I'm writing a concept album. Anyone feel like sharing tips and experiences?

[Kvebbs]

Hi all!

I'm also beginning my PhD shortly, and if I don't have music to keep me sane during that period I'll go (more) insane The only logical conclusion: It's time to write and record that concept album I've always wanted to. Music has been my hobby for about 15-16 years now, and I'm beginning to get pretty confident in my ability to get as professional a sound from my home recording studio as possible.

That said, I'm not by a long shot a professional musician, studio technician or mix/mastering engineer. I'm just a stubborn perfectionist that likes to tinker with this stuff. Any tips, experiences or words of caution you feel like sharing would be dearly appreciated. Anything at all on everything from writing it, making it into a musical whole (continuous piece) to super-nerdy tips on the one plugin you wouldn't be without, mixing in general, organizing this stuff and so on.

I realize I'm asking for a free lunch here, so only share if you actually feel like it. I'll probably hammer out a first proper take of a song or two over the coming months, and pester you for comments on that as well ;-)

If I were to describe my end goal it would be a mix between Porcupine Tree - The Incident and Opeth - Ghost Reveries. The only difference would be I'm not that good by a loooooong shot, but I'm doing this for myself anyways. It will be fun.

TLDR: I'm writing a concept album. Tips and tricks or words of caution on anything related appreciated.

[David Else]

Concept albums are the best! Don't let anyone tell you different.

[Kvebbs]

I couldn't agree more!

[woodentop]

I guess nailing the concept would be a good start !

You might find this worth a look, a brief history of the concept album:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_album

Maybe the first was Holst's The Planets?


I've never thought about what I'd choose as a concept for such an album. They say one should write about what one knows. Or, in the case of a musical venture, feels?


Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (Side One) is, to me, a concept album. The concept was birth (the initial motif) and how life gets more complex (as do the surroundings of the motif and the motif itself) through time. But death comes with, no surprise really, the motif finally finding peace and resolution in that wonderfully simple outtro.

That's only my take on it. I'm sure there've been many others.

I'd say it's important not to be pretentious and try to be too "clever". I reckon any "cleverness" should be balanced with humour that might well be ironic.

Right off the top of my head is a run through a concept I just had.

Hair, or teeth, or both. Its (Their) journey through life as experienced by humans.

We are born with no teeth and little hair.

They both grow.

We don't bother about them for quite a long time.

Love arrives, we start to bother.

So this is innocence, leading into angst.

We more and more find that we have to spend time and perhaps money to maintain the image of ourselves we have created. We learn about stress, fear of failure, etc.

Hair goes grey, but still lots of it. Teeth become loose, still lots of them. We enter the realm of dread.

Hair starts to fall out, teeth go missing. We begin to understand our mortality.

And so on .


The sky's the limit, creatively. Just be sure to get the concept right before you begin, and I think the rest will fall into place. Or do six months on it, then decide on a new concept .

Either way, it'll be fun for sure.

Good luck!


Edit:

Dunno if Halitosis Follicle would be a good title for my concept album .

Oh, imagery is important. In my concept album, we have great scope for some good stuff - the barber's pole, the dentist's chair, the first contact with a lover's hair.

See how many other useful images you can come up with in five minutes. You might get better results than if you spent a week on it.

[LightOfDay]

you have to have a (simple and straight) story. something like a road-movie (boy meets girl and they cruise from Texas to Nicaragua, or something like Easy Rider, Convoy) or something completely different from that (Pictures At An Exhibition, Tarkus, Thick As A Brick, The Moldau, The Wall or whatever).

could be a walk through a town with meeting people, having reminiscences on historical things or whatever.

or a side-story (self thought out) of Game Of Thrones, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad or such.

and you will lighten up the story from different point of views. you could do it musically through the use of guiding themes, a theme per character or per location or per chapter.

concept albums are the best. they are soundtracks without the film. a little bit like a musical without the actors and with less singing. (and hopefully much better than the Andrew Lloyd Webber bullshit.)

[Kvebbs]

Should I try and record everything as one Reaper-project, break it into sections - or do a song-by-song basis? Seems awefully cumbersome to switch between projects when trying to get a nice transition going between songs? Also, sound from track to track may become more consistent? Any thoughts?

[hwhalen]

I recorded a concept album on Golf.
Did it in Reaper, one looong song.
Ended up with 174 tracks which included

48 Guitar tracks
50 Keyboard tracks
20 Bass tracks
10 Drum tracks
34 Vocal tracks
1 Click track
2 Effects tracks

Other tracks included separators etc...

