2006 Journal
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01/02/06 - Some last minute changes before recording. Repeating the first verse of MPC as an outro,
hihat bit during the breaks in Frank Sinatra and slowing down Wrong Star.
01/03/06 -
John Bara put new heads on all of the drums and cleaned em up.
01/04/06 - Last run through before recording drums. After this weekend it may be a year or more before we play live again. Hoping
to take pictures of the process and have 'em up next week.
01/05/06 - This is what happened:
Steve couldn't find the case for his Fender Jazz so he had to take his Steinberger. (12 minutes)
Loaded up the drums and an amp. (30 minutes)
Unloaded the drums and the amp. (10 minutes)
Set up and tested the drums. (20 minutes)
Positioned 11 microphones around the drums. (30 minutes)
Tested the levels of the 11 microphones by bonking all the drums. (20 minutes)
Troubleshooting a non-functioning room mic. (10 minutes)
Hooked up headphones so that we could hear each other though we are in separate rooms. (15 minutes)
Troubleshooting a non-functioning headphone. (10 minutes)
Played 2.5 songs to get a feel for the setup. (10 minutes)
01/06/06 - This is what happened:
Arrived at the studio at 10AM.
Suffered through mic experiements and headphone issues until about 11:30
Got down multiple takes of all the songs, stopping at 3:30.
- Steve cramped during Careful.
- Recorded a few measures of the drum pattern for Honey Pie to a click.
- Pat kept getting phone calls from the University
- Steve brought his vintage Jazz in my Juno case since he can't find his.
- Spider's Last Stand proved to be the most difficult. We aborted then returned at the end.
- Jason engineered the session and was very helpful, gracious and patient.
- Jason ate tater chips and drank a soda in the control room.
- Pat only broke 1 string. This is a third of his average.
Tomorrow we'll go back in and evaluate our work and re-record anything that needs it.
Didn't get a lot of pictures taken. Will try again tomorrow.
01/07/06 - This is what happened:
- Listened to yesterday's work. Some issues but quoting Patrick "I can make it perfect."
- Decided to try MPC to a click track. I desperately talked everyone into one more try before submitting to the
machine. Took a few stabs at playing with tick tocks with no real success. We took another shot at it without
and I think got our best take.
- Lugged everything back to Aquasound. We will meet again in about 10 days. This will afford Patrick some time
to do the tedious Pro Tools to Sonar conversions.
Pictures hopefully going up tomorrow.
01/08/06 - Posted pictures from yesterday's session. As usual they are in black and white to make us appear
more dangerous and less mortal.
01/13/06 - Patrick's recording notes from last week. Songs are in the order that we recorded them:
1. Brother John
Take 1 - missed fill
Take 2 - lots of drive - Best
Take 3 - not so good
Take 4 - good
2. Marbeck
Take 1 - very fast
Take 2 - Best
3. Blunderbuss
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - not listened to
Take 3 - mistakes but good overall
Take 4 - Best
4. Wrong Star
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - not listened to
Take 3 - Best
Take 3 - first fill was off, last snare fill off
5. Careful
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - sloppy
Take 3 - Best
6. We are all Frank Sinatra
Take 1 - ride intro was better than take 2
Take 2 - Best
7. MPC
Take 1 - miserable
Take 2 - better
Take 3 - lots of mistakes
8. How Do You Sleep
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - Sexy tom fill at end - Best
Take 3 - a tinge sloppy
9. Robins
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - transition fill excellent (cut and paste to take 3)
Take 3 - Best
10. Williby
Take 1 - not listened to
Take 2 - Patrick thinks this take is the best
Take 3 - Jason thinks this take is the best
11. Dingus
Take 1 - good
Take 2 - Best
12. Honey Pie (temp 100)
Multiple takes, last one the best
13. Spider
Take 1 - very sloppy
Take 2 - Useable
14. MPC (second round)
Take 4 - Very Good
Take 5 - w/ Click Track (Tempo 128) - Horrible
Take 6 - w/ Click Track (Tempo 128) - Useable (perfected)
Take 7 - w/ Click Track (Tempo 128) - Incomplete
Take 8 - Bland
Take 9 - Beating a dead horse
01/16/06 - E-Mail from Patrick about Hey Ma arrangement:
Subject: Hey Ma...naked
Just a quick update, I've completed transferring everything and it's ready
to go. I just need to find a way to get all the files over to Steve's now.
So Hey Ma was the last pro-tools conversion I did...and remember how I kept
badgering Don to extend the intro a bit to give the cool guitar lines time
to breathe? Well, here's a quick mock up of my idea. Also, I added a little harmony to
the first guitar solo I've been hearing in my head for the past year.
The mix is totally dry, zero effects. I just through up the faders and mixed
the song down. It sounds surprisingly fresh.
-patrick
01/19/06 - Loaded up the computer with all the new stuff. Spent the evening converting
the studio from a performance area to a recording room - wound up cables, stacked up drums and
monitors etc. Will start laying down tracks for Honey Pie next Thursday.
