1st day of recording

WOW! Whirlwind was an understatement – more like Tornado. I arrived at Artisan around 1pm yesterday and Paul and Trey were already set up and getting drum sounds when I arrived. Paul is a master at getting the most out of a kit. We used Artisan Owner Tye Robison’s kit for the session btw. Paul set up several ambient mics around the room to fill out. I’m convinced he could have used 2 booms for the whole kit and it still would have sounded incredible.

Have I mentioned before how much I love my friend Trey? Aside from being a kind and giving human being, the guy is a monster drummer and tore thru 10 of the 11 songs in an 8 hour period. That’s right, we’re almost done with drums. He’s probably spent the most time rehearsing the new material (including myself) so he was more than prepared. I’d say only 2 or 3 takes per song were all that he needed to get the job done. Joe and I played some scratch guitar/vocal/bass along with him to ensure the structures were correct, but I doubt he needed us. I’m sure he got a kick out of me singing guitar and keyboard leads in sotto voce.

Tye hooked us up with Kirk Powers – a really nice guy who provided us with some fabulous basses to rent for the session. Since I forced Joe to be in the band and play bass at gunpoint – we really haven’t invested that much in good gear – so this really helped out.

I’d post all of the tech-specs on what mics and amps we are using, but I honestly don’t care about that. You can contact Paul if you are interested.

Today we’re gonna record some horrible guitarist named Jeff Jones and then let Joe knock out some bass parts this evening. Eric’s coming in on Friday to do lead guitar parts and I, er I mean that freak Jeff will start on vocals Saturday. Holt will add his parts on Sunday and we should have a few days after that to add extra junk and experiment a bit.

So far, I haven’t had time to take advantage of the amenities Artisan offers – we are literally moving at the speed of sound to get this cd done. When yer the one paying for it, it kinda forces you to sink or swim – and things are going swimmingly. Hopefully Paul won’t be ready to kill me after his fingers fall off from so many punch-ins.

More tomorrow!