Weight of the World

This song is really coming together nicely. Thursday's session saw Josh doing the vocal tracks for the entire song, and though it took some time, effort, and - yes - alcohol, we were able to get some of his best vocal work out of him so far. For someone who didn't have the type of singing experiences growing up like I did (singing in choirs, having a mom who's a music teacher, that sort of thing) Josh is really developing as quite a singer. I'm proud of the track, and I hope Josh is too.

In the meantime, I took his (not so) subtle hint and took an hour to lay down a fretless bass track this morning. It's always a joy to take out my custom Hoyt six-string fretless. It's a wonderfully woody instrument, which luthier (and friend) Karl Hoyt made completely to my specs a couple of years ago. Over to the right is a picture of me playing it at a Second Story performance in 2001. With exotic Wenge wood over mahogany, a neck-through maple neck and ebony fingerboard, and plenty of other details (like a hand-carved ebony bridge) the bass is beautiful, and sounds amazing. I was able to put down a track I like, and it's even in tune! (Ok, MOSTLY in tune.)

It was a little tougher than I thought to try to come up with a bass line that wasn't overly simple (just playing roots and a passing tone here and there) - and yet was not overly complicated, which would overshadow the understated nature of the song. I thought about the bassist's approach in the Clapton tune "Tears in Heaven," and then scaled it back from there. I like the flowing nature of what I came up with, and there are some octave jumps in there to make it interesting. All in all, a fun line to come up with, hope Josh likes it. :)

Are We There Yet?

Last night was fun. We made a list (and checked it twice) of the performances we still had left to take care of to complete the pre-production of songs for our CD. I'm happy to say that most of the work lies in Mark's lap at this point. (I love passing the buck.) We have a few small things to record on various songs, and then we have to finish writing Awaken The Man. We still have no idea what journey this song is going to take us on, so it will be interesting to see if I can turn it into some 5-disc-long recording, or if Mark will be able to rein me in and keep it under 30 minutes. I keep threatening it, and maybe someday I'll actually do it.

I got to hear the backing vox that Mark and co. did on Weight of the World for the first time. Very nice! Knowing Mark's brothers as well as I do, it was interesting to actually hear them sing for the first time; it wasn't exactly what I thought they were going to sound like, but that certainly isn't a bad thing!

We finished cutting all of the vox. I'm singing lead again this time, and I thank Mark for his patience in recording me and coaching me. We tried Mark's new MK-219 mic, and I have to tell you it was rather intimidating. I never would have thought that a microphone would have me anxious, but it happened. This mic had so much presence and was so responsive to everything I sang, it really forced me to bring my 'A' game to the table. I'm not sure I have such a great 'A' game to speak of, but it was definitely one of my best vocal efforts to date.

At first I had a little trouble opening my voice up to get into the song. It's a mix of technique, ability, and confidence. Thanks to Mark (and some Wild Turkey) I started to get it going after a few takes. Of note is the bridge section of the song, where I sing a Bb. That's a pretty damn high note for a tenor to sing, in case you were wondering. When cutting the scratch tracks for the melody, I think we were both a little apprehensive about my ability to hit those notes in the final recording. I think I nailed it just fine and overall I'm very happy with the song.

The only thing left for WotW is bass, which we've left to Mark. Hopefully by next week he'll have that done (hint, hint).

It looks like I'm going to get to placate my guitarist ego with a monster solo outro in The Bottom/Between Two Lives. We decided to fade out the last section of the song rather than try and force another section into it. I haven't started working on it yet, but I'm hoping to "weird" it up a little bit with some exotic harmonic content.

(We're almost there.)

New Toys, and New Tracks…

I was able to add several items to "Digital Din Studio" this week, including a new vocal mic (Oktava 219) and some drum equipment I've wanted. Also got some rack accessories and mic stuff, but that's less interesting. So far, I like the early tests with the mic, and it was a raging bargain at $50. It'll provide even more flexibility to get the tracks to sound the way we want them to!

I also got a chance to bring in some guest vocalists to record some backing tracks on "Weight of the World" - my two younger brothers, Geoff and Evan! It was great to get some more family members on a recording (you may remember that Josh's sister Jess did a wonderful job on vox for "Song for Life") and we had a good time recording them. I even won the "post-recording session poker game" and brought home the whopping pot of $9. Sweet! But seriously, the vocals sound really good, and after a little cleanup work on the tracks, it's definitely going to add some "sparkle" to have their voices on the track. Thanks guys!

Making progress

Last night's session went quite well; Josh was able to cut the acoustic guitars for "Weight of the World" quite quickly, allowing us more time to tweak a few lyrical concepts. We came up with a really great lyric for the bridge of that song as well, which was the only part left to write. Although we usually labor over lyrics, this one came fairly easily and really works... and we're even able to use the great melody that Josh had recorded with scratch vox, which is cool.

Over the next week, I have some pretty major work to do, including some mixing, recording, and cleanup work. I'm hoping to get my two younger brothers (both excellent singers) over to do a couple of the (many) backup vocals in WOTW; the three of us have a really tight blend when we sing together. Since Josh is going to be singing the leads on the song, it gives us an opportunity to make the backgrounds really tight - vocally, "nothing mixes like blood." I'm really looking forward to that.

On the tech front, SONAR 4 has arrived, but I'm waiting for the Producer upgrade to come before I install it. I'm hoping there will be no major nightmares... and I'm a bit bugged that there's no DR-008 drum sampler. I'll have to figure out what to do about that. :(

Still Going Strong

Mark and I had another very productive session last night. I cut all of the guitar tracks for Weight of the World. I suppose it's a foregone conclusion that we're going to use that as the title; I can't see why not at this point. We also finished the lyrics for the bridge, which is based on a melody I came up with for the section. It looks like next week we'll cut the final vocals (with a few special guests) and bass, and then the song is done. I think we've also decided to call the other song we've been working on The Bottom (Between Two Lives). It may be a slash "/" instead of parentheses; so goes the incredibly important decisions we toil over every week.

We now have eight songs completely written, and we're both somewhat amazed at how quickly the last few came together. The plan at this point is to have a CD pressed by the end of the year. We have a drummer in mind and he has committed to the project, so hopefully in a month or two we can have him record the drum tracks.

We're shooting for next spring to play an outdoor show somewhere in NJ and debut our material to a live audience, so stay tuned for that as well.