7/27/09- This past weekend I finally began recording my CD! The first thing that goes on a rock CD is drum set, so that’s what we started with Saturday. Of the 15 songs that will be on the CD, 14 of them have drums, and I got all 14 that day. That’s far more than I have ever done in a day. The Teal Album had 11 songs with drums, but the drums for that CD as well as Heroes and Scoundrels were recorded over two days, so this was unprecedented for me. I had previously decided upon which tempo each song would have, so I showed up with a list of tempos and recorded each song to a click track. I was set up in a room by myself with four microphones around my kit. I basically sang the song to myself and used my imagination as I played it to keep track of where I was. There were times when I would play something I didn’t mean to play and then run into the control room and say “Can you go back about 20 seconds? Yeah, let’s start there.” The highlight of my day was getting a seven-minute cut, an old Various Artists tune called “Fly Forever” which includes a drum solo, in one take. When I began preparing that song a few months ago, I got to the drum solo and thought, “Hey, I’ve got more chops than I had 13 years ago,” so much of the solo was reinvented. Who knows? 13 years from now I may have a mostly reinvented “Golden Vanity” solo….
I went back Sunday afternoon to lay down a few djembe and shaker tracks as well as some disposable guitar and vocal tracks meant only for use in guiding others through the four songs where someone other than me is playing something. Off to a pretty good start I’d say.
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9/16/09- Tonight was bass night. Of the 15 songs on the CD, 14 have bass, and 13 of those are mine. I got all 13 done tonight! We worked quickly and efficiently. Normally when I’ve recorded we’ve listened to the entire track after I’m finished with a take, but time was of the essence, so we plowed on through, only listening to what we needed to. Dolph had me plugged straight into the board and in the same room this time, and I recorded bass tracks over the drum tracks I laid down a couple of months ago. Since I recorded drums and played two solo shows a little more than a month ago, almost all my practice time has been spent playing bass, so I’m glad to have that done. My fingertips almost feel like that of a real bassist! I hope I can still feel the guitar now, because I’m doing my electric guitar parts next time.
I should point out here that before this year I seldom, if ever, wrote songs that took into account the bass part that I, of all people, would eventually be playing on them. For the last several weeks I’ve been paying for that, but given my almost complete lack of experience recording bass (does “Golden Vanity” on the Teal Album count?), I’m pretty happy with what I have now. Believe it or not, one of the more difficult challenges for me tonight was playing “More Time”, a ballad. For someone who doesn’t play bass very much, it can be tough to play a ballad delicately without making harsh, percussive, or flatulent sounds, but I managed to survive that one. “Arizona” will be more of a Hendrix-meets-Chili-Peppers-sounding track, the bass and drums being responsible for the latter, so that bass line was fun. With the recording of the bass part on the Ross Rex theme for the Galaxy Man comic series, all the instrumentation on that track is done, and we even added some voiceover tracks. Harvey Flamholtz, who voices Dr. Ross Rex on the radio dramas, recorded a poem, some maniacal laughter, and other odds and ends from which to choose, and they’re in the track now, so the only part remaining on that one is my vocals. But the best news about tonight occurred to me near the end of the session as we were about record one of many bass punch-ins during the 80′s Metallica-flavored “I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye”. With less than a minute to record before the end of the song and not much more than a recording minute’s worth of life left in my fingers, I realized that I would never play bass on that song again!
As stated before, electric guitar is next, and without making any promises or giving anything more than hints, I’m on track to have all of the vocal and instrumental parts recorded by the end of next month, because all that will be left to do next month is acoustic, vocals, and the manliest of musical instruments- the recorder. So goodbye, bass callouses, and good riddance until/unless I attempt another do-it-all-yourself-cuz-you’re-a-control-freak-and-you’re-cheep solo project.
