Roughly every two years, the acapella group, Nine, records a CD under the supervision of the musical director, Martin Sirvatka. However, this year is a little different. Not just Nine, but also Solace, recorded a CD.
Last year, Nine celebrated 18 years of music by putting together a CD and continued to work on it throughout the summer. The two music groups spent some time in separate recording studios. Solace worked at Glenbrook South, while Nine worked in Northbrook at the professional studio called Doctor Caw.
“Nine [recorded] at like a little house studio. [The producer’s] name was Craig Caw and […] it was a ton fun, but it was really meticulous. It was a different kind of recording experience than I’m personally used to, very focused. Every little detail mattered and counted, but it was a blast,” senior Kris Hansen said.
The making of the Nine CD called “Smooth Sailing,” which consists of 11 songs, includes covers of Michael Buble and Jason Mraz.
“‘The Way’, was actually one of my favorites,” Hansen said. “That was the song Merrick Topping had a solo on and the second I heard what they did to it, how they mixed it, I could hear it on the radio. It was really well done and well produced. You could tell they really spent a lot of time on it.”
Sirvatka planned for Nine to record a CD, but mid-way through the year, he decided he also wanted Solace to have a project of their own.
“Last year’s group was a really special year for Nine because it was our eighteenth year anniversary,” Sirvatka said. “[However,] I also wanted to give Solace an opportunity to sing and do something, too. It’s kind of cost prohibitive to do too many CDs because it’s just an expensive process. So, we do them roughly every two years.”
The CD for Solace called “Rewind” was produced by a GBS Graduate named Andrew Lothian. It consists of about six songs, including “For Emma,” by Bonn Evert and “Locked up,” by Ingrid Michaelson.
“[In] Locked up’, [the song that] Stephanie Riley sang, she sounds exactly like Ingrid Michaelson,” senior Katherine Battaglia said. “There’s some sick distortion on the alto two part, which makes it sound like it’s mimicking the base part. So, it sounded pretty sweet.”
For Solace, Sirvatka wanted to make the CD of all the senior girls singing their solo songs, with the accompaniment of their junior peers, also a part of Solace.
“We recorded solos on separate days, so it was even longer for the seniors and the juniors just came in and we sang our parts,” senior Lauren Tu said.
Though recording the CD itself was not a lengthy process, there is a lot more that goes into the making of a CD than it seems.
“[Solace] recorded in just two days, but [the producer] just spent the next two months editing and making it sound really cool,” Tu said.
Making a CD consists of a long process that includes mixing, balancing and panning the music, making sure to have the mechanical licenses so that the CD is legal, and then sending in the product to be finished.
“It is [a] really intricate [process], it just takes one voice at a time, one part at a time […] It pretty much took four months to make this happen, because there’s a lot to recording, not just singing,” Sirvatka said.
The “Smooth Sailing” is scheduled to come out in mid-November and the release date for “Rewind” is yet to be determined.
