⏰ recording on a time limit ⏰[steem lifeblog 013]

The clock is running low. With only 3 hours until my recording session, do I have enough time to get the tracks ready?

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_{This is my new daily Steem Blog, now in beta mode!}

INTRO

My goal in life is to start a new genre. To inspire and invoke a new form of art into the world, sending ripples of creativity out into the universe for generations to come.

Right now I'm grinding out the early stages, working two jobs, starting an anarchist art collective, and recording + rehearsing a ton of new music. This daily Steem blog brings you the most useful lessons and ideas that I'm able to extract from each day of my crazy life.

It's kind of like a motivational blog, but with a lot more angst and confusion. Call me the anti-Tony Robbins. Lets do this:

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May 27 - 13:45

Walking home from the coffeeshop with what remains of a nitro cold brew to keep me cool. I have a few hours to record the new demo for “into the sunset” before local guitarist Ryan Yancey* is scheduled to lay down extra guitars on the track.

_{*Also co-owner of QFLUX and is my roommate at the HQ}

We’ve been talking about doing this for a few weeks. I made one demo already but it was too fast. Now, with three hours to go, I am trying to finish a new slower demo for him to record on.

Drums are already tracked. All I have to do is guitar, bass, and vocals.

That is a lot to do in 3 hours.

QFLUX HQ - Home Studio - 14:00

I get right to it, setting up the studio and tuning my guitar. Then I start doing takes. Yesterday I felt like I was flubbing a lot when I tried to track this guitar part. Today it is smooth like butter.

It is amazing what a good night of sleep can do for your playing.

The song centers around a prominent ballad-style guitar accompaniment. I record this line a few times, panning soft left and right to add stereo width, then record a harmonized version. I’m feeling ambitious on the tone today so I double track the main part on acoustic guitar too.

Acoustic guitar is more challenging for this part. There’s one 16th-triplet thing that is very fast with a hammer-on from the ring finger and it’s a crapshoot on acoustic. I do OK this time around.

15:00

Vocals are next, and they are possibly the most challenging part of the song. I’ve been practicing them a lot and feeling curious to find out if I can make the part sound great now.

The end result of vocal tracking is, imo, a 6/10. Not terrible — better than last time — but not good enough for a final song recording yet. I need to keep practicing. There’s nothing wrong with that, this is an unusual and difficult kind of vocal that will require a lot of figuring out to get right.

16:00

Last up is to record bass. Most songs, bass is the easiest part to learn and record. There are multiple reasons for this:

• Bass parts are often the simplest, with a lot of root notes played on one string at a time
• Bass recording is simple - you usually just one want take of bass, no doubles or harmonizing
• Most bass is done “Direct In’ aka just plug into the computer. Easy

I record a few takes and use the first decent one. Later on I want to develop these parts and re-record them, but this works fine for today.

Even on a demo, I like to do gain-fixing and pitch-fixing on the key tracks. It just makes everything sound so much better, and I think having some great sounds to share with the recording artist is a good way to get them in the zone before they play.

You get pumped when you hear a great track and know you’re next up to add a part to it.

16:30

With 30 minutes before my session, I have time to run to the nearby corner store to purchase a few La Croix. After buying them I leave to go home, running into none other than Ryan Yancey.

Yancey leaps off of his bike.

Yancey: You ready to record?

Me: Yup

We hoof it back to the house and set up guitar, amp, pedal, and microphones. It is a simple setup.

Yancey is one of those guitarists who habitually turns their amp down to a low volume in professional situations. It’s a rare breed. I encourage him to turn his volume up, twice.

The clock strikes…

17:00

and we’re on time for the session. I don’t like ‘rock time’ where everybody shows up hours late, drunk and stoned. That doesn’t work for me. We try to schedule sessions like work shifts, where you can’t “no-show” or ask to reschedule last minute, and to take them seriously. It’s one of those things.

I load up the track and play it for Yancey, pointing out the parts where I think he can add guitar. He’s into it. He works out some of his old chord voicings while I am setting up the song section to loop for a while in the production software.

Producing other musicians is about making the process smooth and staying out of the way. Once the song is looping, I step out of the room for a few minutes.

When I come back I offer gentle suggestions about which ideas sound good, but I try not to give the artist any specific riffs or chord progressions to play. The whole point of having someone else perform is to get their sound, their perspective.

My version of “staying out of the way” involves rambling about the theory of recording and production, then asking the artist to record takes for 10 minutes or so at a time.

I don’t want the recording artist to think too hard once they start recording. You can’t think your way to a great take.

Recording goes well. Yancey records a variety of accompaniments, two of which really pop off and sound great. I include both in the demo.

At the end of the session I show him a few other songs in my Guitar Pro demo folder, some more technical math rock stuff that we could work on soon. I wrote these about 4 years ago for Oculesics but they never saw the light of day at all, so I want to record them now with Raleigh musicians.

It would be fun to work on some more live math rock stuff.

21:15

After the session, my energy is zapped. That was 5+ solid hours of hard work on music and my brain has been fully cooked.

A very productive session! The album is sounding more unique and special with each passing day.

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BITE-SIZED FUN STUFF

What I’m Listening To: Alarmist - Bronntasaurus _{new album coming soon yesss}

What I’m Drinking Today: La Croix, Pamplemousse _{aka grapefruit} Flavor

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