Studio Blog 3 (12-4-07)

I woke up early again today and went and worked out. I drove home, took a shower and jumped in the car to go pick up Ash. I got Ash and we headed off, getting Stephen's a few minutes after 11. Stephen was listening to "Pleased" when we got there, trying to figure out what else it needed. After a few listens we figured out it just needs some guitar parts done by Stephen later on. These 2 days of overdubs are specifically for trying to get as much stuff from me as possible, so Stephen's stuff will have to wait, if possible. So, we moved on to "Something Beautiful".

"Something Beautiful" took a really great turn...it still has an 80's vibe, but instead of 80's pop, it's more like 80's pop/rock. The little synth intro is gone and replaced by a big guitar/bass riff. It's real punchy and cool.

Today, we sat down and started off with Stephen laying down a rhythm part. I would normally play it but the part is a little more complex than usual, and after a couple of tries, we decided that Stephen should go ahead and lay down the part just for time's sake. He went to work and after a few takes, he had the part. I sat down at the keyboard and laid down a nice little piano part. As soon as I figured out the part, I laid down the part and then we added some effects to it to mess it up a little. We changed the piano sample from a grand piano to an upright piano...for those who don't know: grand piano would sound a more like 70's & 80's Elton John...upright sounds like John Lennon's "Imagine" or some Coldplay stuff. The upright sounds a little dirtier. After we figured out the sample, we put a distortion on the piano, which made it a little more dirty. Then we added an echo delay, which finished up the "messing up" of the sound.

I then moved on to a synth part. Stephen just got this new program called MiniMonsta. It's a synth based program that samples all the great Moog sound from the 70's and 80's. It has a ton of presets to start with and like 20 knobs that you can then turn to change the synthesis and the way the sound is produced. It has filters and knobs just like a regular Moog, so you can really get great, great synth sounds that other programs I've messed with have failed to recreate.

I started off laying down a synth part on the verses. The part was just a simple one part melody that was contrapuntal to the verse melody and I moved on to the pre-chorus part, which was an arpeggiated melody that fit really nicely under the melody. We listened to it a few times and really felt we loved the synth part and Stephen added a really, really simple melody on the chorus underneath the vocal melody.

Stephen then went to work on another big rhythm guitar part. He laid that one down a little slower because it was vital for this specific part to be exact. It's a little crunchy chunky part he did with a strat through an old 70's Marshall head that kind of had that Police "Every Breath You Take" vibe to it on the verses. On the choruses, he did an octave part that kind of added some movement in the choruses. It was really cool.

I then got an idea to double the bass part on the verses with a synth bass. We got this really great 80's-sounding synth bass with a great filter sound (you can hear it opening up and down). On top of the real bass it gave it this really cool Maroon 5 or 80's pop/rock sound.

As we finished that up, Stephen went to work on some more guitar parts. Sarah stopped by and she stayed for a little bit while we worked. While we working I uploaded a bunch of photos from the first day of studio work on myspace. I also played some Tiger Wood's Golf on PSP.

I had to leave a little early because I had a show tonight. One of the larger booking agents in town also has a sports side of things. They were having a banquet tonight to celebrate a piece of their side of things where they put on Faith Nights at sporting events. They were meeting with well-to-do people to contribute to their idea, as they just moved from a 'for-profit" to a non-profit. They wanted to give the meeting the feel of a Faith night, so they had music and a testimony from a Christian pro athlete. I was the music.

I sang 3 songs and it went really, really well. And now I'm back at home and I'm going to bed early. I work out again tomorrow morning and then it's off to the big studio again for my tracking session with Will Owsley. Tomorrow is really cool...Jim Bogios, the drummer for Sheryl Crow for several years and now the drummer for Counting Crows (which is of course one of my favorite bands) is flying in from San Fransisco to play on these 3 songs! I am pumped!!!

Anyway, today was a great day. We got a lot done.