Found out that the couch in the console room at UMKC was stolen.
01/26/06 - Patrick loaded the freshest version of Sonar while Steven read vintage guitar
magazines and I talked about Dig.
Found out that the couch in the console room at UMKC reappeared.
02/02/06 - Another rough night. Had to defrag the hard drive and dismantle a desk. Managed to get most
of the guitar parts for Honey Pie recorded. Just have one to double, the B28 pattern on the Juno, bass line,
some whistling and a vocal before it is finished. Used the Rick 370 and the Telecaster. Took pictures of Steven
taking apart the desk and Patrick fiddling with cables.
Talked about the name of the CD. We have evolved from See Lilly to Gravity to meltinthemind to either Sleep Novox or
sleepnovox. The cover has been a constant.
02/08/06 - Met with a graphic design person about setting up the new CD. Gave her some high resolution
tifs of the slide and a link to the templates.
02/09/06 - Honey Pie is at 40 tracks. I echoed some clean parts with the BC Rich and Patrick added some
noodling with the Dean. Steve put down a scratch bass line with the Jazz. Patrick seems to have slaughtered the
Sonar ghost in the machine that was giving us fits last week.
Pulled up Wrong Star to work on next. Talked some more about where I'm hearing horns.
02/16/06 - We were supposed to start on Wrong Star but thought of more things we wanted to do with Honey Pie.
Patrick ran the drums through an 8-track reel to reel to get an echo. We then recorded some cymbal builds and
some tambourine parts. Lastly, we fooled around with making a duplicate track of one of the tom parts and then
adding some flange and delay to it. We then stripped the intro bare and rebuilt it with just the drums, bass and
this new part. Kind of interesting. Patrick still has an acoustic part he wants to add.
02/23/06 - Lots of Honey Pie editing. 41 tracks. We listened to the demo and tried to get a little closer.
tweaked the copied tracks of drums ala ABBA
changed the bass line in the intro
added a keyboard whoosh at the begining of the song
added some reversed guitars during the song and in the outro
added effects to reversed guitars
backed off some of the guitar noodlings during the verses
added 2 tracks of cellos mimicking a backwards guitar in outro
Patrick did much of the editing with a vintage 8x10 of topless strippers with neat electric guitars staring him in
the face. Someone sends them to Steven when he buys guitar catalogs. It made Patrick uncomfortable.
Patrick's going to record for a day at Abbey Road studio in April.
03/02/06 - Took an hour and a half to record 4 cello notes because of software/drive issues. Defragged
the drive that the data lives on AND the drive that the software lives on with only nominal results. Were able
to dash off vocals for Honey Pie. I sang the 1st and Patrick the 2nd. Our new vocal booth is a makeshift closet
stuffed with a dozen guitar cases and hundreds of vintage guitar catalogs.
03/09/06 - Patrick researched the disk errors we were having with Sonar and got it resolved. We were able
to use the system today without any of the issues that plagued us last week.
We did new verse takes on Honey Pie and Patty added a pretty vocal outro that we faded Flap-style.
Patrick wanted to add some ambience to the drums in MPC and Wrong Star so he made Steven and I lug a speaker and a
microphone upstairs. He then ran the drum tracks through the speaker and recorded new tracks of the drums in the room
with great success. When they were played back with the original tracks they were suddenly very live.
We discovered that MPC was too fast. Using the term "discovered" will annoy Steven because he was vocal about this
from the start. This problem came from marrying a slow bit of music to a brighter bit of music and trying to make them
the same speed during the arrangement process. The problem is that we recorded it closer to the original speed of the
frisky section so the slow bits really suffered. I asked Patrick if he could pitch shift the drums down to make the song
slower. Initially he was incredulous. "There are 17 tracks of drums!" etc. etc. Then, and this is why we love him,
he started to think of a way to work it out. It took two hours of wristing (and grunting), probably more than it took me
to record the original drum parts, but he did it. And he did it while keeping all of the drums on their separate tracks.
Whilst young Patrick was slaving away on the box, I decided to initiate a quest to once and for all solve the mystery
of "The Missing Fender Jazz Case" case. The challenge was finding this case amongst a hundred cases stuffed in every
available crevasse available. This meant emptying out rooms, a case at a time, verifying the contents of each case and then
refilling the spaces.
I tried to illustrate the drama with the photo above but, since the camera was non-panoramic, it only
demonstrates a small portion of the issue. In addition to the challenge of having so many cases to paw through and the limited
space we had available to buffer with, the problem was compounded by large mountains of unsteady vintage guitar catalogs and
magazines and some unwieldy large cube panels.
Balance was the word of the day. One large panel leaning up against a small wooden chair. Another leaning against a
cymbal stand. Guitars holding up guitars holding up guitars holding up guitars. We had one minor accident when the
cymbal stand finally gave up the ghost and toppled over. Without even looking at it, Steven assured me that it was OK.
If it has been one of his blue sparkly Ekos I would still be getting flogged.
This was all happening behind Patrick's back while he was engrossed in his project. Of course once he completed his
task he twirled around in his chair, amazed at the mayhem that surrounded him. He had been oblivious to the
drama.