My process, recorded the primary track (guitar/keyboard or Voice) against a click track.

Then ALL the drums. Then ALL the Bass.
Then I completed the song by recording the additional parts.

Mixed it (with some help from a member).

It ended up being 51:25. In my signature it's called,

On The Links

IMHO you'll get a more consistent product this way as opposed to recording it in different projects.

[G-Sun]

Cool.
I've always wanted to do a concept-album myself.
Best of luck!
(I have no idea what advice to give you)

[Twangothan]

Brilliant! I planned one but never recorded it. I started with writing out the story in note form, just so I knew where it was going. Then I drew a kind of graph of tempos and moods - up, down, riffy, truancy etc, to get some balance in the pieces. I confess I used ""Echoes" like, "end of Gates of Delerium"" pilfering to get the ideas down. I sketched out some ideas but never did any more with it (other things came up). I must dust it off!

[martifingers]

I think this is a big challenge not least in the area of lyrics. I guess there is a parallel with writing a novel in the scale of effort involved so the remarks on planning seem useful.

I would also think that the trick might be to get the "shape" right at the same time as keeping musical variety and cohesion - I mean dynamics and a sense of "drama". Eg it's arguable that Sgt Pepper is a concept album and see how that is carefully sequenced.

And, as it appropriate, I will as usual try and extol the virtues of the finest concept album ever made (some concept, some musical creativity) and possibly the least well known masterpiece of popular music. It is 10000 years by the Honeydogs. Listen and feel humbled (well, I was.)

[thequietroom]

Originally Posted by Kvebbs

Should I try and record everything as one Reaper-project, break it into sections - or do a song-by-song basis? Seems awefully cumbersome to switch between projects when trying to get a nice transition going between songs? Also, sound from track to track may become more consistent? Any thoughts?

my home projects have always been song by song.. but mostly that is because i write songs so erraticly

The last pro album I did the engineer kept everything in one Nuendo project.

I suspect that would be the way to go for a concept album. That way everything is in one "container" and you are always working within the context of one big sort of multi-song.. the nature of a concept album.

The rub is that it may become large with many plugings and tracts etc.. youd want to have track management etc well organized.. but your a perfectionist working on a phd so I bet your covered there

[Kvebbs]

If I were to sum up...

1) The story comes first, then dividing the story into songs/sections and identifying some key emotions and intensities it should reflect thematically - and in relation to the dynamics of the record as a whole. This sounds like a very good idea indeed.

I write lyrics by spewing random gibberish and identifying the sounds and expressions I like at a particular place in the song, so I'll try to get some keywords down for each song after writing the "story" or related songs/sections. Then I'll work on the music and add lyrics as they pop up. Seems like a reasonable compromise between wisdom and the way I make music.

2) I'm going to try and manage the whole thing within one project. This means a a freakin' ****load of tracks and plugins running, so management is key. It makes it easy to see the whole, work on different parts as I feel along the way, keep things consistent across tracks and manage transitions from one thing to the next. It should also help "shape" the dynamics throughout the album to keep it interesting. Backup backup backup.

Maybe I'll post some updates on how I manage tracks and plugins along the way. I think keeping tracks with automation etc. within parent folders without automation and plugins should help controlling the overall volume going to the master track easily. As if this isn't enough, I'm going to try and do it with mostly free plugins, so any tips are also appreciated

3) Listen to loads of concept albums. This part is going to be especially challenging, ahahahahahha. By the way, thanks for tips on things to listen to. These days, I'm really into neo-prog (especially IQs Subterrania and Frequency as well as Pendragons Not of this World and Masquerade Overture). I think those deserve honorable mentions, albeit getting into the sound of neo-prog may prove challenging to some. But hey, I'm 30 and I did it - so can you!

Also.. I'm going to be storing the project in my Dropbox-folder to ensure Cloud-backups.

Hopefully there is more to come

[Kvebbs]

Bikerider, you must be a George Harrison fan!

[Punk Duck]

If it was me, I think I'd have separate projects for each song and then have a "master" project. Render the songs then put them in the master project as you go.

Otherwise you might just get weighed down in a complete mess.

My method allows you to change the order if you need to and have versions for each song easily slottable in, if you need to.

I think I'd just find it easier that way.

And less taxing on computer resources I guess.

Good lucky with it anyway!

[flaviodmc]

Awesome!

I'm finishing my first EP but I'm already making plans for a concept album.

