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Having laid down my tracks, it's time to finish off the editing. Sahara was straightforwards, and there wasn't anything to do with Red. Autobahn took quite a bit of time to work through, mostly because of the flute track. Rob laid down about five takes, but there were quite a few differences between each one. Scott and I had to go all of the takes, cutting and pasting the track together. Waiting took a lot of time, though. We had something like twenty or so edits for the guitar tracks. But, I think we're finanlly out of here.
My retake for Red Leaves was miniscule -- Brett added an extra kick that I didn't catch, so I had to go back and play a note to match it. No worries.
Waiting For Rain was a bit more involved, but still pretty straightforwards. The last time I came out here, I rerecorded one run (in the 2nd B section). After listening to it a number of times, I didn't much care for what I did there -- it was functional, but not much more. So, I worked over it again to give it a bit more life.
Sahara Dance was more of an effort. The last time I came out here, I laid a scratch track down before running out to beat the snowstorm. Listening to it this time, Scott and I decided that there was a bit of crimp with it. It was okay, but the problem was that it started off strong and then didn't go anywhere. After working with a few ideas, I hit on reintroducing Shahin's theme from earlier in the song. The solo doesn't continue to climb into higher and higher skies, but it does take a direction that should hold people's interest.
Having spent several months working on an album that has me soloing almost every single song, I have a new found respect for lead guitarists. It's hard to come up with something new to say every song -- something that isn't an awfully lot like what you said the last time.
This morning, we've knocked out about four songs -- mostly easy edits. Shahin's out in the main room now, getting ready to do his track for Waiting.
Today, we're back out at Dragonfly, working on getting the final edits and recalls for the new album. Shahin is coming out to rerecord his part for Waiting, I have to retake my solo for Sahara Dance (as well as some touch ups on Waiting and Read Leaves). Hopefully, we'll be finished in a decent timeframe, and then it's off to mastering.
To be honest, I'm getting tired of these songs. I've lived with them ever since July of last year. I've listened to seven different mixes of each of these songs, through untold number of combinations. I'm starting to get sick of them. They're good songs, but I don't know how much more I can listen to them. Once they go off to masters, I'm going to put them aside for quite some time. Maybe in a few months/years, I'll like them again, but time will tell.
Looks like things are begining to get back on track; we're going to be heading back out to DragonFly in about two weeks. Hopefully, we'll be able to knock off the edits and the recalls in one day.
12 inches of snow and 4 foot drifts at the studio. Not gonna happen today...
After we packed off Rob and Shahin, it was time for me to do my fixes. I had a number of runs to correct, mostly me foolishly playing a major pentatonic over a minor chord. Scott and I walked through the songs, and I got most of the fixes in one or two takes (after warming up).
Then we got to Brazilian Cafe. I had originally planning on redoing the solo to use minor scales instead of major scales. I worked out the minor scale runs and played it once or twice. And it sounded very dischordant. Scott and I talked about it for a bit, eventually deciding to leave the major stuff in place, as it sounded much more pleasing (even if it's wrong).
Before I got a chance to retake Sahara Dance, the snow was just too much. For those who have been out to Dragonfly, you know what the hill is like when it's dry. Icy is even more not good. If you loose traction, you're either going to be in a ditch or in a tree. So, we pulled the plug and will revisit at a later point in time.
Shahin has finished up his retakes. His playing seems a little slack today, like his heart's just not in it. It took us quite a few takes to get down the part for Waiting For Rain. After that was a key shift touch up for Chronicles and then a retake of Autobahn. I had wanted to redo a few parts in Snipe Hunting to better match Anthony's playing, but we started to run out of time with the snows closing in.
Haivng lived with the rough edits of all eight songs for the last four months, I decided that Authbahn needed something else to keep it moving. That something would be a simple melody. To that end, we brought in a flute player today. Rob Holmes came into to add to the tune. His work went pretty well; he did about five or six takes, with some small course corrections as we went along (mostly due to my poor attempt at charting rather than his playing). Now, we're going to move on to the guitar recalls.
Today, I headed back out to Dragonfly to finish this album, this seemingly never ending album. We have a few things that we need to get done with this session:
I was hoping to track my bass fixes today, but editing took forever. In particular, we had to fix some rhythmic things in Sahara Dance, and they were darn tricky to track down. But we finally got them to a happy place.
Tomorrow, we start the recording in earnest.
Tonight, I headed out to Night Sky Studios to get Anthony down for Snipe Hunting. I was looking forward to this for a while for two reasons -- (1) I like Anthony's playing and I'm thrilled to have him on the album and (2) there are sections of this tune that I've never known what to play, so I'm interested in hearing his take on things.
Man, what a difference it makes to work with a pro. The entire song (with an alternate take or two) done in forty-two minutes. And it's just sick. To be honest, I don't know if I will be able to play his version of it when we go out live, but I'll definitely make the effort.
We were only at it for a few hours today. For the most part, we were just tweaking the songs here and there (fixing a few drum fills, lining up parts a wee bit better). That's the good news. On the not-so-good news part, we are probably going to be postponing the album until early next year.
Autobahn is a strong tune, but it needs a more clearly defined melody. Waiting needs the guitar line done again from scratch. About 50% of my runs are out of key (mostly major penatonics against a minor key). So, we need to do quite a bit more before it's ready to go out the door.
We've worked over Robert Frost for about the last two hours. To be honest, neither one of us have any idea if this song is done or not. To me, this is the weakest tune on the album. There's not as much there there as needs be. But, the clock on the wall says this is a good mix.
We didn't around to Snipe Hunting, though. So, it looks like I'm going to be coming back to the studio on Friday to finish things out.
It's got a few performance problems (mostly mine, as it turns out), but this one is probably one of the better songs on the album with regards to self policiing dynamics and such. In any case, it's done, and with a minimum of edits.
It's only taken about two hours, but I think that we're done with Sahara Dance. The hardest part about this mix was the guitar lines -- we had a few different takes to pick from, none of which really agreed with each other. So, in the end, we built the rhythm track out of other parts (cut/paste) and then took the lead line and ran it through a pitch shifter to give it a more Middle Eastern feel.
