The Obligatory Studio Diary continued...
Q: "how can you tell when a vocalist is out of tune?"
A: "his mouth is open."
during the whole guitars and keyboards flurry, i was also throwing down vocal tracks. some of them several times! i've come to realize that one of the big difficulties to recording and producing yourself is that you are never happy with what you do. i did my best to get the most difficult songs out of the way early. i was really happy with the takes i did for "frayed" and "reflection," which was surprising because they have proven to be the most difficult to do live. maybe i just had a couple good days. i don't know.
anyway, the songs that gave me the most trouble were some of the easiest to sing. i can't tell you how many times i retracked the vocals for "starting over." there is nothing difficult about this tune. i think i was just looking for a specific energy, or vibe, and wasn't going to be happy until i got it. the melody on certain parts even underwent a transformation as time wore on. it wasn't until very late in the recording process that i was satisfied with the track.
another rough spot was "impossible." i think the main reason this one was tough was that i really needed it to be right. after all, this was the tune i wrote for my wedding, even before i proposed. every line had to be exactly what i envisioned. i tried several different mics for this tune and eventually got the tone i wanted from a "loaner" mic from kelly.
ironically, i didn't record the vocals for "long blonde hairs," until quite late in the process. i'm not sure why i did it that way. maybe it was a psychological block or something. i do think that this is, by far, the easiest tune for me to sing on the album. why i waited is a mystery. however, i'm glad i did, because i'm really happy with what i got. i attempted it on three separate days, using three different mics. again, the loaner was the one i used. pretty good little mic, that AKG.
another challenge was "she's imagined." i probably
retracked this tune five times, alternating between
singing out and the breathy vibe. i was torn,
because i really liked the vibe of the breathy sound,
which gave a more intimate feel, but i had this
weird urge to just wail. the overall feel of the tune
won out, thankfully. it reminds me of the day i
recorded the vocal for "the price" on the stillwater
black album. the first take was gut-wrenching...hell,
almost gutteral! the second take was more laid
back, and reflective. thank god our producer
convinced me to use the second take. if you could
hear what i did for the first one you'd laugh your ass off. it was like something out of the slayer catalogue. i ended up doing a majority of the backing vocals on the disc, mostly because the people i wanted to bring in were either way to busy or just plain flaked, as most musicians are wont to do. i wanted many different vocal textures, but when i put down the "guide harmonies," i realized that was all i needed. it was the sound i imagined in my head all along.
gimmie the keys (part 3)
fortune smiled on this process once again when i invited adam elmore to play a couple
piano tracks on the record: "impossible" and
"sad little clown." our two families have been
close as long as i can remember. but i had no
idea what a talent adam was until about a
year ago. he asked me to come in and give a
listen to his music. i was floored when i found
how truly gifted this kid was. his songwriting
was musically amazing and his playing ability
was sickening good. i can remember thinking
that i needed to go home and practice after
the first time i heard him play. and the
depressing part for me was that, even though
his main instrument is piano, he was almost
as good as i was on guitar!
gimmie the keys (part 4)
knowing the logistics of bringing in one of the three keyboardists i used previously to add some tracks was a problem, both time-wise and equipment-wise, i opted to lay some keys myself. as all of the other tunes were beginning to fill out and take shape, one of the early ones, "frayed," was rapidly growing pale by comparison. so, i borrowed a friend's roland piano and plunked my way into a pretty catchy piano part. i didn't want to overpower the existing track. i was just looking to add a little icing. once that was finished, i decided to lay a light string part underneath, almost inaudible. the result was a breath of new life into one of my personal favorites.
midi time code and the mad transfer
so kelly and i had a short bout with the digital age. we had to figure out how to get our recorders (his hard disk recorder and my computer) to communicate. although, after a small amount of hair pulling (our own, that is), we figured it out and the mad transfer began. in all, the twelve songs took three separate sessions to transfer from my system to his. luckily we figured it out or we would've been forced to go with plan b, which was to burn each instrument in each song as a separate track on a cd, and then import them into his system. just to give you an idea of how much this would've sucked, imagine transferring the 24 individual tracks from "starting over," one at a time. thank god we didn't have to deal with that.