Well, we didn't find the case. I left the studio elated that we were able to resurrect MPC but discouraged about the
Jazz case. I got an e-mail from Steven the next day indicating that it had been found. It would be anti-climatic to
share where it was.
03/16/06 - Worked on Honey Pie again:
Added Wooos after the first chorus.
Patrick fixed my barky first syllable.
Upped the tambourine in the mix and added reverb.
Hunted down and eliminated an annoying guitar noise.
Tried different reverbs on the vocals.
Re-recorded Steven's bass part.
03/23/06 - I had a bug up my bum over building Wrong Star on top of drums/piano/acoustic/bass instead of the
ringy way we rehearsed it. We recorded a bass track and some scratch piano parts.
We had a couple of issues that are noteworthy in case they happen again:
We had a recording volume bump because Pat had corrected a phasing issue. There are two bass tracks - one recorded
from the DI and one from the mic'd amp.
We also had a recording volume issue because Steven would naturally play at different levels based on whether he was
using headphones or not. He tended to play more fiercely with.
03/30/06 - Patrick and I both recorded an acoustic rhythm track. I added some tinkle with the Rickenbacker 360.
Some debate over whether to leave the drum intro or have the song start with guitars.
04/01/06 - (E-Mail)
Thanks for sending out the MP3, Steven. I have a lot of little naggies that I thought I would share via E-MAIL so that I can solicit feedback and have a documented agenda next week:
I accidentally played a full C major on the Rick during the "won't STOP the coming year" bridge parts. The acoustics were playing the C major with one of the Cs changed to a B so I think the single stroke Rick needs to be muted and replaced in that section.
Steven suggested a staccato electric guitar (again the Rick) during this section and I like that. I'm hearing the bass now playing counter lines and the piano replacing Steven's sexy line. If we do that I'll need to recut the piano with a more authoritive performance.
I think we need to slip edit the drums out of the way of the 2 spaces in the song where they are currently doing stick clicks and following the now absent riff.
That leaves two awkward silent moments in the song. One solution would be to add tambourine and then shakers at those points and leave them in for the balance of the song. We could also dream up another riff or noise.
We still need to add the solo.
I've been playing with delayed call and response backing vocals:
Lead:
One day you realize...
Back:
Realiiiiiiiize.
Lead:
Roots like a ball of twine...
(something that rhymes with "ball of twine." You just can't have backing vocals singing "ball of twine."
04/06/06
04/20/06
04/27/06
Remixed.
Sang a scratch vocal.
Patrick sang a backing part in the bridge.
Added some effects to the solo and added a reversed version during the intro and outro. I'll eventually learn the
reversed part and add it on top.
05/04/06
Sang another scratch lead vocal with slightly better results.
Pat sang some backing parts during the last verse. Also experimented with mocking the new bass run with "I buried my cranberry pot pie."
Played around with some different opening lines for the bass.
As promised, here are pictures from Patrick's time at Abbey road a couple of weeks ago:
Abbey Road
Abbey Road - Famous Sidewalk
Abbey Road - Entrance
Abbey Road - Aimee in Studio 1
Abbey Road - Kristian & Jason in Studio 2
Abbey Road - Patrick Recording Vocals in Studio 2
Abbey Road - Patrick Recording Guitar in Studio 2
05/09/06 - Only the tiniest of fruits were born on this eve.
We found a lost tambourine track.
I attempted to follow the backwards guitars with the Dean and failed. Patrick's going to have a go at it soon.
We did address the odd spaces between sections of the song. Two counts of 6 and one of 4. Patrick shortened the two 6s back to 4 and slip edited the drum fill back in during the last gap.
Bone was in town and came down to visit.
05/11/06 - Right to business:
Recorded some feedback with the Dean to use to fill in some of the blanks.
Shortened the opening drum fill.
Moved the two acoustic guitars, which started at the beginning of the song, back to the 2nd verse.
Upped the amplitude on idontknowwhyiburiedmycranberrypotpie.
05/16/06 - patRICK was troubled by the thinness of the Rickenbacker in the intro so he bullied me into
re-recording the whole song again - twice. He also recorded several pretty harmonies. We both
took a stab at singing something over the last 3 chords at the end. I had something in mind but was trying to coach
him into doing it by pretending like it was a journey. I think that it became clear to him that this was no longer
a vocal experiment he politely invited me to give it a go. And I did.
Steven took a shot at reversing the decision to "Up the amplitude on idontknowwhyiburiedmycranberrypotpie." but
failed. This round. I think he is going to employ the old Johnny Cash stealing a Cadillac a piece at a time thing
and turn the part down an indiscernible amount every week until it disappears. Or he may grow to love it. Or
patRICK may grow weary of defending it. The finished CD will unveil the results of the potentially year-long battle.
