I woke up in a lovely bed at my great friend Merry's house. What a relaxing evening that was much needed. After a very long shower, Justin picked me up and we headed to Starbucks, where my barista said "what are you up today" ... me responding with "recording my debut album" was probably not what he expected, and I'm still not sure he even believed me.
VOCAL TRACKING.
We set up a vocal booth, with the walls, and just an Elroy mic and pop screen ( this prevents p's and b's from sounding to poppy). We started "tracking songs". I picked mellow songs to start with as my voice warmed up then I moved on to harder songs and saved songs like 0-60 that have huskier blues sounds for last, in case my voice was tired or hoarse because they can work like that...
Vocal tracking is just going over each song about 9 times and keeping 4-5 tracks to pick parts from to mix down a final version. I sang over the guitar and drum tracks that we already had made, and stayed to a click to stay on beat, since I always play live and without a metronome staying perfectly on rhythm is pretty challenging for me.
Justin can usually hear where things are wrong, or could be changed to be better, both melodically and structurally. The hard thing is, when he suggest changes, the way I've been singing them is usually well engrained in my memory and it is hard to change.
Singing "sad little boy" and "stay" was also challenging. Both of these songs are quite mellow, sad, and have a lot of sentimental value behind them. I sort of closed my eyes and zoned out during them, and although the emotional performance was great- I am not sure how much I was really paying attention to the quality. They are just those types of songs... and I hope that when you all hear the C.D. you will get lost in them to.
this is "Stay" in case you haven't heard it however on the album it will be on piano, and the structure is slightly different.
I have an intro song that is 40 seconds long, 4 lines, and very cute. right now it is on the piano. I decided to do a CRAZY glee-style a capella version of it for the Outro on the album which i started today and it is REMARKABLY fun to make a choir with your own voice, although it will never be able to be sung live, bummmer....
at the end, my friends Beau and Trevor from MIDDLE SCHOOL came... It was pretty wonderful. Beau has served in the army over seas and Trevor has backpacked Europe and it is insane to see these boys all grown up.
We got sushi and now I am off to yet again, another wonderful nights rest at Merry's. I can not thank her and red enough for having me here....
on a side note: I enabled anonymous comment options so now anyone can comment on these blog posts. even just to let me know you actually read it all ;)
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