The Obligatory Studio Diary
doing something wrong
so, this whole process began a little over a year ago. i finally came to the realization that it had been far too long since i'd released any recorded material when i read an article online that said, "if you're not releasing something new every year, you're doing something wrong."
so, not wanting to do "somthing wrong," i decided against the huge production album in the expensive hollywood studio and opted for the DIY (do it yourself) approach. after all, phoenix turned out okay, and i know a whole lot more now, right?
(by the way, did i mention that kevin swan and i mixed all five of the tracks on that cd in one night, over about six hours?)
so, with the help of ron milts, i invaded the pomona computer fair and, funded by a fat tax refund, assembled a custom recording computer. this thing was supa-fast and would be perfect for all of my recording needs!
so, i went to work around march of 2004 laying down tracks for the new album. i thought i would try things differently, and decided to record the drum tracks at the end of the process. i was gonna be totally cutting edge! and besides, if i recorded everything else to a click track or drum loops, the final product would be in perfect time. the drummer would just have to come in and "play along" with the rest of the band.
and it was sounding great. i was getting great stuff. and for once, the vocals were going down easily. no stress, no fatigue. it was smooth as silk, baby.
then it happened...
the great crash.
you know, i've heard people tell me for years that you need to always back up your work, save your files whenever you make any changes. but i guess i figured that since my new super computer had never touched the internet, there's no reason to worry about backing up all the time. i bought a good, strong hard drive. a name brand, even.
i was wrong.
so, about two weeks later, and several visits to the computer repair guy and a government computer sleuth, when the depression subsided, i came to the realization that retrieving the lost tracks just wasn't going to happen.
all twelve were gone.
starting over
new hard drive installed, i took a deep breath, exhaled the bad vibes and launched into doing it all over again. but now i had a production concept...and a title: chasing venus.
there was one really positive thing about losing the first album. i got several new songs, including "impossible," "starting over" and "i fell."
i'm not a real firm believer in fate, but it would seem
that the new songs were a big part of the reason my
original hard drive had to crash (at least that's what people
have told me).
this time, i decided to start with rhythm and drum tracks.
already i was hearing a difference in the life of the songs.
kris afflerbaugh (bass) and chad patrick (drums) had
locked in nicely and the energy was great.
recording with chad was a very interesting experience.
we didn't do much pre-recording rehearsals.
he would show up and we would has out the song in the
studio, which sometimes happened very quickly, and
others, took a couple hours. it was quite a luxury not to
be paying a high dollar studio on those longer days. but
the nice thing was that chad was great at incorporating
any input i gave, and had tons of great ideas on how to
improve the songs, many of which happening
spontaneously during takes.
we set up his drums in my kid's bedroom, later dubbed "studio d" (for darrian). after a little sound proofing with blankets, quilts and couch cushions, we finally had a good
drum sound...thanks to kelly mcguire's suggestions. even now i really like the idea of making your home studio out of an actual home. it's a bit more glamourous than the high dollar studio...and the environment felt a bit more honest somehow.
so, over several days, spread out
over several months, chad
hammered out the drum tracks.
somehow, since i'm a total jackass, i
lost an excellent drum track for
"impossible" along the way. thank
god chad is such a cool and good-
natured guy. he came back in and
layed down an even better track.