05/18/06 - All vocals tonight which means we are close to naming the MySpace blogs:
Sleep Novox - MPC - 05/25/06
Patrick recorded backing vocals in the bridge and outro. It should be noted that at one point (while I was looking for his notebook) I pulled back some curtains near the "vocal booth" and a cricket jumped on his arm causing him to scream. He didn't scream a girly-scream. Patrick has a low voice. It was a low, manly scream.
I recorded two vocal tracks that are the best we have for the moment. To double or not to double?
Steven learned about using Alt-Tab to toggle screens on the computer. He eventually went back to selecting the screen to activate by clicking on it at the bottom of the window. He determined that it was easier that way.
I returned Patrick's Beatle's recording book and brought Steven some elephant ear bulbs.
Mani didn't make us carrot juice.
05/22/06 - Response from Patrick to an E-MAIL I sent regarding some editing requests.
Sorry Im getting back to you so late Don, I spent the weekend doing some location recording in Fort Scott (helping out a colleague).
On Tuesday will you remix Wrong Star and mail out?
Yes sir! That is if Steve and I dont spend the whole time looking for my notebook.
The intro is still a little chaotic and irrational.
Do you think turning down the feedback/background guitar would help?
Your pretty backing vocals are too far back in the mix throughout the song.
Hmm, I thought some of the new background parts were too loud and few of them didnt quite fitso I might re-sing a few things. Ill do my best to get the background vocals straightened out.
My vocal and your backing vocals don't resolve in the same duration during the bridge and end of the song.
This shouldnt be a problem to fix.
use your editing skills or some other Meaghic.
I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.
During the last verse one of my doubled voices gets off track a little. Just a syllable or two. While these may not be the keeper vocal tracks could you copy a little bit of one on the other so they are the same?
Sure thing Don, and when Im done fixing your vocal why dont I go ahead and wash your dirty laundry and dry clean your knickers!!! J Consider it done.
Thanks to both of my beloved Engineers
Thank you for the notes. Have a safe trip.
-Patrick
05/23/06 - (Notes from Steven)
Well, we started out by fixing the height of the monitor speaker shelves. I'll install them tomorrow. After that, Patrick started work on the do list while I took micro naps after a hard day at the office. I was stirred from time to time by the beauty of his edits. Patrick promised to send the technical details of his fidgeting.
(Notes from Patrick)
It was a tough session, Don. Steve and I really pushed ourselves. We started abruptly at 4:00, determined to make every second count. Our first task was to find the best location for the new studio monitor shelves Steve built. It was a cumbersome job because the studs in Steves wall are not proportionally spaced, forcing us to mount the speakers farther apart than the recommended distance. But the new, higher listening position will still be an improvement over the current, cardboard box/phonebook speaker stands.
Next, Steve and I tackled your to do list.
The intro is still a little chaotic and irrational.
This was our most challenging assignment because we werent sure what you meant by chaotic and irrational. I presumed you meant that the backwards guitar and feedback guitar swells were too loud. So I rolled off the low end and turned their overall level down. I also muted the doubled guitar on the first eight bars of the intro so now its just one guitar playing the melody.
Your pretty backing vocals are too far back in the mix throughout the song.
Steve was a bit taken back by this request because hed already cranked my background vocals (upon your direction) before sending out the MP3 last Thursday. I found myself trapped between the wills of my two band-mates, their egos and my desire to please them both. So I acted quickly, removing the low end, adding compression and played around with the panning until the background vocals sound clearer in the mix. Steve didnt say word when I was finished so I assume he was appeased.
My vocal and your backing vocals don't resolve in the same duration during the bridge and end of the song.
Our lovely vocals now end at the same time. I redid the harmonies I found to be offensive and added more reverb to the vocals and guitar solo.
During the last verse one of my doubled voices gets off track a little. Just a syllable or two. While these may not be the keeper vocal tracks could you copy a little bit of one on the other so they are the same?
I bypassed this problem by ducking one of you lead vocal tracks below the other so that it served as more of a thickener rather than a doppelganger.
After tackling your to do list, Steve sat and watched me as I brilliantly backed up the remainder of his sample library to my drive. It was intoxicating.
I think the results speak for themselves, Don. Tuesday night was pure gold.
See you on Thursday.
-Patrick
05/25/06 - Patrick experimented with some crunchy sounds using Steven's new Strat. We had a hard time finding a good tone.
Spent yet more time editing the intro. Now we are back to full on acoustic guitars and have added a kick drum.
Did some mixing on the backing vocals but the biggest miracle of the evening was running the Antaras Microphone Modeler to make the Rode NT-2 that I sang the lead in sound like a Neumann U-47. It really changed the squawky yelpy sound to a sweet fudge.
If we don't have any issues after a week's worth of listening we will run the completed song past Thomas and start work on MPC.
05/30/06 - This song has become so fatiguing. The upside is that everytime we work on it we make it a little better. Tonight we worked mostly on bass, drum and backing vocal mixes. We also cut the guitar solo in order to search for something we all like.
Thomas is coming back over on Thursday to give feedback and to learn MPC.
06/01/06 - Thomas spent the evening with us going over issues in Wrong Star and listening to mixes of Honey Pie and Hey Ma. It was very useful to have another pair of ears - especially well-trained ears. Next week we are going to give him Honey Pie to mix.
