The Studio: Day Two
(otherwise known as the Blue Tape-Massage Chair Sessions)
ask me about my blue tape
Ryan, Jason, and I return to the studio refreshed and ready for round two. Today is going to be much like yesterday. We'll be recording drums and electric bass for the rest of songs on the album. We did the two hardest songs yesterday ("Fallen Hero" and "Body and Soul"), so today should be a breeze.
Day Two partially brought to you by:
The Massage Chair
I can't believe this actually happened, but it did. Ryan brought his Shiatsu massage chair to the studio! Each time we took a break to eat or change up the equipment, we would take turns using the massage chair. As you will notice in the photo of Engineer Dave in the Day One blog post, Dave is blissfully taking advantage of this magical contraption. That's why he's smiling. I think this chair had a major hand in keeping us sane through the 10-hour days.
Changing Up the Drums
Each song is different. Each song calls for a slightly different sound. To accommodate those differences, Ryan brought two sets of drums for us to work with (Dave also had about 10 kits worth of drums around the room as well). Today we decided that the more easy-going songs like "Busy Bee" and "Lady" would require a smaller, jazzier bass drum. I didn't dare get too close to the drum kit, in fear of knocking over microphones with my head.
This whole 'playing and singing over and over again' thing was beginning to wear on me as the day went on. Fortunately, during some of the songs, I did not have to play or sing at all. The week before, I had home-recorded a guitar-and-vocal "scratch track" for the drummer to play to. A scratch track is just a temporary, often lower-quality recording that is rhythmically accurate enough to be used as a reference for the recording musicians. Dave played the scratch track over and over for Ryan's drum track recording.
Jason the Bassist arrives
Jason arrives and warms up for a few minutes. Ryan takes a short break to eat and sit in the magical massage chair. Jason does amazing things with his instrument. You should see his fingers fly when we play live!
We record the majority of the songs with Jason and Ryan and now it's time for additional auxiliary percussion like Conga drums and tambourines.
The night is closing in upon us...
It's not all set in stone
We spent about an hour experimenting with different drum sounds for "Sailing", one of my favorite songs on the album. It's such a peaceful song that I don't want to "rock the boat" with too much percussion. We tried shakers. We tried brushes. We even tried rubbing little pieces of paper together to get the perfect sound. We couldn't decide what to use on the spot, so we sampled all three and I took the samples home to let them stew in my mind for a while.
Dave certainly has some great ideas in his head. I sit and watch these ideas unfold as we record. It's really amazing to hear what he sees in his head. Each time I listen to a previous take, I get more and more excited for the album to be done.
Ryan plays the conga drums like a champ. If you don't believe me, you will once you hear the album.
Words with Friends is a great way to kill time while you're waiting for your turn to record. Jason tells me that when he was a kid, he had a huge comic book collection. He found all his comic books in digital form on his iPad and and he now relives his childhood years during studio downtime.
Day Two Finished!
With another day done, we're all completely exhausted, but we're satisfied. We have finished recording all of the drum tracks and about three quarters of the bass tracks. Tomorrow, we'll disassemble the drum kit and work on one of the most difficult songs to perfect-- "Tracing My Steps". For months, Ryan, Jason, and I struggled to find a fitting drum kit groove for this song, as it's so acoustically driven. The parts we came up with in rehearsal always seemed to BIG or too boring. Tomorrow we will see what Dave can do to help.
Good Night.
-Tim Ruff
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