Waking Life Afternoon

I had the pleasure of recording this week.

It had been a minute (or decade) since I had spent any quality time in a studio. 

The night and a few hours before I got to the studio I had been exploding out of my face. Puke. I was puking my guts out. And it took all of my being to get in the shower and clean myself up before leaving the house. Though I truly do not remember recording some of the songs and it felt like my stomach was collapsing on itself, I did enjoy tracking my bass parts, watching the engineer set up the microphones on the drum kit and the like.

The engineer is great and I enjoy watching audio folks work who really know their room and gear. Ooh, I got to use an amp that sounds really good that I would never buy. And quite possibly the coolest- we recorded on tape!

The second day I was able to eat some saltines and an apple and record vocals. MY FAVORITE! I could record vocals all day. I have weird rituals I do before each song when I am standing alone in the iso booth. I shake my hands wildly and over accentuate my mouth with kissy face before taking my breaths to sing. Sometimes I "hand-jive." If you don't know what that is watch the movie Grease, they hand-jive during the dance scenes.

I put my hair in a side pony tail and stuff like that. 

Also, I really like to double my vocal. I like the sound of natural chorus and I think it make my voice sound better. The engineer agreed, so obviously he is brilliant, and so I was able to double all my parts. Usually I can nail them within a couple of go rounds. So even though I still felt like ass and all the time away from the studio, I still could do the things I used to do.

The tracks sound good and in a few months we will be able to mix. Mixing is fun, but in a different way. The performing part is much more physical and emotionally draining (I mean you don't want to do 50 takes of a song). The mixing portion is more cerebral and since there are 4 of us, probably more debating with a chance of an argument. With the time gap before the mixing happens there will probably be lots and lots of notes.