New Wrong Star To-Do list:
Re-sing lead vocal closer to the mic.
Adjust volume of intro breath.
Replace existing solo.
Accent hi-hat during turn-around.
Experiment with effects on the word Stop!
06/06/06 - I don't believe that the bible really talks about God's number being 7 and the Devil's number/mark of the beast being 666, does it? I think that whole thing might have been from someone's interpretation of some vague line like "...and Yo, there were 6 stalks of corn at the foot of the mountain and 7 stalks of corn at the peak and Abraham said to them..."
Patrick and I were tracking so Steven ran off to get some blank DVDs so that we could write out Wrong Star, Honey Pie and Hey Ma for Thomas to mix.
I resang Wrong Star closer to the mic eliminating the need for the mic simulator or modeler.
Patrick re-recorded a scratch guitar for MPC since we sped it up, which of course changed the key of the original scratch.
Mani gave Patrick and I carrot juice and watermelon.
Steven is going to Chicago this week and Patrick to New York the next so progress will be even slower than usual over the next 2 weeks.
06/08/06 - Gave Thomas the data for Hey Ma and Honey Pie. Ran through the chords and arrangement for MPC.
06/13/06 - Patrick is in New York and Steven and I were supposed to get started on MPC in his absence. Well, we made the mistake of giving Wrong Star another listen and ended up making the following changes:
lowered volume on breath in the into
pushed acoustics out of the intro, back to the start of the 1st verse
matched vocal and harmony fade at the end of the song
found a click on the bass on track 36 (if memory serves)
removed 2 of the Ricks from the outro
removed the lone Rick from the instrumental section
Steven bothered to keep notes during the session but neglected to give them to me. He promptly feigned injury when
he discovered that I had posted the journal from memory. Here are his notes in their entirety.
Steven's Notes
06/15/06 - Talked to Thomas for a bit about mixing and tracking. Because of the volume of tracks used in our
songs and the time it's taking him to paw through them, he requested that we spend a little more time making logical
groups of the sounds ie tracks 1-U=Drums, tracks V-W=guitars, tracks X-Y=vocals etc.
Steven and I accomplished nothing. No engineer so no tracking. We talked about vintage guitars, professors, tan lines,
Italian seafood dishes, Patrick, Thomas, hanging carpet, using mousepads as a buffer between studio monitors and the
shelves, whether we are spending too much time pre-mixing or not, bass guitar amplifiers and how cumbersome it is to
load samples from our library.
We did give Wrong Star another listen and decided that the bass part needs to be redone and that the Ricks are too
scritchy for the outro.
06/20/06 - Thomas brought over an early mix of Honey Pie. We talked enthusiastically about the result and about
the potential of him mixing the whole album in addition to participating as a musician and 4th pair of ears.
We determined that Wrong Star is only short an instrumental section and that we will begin tracking MPC in earnest.
06/22/06 - Patrick added a beautiful solo to Wrong Star so we are done! I'm talking done-done.
Added a couple of scratch vocals to MPC and a scratch bass. Patrick is taking home Spider's Last Stand to see
if we can salvage it. It's long and loose right now. The loose part is the issue.
06/27/06 - Steven was not able to attend this evening's session. Patrick and I played with some different
backing vocal parts for MPC. We also talked about some timing issues with Spider's Last Stand and whether Sleep Novox
should be Sleep Novox or Sleepnovox.
06/29/06 - Used the Danelectro for the little slide solo in the middle of MPC. Patrick collected a few takes and
then spent the rest of the evening creating a doubling effect using the best two. Ironically this was something we
accomplished effortlessly on the demo.
07/03/06 - We're hesitant to do anything else to MPC until the scratch piano tracks are recorded so we reviewed
the drum tracks and various takes for Brother John and Robins.
07/06/06 - Thomas played me a new Honey Pie mix with some stop and go edits. He also laid down some scratch
piano and organ bits on MPC. We also added a proper intro to the song that currently just consists of the banana-fingered
piano part.
07/11/06 - (Steven's Notes) Well, the evening began with Patrick and I updating each other on our current projects. He showed me the work he's been doing on his Yellowbird website and I told him about an email conversation I've been having with Michael Wright about the prehistoric origins of stringed instruments. I suggested we start work by cutting a new bass part for Wrong Star. He told me he liked the current part and if my only issue was a moment of fret rattle he'd fix it, which he did. We had a dropout issue when playing back Wrong Star that turned out to be caused by a faulty plugin. Once Patrick identified the issue it was resolved for the remainder of the nite.
We next turned attention to MPC. Now that we've added Thomas's piano and organ part it was clear to both of us that the original bass part needed to be modified a bit. After listening a couple of times, we devised some mods and prepared to record. Since the Ampeg SVT had been out for repairs we weren’t prepared to record bass so we had to spend time setting up and finding tone. We recorded 2 versions of the bass part that differed from the original primarily in the chorus. Patrick added some vocal to the end of the track and voila, we just burned up 2 1/2 hours.