I think that we're as done as we're going to be on Waiting. Jeez, if there wasn't a lot of cleaning up that had to happen. First, the drums and guitar are rather varied in their rhythmic placements. Then, there's the small detail that there are two guitar tracks which are 85% the same. There's just the small wrinkle that a good run is in take 1 but not in take 2. And vice versa. The two tracks do sound pretty good together, so we're going to leave them both in (sort of a natural delay effect).
We also couldn't use most of the percussion tracks that we had. There was too much ambient noise for it to survive. Fro a bit, I thought that we might be able to use the noise as an effect (kind of a wind-ish sound), but there was too much human noise (clothes rustling, bleed over from the headphones) for us to get away with that.
After listening to the reference mixes last night, we have quite a few changes to make. The chords in Autobahn are too cutting; they need tobe brought back. Brazilian needs some volume changes and the ending chords may require a retake. Soho only has two changes -- the ending trill on the bass solo needs more oomph and there's a snare hit that's completely not there.
We've done a fair amount of tweaking and balancing with the tune, but I think that Autobahn is nearing completion. As it turns out, it's a pretty bass heavy tune. There's not a lot of guitar in the song to carry the melody, so I'm pretty much the show. That probably needs to be changed (although you might say it's a wee bit on the late side for that observation), but we'll do that at a later date.
The main thing for Soho was cleaning up the various guitar tracks and tweaking the volume levels of the bass. This was mostly because Scott had worked some editing on the track last month. I'm not sure if we're all the way done, but were going to move on for now.
So, maybe the best time to work on the slowest song of the album is not immediately after eating a truckload of sushi. Rather than risking nacrolepsy, we're going to move on to Soho.
We've spent the most time on Brazilian so far, but that's with good reason. Of all the tunes on the album, Brazilian and Waiting are probably the most commerically accessible. So, it makes sense to spend more time on them. Now, we'll get some of the easier ones out of the way, like Robert Frost and Soho.
We've added a bit of verb to the bass to soften it up in the mix, and then we plowed through the percussion parts (almost all of the shaker has fallen to the wayside, and a lot of the cabasa had to be doctored). We're pretty much done with the first track (and it only took four hours! Yippee!). Time to break for food.
We're working on final run through with Brazilian. The guitars have some delay and verb on them, and they sound good and alive. The drums are pretty good; the room's natural feel comes through. The bass, on the other hand, is pretty flat. It almost sounds like we're in different rooms.
After a month off, we're back in the studio to do the mixdown and mastering. We're going to start off with Brazilian, working on getting the EQs set, the right effects applied to the right instrument at the right time and (of course) the ever-so-humbling efforts of making all the notes line up in time.
As it turns out, the bass tracks weren't as far off as we had first feared. Scott pulled out AutoTune and ran it across my tracks. There were more than a few notes that were off by a semitone or two (man, is that ever humbling), but we decided that the notes were either in the realm of things we can live with or they were something that we'll just AutoTune back into place.
So, that wraps it up for the recording phase of the project. Mixing to follow in about a month or so.
Brett's just finished the hand percussion tracks -- we did Brazilian, Autobahn and the intro to Waiting For Rain. That's the good news. The bad news is that Scott wandered in during the recording of Autobahn looked at me and said, "I think that the E string is flat on this take." That's the good thing about fresh ears. In any case, I get to do two parts of the tune all over again.
After we had all finished what we were going to do, we sat through and fine tooth combed all eight of the songs, one after the other, looking for anything that was so unacceptable it would require immediate attention. Two more bass punches surfaced, as well as quite a few cut and pastes. But, for better or worse, the songs are done. We're going to start to work on the hand percussion for a few tunes (Autobahn, Brazilian Cafe and Waiting For Rain).
Shahin has made his round of patches and I found two more boo-boos, and now we're going to go over the very rough mixes and determine if there is anything else that we just can't stand to have in the songs.
I'm really starting to not like these tunes anymore.
After we finished editing Waiting, Shahin left to take a break and grab lunch. I went back and finished all my punches and corrections, so I'm done with bass tracks for this album, for better or worse.
We've finished tracking the guitar line for Waiting; now it's time to edit it together. We are going to keep the intro from last month and paste in the rest of the parts all around the new track.
Shahin has finished up his takes on Soho, and now we're retracking Waiting For Rain. When I was going through the roughs last night, there were enough problems with it to justify a complete retake. We're having some issues with getting good takes down, so we're going to try breaking the part into rhythm and melody, tracking each seperately.
Since we had a short day yesterday, we tried to get an early start of things today. I got a copy of all the rough mixes last night and spent about an hour or two going over them, making notes of the parts that need work.
This morning, Pedro and I worked on cleaning up the bassline for Brazilian; there are still one or two futzes in it, but I can live with the end result.
Shahin's out in the main room right now, working on getting the rhythm tracks for Soho. Once we get this, we'll move onto the melody line.
Shahin had just finished laying down his final take of Snipe and he was walking back into the control room to hear how the rough cut sounds when the power went out. Actually, the entire section of Haymarket lost power for some godforsaken reason. We hung around for a bit, trading stories and talking about what to do next before finally calling it for the day.
The good news is that I will be on time to make my pickup at DCA. The bad news is that tomorrow is going to be rather long day.
Snipe Hunting has been going well. Shahin's energy is back, and we've got some pretty good takes. There's a small problem with the first B section, and I understand why it's there. Shahin's having problems playing the chords strongly and then moving to where the fills are. So, now we're just going to get the chords by themselves and then paste them together in post.
Shahin is out in the main room working on Soho. It's not going as easily as any of us had expected. In fact, after about a dozen takes, we only have about half of a take that is usable. For some reason, the energy just isn't there.
So, rather than continuing to try and beat a dead horse, we're going to move on to Snipe.
Red Leaves is pretty much in the can. Shahin is trying to do a hyper quick run for the intro of the tune, but it's looking like it's just not going to happen.
-- Update --
Nope, spoke too soon. It took a more than one or two tries, but Shahin finally got all three of the intro runs down.
The melody piece was mostly a two taker. What's been taking the most time with the guitar tracks this time around are the syncopatied stops at the end, as well as the final guitar run. We did about fifteen takes of the outro stops and maybe a dozen of the final run, but the result sounds pretty good.