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10/5/09- Now that I’ve recorded the most sonically complex element (drum set) and the most physically demanding (bass), tonight I moved on to the one which is most foreign to me- the electric guitar. Although I’ve been dabbling in acoustic guitar almost as long as I’ve been playing drums (got more serious about it around this time last year) I am effectively a stranger to the electric. I’ve never recorded it before, I’ve hardly even touched one throughout my life, and I have never even owned one. I recorded tonight on a borrowed electric. It’s quite a bit different than the acoustic. Sure, the notes are in the same place, but everything that distinguishes the electric from the acoustic is brand new and mysterious to me, and I’ve developed a new appreciation for the art of playing it.
First of all, the electric requires a much lighter stroke than the acoustic. They are so much more sensitive than the acoustic. You don’t listen to a metal band and think of them as having to play lighter and use more restraint when they play than an acoustic act, but you cannot approach the two the same way. There were just a few times we had to redo something tonight for the sole reason that I hit too hard and knocked it out of tune. I remember a time three years ago when Dolph, a seasoned and skilled guitarist, heard me playing an acoustic guitar and asked me if I played any electric. I told him, “No, I don’t have enough control for that”, to which he replied “That never stopped me.” Well, tonight it ceased to stop me.
The other main challenge of recording electric was that I am clueless when it comes to those knobs, pedals, and toggle switches and how to get the desired sound out of a guitar and amp. I had to go in tonight with a comparable sound in mind for each of the seven songs I recorded on the electric to at least provide some kind of idea of what I was looking for in a sound. For the two simplest songs, “Somewhere Else” and “Why Can’t I Give Up?” I asked for something mainstream that characterized basic straightforward rock n’ roll, along the lines of AC/DC, which is pretty close to the sound we arrived at. I only intended the former to be a one-guitar song, but we put down a second simpler track to provide a little boost to the main part. For “Arizona” we wound up with a somewhat Hendrix-y sound , which is what I was after for that one. “People Make Mistakes” will be an acoustic-driven song, but to intensify its dark and melancholy flavor we added a supporting electric track that was quite filthy. It added the right kind of contrast between sections of the song, and it was yet another instrument to add to the final chord of the song. We backed off just a little bit on the distortion for “I Don’t Want To Say Goodbye”, although the song is not lacking in it save for one necessary clean-tone section, which we recorded on a separate track. The highlight for me was “Tell You How I Feel”. For weeks I’ve been trying to figure what kind of guitar sound to ask for. Within the last few weeks it has occurred to me while listening to the drums and bass tracks that in some ways the song is reminiscent of early Green Day, and considering that they were still relatively new to the national scene around the time I first conceived of the song, the similarity is likely not coincidental. But the instrumental break in the middle of the song features two melodic contrapuntal guitar parts that chase each other up a scale and then harmonize on long notes, which meant that I needed a sound somewhere between Green Day and…… something unlike Green Day, and from an earlier era, because 90′s bands just didn’t play melodies on the guitar. But what band? I figured it out in the car last week, when I heard four songs in a row by Boston on a radio station in… guess what city? Boston! That’s what I needed! A guitar sound somewhere between Green Day and Boston. I don’t know if that’s exactly what we wound up with, but I was happy with the sound and ecstatic that the instrumental parts in this song that I’ve been hearing together in my head for years and years were now where I could actually hear them together with my ears! We finished tonight with “Fly Forever”, the old Various Artists number. With extended solos on the drums and bass, it needed at least a brief guitar solo, and that’s what it got. I played the same lead several times, providing poor Dolph with a lot of cut and paste to do to comp a solo together. Comping a solo means you put different sections from different takes together and assemble them into the best possible solo. Hopefully with as many takes as I did there’s enough to work with. And it’s okay that we did that because they do that on real electric guitarists too.
I go back to record acoustic guitar later this week, but tomorrow night I’m taking a break from playing the guitar. Gonna go watch The Edge do it instead.
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10/8/09- Acoustic was last night. The stringed instrument most comfortable for me, the one I’ve been playing to some degree more than half my life and used to perform solo. Should be easy, right? Nope. I went in fully aware that recording is a much different animal than playing live, but last night told me a lot about where I really stand as an acoustic guitarist. I began to wonder why I write songs that include B minor chords with as much trouble as I have getting to them from other chords. Also, when I’m playing arpeggios, or broken chords, one string at time rather than strumming I have to hit every single note when recording. When you’re noodling around like that in a live situation it’s okay to miss a string sometimes because the chord is still there, but you can’t leave them out in the studio because those holes are going to drive you batty when you listen to the CD over and over.