07/13/06 - Worked on some different ideas for the bass during MPC's chorus. Spent the rest of the session talking.
07/18/06 - Patrick had developed a different solo for Brother John that required that the song be lengthened. After this was accomplished he laid down a rhythm track with the Danelectro and a track with the Telecaster. He also roughed out the guts of the solo.
07/20/06 - Don needed to wait for an AC repairman so Patrick and I were left to our own devices tonight. We decided to start by laying down the bass line to Brother John. We agreed that a part that I had been playing on the bass should probably be played by another instrument on the recording so we set about modifying the bass line to reflect this change. After agreeing on a part, we miced the bass cabinet with the Beta 52 and recorded the track. We tackled the solos in Bro J next. Patrick was hearing something atmospheric so we set up the Juno through the Blues Jr. and began auditioning sounds. We plopped down a doubled solo blending two different Juno sounds panned slightly apart. Now we wait for Don's reaction.
07/25/06 - Patrick toyed with using notes on the Rickenbacker to twang up the chorus. We also experimented with removing the chopping guitars from the chorus.
The next project involved lengthening the song by one verse. Patrick moused away on this task while Steven and I talked about vintage guitar catalogs. After listening to Patrick's work it was decided that it should be lengthened by yet another verse. At this point Patrick became plagued with self-doubt about the direction the song was headed and, I am assuming, left Aquasound with his chin in his chest. I left with a plate of lentil soup and some Persian dates.
07/27/06 - More feeling around during the solo section. Ended the evening with the Juno-106 though a guitar effect to the Magnatone doubled with the Danelectro through the same configuration. Lots of buzz and feedback. If we keep these tracks then all we need to record are vocals, tambourine and the guitars during the chorus.
07/28/06 - Patrick and I met with Thomas in the afternoon to hear his scratch piano and organ parts on MPC. Of course they were wonderful and Patrick and I grinned like cats. We also listened to the final mix of Honey Pie and made a few tweaks. Thomas will start mixing Hey Ma in a few weeks.
We also talked a little about having him master this album. It's appealing because he's good, he's engaged because he is playing on and mixing the album and he is close by so we have the opportunity to more easily tweak "final" product. On "12" we accepted the first mix that they sent us. We were young and foolish then. Now look at us.
08/01/06 - Thomas brought some tools to adjust Steven's Badass bass.
Patrick did some editing/mixing on the solos.
Thomas helped us dial up a better sound for the guitar in the chorus. His attentention to detail during setup was humiliating and inspiring.
Steven and I read Guitar Player magazines from 1973 while Pat re-recorded his chorus part. I read an interview with Ritchie Blackmore. Things I remember from the interview:
He used a 1000 watt amplifier
He was dismissive of Keith Richards
He prefers playing Fenders to Gibsons
He set two rigs up on stage just in case he fried one
08/03/06 - Thomas brought over piano and organ tracks for MPC. Somehow the tempo setting changed when he wrote them out so Patrick wrestled with lining them up with the existing tracks for the duration of the session.
Thomas expressed some concern about the way the drums were recorded for Hey Ma. The first half of the song has a '60s feel so it's not essential that it have big sounding drums. He talked about tightening the pan for the first half of the song and then widening it for the vintage cereal commercial outro.
Everyone traded bee sting stories. Thomas got stung on the lip once. Pat picked up a bee in his fist in his youth as an expression of manhood. I had a mailbox-full of wasps empty onto my face as a child. I love Steven but I don't remember his bee story. I'm sure something got stung and it hurt and maybe even became swollen. Wait, now I remember. He got stung by a cloud of bees while climbing on a clothsline. They chased him to his house.
08/10/06 - Thomas shared a mix for the first half of Hey Ma.
Tried to do some backups of the 5 songs we've completed so far with moderate success. Did HD to HD backups but couldn't get them to DVDs.
Talked a lot. There's value in that, yes?
08/15/06 - Posted the latest mix of Honey Pie.
Fixed the bridge in Wrong Star and should be posting the new MP3 in the next 24 hours.
Wrote Wrong Star and everything from "12" to disk for Thomas.
08/22/06 - We talked for the duration of our session. Patrick did work on a mix of MPC for MySpace and we both noodled with some slide guitar parts during the outro so the whole thing cannot completely be dismissed as campfire outing.
Replaced Noggin' with MPC so we now have 4 fresh sounding songs up in our MySpace profile.
08/24/06 - Patrick worked on some slide bits for the outro. I don't think I am going to try to make that sound any sexier than it is. It's exactly how the productive part of the session was spent.
08/29/06 - (Posted by Steven who clearly has a knack for detail that evades your humble narrator.)
When Patrick arrived I asked him to help me with an audio conversion project I've been working on for way too long. My friend Sue had given me reel-to-reel tapes of mostly 1960's Pop music that she wanted converted to CD. I had accomplished the initial capture but I needed Patrick's help with reducing the tape hiss and vinyl pops on the original recordings. The results were spectacular.
