Recording Report: 12/10/08

So we had our first recording session at Joe’s last night. I thought it went really well. We only worked on one song (“Team Doubtful”) because there was some setup time necessary to get the song ready. That was my fault for mistakenly picking a song from the 2nd batch that I thought was from the 1st. The 1st batch songs are already set up, tracks named, etc. – those were the ones that Daryl, Jen and I have already done guitar/keyboard overdubs for. We could have saved time last night if I had picked one of those to work on but I’m a little slow sometimes, as you know.

It actually didn’t take Jason very long to get the song set up and me working on my vocal. Over about 90 minutes I managed to stitch together what will hopefully be the final lead vocal on the song. We eventually settled on a system where instead of singing the entire song all the way through and going back in search of things to fix, we took it section by section, doing a little bit at a time, playing it back and deciding if it’s OK or needs another go, then moving on to the next section. That’s probably how I’ll record most of my vocal parts. It always takes me many takes to get my vocals right. Jason was great about making sure we didn’t move on until it sounded good in every way - pitch, energy, feel, etc. I asked him to be strict when we record vocals but it was obvious I didn't have to ask - he has good engineer's instincts about that and has a great "bedside manner" when it comes to pushing a singer to do better without bumming them out. We picked a good producer.

So of course after the grueling hour and a half it took me to record my part, Lexi sauntered up to the mic and nailed her part in two takes flat. Didn’t even set down her wine glass – didn’t need to. Great job. I never really heard her harmonies on this song clearly before and they’re very cool.

I was also relieved to discover that the guitars on Team Doubtful are only the scratch guitars from the original session at Rick’s – since I thought at first it was a “1st batch” song, I thought it was one of the ones we had already done final guitars for. Freaked me out until I realized they were only the scratch guitars. I can confirm that the scratch guitars do NOT sound good. At all. God almighty, they sound horrible. Looking forward to putting the real guitars on there.

Joe was also a huge help last night too, sticking around and helping Jason get accustomed to the setup, listening and offering a lot of good suggestions and opinions. Joe, please feel free to sit in on these sessions anytime you want (the fact that it’s your house notwithstanding) – your input is highly valued. And huge thanks once again for letting us do this at your place and on your gear. You are the coolest.

So I’m going to map out a little bit of a recording schedule so we know who’s on deck and what songs we’re doing. We’ll put Team Doubtful aside for now and go back to the first batch of 7 songs that already have most of the basic tracks completed. They are: Crash and Burn, The Stranger in You, Lovers Hell, Ain’t It Better Now, Mechanical Heart, Haight St., and Duet By Myself. We'll keep the focus on vocals for now, although there is plenty of guitar and keyboard yet to do. The vocals are always the hardest work and I would like to start making some headway. Then we can go back and do the other overdubs.

So even though we only got one song done, I felt like it was a good night’s work and I’m optimistic that now that we're rolling, we’ll be able to knock out at least two, or maybe more, songs per session. It’s going to be exciting to hear some of these songs start taking shape! I know I’m excited, at least. The rest of you, just rattle your jewelry.

Next session: Wednesday, Dec. 17, 7:00 PM.