Anyone here ever made a whole album alone?

[jeremy.c.]

This is a very inspiring thread, there is some great music here!
I did my first four or five CDs pretty much by myself. There's a real beauty to only having to rely on yourself and your own intuition. Even though I wrote 95% of the material for my new album I decided to bring in some collaborators and let them contribute their own ideas and parts and I have to say it was a nice change of pace! Of course this slowed down my process fro finishing songs immensely, but it got done so I'm happy.
Check them out at Olivia Neutron-Bomb | Return To The Fold | CD Baby

That said, the next project is going to be me going it alone, instrumental style again.

[SeniorityFedup]

When a studio charges 75 without engineer/hr and your on waiter pay....... Your better off buying a good vocal mic and do it on your own.

[Mo Facta]

I've done three albums completely solo and I'm currently on my fourth. I also did an EP last month this way for another artist, but he sang on it. I work with a songwriter who is also the other guitarist in our current band so that takes some load off.

I did the first album for myself when I was 19 and the subsequent two for bands I was in. I'm so used to it by now and it's the only we seem to be able to get things done nowadays. Easy it is not, but it's getting easier.

The first one got lost in the aether but the other two are online:

Reach | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

4am | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

Cheers

[systematika]

I've tried to do it, have had 4 attempts so far. Some day I'll finish all of them but since it's all theme based it's just too much and I end up working on something else.

Here's a funny track that I made for a kind of 90s alternative/electronic type project supposedly about mass consumer culture. It's called "iShit culture out my ass" and I did it around 2007 or so and at that time I just got out of college and didn't have much so it was recorded with only a microkorg, MIDI controller, fl studio, and microkorg microphone plugged into an onboard soundcard lol!

[jimmib]

i'm starting to. did my first one this past christmas... everything except mastering. planning on continuing and getting better.....a lot better....at it


here's to many years of it :D

http://lambsbecomelions.bandcamp.com

[peaksofvalleys]

Cool thread.

I made my album 100% myself, from the initial compositions to the handmade CDs and everything in between. As stressful as it can be I enjoy it immensely. It's available for free on my website:

Peaks of Valleys

[oldeanalogueguy]

Originally Posted by Johnny Favorite

composed, arranged, played, mixed and mastered all by yourself?

Care to share any tips or thoughts about the process?

And, most important, was it worth it?

lots of folks have done it.
from very small home studios to big megastar home studios.

i know folks who have done complete books too
from writing to editing , and layout, and production, to pr and sales/fulfillment.

depends on your goals, interests, talent, and budget.
cheapest to diay. but longer. and harder.

you are going to have to farm some stuff out. least would be duping your own cassettes. records and cds would require a manufacturer to dupe them.

you might want to farm some other stuff out anyway eg final mastering.

[vierge99]

The same advice could be given here that is given to writers. Record, record, record. If you stop and start fiddling with things then you start criticizing your work and it tends not to get finished.

[Ron Vogel]

I'm working on one now; lots of work and time into it...got about 25 songs to pick through.

Here's one I'm finishing up the mix:
OurStage

Really hard to stay subjective during the process...and I have mostly low-end or mid-fi tools.

[Erik Thomas]

Im doing it right now...wrote everything...played everything...sang everything ...recorded everything....now am in the process of editing and mixing. It was a TON of work (literally thousands of hours total) but its really coming out great. Radio Friendly Pop/Rock.

I may recruit a friend of mine though to add some BGVs because multiple voices singing BGVs usually sounds better than one person doing it all alone, due to the vocal blend that different human voices can come together with... other than that its all me and im proud of it.

[Lance Lawson]

I've done the entire thing start to finish. In my case I wrote all the songs, played all the instruments, made all the acoustic guitars, produced, arranged, mixed and mastered. The pity of that first CD was a PC crash that wiped out all the raw tracks. I had already mixed and mastered so I had the CD to make copies. But I would have loved to have been able to remix it but that's water under the bridge now anyway. I much prefer working with other musicians.

[CXP]

Kind of...

I used to laydown cover tunes by programing my Tandy 1000 to play the first 3 notes in a chord using BASIC. Stairway to Heaven and Black Dog were my proudist productions! Imagine an Atari blaring out Zep. Pretty funny!

I have done 6 tours between Iraq and Afghanistan. Most folks bring along a game system. I brought a UX1 and my laptop. I actually brought my bass, electric and KSM 44 on one tour doing a complete song (you can see a pic of my make-shift desert studio here: SoundClick artist: Vested - VESTED is William Ashley Stratton and Dena Porras Maynard

I started collaborating with a vocalist (because I tend to sound like a cat in a dryer) and she really moved things along. I still do the music writting, guitars, drum looping,mixing, production, and sometimes mastering.

Doing it alone was fun but it is always better to have a partner. Or for my more sinful minded slutz; several.

[P.A.O.]

#193
P.A.O.
Gear interested

Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 1
Hello. This is my 1st post here. Have previously been a peeper before...made an album by myself with mistakes and all. I'm the only one to blame.
Imagine if you wrote a raw album that showed off the dark side of your id and a lot of the bad stuff (physic damage, social interactions) that happened in the last 10 years. That you had no help and multiple technical problems...with someone even breaking your computer (that you were working on the thing on) because they hated you...and multiple equipment and acoustical limitations...Sounds fun- doesn't it? If you're reading on this thread, you're probably somewhat familiar with this. Here's a fun track off it> http://soundcloud.com/peopleareobstacles-1/sleep-sleep-no-dreams-2