Bucket List: How to record an album

Artistic folks express their feelings in different ways.

“Some people paint. Some people write stories. I write songs,” said John Bembenek, 55, of Massapequa.

For the last two months, Bembenek has been recording a music album at The Sound Cellar in Huntington, a long-held dream that he is finally realizing. Called “Forty” for the number of years it’s taken to make it, the album will include four songs, all deeply personal: There’s one about his mother battling Alzheimer’s disease and another, “Soldier,” that he wrote at 15 when his brother served in the U.S. Marines.

Clients at The Sound Cellar run the gamut from amateurs doing cover songs for loved ones to professional musicians, said Peter Iannacchino, co-owner of the rehearsal and recording studio.

In general, Iannacchino notes, most people recording music can sing, play an instrument or both. Bembenek, for example, sings and plays acoustic guitar and harmonica.

For singers performing cover songs, the studio typically uses a pre-recorded karaoke track. Singers who want to record their own music, but don’t play an instrument, can bring their own musicians or the studio can provide them, including violin, cello and saxophone players, said co-owner Dave Alini.

“If someone needs keys, bass, drums, guitar — any of the main rock instruments — I can play it myself for the most part,” Alini said.

Though Alini specializes in recording music live in the studio, the vocals and instrumentals can be done separately, with musicians even recording tracks remotely.

“I think there’s a lot of magic when humans interact at the same time, but sometimes you can’t get everybody in at once,” Alini said.

Alini said he strives to be an integral part of the clients’ creative process.

“I’m always trying to elevate people’s songs past what they thought it could be,” he said. “We capture moments in time for people. We capture emotions for people.”

Clients come away with digital files, from which they can burn CDs or send out to a company that can convert them into vinyl records.

Be patient with the process, advises Bembenek, whose song “Walls” took four separate sessions to complete.

“I think everybody, when they record something, they want the best quality and sound,” Bembenek said.