Inside the Recording Studio: Day 2

I can't believe my time in the studio is halfway over!  It's gone by really fast, but luckily we've gotten a lot done.  We're actually ahead of schedule: 5 songs are finished (except for mixing), and all that is left for the 6th song is vocals.  We'll start Day 3 by recording those, and then move right on to the 7th song.

Day 2 began with vocals for songs 1 and 2, which went pretty quickly.  I sang the melody line for each song a few times until we had a usable take, and then we got to work on harmonies.  I had already worked out a few of those prior to this week, but most were created on the spot in the booth.  Luckily I've always had a weird talent for harmonizing almost any song upon first listen, so it wasn't too painstaking.

After we finished the vocals for those two songs, we got to work on song 4.  (By the way: someone asked me yesterday via Twitter if I am keeping the song titles under wraps.  The answer is yes, at least for now!)  I spent a long time in the guitar room (pictured above) with this one; for some reason, I had a tough time remembering how many measures to play between verses.  Vocals were much quicker, however, which saved us some time.

Next up was song 5.  We called this our "Carpenters-inspired" song, which is reflected in the instrumentation.  I was pretty tired by the time I got into the vocal booth, and the first couple of takes were rough.  I didn't think we'd get the vocals done on this one, but after some coaching from Jim (my sound engineer), I pulled it off.

Song 6 is one of my favorite songs I've ever written.  It's just plain fun, and so was recording it.  I am so excited about the electric guitar part for this song, which Jim literally wrote as he went.  In fact, this is what I tweeted last night:

I just couldn't believe how perfectly the guitar reflected the song's message and my feelings about it, and as I listened, it really sank in that my songs were coming alive just as I had hoped.  It was a pretty amazing moment.

After Jim was finished recording his parts, I jumped back into the guitar room and recorded my acoustic guitar part.  At that point, it was 10 pm and we decided to wait until the next day to record vocals.  I was thankful for that, considering I had an empty stomach, no energy, and was ready to fall asleep any moment.  Next up: Day 3 recap, coming tomorrow!