We had to do several punch-ins on “People Make Mistakes” because, despite its theme, I didn’t want the guitar noodling to be missing lots of notes. The song is only effective if the musical component is taken seriously. We wound up doing an additional and simpler supporting acoustic track for “Should I Walk Away?” on a guitar with medium strings that as opposed to the light gague strings I had put on my guitar. I had debated what gague of strings to put on. The lighter strings are easier to bend and use melodically, but the mediums stay in tune a little better and are more solid for just playing chords. I also used both guitars on “Too Much Like Me”, for which I had planned to record two guitar parts, but recording with two different guitars for two different roles- a strumming one and a noodling one- seemed to get a favorable result. I stuck with the medium-strung guitar for “Second Avenue Cowboy” and almost got it all in one take. Ah, the magic of studio recording in the digital age…
I go back next week with all my vocals and two acoustic tracks left to record- “That Jolly Guy” and “Days of King Henry”, which prior to last night had received exactly zero attention in the recording process as there are no drums or bass on it. All the work on that one is in later stages. I did, however, make a throwaway recording to a click track so I can keep up with where I am. I will, after all, be playing the same simple progression about twenty times in succession with the occasional stop. But the good news is that I can focus my individual practice on those two songs. It’s also time to start practicing those recorder parts that I wrote out a few months ago.
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10/14/09- If it has strings, I’m done with recording it. I showed up last night with two acoustic tracks left to play. One of them, “That Jolly Guy”, was unique because it has a free-time guitar/vocal introduction, which makes it difficult to record the vocal separately from the guitar, so it was easiest just to record both together. That intro will be superimposed onto a cymbal roll that begins the existing bass and drum tracks, over which I recorded just guitar as the next step in the process. About the time the guitar was finished on that song, the special guests began to arrive.
My old Various Artists bandmate Michael Key, who currently plays bass for Metalsome, the very popular live karaoke cover band, showed up to record on “Fly Forever”, which he penned back in the 90′s and which includes a bass solo before my drum solo. The end result will sound much more like the Various Artists rendition than the Trilobite Cafe version, although I did borrow a few small elements from the latter. When the CD is released it will be the first time his bass and my drums will be publicly heard together in nearly 14 years (and hopefully not the last time). As he was recording, Russ Starrett showed up to record piano on “Should I Walk Away?” Russ played piano when I debuted the song at a cabaret show in February (still had the handwritten chart I drew up back then), and while I hadn’t originally envisioned it as a song that needed piano, his contribution convinced me otherwise. And what he played last night was tasty! Matthew Trautwein was playing lead guitar at the same show and will record that part at his own home studio. I know that will be good too. As long he plays the same first three notes I’ll be very happy. Track 2 on the CD will indeed be a very rich track because of these additions.
Between recording these two tracks I took advantage of the fact that we had four people in the room as we recorded some vocal wintery sound effects for the intro to “That Jolly Guy”. Dolph has a wind sound effect, but I decided it would sound less “stock” if people were doing it. With enough effects, it can sound almost real, so the cheese factor won’t be quite as high. While we were at it, I produced a miniature set of jingle bells and recorded that too. Vocals are now all that song needs.
After the guest stars had left, we recorded guitar on “The Days of King Henry”. Hopefully after two takes of noodling on the same progression twenty times there is enough that can copied and pasted to consitute a listenable track. I latched onto the idea from last week of a supporting guitar track and added one there as well. I used the aforementioned medium-stringed guitar as I found it appropriate not only for its intonation and charming sound but also because I was recording a pub sing-style singalong tribute to 16th century nostalgia, and that guitar- emblazoned with the letters “TQA“- has in fact played many a pub sing south of town in that fantasy world where trick horses are believed to be a better fit than the minstrels who pioneered rock n’roll. Alas. We got a tambourine track for the last few verses as well as some of the recorder.
