Progression

Saturday afternoon was a productive day for sure. I got to Tom's between 2 and 3 and we went right to work. We had finished guitar tracks for 2 songs before Saturday - now 5 are done. We finished, in order, "Days Without You", "The Dam", and "Falling Asleep". The last one is probably my favorite so far. The songs we've finished are a bit older than the rest of the songs. The remaining 7 were written in the last 8 months or so. They'll probably be a little harder to get through since they've never really been recorded in any way. I'm already getting anxious to get to the bass and vocal tracks for the first 5 songs, but I'd like to get guitar finished on all the songs before any of that happens. I hope they turn out alright, cuz I'll cry if we have to do them again. More recording should be done shortly. I'll keep you posted.

Today I came home to help Kevin get his drums moved out. They made the weekend a bit more interesting since people were jamming. Fun times. Anyway - after the drums were gone I headed to Tom's for some more recording. Last Thursday we started on "So Far Away". We're slow. But we got the two rhythm guitar tracks done in like an hour, which was good. I never played the song that well. Today we did the solo guitars, which sound pretty good. Then we did all the guitars for "I Like This" in a few takes. I added one sort of lead guitar which fills out the song a bit more. Then we tried to work on "Days Without You" but I messed up the first few takes and it wasn't clicking. Once the guitar tracking is done the rest will be CAKE. Bass will take a couple hours for all the songs. Vocals might take a few days. The guitars are the hard part cuz there are so many of them. 3-5 different guitars for each song. It's especially hard cuz I mess up a lot. Oh well. 2 down. 10 to go.

So today I brought all of the equipment of Tom's I had over to his place, along with my guitar and lots of picks and some extra strings and anything else I thought might be useful. Tomorrow after work - err, today after work - we begin recording. We decided doing "So Far Away" first will be easiest since I know exactly how it's going to go. Then we can just listen to the sound of the guitar instead of the structure of the song. If that makes any sense. So yeah - it begins. Wish me luck.

So yesterday I spent 3 hours playing the guitar - trying to get it perfect for "So Far Away". It never happened. The sound on the guitar still isn't right. I'm thinking of asking Tom to produce the album, cuz I really suck at it. More news later.

This is it - finally - the studio journal for the album I'm recording. It's entitled "Progression" and it's going to be pretty much 100% acoustic. I was seriously thinking of having my friend Kevin play drums on some of the songs, but it would've taken way too much time to get them just right. See, I'm a perfectionist - and even though Kevin is very good at playing the drums, I don't know if I would ever have been completely satisfied with them. So here we are.

Tonight I restrung my wonderful acoustic guitar and tuned it up all pretty. I plugged the mixing board into my computer, my guitar into the mixing board, and then messed around with some knobs until I got a decent sound. I tried recording the two main guitar parts for the song "So Far Away" and mixed them together. It sounded alright, but it was a bit overloaded. I'm thinking about micing the guitar as well to get a fuller sound. Tomorrow I'll finish getting the guitar sound polished up, then it's just a matter of playing the songs perfectly. I'll keep you updated.