journal

mp3: Don't Mind Me (very rough mix) Update: See the mp3s page for selected tracks and a sampler of Abstract Expression.

And so it begins...

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005 we began tracking drums for the album. I came home from work a little early to get the acoustic treatment setup and attempted to get some AC pumped into the sweltering temporary studio. About 5PM Bryan came over and we hauled in his drums. We had reserved this day solely to setup and get some drums sounds and make sure that I could get a click track and headphone mix to him to play along to. The following day we would track the drums for "Don't Mind Me". Setup went pretty smoothly and by 7:30 we ran some test tracks.

After Bryan went home I spent some time making a rough mix and found our snare drum sound lacking. We had elected to go with a piccolo snare but for some reason it was lacking that "crack" that a good snare drum sound should have.

Bryan returned the following evening and we spent a lot longer than planned dealing with this snare drum issue. New mics were tried, we swapped out drums, and eventually ended up right back where we started with only some minor tuning changing from the previous day.

Once the sound was all sorted out it took all of 3 quick takes to finish the session.

The following Saturday my bass was ready to be picked up so I spent the next 2 weeks trying to learn how to play it before tracking the bass parts. Guitar and piano tracks were completed about a week later. That's one in the can! (Well... until I start changing stuff....perhaps an acoustic guitar here....or.....)

Just about a month after the first drum tracking session we started the process over again with "Internal Combustion" converting my garage into a temporary recording space, running cables into my project studio area, and getting a solid sound one day, then tracking the drums the next. Only real differences were that we added a borrowed cymbal to the kit and it took 5 takes to nail it rather than 3.

I again proceeded to take a week to work up and track the bass parts and spent this past weekend tracking guitars. I've had a little trouble getting the feel of it right. I sort of had the same problem with "Don't Mind Me". When I tracked that piece I spent about a day and a half and only had about 30 seconds work of guitar tracked. Then something finally clicked in my head and the rest of the song was recorded in about 90 minutes. I'm not even really sure what clicked or what changed. It just went from sounding not good to sounding good.

On Combustion most of the song has gone pretty smoothly but I'm struggling with a relatively simple rhythm part in the second theme. Its not like I'm stumbling over myself making mistakes, it is just whatever I play there isn't good and it is hard to put my finger on exactly why. I'm hoping I'll just nail it after dinner tomorrow.