I’ll go back this week with only vocals and about twenty minutes of recorder tracking left to do. We’re getting there…..
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10/16/09- So today I’m just a little bit hoarse after recording vocals. Last night’s task has been very present on my mind for a while- two weeks ago when I had a voice-suppressing cold and then last week at the U2 concert when I had to hold back from singing at full volume up in the Bono register. I also refrained from eating on the way down after work because I didn’t want takes interrupted by fast food encores.
One thing I made it a point to do was focus on people, places, and events that I haven’t thought about for a long time as I was singing, just to make it more believable. Not always a comfortable thing to do but helpful. I started at the beginning and ran through the vocals in track order:
1. Tell you how I feel
2. Should I walk away?
3. Mornin’ After Mosh Pit Blues
4. Second Avenue Cowboy
5. More Time
6. Why Can’t I Give Up?
7. People Make Mistakes
8. Somewhere Else
9. The Days of King Henry
A harmony vocal here, a doubled lead there during the first eight but it didn’t take all that long to get something workable. By the time I got to “People Make Mistakes” I had already done a lot of singing and by the end of the song the fatigue showed. I wanted to punch in and do the last section over again, but Dolph convinced me that the audible exhaustion was effective and appropriate. “Somewhere Else” is in a lower range, which I needed at that point. The effect of that one will probably be quasi-comedic for most people, since mean is something that I’ve always had trouble convincingly pulling off. Two thirds of the vocals are now done. I know it’s only nine of fifteen songs, but “Days of King Henry” has enough vocals for two songs because not only are there a lot of words (and no I didn’t record the bonus verse), but by the last three choruses there are five vocal tracks going at one time.
Every action has a consequence, and sometimes we have to face our own consequences. The causative action for me was the recorder parts that I wrote for DOKH. While I have long enjoyed the sound of a recorder, in the last couple of weeks I have been reminded of why the recorder evolved into other woodwind instruments. Modern instruments can not only stay in tune more effectively, but they make it much easier for the player to change registers, or move between higher notes and lower notes. On the recorder it is much more difficult to manipulate the air column, and the parts I wrote jump around on the paper. The skill/requirement gap made it necessary to record these parts piecemeal, often punching in to get the problem notes out. Another improvement of modern woodwinds is the ability to play at different dynamic levels. When recording in the digital age one has the ability to control the volume of any sound that is tracked, which is good because some of the low notes would only come out at a barely audible volume, and the highest notes only materialized if I played louder than is appropriate if others are living on the same continent. But recorder is finished. I’m glad I did it because a song with six verses needs as much musical variety as it can get, but I’m glad to have that behind me, and I have new perspective on the phrase “Be a man, Angus! Play recorder!”
I left ravenously hungry but rather satisfied with this project’s progress and with the odds of the December 5 show being what I’m hoping it can be. I’ve got one more recording date next week, and I have the following songs left to sing:
10.Fly Forever- I’ve sung this song more times than all the others put together, shouldn’t be a problem
11. Too Much Like Me- not one to be taken too seriously, although there is one harmony
12. That Jolly Guy- the hardest part of this one, the intro, is already done
13. Ross Rex Theme – a short song with some harmonies, and the middle part of the song is an already-tracked voiceover
14. Arizona- I would have ended with this one last night if we’d had a bit more time, but I may jump ahead in track order next time to make sure it’s done by the time we have the cavalry there to record gang vocals
15. I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye- most of it is in the middle of my range, so it’s okay to do last. There are just a lot of fast-moving words.
As glad as I am to have moved back here in 2005, I must say that Nashville has something Atlanta doesn’t. What Atlanta needs is White Castle. I absolutely would have gone there on the way home, because Krystal just isn’t the same. But their drive-thru was open.
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10/21/09- I’ve now recorded all the tracks I’m going to record for my CD! Does that mean it will be out this time next week? No, because it’s still waiting on a few other tracks that don’t involve me, and once those are in place it all has to get edited, mixed, mastered, and duplicated. But as of earlier tonight everything that involves both me and a microphone is behind me rather than hanging over my head, and I’m very relieved. My goal was to get all the vocals done by the time the posse was to arrive to record gang vocals, and I had it all done. Sure, singing is a very central, exposed part of the album and the one subject to the highest self-criticism. If I had a week to do just vocals I would probably do some more takes, but we have something that I’m willing to release. I continued in track order as previously stated and made it through with time to spare.
