Tuesday - February 10th, 2009: 11am to 2:00pm - A few years ago I had written this song for a church service. On one of the many days of playing acoustic guitar and rehearsing, I set up a couple of microphones and recorded a dozen or more songs and this song happened to be one of them. Fast forward to a couple of months ago...when I stumbled across these recordings that I had forgotten about, I came across 'Dying 2 Live'.
When Russ agreed to do the recordings for the new album I threw this acoustic recording on a disc and told him to see what he could come up with. Russ showed up on this day and thought of recording the song with a kind of Rockabilly type vibe. I thought, why not, I had no idea what to do with the song. A couple of groups that came to mind were, The Violent Femmes and Rusted Root. We both thought that an Earthy feel would do the song justice.
We first began miking up a bass guitar case (yes, you read correctly) and recording two tracks of Russ beating on it with bamboo sticks. It sounded okay...didn't jump out at me. Then he wanted to do a snare track with brushes playing a train beat. At this point, I thought he was on to something. We listened back, we both thought that the snare train beat sounded good. Russ thought if we added just a kick drum track, it would solidify the drum part. We miked up the kick of the Ludgwig kit and recorded a track.
After all the madness was finished we listen to everything we'd done. It sounded okay, but I didn't feel like anything we did, did the song any justice. We talked about the track for a while and somehow, 'Hollywood Nights' from Bob Seger came up. We listened to the track and loved what the drummer did. I told Russ lets try the song with that particular beat. Not to fault Russ, but my timing on the acoustic track was all over the road. Russ told me if I could re-record the track again with a click he could get the timing better.So, after spending the day finding out what the song didn't want, we decided to call it a day and come back on Thursday to take another run at it. Who says songs don't take on a life of their own? This song definitely had an attitude about wanting to be recorded a certain way. In the next day, I had my work cut out for me.
Song(s) in Production: 'Dying 2 Live'' Recording Sessions
Wednesday - February 11th, 2009: 1:30pm to 3pm - I began the day by working on arranging the song and writing a drum part for the song.
5:30pm to 7pm - I finished writing a drum part and programming my drum machine. I recorded the midi track along with a click, next acoustic guitars.
7pm to 8:15pm - recorded a total of 3 acoustic guitar tracks...I kept Takes 2 and 3...so far so good.
8:15pm to 8:45pm - I spent this time transposing the song from the key of G Major to Bb Major. I also bounced the audio from one Mac to my other Mac.
9pm to 10pm - I wrote and recorded the bass part. I had very minor overdubs to do, but for the most part the track played itself.
10pm to 11:15pm - I recorded a total of 6 lead vocal takes. It took me a while to get into the feel of the song and singing the song with the right amount of grit. Takes 5 and 6 were the keepers.
11:15pm to 11:45pm - This time was spent recording backing vocal tracks for the choruses. A total of 4 takes were recorded.
11:49pm to 12:03 - drive home...today's another day!
Song(s) in Production: 'Dying 2 Live'' Recording Sessions
Thursday - February 12th, 2009: 9:45am to 10:30am - Damn, I back here again! I listened back to what I had recorded the night before, and the song still seemed happy with everything. I wanted to get a couple of guitar track down before Russ showed up at 11am. I recorded a total of 2 rhythm guitar tracks...both were keepers.
10:30am to 11:15am - Everything was done except a lead guitar solo...I recorded a total of four takes. Take 4 was the one that will make the album.11:15am to 11:30am - Mike setup for the drum kit and discussing the direction for the drum track.
12:30pm to 3pm - With a final mic check Russ took a stab at the tune. Awesome!!! It totally worked!!! The first take was great. I loved everything about it. We stopped to listen and we both loved it. Russ thought he could get the hi hat part a bit tighter and wanted to clean up the take. So, we recorded another three takes. I believe we settled on take 3 as being the best. There is a breakdown in the song that never quite seemed right...so I wanted Russ to cut the break again. After 7 takes I think we got something we could use.
Everything sounded great...the two songs that I had no idea of what direction I should take with them, so far, have been the easiest to record. We called it a day and decided to grab lunch at Applebees in order to discuss next weeks recording sessions. Three songs are slated for next week: We The People, Catch Me, and Guilty. And then, sadly all the drums will be finished. This makes me sad because I love hanging out with Russ and working on music together. He's such a great drummer...I just love hearing him play.Hopefully, if all goes well this next week, you'll get a chance to see him in action...it will be a real treat!
Until next time, Hutch