Shahin's completed his rhythm track for Brazilian. We switched through different guitars two or three times before we found the one with the best bite. The main guitar that Shahin uses for the melody is a warmer, darker sounding guitar, so Scott and I talked about using a lighter guitar that has more high end for the rhythm tracks. Now, we're going to try and get the lead track solidified.
After a decent night's sleep, we're going to try and get the guitar tracks today. Last night, Shahin got a first try at the melody line for Brazilian, so we're going to try and finish that out, add some rhythm chording and maybe put a small harmony line in the second A section.
I pretty much remembered most of it. Which is a relief, as it was only about four weeks ago that I got down on disk. No punches this time, just three takes with cut and pastes as needed. Now Shahin's up on deck. I think he's going to start off with Brazilian.
We pretty much two taked Autobahn. So now I have to see if I can remember how to play the part that I did a scant month ago.
Brett has pulled Robert Frost out in two takes and two punches, so it's on to Rain.
And there's a snag. While listening to Brett trying to redo his part on Autobahn, I noticed that all three of us get way, way off the click around measure #116. We get off so much that I'm going to scrap that back half of the song for all three of us -- so we all get to redo that part.
While this sucks, at least we caught it now, rather than during the mixdown. Rather than stopping to wire all of us up, we're going to press on with the drum lines. I think that Robert Frost is up now.
We've decided to retrack the drum lines for the other three songs from last month. Brett's in the room right now working on his part right now.
Sorry that I haven't been reporting this morning, but I've been doing my tracks all day today. Soho went pretty easily -- it's an easy song that I've played quite a few times, and I knocked it off in about five or six takes (hey, it takes me a few times to warm up), with maybe three or four punch-ins.
Brazilian was quite a bit harder. The main sections I nailed pretty much on the first try, but it was all the fills and the syncopatied breaks with the drum kit that was a bit challenging. I think that one was about 8 takes and a half dozen punches.
Red Leaves was every bit the abyssmal mess I expected it to be. Two freaking hours on it -- something like 25 takes. Basically, the way I have been playing the A section live was to thump a bit and then do about 5 plucks right in a row. I've been able to get away with it live because the whole thing goes by so quickly that no one really notices. No such luck with a recording -- all the glaring deficiencies are there for everyone to hear.
So, we took several takes with me trying to get the pluck in, and then I decided to simplify the line. Pedro suggested changing the second quarter of the section, and then I worked on a new first quarter. It's a much simplier line, and now it allows the song to breathe better. It freaking better, after that many tries.
No good for my ego, you have to understand.
We only have thirty minutes left on the day, so we are going to try and get a run through of Shahin on Snipe Hunting. We've been talking about getting another bass player to guest on this tune, so if we get Brett's and Shahin's pieces down, then we as group will be finished with this piece. We don't have much chance of this, but we can take a stab at it.
-- Update --
The one time through didn't really work, so we're going to call it for the evening.
When I went through the rough mix of last month's work, the part most in need of work was the drum line for Sahara Dance -- there are a few parts where the line gets a wee bit sloppy or a flam or two is a bit hesitant. Brett's out in the main room right now, working on nailing the retake.
-- Update --
On the second try, we got a good take that only needed one punch and one cut and paste.
All in all, this has been a very good drum day.
In what has to be record time for us, all of the drum tracks for the new songs are complete. I think we're going to take a short break and then try to retrack one or two of the tunes from last month.
We've taken something like ten to fifteen takes, and none of them are working all that well. One of the little details about this composition is that the pace changes about four times (104 bpm to 120 to 114 and back to 120). Throw in the timeliness issues that we had experienced before, and the idea of trying to play to a varing click was probably too much to try to swing. So, we work with the click for the first 15 measures and then wing it from there on out.
The downside of this approach is that we have to get the complete take right. We can't cut and paste from another section, since there is virtually no chance of the other take being at the exact same tempo and phrasing. So, this adds a fair amount of pressure to each performance.
We went through the song about ten or fourteen times, each time getting a little more stressed. This is a hard enough song all on it's own -- it's easily the most complex tune we have on the list. To say it's been a challenge doesn't quite cover the bases.
Right now, I'm listening to the drum tracks for Brazilian Cafe. This is one of our more syncopatied tunes (along with Red Leaves). As far as I can tell, the very first take that we did was the best one. Each one has had it's problems ever since that one, so this is probably the one that we are going to use.
And we've now finished the percussion track for Snipe Hunting. It only took a few takes. We had a couple of whiffs, but the fifth take was almost a completely perfect one from Brett. We just took the intro piece from the 8th run and pasted into the start, and that one's in the can.
It's been about five takes, but I think that we have a pretty workable drumline to Soho. The last of the bunch feels to best, but there's a itsy-bitsy problem with the final drum break. Brett's out in the room, trying to punch in the part.
To be honest, I've been pleasantly surprised with Brett's improvement. We're still wandering a bit off the click, but it never strays far and never for long. The overall feel is much better than the last time around.
This happened the last time as well. Both of the engineers are out in the main room, working with Brett on his kit and his sound. The previous time we were out here, both Scott and Pedro offered some advice and tutelage to Brett. For the most part, he sort of listened, but didn't change all that much. I think his response was to downplay their comments on the grounds that a) Brett's not a pro and b) they don't really know this kind of music anyway.
To a degree, I can understand this -- when studying with Anthony on Tuesday, I figured out that my right hand articulation isn't sufficiently clean. Instead, I've been using hammer ons as a crutch to get around my speed issues. I know that I should work on this, but I decided not to do so with a studio date just around the corner. Once we're done here, I'm going to spend a lot of time on my right hand, but I don't want to risk worsening my already paltry playing when it's been good enough to get me here.
Having said that, though, I think it's a bit of waste to dismiss their comments. Regardless of their knowledge with this particular genre, comments about drum kit setup, timeliness and general musicianship really shouldn't be discounted. These guys are pretty good at what they do -- particularly Scott. It's my thought to drain as much knowledge from these guys as I can (without being a jerk about it) while I'm here.
I'm just hoping things will be better this time around.
While Brett and Shahin were setting up Brett's kit, I've been taking a listen to the rough mixes of the last time we were here. On first blush, it's better than I had been expecting -- I have about a half a page of corrections that need to be made, half a page of editting/mixing changes that are needed and a quarter page of whining about the performances. Hopefully, we'll have some spare time on this go 'round, and we can try to fix some of the performances. Otherwise, we're going to have to do call backs during the mixdown.
