This blog is part of an ongoing series. If you missed it, jump back to part 9.

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With my Gibson, Marshall Amp and Bass in tow, the next day I made my way to the session.

My understanding leading into this session was that this artist had a song in the works with the producer which I was sent a file of. They needed to add bass to the song, but wanted me to bring my guitar as well for any ideas that I might come up with. So bass was priority and I assumed that all of the elements that were in the recording I was sent were what we were building on top of. I fully anticipated if nothing else, I’d be recording bass today on that track. 

But just like the producer often called things we were doing in our session a “demo” or “quickly laying down an idea”, he referred to this session as “workshopping ideas.” Which to me just meant, ‘Yeah, come play on this, but we might not keep anything,” and that was fine. It’s not my song and not my decision, but hopefully they dig what I bring to the table. I still at least expected we’d be recording something down even if it gets scrapped. 

The producer was in the middle of a phone call which you know now was common. I only mention it because on top of everything else it gave me the sense that his priorities were not the same as mine. I was there to record a well-produced single, and with the way he quickly cut our sessions short or didn’t have the right tools for that job, I felt more and more like I was somehow inconveniencing him or that he didn’t know what that meant. 

I did hire and already pay this guy for that job, right?

I started to set my things down when the artist arrived. She was young, in her teens, and came with her mom. Wise.

I introduced myself, chipper as ever and genuinely excited to be there to work with her, explained that the producer was just wrapping up a call. I kept things light to try and ensure the artist felt comfortable, just as I’m used to doing in my own engineering roles. I talked up her song a bit about how good I thought it was (it is a very good song) and wondered if she was into pop-punk or anything similar based on the sound of it. 

She said she liked Olivia Rodrigo (knew it!) and she was excited to talk about her. But her mom took control of the conversation more so and we just chatted about some general things. They were actually from Sault Ste. Marie so we bonded over that briefly since I’d just returned not long ago from visiting. I thought it was a funny coincidence and felt the vibe of the session was off to a good start. 

It reminded me of a time when I was invited to meet with a production team who were about to work with an all-girl rnb group. The producers thought of me because the artists said they’d prefer to have a woman engineer in the studio with them. That was like 10 years ago, but it’s still something that I know a lot of artists are looking for. Hopefully one day I can have my own studio space and I can provide that environment myself – that was always a big dream. These session invites, I suspect now, were for the same reason.

A short time later we were joined by the producer who now had his phone in his hand and was filming us chatting. It caught me a bit off guard and when I turned around and saw it he was just like, “Oh, no just keep talking! Ignore me,” trying to capture some candid moments. It would turn out that today in particular he was even more keen to catch footage for social media, or whatever. It’s fine, do what you gotta do.

After I wrapped up our conversation, we were ready to get set up. 

“Are we going to start with bass?” I asked. 

“Yeah, but I don’t really have anything set up to record today. We’ll just workshop some ideas and I’ll basically just leave you and the artist to run through it.” 

Oh, so it’s like that. Okay, no worries, whatever you need, boss.

I thought then he might cue up the track so we could hear my parts over what they’d already recorded, but then the producer suggested that the artist sit at the piano, play through her parts on piano and vocal and I’d just play along to her. 

Oh. This will be a little odd now and changes things substantially really, but, okay. 

I was confused again. So was the nearly completed track I’d been sent just some sort of… demo? Did they scrap the whole demo? Honestly it was the better sounding recording I’d heard until this point, mine included. Did the artist not like what was in that song? 

No matter, I’ll still show her my bass line and see if she likes what I came up with. 

But wait. I’d brought a DI to record bass per his instruction and he wasn’t going to cue up a session for us. 

I’m not like, the world’s best engineer for sure, but I know a thing or two about sound and electric basses that aren’t amplified and… how do I phrase this to him without making him think I think this is silly? 

Nevermind. I always come with a solution. “Okay, sure, I’ll just plug in my guitar amp then and play my bass through that. Just bare with me while I change the settings to something more appropriate.”

The producer piped in, ‘Yeah that works. We’ll put your amplifier in the vocal booth adn you can stand out here with her to jam it out. There’s a plug in here.’

Another weird suggestion. Now the amplifier will be muffled in an adjacent room and not coming through the speakers where we would both be playing. 

“Uh, okay, I’ll keep the door open then.”

But like, surely it’s important the artist can hear the parts clearly that we’re workshopping?

I didn’t let my confusion or frustration show. For the sake of the girl and her mom, I know it’s important I keep myself as composed as possible. Once again, I was rolling with it. 

Not ideal, but we got going on it. 

I was glad I’d practiced the song a few times before the day so that I didn’t have to worry about reading off anything and instead just asked for any chords I needed clarified that seemed different from the recording. 

After we played through a couple times, I asked her if she liked the bass line. She was very receptive and seemed happy with it, so I was, too. I told her I could try other things or, if she wanted I could pull out the electric guitar and we could play around on that a bit. She agreed, so we moved on from bass pretty quickly.

Since I wasn’t her producer, I didn’t want to take any control over her song and as long as she was happy (and did seem genuinely so) that was fine for me. Her mom stayed in the next room and also seemed happy with everything. For a bit of time and once the guitar solo came into the picture, the producer and her both even did some more filming to capture the studio magic. 

Everything went as well as it could have, I thought. After we’d run through it a number of times, she wasn’t sure where else to go from there and it was at this point the producer asked her for some of her favorite artists or songs that fit the vibe she wanted for the song and I was confused again by what we were doing or what had all been done to get us to this point. 

She mentioned a couple songs that were pretty significantly different from where we were headed, but I understood that vocally they fit what she was saying. If we were to match the atmosphere of those songs in particular, there wouldn’t need to be any electric guitar or bass really. It was more ambient pop than the modern pop-rock we were running through. 

After listening to two of those songs, the session was cut short again not long after the hour mark and I felt a little bad about that because the artist and her mom had driven quite a way to get there. Hopefully they felt the hour was productive and worthwhile.

I thanked them for having me out to play and we sort of left the day with the sense that we’d see each other again to work on the song because she said she liked what I did anyway. 

I never heard back about it and am unsure if they decided to proceed with the project or not.

I submitted my invoice and was paid promptly – thanks again for that, producer.

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Next up, we get back to it on our own session.