Category: Studio Diary (Page 15 of 23)

It’s April and I find myself sitting in the studio batting away at the SPD-20, laying down some drum tracks on Painting Abstracts. That sounds like exactly where I was in November last year. Could this mean zero progress?

Yes and No. In November, while starting to record some drums, I realized the bass and guitar were out of tune. So I re-recorded the bass. Then I realized that – given the recent shift in lyrical content – I would like to have some acoustic guitar behind the verses. Suddenly the whole damn thing was transposed down a tone, and the bass and guitars re-recorded. In the case of the acoustic guitar, capos and unusual tunings were used.

Now I’m back to recording drums. But it’s not zero progress. Of course, I’d like to be finished already, but at least it is forward movement.

It got really busy at work and I haven’t made much progress apart from setting up the SPD-20 on the desk and verifying the signal chain (Midi etc) is all working. Perhaps this holiday season will provide some time to get those drums done. Also I have some ideas for getting the acoustic guitar into the mix.

Moving on to the next track: Painting Abstracts. This is a challenge because the current version is pretty much finished and rather good as it stands. However, I want to revisit some of the lyrics, and update the instrumentation.

The first task is to re-record the bass guitar using Guitar Rig 4. 

The plastic feet are temporary, but the rest is complete:

Now to get it installed into the studio and all the equipment transferred.

I was driving home from Santa Rosa yesterday, admiring the scenery, and in particular, a certain hill with a group of trees clustered at the top. I noticed that the large tree in the center looked a little odd, sort of symmetrical but not entirely, and then I realized that it was probably a very well-disguised cell phone tower.

A short time later, I came up with the perfect title for our first album:

Fruit of the Steel Tree.

I’ve googled it and it doesn’t seem to have been mentioned anywhere else, so I’m pretty sure we’ll go with this. Awesome.