Today is a full on summer day!
The kids (along with Ryan’s children) are in
swimsuits jumping on a
trampoline with a sprinkler under it.
They proceed to do this the entire day!
With everyone happily occupied,
Ryan and I can get to work.
At about 10am we start the day with Ryan
finishing up the editing of drum and bass tracks,
while I practice my guitar parts. We will be
attempting to record acoustic guitar and
vocals for 4 songs by the end of today.
Good luck to us!
It is incredibly gorgeous outside, but I’m holed
up in the studio. I get glimpses of the sun
when I step out for a few brief moments.
Erik will be wandering around taking pictures
of me today. I have promised Kickstarter donors
a Limited Edition Signed Studio Session photo,
so he is getting some great shots for that.
Sorry, can't post those yet :-)
Time for guitar tracking!!
Ryan set up a nice little semi-booth
for me to sit in to record -a chair,
baffling and a 3 mic setup.
Guitar Tracking Booth
Mic Setup
So this is how it works –
I am in the tracking room,
and Ryan is in the control room.
I have headphones on, in which I am
hearing the track being played
(as of now consists of drums, bass, acoustic guitar,
and the click) and Ryan’s instructions.
He has an appropriately named “talkback” button
that he must push for me to hear him.
Sometimes he gets pretty talkback happy.
Ryan on his throne
My View From the Tracking Room
So we pick a song, I sit in my chair,
tune my guitar a hundred times,
and play through the song as many times
as necessary to get a good recording.
It took 3-4 times through for each song.
We completed acoustic guitar tracking for
3 songs – “No Going Back”,
“Not Who You Said You Were”, and
“Eyes of a Child”. It was fun to play guitar
without singing – to be able to focus on the
playing only – not something I get to do often.
I get nervous though, playing in front of Ryan.
It’s intimidating because he is SO good.
Oh well…I have to get over it.
Ryan had to edit the guitar tracks to get them
ready for vocals. When he edits the tracks he is making
sure every part sounds good (no mistakes),
and is lined up with the tempo.
I practiced while he spent some time doing this.
I also got a chance to lay out in the sun for a bit,
and I might have fallen asleep.
It was 32 degrees here! Glorious!
Oh, in America that’s about 90.
We didn’t get to vocals until pretty late.
Which is normally good because my voice is
well worn and has a great sound at night,
but if it’s too worn, it won’t last. I started with
“Not Who You Said You Were”. It went great!
I love recording vocals! We also did a couple takes of
“No Going Back”, but decided to wait for another day
because my voice was tired, and we knew we
weren’t going to get the best take out of me.
Finished up about midnight – a little after.
I have no concept of days or times –
everything is running together.
Saving the rest for tomorrow…nighty night!