Today I went to find my friend who had agreed to help me record. I had no idea what we’d be doing, I wasn’t just excited to finally meet him under these circumstances, in his tiny studio and with the whole day to spare. After catching up for a half hour he took me into the closet sized space and set up the microphones. He told me that today I should just record demos of all my songs, a practice run and something to look at and work on.
He seems to be walking me through the process so he can do as little work a step possible. I don’t believe he’s being lazy. He told me in the past that he believes I should learn to take care of the whole recording process myself. It seems he is guiding me through the whole recording process step-by-step and only getting involved during the parts where he can teach me something. He helped to pick a suitable mic and get the setting ready, pushed record and played around with things to find a suitable sound for me a suitable I warmed up. We recorded one song together, then he told me to keep going,that I didn’t need him for the rest. I recorded 10 songs on one long continuous take.
The newest songs sounded best. I feel their almost good enough as they are, add a little reverb in the right places, a few sounds and effects scattered throughout and that’s it. Some of the older ones felt forced, it’s almost hard to identify with them anymore. I feel like they need a full renovation. After 4 songs my voice fell apart too. I sounded worse and worse as I went. Demos bough, so I just plowed on through. By the time I was finished I felt like I had been thrown against the wall and dragged around the room. Not that bad, but I was spent!
He told me that I should take a month to listen to the songs and get specific about how I want to arrange them, what I want to add to them and how I could change them. I was hoping he’d help me with this but I know his goal is to help me grow as an artist. This is tough though. It’s so hard to imagine how it will ACTUALLY sound when I re-record it with any major changes. It’s easy enough to imagine certain effects and settings but I feel it’s easier to imagine a song a certain way than it is to realize it. I often feel like my ideas for arrangements don’t really do the song justice, like they’re meant for more than the ideas I give them. There are also lots of ways to change these songs that I can hardly imagine. I almost feel as if I’m throwing darts blindfolded.
Deadlines don’t usually work for me but since this album has been cooking for 7 years inside of the oven that is me, I feel motivated to at least get serious about TRYING to record, now that I’ve got this amazing musician friend looking over my shoulder. He said if we record the full thing he wants to do it all at once, take as many hours and days as it takes without an unnecessary breaks. This is really not how I’m used to working but it’s worth it.
I’ll listen through the demos again tomorrow and see if there is anything worth posting in the coming days.