We next worked on the ending of MPC. Don had identified an issue with the ending that Patrick and I interpreted as "the ending is too long". We cut 8 measures off the ending and agreed that now it is "just right". Hopefully, Donnie agrees.
Patrick and I spent the rest of the evening downloading and installing a new driver for the MOTU and putting together a "do" list for MPC. Looks like we still need to recut the main vocal, the rhythm guitar and the piano/organ tracks that Thomas contributed. We agreed to start our next session by replacing the current rhythm guitar part.
09/05/06 - Decided to prep a new song to clutter up the table with. Patrick sexed up the drums and I careened through a scratch guitar part.
09/07/06 - Had a little "toppermost of the poppermost" rally hoping to flush some of the current songs out of the "in progress" queue and into the hands of Thomas. Resolved to finish MPC. Pat arranged the vocals and took a shot at re-cutting the rhythm guitar. Will try to lay a keeper down on Tuesday along with a bit of tambourine.
09/14/06 - Worked on the guitar bits for Dingus. Tried the Smith Strat on the verses and the Rickenbacker 370 on the chorus. Don't like anything we ended up with but it's a good template.
09/21/06 - We've been having scheduling issues of late and are having a hard time staying focused. We've decided to take a month off and just rehearse the balance of the songs that are in the queue to be recorded. This will be good because when we track we don't play which means we are sharper when we rehearse and develop the songs vs when we actually record them. That's not good. We should still be able to complete MPC, Dingus, Hey Ma and Brother John by the end of the year which gives Thomas 5 songs to mix (including Wrong Star) and 6 songs total (including Honey Pie) out of our hands. That leaves 9 songs to finish before we can put Sleep Novox to sleep.
09/26/06 - Patrick set up the studio for playing live again. Ran through Dingus, Careful, We're All Frank Sinatra, Robins and How Do You Sleep. Mani gave me a big sack of fresh basil and plums.
10/12/06 - Last night of running through the remaining songs. Some debate about some potential tempo changes for Careful and Marbeck. Will start recording Blunderbuss on Tuesday.
Thomas and I had breakfast in the AM. Upon conclusion I gave him some excellent sounding plug-ins for Sonar, courtesy of Patrick, and my The Office DVDs.
We also bought some new gear. Steven replaced our cinder block-weighted mic boom with a new fancy panties model on wheels. Thomas felt like we needed a good mic pre so Steven also bought us a Universal Audio SOLO/110 Precision Class A Mic Pre & DI Box. This should make Thomas and Patty happy and make me sound like Sonny James.
10/17/06 - Prepped Willaby, Blunderbuss & Marbeck for tracking on Friday. Shall I elaborate on what "prepped" means? Would you like me to share snatches of our intimate conversation? I can tell you this: Patrick has new shoes. Is that the kind of thing you are looking for? Come back on Friday and I'll disclose their color. Believe me, you'll want to be here.
10/20/06 - Patrick and Thomas (who had to meow at the door for 5 minutes to get in) worked on guitar tones for Blunderbuss while Steven ironed a shirt and I, draped over chairs, complained without ceasing. Pat used the Danelectro and got the part in 1 take. A 2nd was added for insurance but the original cut was the best.
10/24/06 - Steven laid down his pretty bass parts in just a few takes. He went right for the Steinberger which has amazing sustain. Afterwards, Patrick fooled around with some sounds on the Juno. Mani gave us some asparagus.
10/31/06 - I was determined to get all of the little guitar bits done tonight. We used the Smith Strat for everything. I added some ringy splashes, slide whooshes and a little hook. Steven duplicated his bass line with a fuzzy tone. Patrick did something to the drums to make them sort of Instant Karma-y.
Mani gave me a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup.
11/14/06 - Thomas brought over a sexy compresser for Patrick's Blunderbuss vocal. Patrick and his new haircut did several takes but an approaching cold and some technical issues with the compressor/mic pre wiring kept him from lasting long enough for a perfect take. Should nail it on Thursday.
Steven read a magazine.
11/16/06 - Patrick managed some very nice vocal takes. He also sang the bass hook and the call and response rodent bits. Thomas sang a harmony on the outro and then dashed off a quick mix of the whole thing for the website.
We're going to go back to Hey Ma next week and add more vocals to the outro and try a different bass tone.
Steven read the same magazine as 11/14.
Mani gave me some asparagus, a lemon and a candle.
11/21/06 - Thomas recorded 8 or 9 tracks of backing vocals for the outro in Hey Ma. Patrick showed up later in the session and added another 4 or 5. He also added a harmony to the end of Blunderbuss.
Steven read a Life book entitled "Early Man." I brought a coffee table book about hippies as a mid-session substitute.
Mani gave me some pecans, walnuts, an apple and some lentil soup that just needed curry. She was out.
11/28/06 - Patrick duplicated the primary Blunderbuss guitar part using the Gibson through the Vibratone. Thomas tried a few tracks of ahhhhs before time expired.
Mani gave me two apples, some sage and a sushi menu.
