(by CSP)
Recording vocals for "High Like Cheech" has been a huge learning process for me.
I recorded my first iteration of them shortly after finishing the lyrics. It sounded pretty good, but I still knew that I would likely need to re-record parts. The focus of this version was mainly getting a recording to help hear how the lyrics sounded in context.
I shared it with an online community of artists I recently joined with the intent to get feedback from them and use that to inform the next recording I did. The overall reception to the song was positive. My main takeaway from their responses was that there could be more life and energy in my vocal performance.
When it came time to record, I tried standing instead of sitting. This gave me better vocal delivery. I did 3 complete takes with full energy. Loud, weird faces, grunts, funny inflections, hand movements, etc. This helped loosen me up and get a better sense of what range of expression I had available. I did some additional research beforehand to make improvements to the processing I was doing on the vocals in Logic as well.
I thought what I had was definite improvement. I shared it with Jinxz. He felt like there was an ease to the first version I shared with him that got lost in this second one. He thought the first version sounded more like myself and that I had maybe let the feedback get too deeply into my head.
He wasn’t wrong. I had gotten hyper focused on improving something for a group of strangers. The feedback was still useful. The problem was I started to put everything I was doing through the lens of the feedback instead of making sure I was making something that I felt happy with.
For my third iteration I made sure to maintain the improvements I had made in the last iteration while making sure the performance felt authentic to myself. Before recording I listened to one of my favourite mixtapes, A Kid Named Cudi, lit an incense and drank a ginger beer. I tried to really chill out and soak in the vibes.
When it came time to record I would do a take, then try something new in the next take, then I would compare the two. I would figure out which of the two I liked the most and then try to expand on what I did in that take somehow. I kept that process going until I felt like I had passed the peak of my vocal performance for the day and had enough material to work with.
The results feel like a step in the right direction. I think this could be the final version we work with. It’s hard to say because that’s what I thought about the last two. With music it can be really challenging to determine when to move on. You want to make the best product you can but also there’s more songs that require your attention.
Will “High Like Cheech” be the best song of the next 100 Heavy Herb tracks? Maybe, but we won’t know if we spend the next several months tweaking it. This is an important perspective to keep on the process.
