A Song to Come

I had taken three days of work off this week starting Wednesday to knock out some serious recording at Let 'Em In Music.  I'm also in for a half day tomorrow (Saturday) to get in some extra time while my gear's all there.  It's been immensely convenient to only have to deal with load-in and drum set-up once.  Pat and I have been able to knock out rhythm tracks for several songs over the first two days, with me switching over to guitar tracking when I was too exhausted to drum anymore, then simply picking the sticks back up the next day.  We've laid down rhythm tracks for Ten Miles, Far, Answer, Deny, and Missed, and hope to take care of Steal today for good measure.  I hadn't even intended Missed to be on the list as it's a song I thought we'd have trouble doing well too a click, not to mention the fact that I had only practiced it maybe once or twice on drums.  However, come about 4 o'clock yesterday, when Pat and I were feeling a bit weary and mellow, Pat wisely suggested we give it a stab rather than trying the uptempo Steal then.  We actually nailed it in two takes, really locking into a solid groove.  I don't think anyone would know that it was done to a click.  Who woulda thought?

I think I will talk a bit more about the technical approach we used on the drum and guitar tracks in a future post since I must soon be on my way for today's sessions, but I'll leave you with lyrics for Ten Miles, which I intend to be the next song we move towards completion.  It's a down tempo tune, with a slightly hip-hop-like 16 beat in the beginning of the verse that opens up into a nice loose 8 beat on the ride at a key chord change.  The chord structures themselves are somewhat reminiscent of a Chris Cornell ballad.  Lyrically, this song is a bit abstruse, but I do think it's one of the better ones in that sphere of my lyricism.

Ten Miles

(verse)
Needed to stay
Ten miles away
We dared to feel emotion
So we couldn't help but cry
Till we refilled the ocean

Can't talk through walls
A thousand feet tall
We tried to live forever
Now we're dying all the time
To recapture that notion

(chorus)
Call to me forever through the wind
I'll atone for what we've done

(bridge)

(chorus)
Call to me forever through the wind
I'll atone for what we've done

Call to me forever from within
I'm a ghost out on the run

A Tough Call

After receiving back the first mastered version of "Aloud" from John at Spleenless Mastering, I have made the somewhat unexpected decision to go back a step and revisit the mix.  Somewhere during the transition from the final mix that Nadim and I settled on in our last mixing session to the version Nadim produced without buss compression for John, the balance of the song got totally thrown off.  I think compensatory adjustments were made  when the compression was removed and some of them ended up actually weakening the song.  The primary difference was an increase in overall level for the guitars.  This had the unfortunate effect of burying the vocals (especially during the chorus, where they were already on the low side) and swallowing a lot of the sustain on the drums, making them sound flimsy.  Going back to the original final mix, I was surprised at how much more propulsive it felt, but after conducting comparisons with some of other driving rock music I own it's become clear that prominent drums and bass and fairly understated guitars are commonplace for that style of music.  You really need that strong rhythmic underpinning to be prominent for the song to hit hard.  The plus side of all this is that I will get to revisit the mix and implement a few needed changes, like an increase in volume for a couple guitar riffs and perhaps some changes to the processing of the vocals.

All in all I feel like I'm still on the right track here, it's just going to take some extra time to get things right.  This is very much a learning experience and one that will immediately inform the other upcoming recordings.  For one thing, I'm going to give myself a buffer of a week or two from the time the next song is "finished" before I send it out for mastering, in case I have second thoughts about a particular decision.

This stuff is hard!

-T