To finish out this round of time in the studio, Brett is in the main room working on a congo piece for Autobahn. Hopefully, it will help add some drive and energy to the tune.
One of the things uncovered during Shahin's tracking was a problem with my solo during Sahara Dance. From 9-12 (of a 16 bar solo), I went fairly low on the neck -- like in the low G range (3 fret, E string). It sounded decent enough when I was by myself and Shahin's scratch track was way in the background. However, once Shahin's real take entered in the mix, the low stuff during my solo really muddied the waters.
I went back and punched in the last half of the solo (since 13-16 built on 9-12). To tell the truth, the newer version of the solo is better than what I had before. Previously, I was starting to run out of ideas, and I was going with a more or less Western sounding solo. This time, it has a significantly more Middle Eastern feel to it. All in all, I'm much more satisified with the solo.
We've had a few more patches and punches to Shahin's stuff. Part of Robert Frost needed some more melody, and a segment of Autobahn need some rhythmic changes. Both of the songs should be stronger now, though.
In my absence, Shahin and Pedro have almost finished the other three tunes. They're working on finishing Sahara Dance right now. According to Pedro, Autobahn and Robert Frost were one takes. We'll need to go back over them and make sure that everything is okay, and then get another take regardless.
The idea here is (basically) more is better. Since we're not pressed for time (Shahin the machine strikes again!), I'd rather have more available options for when we go to editing. No one is completely perfect and having at least two different F# notes to pick from can only be a good thing.
Shahin has been out in the main room for about an hour, working on his tracks (the idea being to play in the same room as the drums with the same ambiance). He's gone through Rain a few times, and now we're working on some effects pieces (playing the C section with a bit more aggression to up the energy and that sort of thing). I have to leave to attend a business meeting (day job and all), but I'll be returning later to see how things are going.
After two hours, five takes (the first two didn't really count -- I was still waking up) and six punches (three fretted notes and three different segments in the solo), I'm finally done. I'm still not all that thrilled with my solo in Sahara, but I can live with it.
"Living with it" has been one of the guiding principles of this studio session. This is not a release for a major album or a setup for label interest. So, perfection is not required. We're just trying to get it good enough and clean enough to release it to the public without having to hide our faces.
After I finally finished tracking Robert Frost, Scott came back in and listened to the drums and bass together. When we laid down the drum track this morning, there were a few places where the track gets on and off the click. At the time, we acknowledged it, and then moved on, thinking that it was good enough.
Unfortunately, marrying the existing drum track with the new bass track made the anomolies in the drum line stand out. So, Brett got back behind the kit and started to play, listening to both the click and my track in his cans. It's taken a bit of time, but I think the drum part is much stronger than the previous one, more in line with the rest of the tune.
I've finally finished Autobahn -- I got a pretty decent finish to the solo -- and then it was time to move on to Robert Frost (the idea being that I could knock it out relatively quickly, take a stab at Sahara and then pick up whatever was left over in the morning). That was the original plan. However, Robert took a bit longer than I had expected.
The way I'm being recorded this time (at least, this is the way that seems to work best) is that I play the song three times: the first time, I'm remembering how to play all the parts, the second time, I'm getting the feel down, and the third time is about 90% right. After that, we go back and clean up as needed (working on fills, cleaning up some fret buzz, that sort of thing).
The crimp in the plan comes with the way I'm playing Frost. It's a pretty straight ahead, mainstream (almost pop-ish) tune for about the first ninety seconds or so. Then, I start arpeggiating the chords and pretty much keep that up for the rest of the tune. The consequence of that is the sustaining tones of the chords ring through the changes, making punching in and out rather challenging. In other words, I ended up playing the same few parts over and over.
I've been working on Autobahn for about the last hour. It only took about nine punches, and even with that, I can hear that I need to redo the solo piece (something about playing a major scale in a minor key).
We had a little extra time with Shahin here, so we took a few stabs at the drum tracks for Soho. While I think that we have better versions in us (and we'll probably redo it later), but at least it's on tape as scratch.
It took me three tries and about a half a dozen punches (mostly fills -- not the fill itself, but trying to catch the low F after being high on the neck and making it there strong on the downbeat. I was having some issues), but my part of Waiting For Rain is done. There are some parts that I'm less than thrilled with, but I think it's pretty good.
Shahin's here now, so we're going to go over the recordings we made this morning without him and see how they are or are not going to work.
On my way out to the studio, Shahin rings me up and says that he's going to be a bit late. What was originally expected to be a half hour has turned into (so far) three hours. So, Brett and I have been working, trying to do our best.
And, as things have gone, we have laid the drum tracks for Robert Frost and Sahara Dance. Sahara was particularly hard -- there's so many open spaces where Shahin is soloing for twenty-some odd bars, and it's really easy to get lost. But we eventually got it down.
I think that now we're going to start to lay down some bass tracks on top of the drums stuff we already have.
Man, what a day. First, I was up until 3am or so for the past two days, writing out charts (not for us, but for the engineers. It's hard to keep track of where you are in a song when there isn't any words). Then, I had to get up at 0 dark thirty to make it out to the studio on time. Couple that with a four hour load in/set up window, and a long day is had for all.
I think tomorrow will go better. All three of us will have more sleep, everything will be set up already, and we should have the full ten hours open for work.
The drum track(s) for Autobahn are each about 95%, but none are completely there. So, it's another call for the wizard, and I think we're going to be good with it.
We gone though Autobahn about half a dozen times, and things are almost there. We are consistently rushing the tail of the song ahead of the click track. After we take an earful, we'll decide if another try (or ten) is in order.
We've listened to the drum tracks of Waiting, and it's pretty good. Scott wizarded one section of the piece, and we're good to go. Now, we're moving on to Autobahn.
And we're done with the drum tracks for Waiting For Rain. We've added a new part in the middle (the idea was to break up the sameness of the tune as it exists). While this will hopefully make things go better, it has the side effect of causing Brett to rewrite his drum tracks in the studio. There were some moments of frustration, but we've got a good solid foundation upon which both Shahin and myself can build.