As a classically trained musician, I love the idea of writing an album using a sonata form (http://www3.northern.edu/wieland/theory/form/sonata.htm). Of course it doesn't have to follow the strict rules of a sonata form, but it's a good way to limit yourself and have more coherent ideas. Notice that the last half of Abbey Road was inspired by sonata form (check out "The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley: Extended Forms in Popular Music by Thomas MacFarlane).

You mentioned you're starting a PhD, so probably reading music books are not a priority right now, but there are some covering this subject:
Roger Waters and Pink Floyd: The Concept Albums by Phil Rose
Radiohead and the Resistant Concept Album: How to Disappear Completely (Profiles in Popular Music) by Marianne Tatom Letts
Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today by Olivier Julien

I feel like I should mention some concept albums worth listening to as well:
In Search of the Lost Chord - The Moody Blues
Days of Future Passed - The Moody Blues (one of the first concept albums ever)
The Story Of Simon Simopath - Nirvana (UK) (probably the first concept album ever)
The Resistance - Muse (specially the Exogenesis Parts I, II and III)
Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams - 30 Seconds to Mars (well, not a great album, but the idea of dividing the record in 4 different feelings could be an inspiration)

And remember, a concept album doesn't necessarily need a story in terms of lyrics, but it can be very interesting by just having a music coherence and similar ideas surrounding the album.

Good luck and don't forget to share with us when it's done!

Flavio

[The Telenator]

Unless I missed it in some of the long posts above, I didn't see anyone suggest that you study some of the classic concept albums of the past and learn all you can about them.

Personally, I've always loved the concept album approach, even though it is hard to reconcile making one these days in a world where listeners average 7 seconds on a tune before flitting off to the next. NO ONE plays entire CDs at one sitting or even what you could consider an 'album side' anymore. So, so sad.

Good luck.

[G-Sun]

Originally Posted by Kvebbs

1) The story comes first

I'd say the concept comes first. The grand idea, or whatever that is the thing connecting the songs together.

[martifingers]

Originally Posted by Kvebbs

3) Listen to loads of concept albums. This part is going to be especially challenging, ahahahahahha. By the way, thanks for tips on things to listen to. These days, I'm really into neo-prog (especially IQs Subterrania and Frequency as well as Pendragons Not of this World and Masquerade Overture). I think those deserve honorable mentions, albeit getting into the sound of neo-prog may prove challenging to some. But hey, I'm 30 and I did it - so can you!

I would say these guys are the most significant contemporary exponents of the genre - it's all they do...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rZNQppYngA

[rvman]

Make an outline like you are writing a book. Note the high lights. And take off.

Listen to RUSH 2112 and Hemispheres. And old YES.

[Twangothan]

The greatest concept album, as we all know, is "Thick as a brick" by Jethro Tull. Fighting talk! Note there is a difference between a concept album and a prog album. Actually "Journey to the centre of the earth" is a cracker too, bar the lousy singing.

[Kvebbs]

Seems like there are quite a few people with tips and experiences of their own,thank you very much! How do you approach leitmotifs? I've been thinking there are at least two approaches:

1) Find a leitmotif early on, and try to write a lot of different versions and approaches to it... Pick the best, think about how they fit as part of the overall intensity of different parts of the record, arrange them and write songs around those.

2) Try to think on how a leitmotif can be written into every single song you write.

[Twangothan]

Originally Posted by Kvebbs

Seems like there are quite a few people with tips and experiences of their own,thank you very much! How do you approach leitmotifs? I've been thinking there are at least two approaches:

1) Find a leitmotif early on, and try to write a lot of different versions and approaches to it... Pick the best, think about how they fit as part of the overall intensity of different parts of the record, arrange them and write songs around those.

2) Try to think on how a leitmotif can be written into every single song you write.

An ancient book or story is a good bet. One of my favourites is "The Snow Goose" which was also a book.

[serr]

Thick as a Brick and 2112 are two of my favorite rock n roll stories!

JT were poking fun at bands like Floyd and Yes and Genesis for their side long tracks. "Well, OUR song is a WHOLE album long!"
They thought it would just be a fun aside between albums.

40 years later there are still excerpts played on radio and the song/album has even been remixed to 5.1 surround. (An amazing job by Steve Wilson.)

2112 was Rush saying: "You know what? If the record co is going to fire us anyway (they were), screw it! We're recording the music we want and further, the side long track is going on side one this time!"

And... they get do whatever they want with the rest of their lives.