Day Two at the Studio

Rock & Roll Diary

Day Two - The first thing we did on day two was listen to what we tracked on day one. While our band drank coffee and chatted in Studio A, my partner, band co-leader, and I sat in the control room and listened to what we thought were the best takes of the three songs we recorded day one. The question hovering over us in the room: Did we catch it? Not only getting a clean, well-played take, but did we catch the energy of the band in the heat and fire of inspiration and creative joy? We were happy with what we heard. Yes, 3 songs captured. We emerged from the control room feeling really good. We took our places in the studio. What happened next was quite exciting. The first two songs of the day we all played like we were on fire. One take wonders, both. We just nailed the songs in all their strange glory. The band was totally clicking. Smiles all around. The third song took two takes, we did a bit of arranging on the spot. The fourth song was a looming beast. A song we've never really gotten right. Rehearsals of the song were always chaos and mayhem. We played it live once in public and it just kind of thudded on the ears. It has been sort of joke, what's gonna happen with this one? We blasted thru the song in one blazing take. The best we've all ever played it. We took a break and went in to listen to a rough mix. One superb take. Done. The last song of the day, another song we have always struggled with, and again we did struggle. Countless aborted takes. Turns out the quietest, most delicate songs are the most difficult to play. And it's not just the playing, how to make the performance easy and effortless, shimmering with life? We got thru it. Went to the control room and listened to the last best take. One part still wasn't right. We had to do a punch-in, something I am super-resistant to doing. What is a punch-in? Basically you play a part of the song and edit it into the track. The recording engineer can hide the stitches and make it all sound seamless. Our engineer could tell I was really uncomfortable with the idea. He said to me: "It's not cheating." I thought to myself: You know, it kind of is, but really, the main thing, will it work, will it sound organic & real? I was skeptical. We went back took our places in the studio, played the part a few times. The butterfly was floating around, couldn't quite catch it, couldn't really put a  finger on why we were failing. Finally we seemed to drift into it, and it all kind of clicked. I played much more delicately, just fingers barely plucking strings. We got a take that felt right. The recording engineer did a bit of surgery back in the control room. He played us the results. Yep. Amazing. It really did work. We all felt pretty satisfied. Day 2 = 5 songs tracked, and truly definitive takes. Kind of magnificent. It was a good day in the studio. And fun too. The good work. Onto to day three.