Well, after rebuilding a drum or two, we're still occasionally getting a hint of metal. Hopefully, it will be buried in the mix and no one will notice.
I think it's time to break for lunch.
We got it! It's a loose screw on the inside of the tom. Now, all we have to do is take the drum apart...
After a few hours, we've gotten the drums set up and tuned. Now, we're starting to work on level checks.
As we're working on the low tom, Scott is hearing a faint rattle coming from the drum. We're trying to isolate where it's coming from, but so far not much luck.
So, we're out at the studio, working on loading in and setting up. This is always the part that most frustrates me, so, of course, it's the one of the more crucial stages.
Namely, we are in the midst of setting up the drum kit and configuring the mics. It's so important to get the right placement, but it just takes hours. Hours that cost money, might I add.
The good news is that Brett is working closely with Scott on tuning and set up. Scott has a mountain of experience in general and even more with drums. Hopefully, there's some good pointers being traded out there.
So, in about two weeks, we are going to go into the studio to record. It's either going to be an EP or an LP, we haven't quite decided how deep our pocketbooks are as of right now. But more to come on this soon.
After a long day at work (nothing quite like three or four interviews to just make the day fly by), I headed back out to the studio for today's vocal work. Nick and Mike were going out at noon to finish up the guitar tracks from the night before, and then switch over to vocals.
As I walked in, Nick was walking around the control room, singing to himself as the music tracks played in the background. He would go through a verse and a chorus, then start over. So it would seem that the guitar parts were done and now they were getting ready to do the vocal tracks.
Mike was on the couch, and he let me know that the three of them had been working on the lyrics and melody pretty much all day, to the exclusion of the guitar parts. Scott did make a few edits on the supporting track (evening out the snare hits, modifying my sixteenth notes in the chorus to use a segment I had laid down with a more even attack).
I really couldn't hear what Nick was singing all that well for the first part of the night; the backing music was up fairly loud and he was singing mostly to himself and Scott. After a while, I was able to pick out what he was doing, and I think that it works pretty well with the song. As I usually do with the vocal line in these situations, I tried to find harmonies that would work for the song (both the placement of the notes as well as the pitches themselves).
After a few more rounds of practices and tweaking the line, we broke for dinner. I had grabbed some food on my way in, so we sat around the couch, munching on burgers and talking shop. Scott was telling us stories about some of his experiences on the road, as well as some of what his clients have been through (both in the studio and afterwards).
Back to the singing, though. Nick practiced it a few more times. It was getting kind of late, so the decision was made to scrap trying to lay down the vocal track for keeps; rather, Nick went into the booth, warmed up a bit, and then put a scratch vocal to tape (or, to disk, I suppose I should say for accuracy).
We'll be heading back to the studio in a few weeks to round out the vocals as well as tweak any instruments still needed. Scott is getting married this weekend (congratulations again, Scott!), so any recording is going to have to wait until he gets back (for obvious reasons).
After rehearsal, I headed back out to the studio to listen to the song after a few hours of activity. The structure of the song hadn't changed (I had thought that it might in some small fashion), and Nick was working on the guitar lines.
I noticed that the syncopated bass lines had been tossed in favor of the straight-ahead stuff. Not a big surprise; I sort of knew that was going to happen as soon as Scott asked me to record it that way. It better serves the song in the forward motion driving thing. While I thought the syncopation was more interesting, it's probably a bit more at home in a different musical idiom.
When I sat down on the back couch, Nick was working on the guitar line for the bridge section. Listening to the drum and bass tracks while he was working on the part, I was really digging the whole mood of the bridge. Mike's part and my line really have a good feel to it; you really can't help but start nodding your head to the groove. I'd almost like to get a loop of just the two of us (for my own nefarious purposes).
Nick's original bridge line was a fairly spare, open part. I could almost hear a hollow body guitar playing the line in my head as we were rehearsing it. Scott had Nick play the part a little more sparsely then before, and then play it twice (on two different tracks).
Once the second part was recorded, Scott started to timeshift the part around, making the second part begin about two beats behind the first. This led to a sort of echo effect, really thickening out the song as well as adding somewhat of a haunting effect to the tune.
After the idea was more or less established, quite a few more tries were made, adjusting the EQ on the guitar. After that, Scott started to work on mixing effects for the guitar sound. First, a chorus was added to the delayed track. Next, he experimented with a Mu-Tron envelope filter. Scott then decided to add some feedback to the sound, first getting the loopback from the studio monitors and then using a SansAmp to reproduce the feedback loop.
The overall effect was pretty darn cool. The feedback line really cut through everything. Once Nick figured out a melodic way to play the tone, it really heightened the bridge. I still liked the groove feel of it, but now it has a new life.
We broke for the night on that count. Mike and Nick are coming back tomorrow to finish out the guitar parts and then start on vocals. I'll probably head out after work; either to warble through a background part myself or to lend moral support for the one's who do sing.
My apologies to Mr. Van Gogh for the title.
After last night, I knew that I was on deck for the first thing in the morning. No pressure there. I've recorded a bit over the years, but this was my first time with Scott, so I was starting to get nervous even as I went to sleep last night.
The morning didn't start off all that well. Nick called me at 8:44, asking me if I was at the studio yet. I said that I wasn't, we had agreed upon 10am. Nick then pointed out to me the little Daylight Saving Time thing that I completely forgot about. Damn you, Ben Franklin and your 18th century agrarian reforms!!
Anyway, I threw on whatever clothes happened to be laying about, made a pretense at general hygiene, grabbed a hat and bolted out the door. By sheer force of my will (hey, that's what I'm going to credit it to), there were no police officers to witness my sublight travel from Arlington to the studio (normally about a fifty minute trip made in thirty-five or so).
Once I got there, the crew hadn't been at all lazing around. Scott had been doing further edits on Mike's drum track, so things were all set up and ready for me to go. Scott asked me to record in the control room with him. Which was not what I had expected. I had figured I would be out in the main room with my rig. Nope, I got to stand right beside him as I made each and every boo-boo. Accordingly, my level of nervousness kicked up a bit.
