Vocals, baby... Vocals

Finished the vocals for The Bottom last night. It's been a while since I've had to sing for posterity-sake, so it took me a little while to get warmed up. I did warm up to it (without the help of Wild Turkey, surprisingly), and was able to cut tracks that I'm happy with.

Mark had two lines to cut as well, and he did that as quickly as you could imagine, so overall it was a painless and fruitful recording sesson. Woot!

Finally got the last bit of vocals written

I was in decent voice last night, and got a little time in on the machine to commit the final vocal lines to tape. The one last part of the album that hadn't been "written" yet was the last verse in "Awaken the Man" - which is, stylistically speaking, a bit of a departure from our other stuff. It consists of an overdriven, blues-y hard rock riff and driving, in your face drumming. (It's sort of a mini-homage to one of our all-time favorite groups, King's X.)

I've been letting ideas for the melody slosh around in my addled brain for several weeks but been putting off actually recording any of it. Since most of the ideas were at least half-formulated, it only took me about an hour; but I'm glad I finally did it. And I forwarded a quickie MP3 copy to Josh, and he really dUg it! So with a few minor changes in our next session, we should have it re-cut to a final version. Whew! (Now I think I'll sip a little hot tea.)

Rhythm Guitars are DONE!

Finally! Seems like forever since I started re-recording the guitar tracks. In retrospect I'm very happy that we spent the time getting the good takes, but I'm happy to be moving on. Last night I cut guitar for The Bottom/Between Two Lives and For What It's Worth. Guitars for The Bottom were easy; guitars for FWIW were relatively easy as well, but it required me to write a few very quick call-and-response solo licks that will sit between Mark's vocals. It was pretty easy to do, but the perfectionist in me wanted to do a few versions just to make sure that I captured the feeling. Mark seemed happy with it, so there ya go.

We're not entirely sure what we're going to start on next week. There are some bass parts Mark wants to re-cut, and then vocals. I still have to finish working out the monster guitar solos for Awaken the Man and The Bottom, and Mark is still working out a bass solo for ATM as well. I suspect those are going to be the last things we finish.

The final tracking work continues…

We're moving on with the progress on the album, re-recording several guitar tracks. With the success we had recording the tube amplifier for some of the overdriven guitar parts on "Awaken the Man" (the song), we've decided that many of the guitar parts on the other songs would benefit from being re-recorded with that setup. Aside from just being a overall "better" guitar tone, it will also serve to give the album a more cohesive feel, with similar sounds from song to song. We don't want the songs to not fit together sonically - and since the songs for the album have been recorded over a period of over two years, this is a very legitimate concern! We're much of the way through, listening to each song with a critical ear, making sure not to change the vibe of the songs, just enhance them. It's tricky work, but worth it in the long haul.

While doing this, we're also importing Mike Ian's drum tracks into the final versions of the songs. I'm continually amazed by the massive improvement that his considerable talent brings to our music. It's apparent in the way Mike approched our songs that he "gets it" - and there's so much in each track that just makes me smile while I'm listening to it. I look forward to having Mike over to Digital Din to help out with the effects busses to ensure that we get "his sound" on the final mixes.

Altogether, very exciting - we're really getting there!

Rolling, rolling, rolling

The rhythm guitar tracks are now complete for ATM. There was a lot more guitar in this song than I think both Mark and I realized. Not that it's a bad thing! I still have to finish conceptualizing the solo, which is quite long. Working on it...

The guitar tracks for Turn It Around are also almost done. I have one more funky guitar part to finish, which will be done at Thursday's session. I'm not sure what else needs to be done guitar-wise for the record, aside from another long guitar solo in The Bottom.

I know Mark wants to do some bass over in a few places, and I have some vocal work to redo, but we're getting closer and closer and closer.