Mixing "Tremble Bare" tonight

We're going to mix "Tremble Bare" tonight to give away as a single at our show on Friday. I'm going to lay down a couple of backing vocal tracks, and Joe wants to add a bit of percussion, and then we'll mix and master.  The song will have to be remixed for the album, as Oliver said that he has more ideas for guitar, and additional guest vocals have yet to be recorded.  It's still going to be fun to do this tonight, and I have high expectations for how the song is going to turn out.

What town are we in?

I have so much going on right now that I have trouble recalling just exactly where we're at in the recording process. I had a friend ask me at school just the other day, and I don't think I gave a really good answer, because it's becoming a blur just like everything else. So here's a short list of what we have to accomplish before we can begin mixing:

• Brasserie
• additional inst.
• backing vox?
• Luster
• S final bass
• backing vox?
• Tremble Bare
• J add perc.
• D backing vox
• S.S. vox
• Last Screams
• O guitars
• S final bass & bass melody end-chorus
• D add gtr
• add inst on break
• Joe add perc.
• D backing vox
• S.S. vox
• Evenstar
• D gtrs/piano
• O gtrs
• S bass
• D backing vox
• D.L. vox
• Ardor
• O guitar
• S bass
• J drums/perc (replace drum loop?)
• Years
• O gtrs
• D final vox
• D add gtr
• S final bass
• Restore
• Nothing is tracked yet
• Other Door
• S bass
• O gtrs
• Beg the Past
• New intro
• O gtrs
• D replace gtr on choruses
• backing vox?
• S bass
• feedback overdubs

In case you missed it, this past Wednesday night I rerecorded most of my lead vocal tracks while we streamed the session live. We'll make an announcement when we'll be recording again. Also, had a great brainstorming session with the incredible Darrell Mankin about thematic ideas for the album images. We plan on getting back in touch with each other in several weeks, to let the ideas simmer for a while. And don't forget our show coming up in Marion, Il in two weeks at John Brown's on the Square! Check our previous posts for more info!

Look, Mom! I'm on the internet!

So, I'm really stoked about this show we're getting ready to play at John Brown's on April 30th. Several of my co-workers have already made what I assume to be empty promises that they will attend, and I just bought a second amplifier to use as an add-on to my rig. The only problem is we have only practiced once since our last show, which was incidentally my first live performance with the band. For this reason, I am not entirely comfortable with all of the material in the set. Nonetheless, I am confident that my instincts and musical prowess will be enough to help me fake my way through any parts that I don't know. As a matter of fact, I already have a strategy planned for just such a scenario. If I get into the middle of a song and I don't know what comes next, I intend to play the entire chromatic scale, first ascending, then descending. My theory is that if there are seven notes that make up the key in which the song is to be played, and I play all eleven notes of the chromatic scale, (seven divided by eleven rounds up to .64) that means that roughly 64% of the notes I'm playing will be the right note. In grading terms, that translates to a solid D! That means I passed! Wait... are there eleven or twelve notes in the chromatic scale?

SHOW REMINDER - 04/30/10 @ JOHN BROWN'S

Don't forget to schedule a babysitter for the tots and pups, because we're playing our first show since early January. Tons of peeps swore on relatives' graves that they were going to be out in force for that show, but when Jack Frost came nippin' at their toes, they hid under the covers. Now is the chance for redemption, I say! Opener John Krane kicks things off around 8:30 pm, with an eclectic brand of acoustic fare. AND NOT THE LEAST BIT OF NEWS: We will be giving away CD singles of a song from our new album. We're not sure yet which tune, but I love all of them so far, so how can ya go wrong? So invite friends and friends of friends to celebrate this wonderful weather and to hear us do what we do best: playing our brand of rock music. XOXXO ~DGC

Rough mixes: a step forward, or two steps back?

