Yesterday we had our mammoth final tracking session for the album. It was all-day and we accomplished WAY more than we anticipated. What a fantastic time. Wish you could've been there! Of course, you'll get to hear the results soon...
Jim & Randy had set up the drums the night before in the smaller drum booth where we hadn't recorded before. Mic-ing drums is a strange and arcane art form in which all sound engineers have opinions and none of them are "right". So much depends on the drummer, how he/she hits her drums, how in tune they are, room size, materials, mics used, mixer, engineer, alignment of the planets.
Luckily for us, Jim is an inherently good-sounding drummer, so there isn't a ton of correction to do... you just want to find the sweet spots for the mics and then accentuate a few things in the final mix (give the snare a little more snap, the cymbals a little more sizzle, etc...). We've been lucky on this record and Randy & Austin's skill has gotten us some great drum tones. This session Randy went with even less drum mics and a single overhead ribbon mic behind the kit - but just monitoring it in the studio we knew it had a LOT of power. Should be a great sound.
Preston and myself got to the studio at about the same time with our guitars. I brought along my bag of percussive goodies for an overdub of our "super secret song" later in the day. The pressure was off me for today - I just had to be there to help guide Jim & Preston through the song but none of my playing or singing would be used in the final recording. Excellent!
We spent the morning setting up our instruments, checking levels... we've been through this before so it was standard procedure. We knew we had a big workload today, but despite the pressure we were all determined to keep things light and fun. Preston periodically pulled out his video camera and taped the procedings, some less family-friendly than others.
After Jim arrived we talked about the plan for the day. Two songs HAD to be tracked (drums and main bassline, everything else to be over-dubbed later), one was a big priority, one was a bonus... and then there were a couple of "nice-to-haves". In the back of our minds I don't think anyone thought we'd get everything done.
We started with "She's Waiting", a song I wrote for Randy but I was going to sing the rough track today. Which I hadn't done since I wrote it over a year ago. Eek. The first couple takes were a little nervous as they always are, but after pushing it a bit we got a good vibe going. This song hasn't been played by the band as much as some of the others, so the material was a bit "fresh" (re: we didn't exactly have the parts nailed down)... but that was part of the nervous magic of the day.
After getting it down we moved on to "More Than Ever", complete with a new approach - cowbell click track! This is a relentless but perfect tempo click on the quarter notes that keeps us from slowing down and speeding up. Which, after the first pass, apparently we did a lot! In the crazy world of rock and roll this is sometimes called "swinging the beat" - Rolling Stones did it on just about every song of theirs. Sometimes it's just called "feel". For this time around we wanted More Than Ever to have a very steady, almost "club" vibe - pounding home those quarter notes. After a few takes we got it down... this song has always been special to me because I so vividly remember writing and recording a demo of it in two hours late one night... it's a fun, catchy, and should sound great on the record.
After a pizza break we got started on the funky disco version of I Don't Need Anything. Those of you who have copies of "Live My Life" will recognize this song, although this arrangement is totally different. We came up with this version this summer and all fell in love with it - very Bee Gees, Prince - all the bands we loved growing up. Not exactly standard Screaming Mimes rock pop material, and it's great! As we were tracking it we came up with some ideas for the vocal treatment - I can't wait for this one to be mixed. Of course, I have no idea how it's going to fit on the record!
Next came the most challenging song of the day, Pretty Soon Now. This one has been scaring the hell out of me for months. I wrote it last fall - just a very rough demo of it - but never really sat down and arranged it properly until Tuesday night this week. I know I had been avoiding it because it had to great... my own expectations for it were a little daunting. The band had jammed on it twice before but we were really unfamiliar with the song... we knew it had to be epic, emotional, dramatic... and yet still accessible and the ultimate album closer. It had to leave the listener exhausted.
Luckily this past Tuesday a small song fragment bubbled up from the past that could slip right in to the song... even the original lyric was the perfect compliment. I took this down to the home studio and added on some strange diminished chord changes, channeling The Beach Boys and ELO... from there the arrangement took shape and I began recording... and recording and recording. When it was done I had an eight minute pop song with only three distinct parts. How was this going to work?
That's where the band kicked in... building the drums like laying railroad tracks, we tackled it a section at a time. This verse we take this approach... okay, on this chorus stop then build up to this. How about this fill here? It was a totally new approach for us, but thanks to Randy's technical savy and Jim's skill we crafted a very dynamic track on which to layer all the icing and frosted flowers we want. Listening to the playback I could here strings, harps, horns... all sorts of swirling instruments. Anyone want to hire an orchestra for us on this one?
Suffice to say, I was on cloud 9 at this point. We had climbed the mountain.
Now it was time to have a little fun. We had about an hour left in the studio, so we whipped out a couple of Mimes chestnuts and let 'er rip. Thanks A Lot Mom is a song I wrote exactly 10 years ago and was a sarcastic ode to some rather oppresive moms some friends of mine had. Not mine, though - she's a gem. :) Rex Dance was written back in 1990 and was one of the first songs that Randy & Preston and I played together back when we met several years ago. We swore we'd never record the song with the band... but demand has been too much. It's Preston's wife's favorite song, after all. Will it make it on the album? Time will tell...
One more piece for the drums - a coda, if you will... Jim and I whipped out a short waltz piece that may possibly wrap up the album... or not. We'll see.
Then Jim, Preston & I gathered around the mic and knocked out an important overdub for the super secret special song that you'll find out about soon. Randy sat at the mixing controls laughing at us.
From there we tore down all the drums and equipment as fast as we good and sped off to enjoy the remains of the day with family. I was exhausted but energized from all that we accomplished and couldn't stop babbling about Pretty Soon Now. My mind hasn't stopped chugging on possible overdubs, sounds, tweaks and effects... Can't wait to get back in the studio!
Thanks for reading. Keep your fingers crossed that this album will have the same magic when you listen to it that we had in the studio yesterday. Cheers!
