Not many of us would have managed to tide through the lockdown without songs — and other forms of art — to give us solace, calm us down, and amp us up as and when we needed it. Making music that does all this requires not only talent but also a team, a lot of equipment, and technical know-how. As recording studios around Chennai gradually reopen, they have challenges to navigate.
For instance, “You cannot wear a mask when recording vocals,” states Mervin Thomas categorically. It would distort or muffle the singer’s voice, and thus affect the song as a whole, says the founder of TASE Studio, explaining one of the many challenges that recording studios in Chennai — and elsewhere — have to circumnavigate during Unlock 4.0.
Rethinking spaces
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, Chennai’s music producers are well aware that hygiene cannot be a secondary concern. But how does one keep confined spaces filled with temperature-sensitive equipment operational and safe? The first factor is trust. “For now, I’m only working with musicians I am familiar with,” says Mervin. This sentiment is echoed by Ashvin Vinayagamoorthy, who runs Shimmr Studios in Mogappair. “If we are introduced through friends or if I know them personally — basically, If I know that they can follow a certain work ethic in the studio, we call them in,” says Ashwin who works with the city’s up-and-coming indie musicians as well as industry talent.
Vinay Ramakrishnan at Voice and Vision Studio, Kodambakkam
Work ethic is key, because the rules, especially now, are many. Singer-composer Alvin Presley describes his first post-lockdown recording experience from last week. “I went to Voice and Vision Studios in Kodambakkam, run by Alaap Raju. The studio has rules: there should be a maximum of three people; everyone should wear a mask unless the person is singing. There is a recording booth and a studio room. Inside the recording booth they have a foot-operated hand sanitiser that we worked with a foot pedal, in addition to another hand sanitiser at the entrance of the booth,” he recalls.
While the three-person cap makes sense in terms of safety and social distancing, it has other implications. Goutham Healer, drummer of the band Big Sam, observes that while it worked fine for their recording session with a vocalist and bassist, it also means that some music arrangements in general still cannot be recorded in a studio, at least for now. “A full band cannot come in together. And if someone wants to record a whole string section — let’s say five or ten people playing the violin together — they cannot do it.” The only person allowed to take off his mask during their session, he recalls, was vocalist Samuel Vijayan while singing.
The point, says Alvin, was keeping the artistes’ physical touch to the minimum. “We had brought some of our drum equipment along, that were needed particularly for this recording and was not available at the studio. Lijesh at the studio had set everything up beforehand, so we did not have to touch too many things, and we kept letting him know what equipment we wanted to handle. Mics had already been set up and were not to be touched. The only other thing we used was the couch.”
Though studios take the lead in safety, musicians who step in are expected to pull their weight, too. Says Alvin, “I have a home studio setup, so I had done some groundwork — basic structure and placements — beforehand. When the three of us went in, we had a solid four-hour session, in which we were able to finish a song called ‘Camouflaged emotions’ completely, and also do a rough track of another song.”
This new project comes a little over a month after the release of Alvin’s debut EP ‘Fall Today’, that he had created entirely at home. So why go to a studio now? Simply put, while the quality of music depends on the talent, the quality of its sound depends on the right conditions and equipment. Explains Alvin, “It also depends on what I’m programming on a software and what I’m recording live.While recording at home, it was difficult for me to get the right vocal recording quality. I had to find the right spot where the reverb wasn’t too much and at the same time not too dead. Studios have a vocal booth made just for that. The purpose of the place is recordings alone; our homes are designed for other things.”
The very design of a studio, however, can be what throws in operational challenges as well. For instance, rooms have to be soundproof and equipment has to be kept at very low temperatures to avoid overheating when used. Which is probably why Mervin, upon walking to his studio for a check two weeks into the first lockdown, found a termite infestation. “My studio has a lot of woodwork and poor ventilation,” he explains, “I had to completely redo one wall and do a treatment. I reopened after this last lockdown; we took very few clients and went slow.”
The biggest concern, he says, is the vocalist, who has to sing without a mask and be very close to the mic. “Even more important than sanitising the mic is sanitising the pop filter, that sits between the mic and the vocalist. We sanitise both of them, as well as all our headphones, with isopropyl alcohol-based sanitiser before every session,” says Mervin, who works with independent and gospel musicians.
Shimmr Studios has a little solution for this, courtesy the open space right outside their rooms, on the terrace of the independent bungalow where the whole studio is located. Says Ashwin, “We give bands that large space to jam and rehearse, and then come inside in turns just to record.”
Ashwin adds that pacing out the clients is important. “If vocalists are involved, we try to keep a day and a half’s gap between clients — never two singing sessions in the same day. For everyone else, we swap out the micsfor each session. Overdubs help for bands: we record two people at a time and replay that recording for the other band members to play along to.”
Ashwin’s clientèle, he says, includes not only indie talent like Kevin Fernando and Shravan Sridhar, but also the likes of Sid Sriram, Chinmayee and Harini. “But the industry has taken a backseat during lockdown; it’s the indie musicians who have continued to create music throughout.”