I think that one of the reasons why I was a little on edge about playing right beside Scott was that I have never recorded with someone at his level before. Not only is this my first time working with a new engineer/producer, but Mr. Spelbring is a pretty darn serious, big leagues kind of guy. I was feeling a lot of pressure, a good bit of which was probably self induced.
We went around the tune about three or four times, just to reacquaint myself with the song and the structure. I was feeling pretty confident about how I was going to be playing this one; just trying to get something solid and driving, a good foundation for the tune. Nothing particularly flashy, no swinging for the fences, no "see-how-good-I-am" runs (aka showing off). Simply aiming at getting a quality, driving/grooving track down.
Once we started to record, I started abandoning some of my techniques that I had been doing during rehearsal, trying to simplify my line to better serve the music. As an example, I had been doing a thumb trill at the end of the bridge. I think that it sounded pretty good, but my dynamics were too sloppy to really have it work well (particularly at the end of the run). So, I changed it to using fingerstyle instead, so I could have more control over the volume level.
Scott also had a few tweaks for me. He wanted me to double up the percussion accents in the outro, as well as playing a more straight ahead rhythm in the verses (I had been playing a pretty syncopaited rhythm to back up the guitar part) as an alternate take. But that was pretty much it, other than boo-boo catches (I whiffed a note or two during some of the transition runs) and a few more performance tips.
All in all, I played through the part about fifteen or so times. Of those tries, Scott kept about six tracks. None of the tracks were perfect, but he thought he had enough quality material from which he could ProTool a good result. My total time on the chopping block was about an hour and fifteen minutes.
I think that I could have probably done better; I know that I didn't play as many notes anywhere near as cleanly as I would have liked to, but I'm not altogether unhappy about my performance. I think it will sound pretty good when it's all said and done.
So after Mike finished working out his part, we finally got to start laying down tracks. Or, to be more accurate, Mike got to lay down tracks.
I have a lot of sympathy for Mike's job (or any other drummer, for that matter). There are all these mikes around, so if you wiff a snare shot, all the other live mikes will pick it up. Consequently, any single mistake requires a retake.
Mike went in and played around a few times. Then we started rolling tape. Mike got down about six or so versions of the tune, and then he went back and laid down (in isolation) some of the fills and riffs he was doing in various places.
Then the real fun began. Scott went through all of the takes, taking sections from each version depending on which one had the better feel. He edited the segments together into a cohesive whole. Once that was done, he just about went note by note, massaging each note to make sure that it was exactly in the right rhythmic place (but only when necessary). This process took quite a bit of time and was rather painstaking.
If someone would have told me that part of becoming a musician would have involved getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays, I would have laughed in their face. Silly me for thinking that.
Today, we got out here and started going over the same song from the night before. After going through it a few times (to remember what we were doing last night), we started to work on the tune again. The pre-chorus wasn't really flowing with the song, so we decided to chuck it. To extend the length of the tune, we're going to double run the last chorus instead.
After this, it was time to introduce the click track. Of course, the initial run caused as many problems as it solved, until we all found our balance between the click and the mix of everyone else. Once that was solved, the correct tempo had to be found. As it would just so happen to be, 93 BPM was pretty much spot on. Coincidently, that was Scott's suggestion.
Once the structure and tempo were settled and we were all feeling pretty good about things, Scott and Mike sat down and had the final run through with tweaks. Scott wanted more fills to mark the turnarounds between sections, as well as one or two other changes.
So, Mike's out in the room right now, trying to work in the changes while keeping the tune otherwise intact.
My, my, my, this has been a long day. It's been about eight or nine of hours of pretty continuous playing.
Here's my understanding of the situation. Nick sent Scott a rough copy of the song on which he was working (it was previously titled Party Girl). Scott liked the overall tune, but wanted to change some aspects of the song. So we have been reworking the tune, spending the better part of four hours playing and replaying the piece, reworking the tune, rewriting parts and restructuring the music. Once we had more or less done that, we basically rehearsed the song nearly continuously for the next five hours. No recording (at least, no recording for release, just something scratch to listen to overnight).
For those who like math, the tune is about 3:15 seconds long. You can safely assume that we discussed, argued, cajoled and generally complained about the song for another three minutes or so each time around. Call it six minutes per go 'round. We played this song for about eight or nine hours. So, as a ballpark estimate, we played the same song for 80, 90 times.
This might sound like I'm complaining. Actually, I'm not. This is pretty lightweight for a serious recording session. There's a reason why it takes months and months for some artists to produce an commercial album.
I've done a fair bit of recording in the last few years, but most of it has been in little Mom&Pop studios. Working with Scott is definitely a rather large step up. I'm just hoping that I'm up to the challenge.
And what challenge might that be, you may be asking? Well, one of the reasons why it took five hours to rehearse is that Scott can be very picky about the playing. He regularly went over every section -- almost every note -- critiquing performances. I understand why he was doing this; he's attempting to get the best possible performance out of each of us, while trying to direct the focus of the song towards a commercially viable product.
So tomorrow's my turn. Should be fun. When we get in, we'll go over it a few more times to make sure that we haven't forgotten anything and then hopefully lay down the drum tracks. Then, it's my turn on the hot seat.
Sorry for not getting back to everyone sooner, but it's been both a busy morning and a boring one -- all at the same time.
I got here on time, but some of the other members of the band were held up in traffic (which has happened to me on more than one occasion, so I completely understand). Scott and I did some minor setup stuff, and we talked about music and recording while he positioned the microphones around the drum kit. Scott's a good guy with an interesting history; played drums for a few national tours, recorded lots and lots of people, worked with the music industry at AOL. And, as it turns out, he knows Rich from JoS. The music business really is a place where personal connection are probably more key to success than anything else.
After Nick and Mike arrived, quite a bit of time was spent tweaking and dialing in the drum sound. Nick and I chatted about some of the songs that we are going to record, as well as going over some possible ideas for vocal harmonies. Outside of that, I'm spending as much time with Scott as I can, trying to learn things about producing, engineering and mixing. He's very approachable and easy to talk with (always a plus).
I decided to head on up to DragonFly East to do load in tonight rather than waiting until tomorrow morning. My thinking was to go ahead and take care of the stress and drudge of muscling around the gear so I could show up tomorrow morning and focus strictly on turning in the best performance possible.
