The Obligatory Studio Diary continued...
back to bassics
with all new drum tracks, it became necessary to retrack the bass. kris afflerbaugh came in and threw down all of his tracks in a matter of a couple hours. i was continually impressed with his ability to nail almost every song on the first take. it was a wholly refreshing part of the process, especially when the drums were such an involved endeavor. I can clearly say that kris has been one of the best all around musicians i've ever worked with. period.
the great guitar bonanza
with drum tracks pretty much finished, and the bass tracked, i figured it was time to retrack the guitars. over the past few years i've collected some pretty cool and distinct sounding instruments. my latest favorite is my robert cray strat. i used this for more of the bluesy stuff, and a lot of the solos. the rhythm track, for the most part, were done on my telecaster. coupled with my line 6 pod, i was able to get some really fat rhythm tracks, especially on the heavier songs. ironically enough, i mostly used the fender and marshall amp patches, both similar to amps i'd owned in the past.
doing a couple lead parts on phoenix reminded
me how fun electric guitar could be. and since
i had been the only guitarist for about two years
now, i was really looking forward to throwing
down a few guitar solos, something that is
missing from most music today. some of you
even have copies of the stillwater black album
on which i did some lead guitar work. i was
hoping to capture some of the fire from that
album, with a bit more maturity and, at times,
restraint.
at one point, i began experimenting with slide
guitar. it was an exciting new door in my
playing that opened, and i was able to give a nod to great slide players like clapton and ryan newell. i'm not much of a slide player, but i was able to learn enough to play the parts i heard in my head. i wouldn't be surprised if slide found its way onto future recordings as well.
gimmie the keys! (part 1)
after the first round of guitars were tracked, i had a better idea of where the "holes" were in the songs. with the music being as guitar-driven as it is, most of the keyboard parts underwent drastic changes. we had to basically start from scratch on a majority of the keyboard parts.
first, i brought in brian cockerill. we went to work
on some of the more eclectic tunes, like "she's
imagined." doing the keys for that song, in
particular, was one of the most enjoyable
experiences in this process. as we had just
finished the two piano tracks and were searching
through his sounds for something that would spark
ideas for adding texture. then, brian lost his
balance and braced himself with the keyboard.
when he did, the hit a note that played a note on a string patch. it was only a second, but hearing that brief sound gave birth to the "shaft" vibe on the second verse. yes, completely by chance he hit a note that was in the right key.
together we hashed out a couple other tracks, including "halfway" and a very '80's-inspired part on "starting over." this is also one of those moments that you can hear my love of no doubt's music. i have been waffling back and forth on whether to keep that part. it's looking like it will most likely survive.
gimmie the keys (part 2)
also by chance, i was contacted by a keyboardist from LA named bobby leon. i was pleasantly surprised to find that he had several vintage instruments, including an hammond organ, a fender rhodes, and a clavinet. also surprising was the fact that he was an amazing player. tracking bobby proved to be quite the challenge, since he was using ProTools (the mac-format recording program) and i was using Sonar (the PC format). Of course, they're not readily compatible. So, after struggling with exporting files from his mac and importing them into my pc, i decided to just lug my whole system out to him everytime we tracked. this proved especially dangerous, given the fragile nature of pc's, and the fact that we had unheardof rain on two of those days. in fact, the day that the 101 was shut down because of a mysterious sudden flood on the freeway, i was less than a mile from the exit when the chp shut it down! it took nearly 3 hours for me to find my way around the side streets of LA and back home.
after much trial and error we were able to get a great sound out of the hammond and got several kick-ass tracks done. i couldn't choose between the rhodes and the hammond on "back to you" because they both sounded so killer. ultimately i decided to use both, which helped reinforce the old-school motown vibe that began to creep into that tune.
both bobby and i really wanted to find a spot on the album for the clavinet, and even considered changing the wah-wah guitar on "she's imagined" to clavinet, but alas, it didn't work out this time around. but i am keeping it in mind for the next album. you can bet it will be on there somewhere.
after much experimentation, bobby and i were able to get smokin' tracks down for several of the songs, including "reflection," "pixie," and "the way she looks at me."
fiddling with the oldies
in another lucky stroke, i was able to convince
brian price, an extremely gifted violinist, to add
his bit to the album. as we sat listening to a few
of the songs, it became obvious that the song
most in need of some violin was "long blonde
hairs." this song has changed shape many times
over the years, and with the addition of one of
my telecaster tracks, it took on a hint of twang.
the only logical step was to add a sweet sounding fiddle part. brian made a couple passes at the tune, but for the most part, his first
take was the keeper. he captured the vibe
perfectly, without going too far into the country
realm, which was a huge concern. it just has
hints of that southern waltz. of course, i was
concerned that perhaps we had taken the song
in the wrong direction, but when i previewed it
for a couple people close to me, they all agreed
that it was the perfect sound. it was what the
song was meant to be all along. what a relief!
next i had brian take a crack at "i fell," which is
one of the 'oddball' tracks on the record. it seemed logical that, with the bluegrass feel of the tune, a jumpin' fiddle track was just what the doctor ordered. i guess if you're headed down that road, you may as well commit to it whole-heartedly. like my buddy oso rey said a couple weeks ago, "go big or go home."