Joe has finished IDing the songs. So, we know what is where thanks to his hard work. He's even identified several problem areas that need to be addressed before we get to mix-down. He's also completed rough mixes of everything that we've done, for sake of reference. Thus far, they have been very informative, say for instance, with my vocals. There are many areas that I want to tweak, although at some point you have to let go and say, "It is what it is." I just know that I can do much better on certain phrases. Joe is supposed to finish posting rough mixes for listening tonight, so I'll be up late taking notes.

We still haven't touched "Evenstar" or recorded "Restore". Both are waiting on me, but I've had a lot of work going on outside of this project. I hope to attend to them this coming week. Oliver has recorded on two tracks now, so scheduling time for him to record and still allow time for me to make contributions is a real bugger. It'll all get done, but there is still a sense of pressure even working toward a June deadline.

NEW ALBUM TEASER

I WON'T MAKE A SOUND

Kicking off April

Let's get quickly up to speed. Last week Oliver tracked "Tremble Bare" and I recorded "Ardor". I'm still not sure how that song will come out in the end. Scott came up with a drum sample that we looped for a reference beat for me to play along with on acoustic guitar. Then I just sang over the whole track. We'll probably pull the drums out of the mix, and Joe will either record lives drums over it, or just pieces of percussion. I don't think I'm going to redo the vocals, even though there are a couple of small areas that bother me. I just think that I want the song to stay as simple as possible. It may rest in the middle of the album, and it would be a nice change-up.

Last night Oliver tracked "Luster". As usual for the live guitars, Oliver had his rig in the bathroom while playing in the control room. The walls are paper thin, but it allows for a decent playback mix from the monitors and that loud live feel. Also, he's right there to communicate with Joe for punch-ins and such. It makes for a much faster process, since it might take an hour and a half to track a song anyway. He also tracked a lead on the loud ending of "Brasserie" which just blew me away. He was like,"Yeah, I've had this running through my head at work. I've never had the chance to try and play it, but let's see if it works." Just wait --it's incredible.

After Oliver left, I was going to track scratch piano on "Evenstar", because that song is just sitting going nowhere, and I need to have a rough mix to get to our vocalist who will duet with me on it. However, we started tracking piano on "Brasserie", which alerted us to the fact that the rhythm guitar scratch track had disappeared. So, to accommodate for that, I wanted to record my vocal part for reference. Then I decided that I was in good enough voice (I had tracked vox for "Other Door" before Oliver had arrived, which involved some harsh yelling so...) to attempt recording what I wanted to be final vox. Anywho, we never got to "Evenstar", although for the first leg of "Brasserie" we did record piano, two ambient acoustic guitar rhythm tracks, and my final vocal track. I'm still toying around with the idea of starting that song of with a mixed ensemble of vocalists that will carry the chord changes of the song over the rhythm guitars. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a trumpet player and sax player that are ready to try their hand at it. I don't want to rule any thing out. It'll all come down to the mix-down session, really.

I don't know how much tracking we'll do this week. We're all pretty busy with other things. Joe took the Akai home to go through the tracks that we have thus far and map out the songs and their virtual tracks. Even just losing some of the scratch tracks made this a very prudent idea. He's also going to make some rough mixes and piece together some of the unpaired files for reference. We need to start rehearsing for our show at the end of the month. Two or three will do, but with our tight schedules, that will effectively eliminate a lot of studio time this month. For this reason, I went ahead and pushed back the release date until early to mid June. If we get it done before that, then we'll be thrilled, but there's no use in rushing things. Oh, and btw the show that I'm talking about is Friday, April 30th at our fav place to play, John Brown's on the Square, in Marion, IL. Show starts at 8:30 with opener John Kline. I'll be posting that info to the various social networks soon.

One last note, I don't think I've posted a track list yet, or maybe I have, but I couldn't locate one after a quick search. So, here's the list so far, and the order is not set in stone.

1. Brasserie
2. Luster
3. Tremble Bare
4. Last Screams
5. Evenstar
6. Ardor
7. Years
8. Restore
9. Other Door
10. Beg the Past