Having never been to this studio before, it was a bit of hike to get there. I'm glad it's not winter and there isn't any snow on the ground; the driveway to the studio is rather winding with something like a 30° angle. But it's secluded and private.
The facility itself is pretty darn nice. Several iso rooms, all the rooms appointed with slate and wood for what should be a good warm response.
Scott also seemed to be a pretty nice guy. We didnt' get to talk for much, though. He was working with Nick to track a scratch guitar line for a new tune.
After finally finishing up recording all the tracks, Chris and I sat in the control room to do a spot check and really rough mixdown of the four songs. Aref sat in as well. This was actually a pretty short mixdown -- none of us intended this to be the final cut. I just wanted a copy that I could take with me to listen to a whole bunch of times and make notes on what I wanted to do when we regroup for the formal mixdown. Still, he and I did some small tweaking as we went and made a few notes for the next time. Chris had tweaked the mix for Waiting For Rain the night before on his own, and it already set up pretty well.
Afterwards, we went out into Aref's car and plopped in the CD to take a listen on normal speakers -- listening to a mix through studio monitors is a bit deceptive. The sound coming from a monitor set is so pure that you can hear everything exactly as it is recorded (which is what you want when your working on the mix). However, most people don't listen to music through studio monitors. The natural coloration of average speakers needs to be taken into account when mixing down tracks.
Things sounded really boomy and bass heavy, but I think that might just be Aref's settings. I'll be listening to the disc quite a few times through several different systems to try and get a good feel on what's going on.
We regrouped at 1:30, did some warming up and started laying down tracks at 2pm. The first two tries were flubs. Not surprising, as we are still warming up. The third one, however, was pretty good. After we were done tracking, we all went into the control room to take a listen. We did quite a bit of wincing and questioning looks: There are some problems with this take (I can think of three or four boo-boos of mine just off the top of my head), but we collectively decided that this take was good enough.
To be honest, I would have rather gone back and punched in to fix some of those problems, but we are starting to come to the end of our budget and the issues weren't big enough. It'll bother me -- it will bother me every single time I hear it. But the whole point of this exercise is to put together a demo that we can take to bars and restaurants to get work. Once we get work, we can put it into a more polished product that won't have me wincing every thirty seconds.
It's 1am, and I'm just now leaving the studio. We've retracked Soho I don't know how many times -- I lost count somewhere around fourteen or so. Nothing was working right; if Brett had a good solo, then I flubbed mine. Or if I nailed mine to the wall, Aref whiffed his. Or some other combination. Quite frustrating, if you must know.
I going to make the prediction that Soho will not survive in it's present incarnation for too much longer; the arrangement is very busy, and I think that some of the musicianship is getting lost in the mix. I know that Brett is playing a pretty darn complex drum line, and Aref and Shahin are really taking their guitars to task. I'm struggling to hold back and give everyone else room to breathe so they can play without tripping on me.
In any case, we decided to pull the plug on the evening and revisit the song tomorrow. Hopefully a night of sleep will allow us to come at the tune fresh.
After tracking all four songs, we went into the control room to take a earful of what we've done so far.
Faena was acceptable, and Persian Ballad was probably as good as we are going to do. Waiting For Rain came out pretty well.
Soho, on the other hand, was a bloody mess. Brett was right: the start is an irredeemable mess. The guitars never came in right, and the drum intro doesn't mesh with Shahin's rhythm. We got Chris to try and futz around with it for a bit, but after thirty minutes of his effort, we decided to just re-record it.
Our last song for this studio session is the Gipsy Kings song Faena. The original is a pretty song, and this isone that we are all pretty familiar with. Neither the drum nor the bass line is all that complex.
We got this one on the third take. It was probably too fast (well, it was way too fast for my own personal taste), but that's just me. I can live with the recording, because there were some good performances otherwise -- Aref in particular. I completely whiffed a chord change, so I picked up the first punch-in of the day.
For this tune, I decided to go with my Ibanez Acoustic. I wanted to have the warmth of the acoustic bass along with the extended range of the low B string.
After getting back from din-din, we tackled Persian Ballad. It's my understanding that this tune is actually a traditional Persian song that we are just doing as an instrumental. It's pretty enough, but kind of boring (at least from a rhythm section perspective).
After three takes, things just aren't gelling. Nothing major, just quite a few boo-boos. The fourth take was almost perfect. We each clicked with each other and the music just flowed. It's not perfect by any means, but more than sufficient for our purposes.
I decided to go with my Kubicki for this one. Not because I wanted the fretless "Mmph-wah" sound, but because the mellow tone of the electronics. It fits nicely between what Aref and Shahin are both playing for this tune.
Over dinner, Brett kept expressing his displeasure in the way that Soho had come together. He didn't like the drum lead-in, nor the opening start, saying that we needed to be together. His preference was to retrack the tune as soon as we got back to the studio. I suggested that we get through the other two songs and then revisit as needed.
After Brett and I finished up the rhythm tracks for both the songs (so far), Aref and Shahin took their turn at laying down the melody tracks.
Waiting For Rain went pretty well. Shahin got his track in one, while Aref retracked his solo.
Soho was another story. The opening of the song has both Aref and Shahin playing on their own for four measures. That's a long time for the two of them to keep on meter without having any other instrumentation to try and help them out. We spent quite a few takes trying to get them to come in at the right place. After a while, we figured out that the count we used at the outset was different than what we used when got four bars into the tune (which might give you an insight into how off tempo two melody players can get in a short period of time). Instead of being four even beats, it was more like 3.75 beats. After about three or four tries, we had something that was good enough, and we broke for dinner.
Recording the bass and drums separately worked so well for Soho that we decided to revisit Waiting For Rain using the same technique.
Brett and I knocked out WfR in two tries.
Next on the list is Soho. This is one of our more complex tunes. The blocking is still not quite worked out, and it showed. We spent a lot of time trying to figure who was playing what when. Not the most efficient use of studio time. After six takes with not much to show for it, we took a break.
After ten minutes of walking around outside and just resting, Chris had the idea that Brett and I would lay down rhythm tracks, and then Aref and Shahin could go back and redo their guitar lines afterwards. The concept was that Brett and I were having problems picking out our own work from the mix -- both the guitars and Shahin's synth patch were really overpowering the drums and the bass in the headphones.
