Day Ten - 13 September 2008

wow. it had been almost a month since danielle and i got together to record. i'm dying to finish up this album, so we did a lot of work. danielle was over from 3 until midnight. it was awesome.

neil and i got the drums and guitar down for out of reach.
my very talented friend, liv carrow put bass on predictable, who needs this and 21 years old. she said she wanted me to do the rest because i was perfectly capable... but her bass playing skills are unmatched. those three songs sound so much more polished now.
liv also sang on who needs this. that song is pretty much done i think.

i decided to scrap reverse fault, because i think i'm the only one who likes that song. we haven't even started recording it yet. maybe i'll save it for the next album or play it live some time. maybe oct 8th at sidewalk at 8pm.

danielle and i spent awhile fooling around with different sounds for songs. she said we should probably do the rest of the mixing at her place since she has better monitors. fine by me.

we also spent a REALLY long time talking about cover songs. i think i want to put the one we've already done that's really creepy on the album... but i think we might pick a more upbeat one.

prospective album names: "go with the flo", "crazy, crazy girl", "joflo"

Day Nine - 16 August 2008

we did some more work on my album yesterday. it's really coming together. i keep redoing vocals and stuff, but all in all, i really like it.

neil and i simultaneously recorded the drum and guitar parts to Ode. it took many many takes, but danielle makes the one right take sound so perfect. we're playing around with filters on this one. it's so cool.

and, leave it to danielle to sing my songs better than i do. i think if we took my vocal tracks off all these songs and had danielle sing them the album would be top 40 in a matter of days. so i'm trying to get danielle to record a covers EP. just like jacinta! whoa!

yesterday beth recorded her vocals for who needs this. that makes me, dani, deenah, and beth. i need a bunch more before i get the effect i like. one day i want to have yoko come over and record drums, so maybe she can put her vocals down on that track, too.

i'm trying to get as much recording in as possible before i go to disney world a week from today. as soon as i get back from disney world it's right back to work full-time for me, and back to school full-time for danielle. blech to both.

oh yeah, check out my myspace to hear some rough mixes. they're pretty alright!

Day Eight - 13 August 2008

Danielle and I spent most of the day trying to work out some harmonies.

We did a bunch for See You Around and then threw them all out. It sounds better without it.

Then we did a lot for Turn It Around, and those sounded better.

And I fixed the harmonies on Song 60. That was cool.

I also threw some bass on Arctic Heart... in 2 takes! I love it when i can get stuff done quickly, and that was the only thing that was quick about today. Mostly... it was just a lot of hanging out.

Day Seven - 2 August 2008

After a long hiatus, Danielle and I finally got back to work!

Since Kung Fu Crime Wave members were over practicing for Huggabroomstock (which was amazing this year), I had Danielle come over so I could get some tracks with Deenah and Preston.

Deenah put some Mandolin and Vocals on Who Needs This? and it sounds pretty good. I still need a bunch more stuff before that song is finished. more girls singing please!

And I finally got to record Olde Timey (I haven't named that song otherwise yet), and Preston put on some AMAZING keyboards. He's a genius. It totally makes the song. I knew he would make the song complete, but he pretty much owns it! Danielle did a great job on the production, too. I think people are really going to like it... and if they don't.... Well, what do they know?

Day Six - 26 June 2008

i feel like we didn't get very much accomplished today, but i guess that's not true.

danielle and picked a weird creepy cover song. i want it to be a duet, and i thought she was into that, but she was reluctant to get up to the mic. maybe she'll add vocals some other time. i don't want to say much about this song because i think it will ruin the creepiness. we got guitar, vocals, and glockenspiel recorded.

we also worked on getting the first couple of tracks for who needs this recorded. guitar is fine. vocals are a little wonky. soon it will be time to get the girls chorus in! i'm really jazzed about that one.

luke rerecorded his guitar solo for arctic heart.

neil and i layed down what might be a throw away track of 21 years old. i don't know. maybe i'll just take out a couple of parts and use it... save some time.

one of the things i've learned from recording is that you should really practice before your engineer shows up. that's why neil and i are going to practice this weekend! really. i swear. before danielle comes back on july 1st. we'll have practiced and it will be really easy to lay down some drum tracks.

another thing i've learned is that it's really nice to record at home because you can do things in your own time. not in the mood to do vocal tracks? let's wait until after dinner! luke's bothering you in the basement? let's put him to work!

Day Five - 22 June 2008

wow. i waited so long to write this up that i can barely remember what we worked on. i can tell you that danielle burned me a CD of rough mixes with turn it around, see you around, predictable, song 60, buildings and arctic heart.

so we recorded the drums, guitars and vocals of predictable. the hardest part was definitely the vocals. i thought i had a mean sounding voice, but it's just high and sweet. i don't think i love that sound. so i ended up doing a little very gentle singing into the microphone, which seemed to do the trick. well, it sounds a little better at least.

we also worked on song 60, putting the autoharp on it, and singing the lyrics (which i still have to read out of my notebook). i also put harmonies on it, and i didn't love them at first, but now i'm kind of digging them.

and i guess danielle had a version of buildings that we had recorded during our first or second session that we just added some synth organ to. it sounds cheesy, i know, but i think it works. it gave me some keyboard practice anyway.

luke and neil are trying to convince to me to get a trumpet player on turn it around (or is it predictable?), but i'm not biting. i don't know how that would work with my style. it might just be too abrasive.

so we have rough mixes of half the album. still no decision on a cover song. we'll see what the next session (thursday) bring us.