During this time we did some clean-up work on some previously recorded tracks as well as some other fun things. When recording “Ross Rex”, Dolph thought we should have a dinosaur sound effect. I committed to hunt for one and send it to him, but he thought of something better. I actually did a dinosaur roar into a microphone, and he changed the pitch and added some effects to it. Doesn’t sound bad. One of my all-time favorite rock songs is Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality”, which includes audio clips from memorable speeches. I took cues, followed suit, and brought in my own sound byte taken from the inspirational climax of one of my favorite political speeches ever given. We stuck it into the most obvious track, which was “Mornin’ After Mosh Pit Blues.”
Soon we were joined by Josh, my best friend of 23 years, who has already done a lot of behind-the-scenes for me. I learned that “life” had happened to the other 2/3 of the posse, but no matter. We simply made it as though a large group of people were in the room by recording several takes of Dolph and Josh (and sometimes me) singing “I want to be in A–ri–zona”. On a couple of the takes we made it a point to cut up and create ambient noise just for the right effect. It was rowdy, imperfect, and earthy- just the way I wanted it! Though the breakdown at the end will not have any guitar or bass, we temporarily copied some over from the body of the song just to give us pitch reference, even if we didn’t always adhere too closely to it. The three of us also recorded some additional gang vocals for “Second Avenue Cowboy” and some more vocal wind sound effects for “That Jolly Guy”. We probably should have stopped there. The creative juices started flowing late last night as I began to ask myself the same question every band since the grunge revolution has asked itself. My answer should have been “no”; I’m sure of it….
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11/20/09- The good news is that we will at least have something to listen to on December 5. Having actual CDs for sale is really iffy but still hasn’t been mathematically eliminated. I have the mixes for 13 of the 15 listed tracks, and I’ve been going over them, listening for details, and trying to identify songs where a section needs to be moved over, the beginning of a note needs to be chopped off, the guitars need to be “more louder”, I sang the wrong line and will therefore need to go back and fix, the vocals need to be turned down, etc.
A long time ago a singer I knew told me about being asked what it was like to record vocals, and he replied “It’s like standing in a room naked in front of all my friends with magnifying glasses over every part of my body.” A few of those involved in the project came over last night for a listening session, and yeah, it kinda felt like that. I’m still a bit self-conscious about hearing my own voice. Sure, I’ve recorded lead vocals before, but I’ve been one of four people who recorded lead vocals, two of whom saw considerably more lead vocal action than me. To hear myself as the sole lead vocalist for that long a time is a bit different. As is the case with any recording I’ve done, my ears are more trained than my voice and everyone is their own worst critic, so every little micro-imperfection grates on me, but the response from those gathered was very positive.
I’ve also been busy taking bids on duplication, and I got a nice-sounding sample back from a mastering place, so I’ll be ready to run for end zone as soon as I have the ball back in my hands.
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12/5/09- I have been listening to the rough mixes quite a bit over the last few weeks, and I’ve been hearing things in the recording that bother me. We did the final editing last night, which was only an hour and a half, and I walked in with a checklist. Part of the evening was me telling Dolph what tracks I thought needed to have their volume adjusted, part of it was saying “that note right there”. There were a few recorder notes in “Days of King Henry” that were too ugly to release, as well as a few other things that needed fixing. “That Jolly Guy” need an intro section moved over, and “Why Can’t I Give Up” needed a separately-recorded intro guitar solo added on, both of which happened last night. I realized after several times of listening to”Tell you how I feel” that I had sung a line wrong, and there were a couple of lines in (ironically) “People Make Mistakes” that were really bad. As stated in previous entries, the musical quality has to be there for the song to be effective. So we re-recorded those isolated lines as well as a couple of others again, and through the magic of digital recording and a bit of tweaking, they sound like I sang them right the first time. While thinking on the way there about the lines I needed to correct in “People Make Mistakes”, I took into account two things: first, a line that never really seemed to scan well and second, the current events of the day. I decided to make a slight change to the lyrics, but since I don’t always trust my instincts I did make a few quick phone calls, and the unanimous consensus was that I should make the change, so I did.