So we redid Soho with the drums and bass high up in the mix. Aref and Shahin played, but mostly so that Brett and I could keep track of where we were in the song. It really made a difference; Brett and I nailed it in one. To be honest, my solo was one of the best I've recorded in quite some time.
This is another tune that I used the Fodera. Aref wanted a fairly funky bass line, and that almost always means the Fodera. I rolled the pickups back towards the bridge, scooped out the mids and reset the Ampeg to a shallower parameteric curve.
We decided to lead off with Waiting For Rain. Of the four songs, this is most upbeat one with which we are most familiar. We played through three times, and Aref's solo is kind of weak. I think he just hasn't gotten warmed up just yet. One more take, and then we're going to go on to the next song.
I decided to use my Fodera on this one; this is a song with a driving, pulsating beat. I wanted the Fodera to give that clean sound that I like so much.
The four of us got to the studio around 12pm or so. We loaded in (very steep stairs, not a lot of headroom), and it took quite a bit more time than it probably should have. After getting the rigs and gear physically loaded in, we configured the mics, took a few basic level checks and then got ready to do some tunes.
Chris and I talked about how we were going to set up for the sound. We put a DI in between my guitar and the head, and then a mike in front of the cabinet (in this case, a Peavey 4x10 from the studio). I haven't been a big fan of Peavey gear for a long time, but this cabinet sounds really good. Surprisingly so.
Brett's drums would be miked with a stereo overhead, directional mikes at the toms and each side of the kit, one on the snare, one on the hi-hat, a big ol' mike in the kick, and then one overtop and another underneath the congos/bongos. Aref and Shahin had their guitars directly miked just to the front of their sound hole, with Shahin's MIDI outs running directly into the board.
Anthony and I had talked about me borrowing on of his basses (his six string fretless)for today's festivities, but I think I've decided against it. The main reason is that I'm not at all familiar with his guitar. Normally, not a big deal, but fretless basses demand pretty precise intonation, and I'd hate to be paying studio time while I curse myself for hitting the G a few semitones sharp for the 83rd time.
The usual timing variations that exist in most music (the guitarist is a little ahead of the bass player who's a little behind the drummer) works well enough in live situations when everyone can be in contact with each other (that contact should keep each other from running too far away from one another). This doesn't fly in a studio situation.
Recording in a studio is far more stressful than playing out live. If you screw up (okay, to be a bit more accurate, when you screw up), no one else other than the people in the audience might be aware of it, and then only if they are paying attention. Even if they are paying attention, they can't go back and try to catch the boo-boo again. Making an album changes that; everyone who listens will be able to catch every mistake made, no matter how large or small. And not only will they hear it, they'll get the golden opportunity to hear it again and again. And since the cliché is true -- no one is a harsher critic than yourself -- when recording, there is an acute awareness of any error whatsoever.
So, in a studio situation, there's lots of stress and pressure and emotions tend to run high (particularly after re-recording the same f-in' song for the seventeenth time). Any natural meter variations that might have already existed between the members of the band will only be exacerbated. Couple that with isolation rooms and the odds of the band staying together quickly decrease. And if the music lines are rhythmically complex in anyway, then things fall apart in very short order.
As a quick digression, when playing in a studio, it's common to have the different members of the band in completely separate rooms (to isolate one person's sound from anothers'). All in all a good thing, as it allows one musician to go back and clean up a flubbed note without affecting any other instruments in the song.
As you might guess, keeping everyone together during a recording can be a challenge. One of the most common ways to do this is to pump a click track into everyone's headphones so they can hear a clear deliniation as to where the beats are at any given time. Most click tracks are produced by an electronic metronome that has some kind of output that can be processed as a signal.
Two primary purposes are met with a click track. Everyone stays together (or close to being together) and a consistent meter allows for a musician to revisit a part and be able to pick up the beat very quickly.
The first time a musician plays with a click track can be rather embarassing. No matter how good someone's internal metronome is, a machine never fails. If there's anything I can suggest to people who are preparing to enter the studio, if you are planning on using a click track, practice with a loud metronome a few times before you walk in the door. It's much cheaper to be flustered at home than at fifty dollars an hour (if not much more).
However, click tracks are far more useful than they are annoying. If you do any kind of studio work for any length of time, you will almost certainly encounter the track fairly quickly. Should the recording project be using any kind of sequencer, click tracks are required (to keep everyone in sync with the machine).
Spent most of this weekend in the studio with Douglass and Christine. They wanted a demo CD. The two of them were amazing, particularly for their first time out. They had never been in a studio before and were rather nervous about it. In getting ready, they rehearsed the hell out of their songs. As a result, they showed up and basically did every song in no more than two takes. Most of them were in one. Their scratch track was good enough that a number of bands that I know would have been happy to use that as a working demo. They then went back and redid some parts, punched in on others. Each time, they pretty much got it in one. If you've ever done studio recording before, you can probably appreciate just how uncommon that is.
Just speaking personally/selfishly here, things went pretty well from my point of view. Not the best work I have ever done, but not too bad either. 7 tracks in a little under three hours: 90 minutes doing scratch tracks with all the instrumentation and vocals, 90 more minutes of me listening to what I had played and then either punching in or retaking the entire track. Even with that, I didn't have to redo anything more than twice, and most of them were fine after the first time through the punch-ins/retakes. One of them was just about perfect on the first take, so we took that one. Hopefully, a sample or two should be uploaded before too awfully long.
Maybe this is just is just me, but when I play on other people's CDs (particularly when they are paying me for my time), it's important to me to get it right -- and get it right sooner rather than later. Not only are they paying me for my time, they are paying the studio for the amount of time it takes me to get it right. It's been my policy for a while that if I screw it up four times, then I don't charge any time for that track. (Of course, that's within reason. Complex bass lines will take me more time to get right; it's kind of hard to come in to a studio cold, pick up a strange piece of sheet music that is written with several different time signatures, densely packed rhythms and a few key changes thrown in for good measure, and then nail it in two or three tries. But most songs aren't like that -- I should be able get them pretty quickly.) If I can't, then I don't charge. It's bad enough that a someone has to shell out money to the studio for me to blow the song, trying to learn it on the fly; they shouldn't have to pay me for my own incompetence as well.