. Again, this is a phase where time is spent going back and forth with my producer, giving feedback on how the mixes sound, and working until the final mix is approved.

Then the final mix is mastered. This is technical stuff that needs to be done so the track sounds as good as it possibly can wherever it's played.

And then I have the masters. The album is now produced after over half a year of work.

On top of the production side of things, there's other work to be done during those months. Album art needs to be created. Songs need to be registered. A release plan needs to be made. Marketing has to start happening. Videos need to be made. Any kind of release events need to be prepared for.

I'm currently in this phase for the first album, so I don't even know all that this step will be. But so far, it's just as much effort as any of the previous steps!

Sadly, you can’t just drop an album on Spotify and call it a day. (Oh, how I wish that was the case!)

It takes about two months of marketing and administrative preparation to release an album. You also release a single or two or three before the full album, which doubles or triples the workload.

Some time is spent on social media marketing, trying to get in front of the people who will be interested in hearing these songs.

Lyric videos need to be made, because a lot of people listen to songs on YouTube.

Booking performances are important, as live music is the best way to share songs and connect with people. That requires a heavy dose of preparation to do it well!

To steward the gift of an album well, it requires a lot of work after the work of making the songs.