So here’s where we stand: A few things need to get turned up or down, and it needs to get to the mastering service that I’ve decided upon, then once we get the master back it goes on to the duplication service who had the winning bid (and I made a TON of bid requests). The plan is to get 200 made. If all those sell, I’ll get 200 more, but if there is a need to get 200 more printed, it will likely be possible for me to get them printed!
Meanwhile, I played all but two of the rough mixes of the tracks on the CD before my show tonight, and it was very well received! I only hope the actual release is as well received….
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1/15/10- I have now heard most of the final mixes, and I’m liking what I’m hearing. The horribly bad recorder notes in “Days” of have been replaced, a “1-2-3-4″ count has been added after the drum solo in “Fly Forever”, and a few lines in songs have been replaced. The most dramatically different track, however, is “Tell You How I Feel”, the opener. In order to boost the guitar and get the right sound, the parts that I recorded were run through a different amp and re-recorded through that amp. Then they were run through another pedal and re-re-recorded. All three tracks for each guitar part were then combined and arranged into one thick, powerful, filthy wall of guitar. We’re still ironing out a few details, but we’re getting really close. At any point I could be about two weeks away from having CDs!
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2/15/10- The CD is ready for mastering. Last week I heard and approved the final draft of the one remaining engineering feat, which was to make several tracks of two or three people sound like one gang of seven or eight people. Over the last few weeks I have gotten to hear the tracks to which Dolph has lent his guitar expertise- “Mornin’ After Mosh Pit Blues”, which has some delightful guitar bits in it, and “Second Avenue Cowboy”, which also features Matthew Trautwein on the fiddle. I approved these after minimal negotiations. So the next stop is mastering, after which I will get them duplicated by a service with quick turnaround. Almost there!
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2/23/10- There has been a flurry of activity in the last few days. Adam at Black13 studios spent Saturday and Sunday mastering my songs, and after receiving my approval yesterday he proceeded to overnight a master disc to me. Also Josh finished the artwork about midnight last night. Assuming the master disc gets to my PO Box by Wednesday morning the plan is to take that and a disc of the artwork to the duplication service. The winner of the bid wound up being a local company who indicated that if I get the materials to them on Wednesday they can get me 100 of the initial run of 200 by Saturday. Mindful of the old saying that there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, I feel good about my chances of showing up at Galactic Quest with CDs Saturday evening.
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2/24/10- My master disc arrived at my PO Box this morning and is now in the hands of the duplication service with plans to have the first hundred copies by Saturday afternoon. If I have them Saturday night they’ll be nice and fresh and have that new CD smell to them.
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2/27/10- Finally the day arrived! I went to meet Chris from Darklight Records and picked up the first batch today about three and a half hours before showtime. As you can see from reading this journal, a lot had to transpire between recording the first drum track and signing copies of my CD. A lot of unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances beyond my control slowed down the process, which frustrated me at the time but ultimately made the CD better as production ideas had a chance to develop. In coming weeks I’ll send a batch to CDBaby, and in the meantime I imagine I’ll be meeting up with people as I can to get them their copy. But I am now one of those singer/songwriter types who has their own CD, and Greatest Hits Volume 27 is something I can be proud of. I have to say the process has taught me a lot about myself, although it did take a lot out of me. Will I ever attempt to do a project like this again? Let’s see how this one does…………….
***A quick footnote: I am not secretive about the fact that the use of the number 27 in the album title is an homage to a hero of mine, Weird Al Yankovic. Not only has he used that number throughout his brilliant musical career, but that number has followed him and turned up on its own a disproportionate number of times. See the 27 List for proof. I took the first date Dolph had available to record the drums for this album, and I picked up the CDs on the first day I possibly could. I noticed when reviewing this journal that these dates were July 27 and February 27, respectively.