Day Four - 21 June 2008

now that we've got things going, i realize how much work goes into recording an album. geez louise!

yesterday we worked from 3:00pm, until 1:00am! michelle brosch came over and took some pictures, so hopefully i'll be able to post some of those. i've also got some on my camera phone (sorry, strongbad. i've got one)

i think we've completed what we need to record for see you around, and it came out amazing. everyone took a shot at putting percussion on it.

we spent a lot of time having neil try to record drums for Arctic Heart, but it just didn't work. drums should really be recorded first. he recorded the drums for turn it around in like, 2 takes. then i just played the guitar over it and it came out really great. that's going to be a party track. i put some bass on it and it's pretty much ready to go. i might have to call on someone for a pop/rock guitar solo. volunteers?

what else did we do yeseterday... we recorded the guitar for song 61 (which doesn't have a title yet). danielle's having to do some pretty serious work on it though, because she had me play to a metronome, and we all know how bad i am at that. she's a guru though, so she'll make it work.

of course preston bailed on us, but he had his sister over, so i guess i can understand that. i really want to get him over here soon though so we can record old timey!

well, danielle should be here any minute, so i should go.

 

Day Three - 20 June 2008

this was it! the lucky day!

well, not so lucky... danielle just brought over massive amounts of equipment and worked really hard before she came over so that everything worked. it was an amazing experience finally getting things together

we recorded two tracks yesterday, but didn't finish either of them.

see you around - we got the guitar, vocals, and bass recorded. we need to work on the percussion of that song though. it could be a real dance hit, if we just knew how to make the rattley shakers and tambourine to sound right.

arctic heart - this is a song that i wrote on november 26, 2000. going through my notebook a week ago, i realize that it's kind of a quality song. i just changed around 2 words and it didn't sound completely 16yearoldy. we got down the rhythm guitar (which nearly killed my hand i'll have you know. i'm so out of practice compared to my 16 year old self), the vocals, and luke put down a pretty cool little lead electric guitar. i really hope people like this track because i feel like i'm taking a chance on it.

anyway, the best part is that danielle is coming over again today! hooray! i asked preston if he would please come over and record the old timey song with me (even though he hasn't heard it yet), so i might try to have danielle get the guitar and vocals for that in case he makes it to the house.

i'm so excited about this album. it's the best thing that's happened to me in awhile.

 

Day Two - 10 June 2008

so, we just keep running into technical difficulties. we're going to have to buy new hardware and new software before we get this shit up and running.

it's very frustrating. i said to danielle "i never realized home recording is so hard!" and she said "it's not supposed to be."

i was thinking about recording this song i wrote in 2000 called "arctic heart" for the album. just because it's so old it's new, you know? i don't know if that makes sense to you, but it makes sense to me.

so, i played it for danielle, and i asked her what she thought, and she said she liked it. so then i asked her if i should put it on my album and she said "you can do whatever you want! it's your album!"

should i name the album "in the year 2000?" a little jode'el joke from back in the day.

still haven't come up with the perfect duet yet.

 

Day One - 26 May 2008

danielle came over today so we could start recording my album. it's so awesome having her over. it's fun to experiment and figure out what the hell we're doing. here are some notes on what happened:

we recorded a couple of one-takes of "buildings." when luke has some time, i'm going to have him add a guitar solo to it. i'll probably lay some bass later.


we discovered that hooking the H4 to Logic causes a delay effect that makes it impossible to layer tracks. dani's going to see if she can work some kinks out before she comes over on thursday. if she can't figure it out, we'll just layer the tracks on the H4 and copy them off the memory card instead of doing a direct imput.

once we get the kinks fixed, we'll be able to start recording songs that i want to have drums in. i think i want drums in about half of them. i'll get neil to do a bunch of them, but i was thinking of asking nan to record drums on "ode."

we recorded "who needs this?" guitar, vocals, and autoharp (although if we'll be able to use the auto harp because of the layrering problem). i think there's going to be some washboard in that song too. i'll have to figure out how to play that the right way. maybe watch an instructional youtube video. and of course saul will have to come to nyc to record some slide guitar. and i was thinking about adding some bass. it should be a pretty amazing track!

and finally, danielle and i decided that we'll have to put a duet on this album. we've considered a lot of posstibilities, but i think we finally decided on the best one! it's so perfect that i'm just hoping nobody uses it before we release it.

yes. i'm pretty psyched about all this. it's so much fun so far.