11/30/06 - The city has been lacquered with ice so our session this evening was cancelled. Thomas will spend the evening mixing Wrong Star.
12/05/06 - No tracking tonight. Patrick is going to assist Thomas with some software/computer issues that have impeded his mixing progress.
12/07/06 - Thomas brought a vintage National acoustic and Patrick brought his Alvarez for doubling the arpeggiating guitar part. And double it he did, with some minor variations suggested by Thomas. Patrick complimented Thomas on the vocal part he dashed off a week or so ago.
Steven and I read. I read that 8 people died from the same batch of drugs that killed Janice Joplin. Could that be true? Were hippies dying in such large numbers that 8 in one weekend in one area wouldn't make the news? Or was it just because one of the 8 was a pop star?
Next week Steven is going to recut the Hey Ma bass during the outro.
Mani gave Patrick and I apples and tea. Patrick recently muscled in on my weekly offerings by feigning (actually, I think he was being earnest) hurt that I was getting stuff and he wasn't. I think it was when I got the asparagus. "Oooh! I like asparagus tooooo!" Immediately a quarter of my bundle was transferred to him. I think it is slowly dawning on her that Thomas has been coming regularly and that she may have to get a 2nd job if she is going keep all 3 of us in quality treats twice a week
12/12/06 - Thomas brought over a hard drive to load the current versions of Blunderbuss and MPC for mixing. We also bounced around more ideas about the notes and instrumentation to use during the swell. He also brought a bass that he thought would be suitable for the Hey Ma outro that we will record on Thursday.
Patrick was at school. Mani was shopping.
12/12/06 - Steven developed and recorded some nice parts for the outro in Hey Ma. He got his best version after about 5-6 takes. Thomas recorded a bass whoosh to bridge the quiet and busy parts. Steven used the bass that says BADASS at the bottom. Can't remember who makes it but it has a lot of neat knobs and switches on it.
Mani DID prepare a bag for Thomas and, since Patrick was absent, he also got his. My bag contained:
2 Apples
1 Orange
1 Banana
1 Bag of Miniature Limes
1 Bag of Green Lentils
1 Honey Stick
1 Mint
12/15/06 - Posted a couple of pictures of Thomas and Patrick working on tracks for Blunderbuss.
12/19/06 - (Blunderbuss) Thomas had a ride cymbal idea that he wanted to try tonight and try it we did. I also heard a tone that I wanted extended over a few measures and we experimented with that for a while. On Thursday we are going to re-do the lead vocal and THEN, move on to something new.
Steve is promising me a couch in the studio soon. He has to sell 20+ guitars to do it but he has started the process.
Mani gave me a bag with 2 of every kind of shelled nut that you can think of plus a yam, a banana and some excellent curry. Thomas grazed on his Mani-bag on the way home.
12/21/06 - Listened to an early yet encouraging mix of Wrong Star.
Thomas brought over the compressor and Patrick took some more shots at singing Blunderbuss. Had some issues that will result in Patrick taking more shots next Tuesday.
Thomas made everyone some fudge using his Grandmother's recipe. It is delicious.
I'm getting bored with the Hippies book.
12/26/06 - We spent the first hour setting up the Marshall and talking about the guitars during the outro of Wrong Star and the arrangement of Brother John. Brother John has been given to Thomas for some alterations.
Patrick had another go at singing Blunderbuss but wasn't happy with the result. We shall resume on Thursday.
I brought the coffee table-sized version of Anthology. I had read most of the Hippies book and passed it on to Steven.
12/28/06 - I started the session talking about some disturbing pictures I saw in an old Q magazine of Motley Crue members having bonkie time with some groupies. Then Steven told a story about something that I forgot already and Thomas told a story about seeing a popular singer "making love" against a urinal in a studio restroom in Los Angeles or "LA."
Thomas brought over another mix for Wrong Star. We discovered that a missing tom in a fill is actually a kick drum. May recut cymbals at a later date.
Patrick was in good form for another Blunderbuss vocal take but there was some problem with the mic or mic configuration. To be perfectly honest I was reading and did not catch what the issue was. I think it's going to result in Steven investing a bunch of money in a fancy-panties microphone - money that he might have liked to have spent on a pointy guitar.
We then had a go at recording guitars for Brother John but we either ran out of time or there were more issues. I was reading with silencers on at this point.
Steven was reading the Hippies book and learned that Charlie Manson was 5 foot 2 and that Frank Zappa released the first ever double album in 1966. It was also the first album to have the lyrics printed on it - something I have often heard Sgt. Pepper getting credit for.
Off and on we talked about who should eventually sing Careful. On multiple occasions I have surrendered it to Patrick only to reclaim it later. Patrick and I came to a hastily made agreement.
Patrick took some pictures at the end of the session but they didn't come out well. Both of the shots of Thomas came out fine. My eyes were closed and I was sitting kind of girly - not the cool kind of girly. Steven's eyes were also closed. I dashed one off of Patrick that didn't highlight his beauty to my satisfaction.
More in 2007.
Go to the beginning of the journal.
