Studio Blog March 15, 2010

Monday- March 15, 2010

So I’m officially at the point where I am now recording vocals. And wow… what a whole new kettle of fish this is. I’ve worked with so many singers in the studio in the past but it’s just so different now that it’s me and I’m finding out I’m just so difficult to work with. Ha! I also completely understand why producers are needed. Sometimes the creative aspect just isn’t there and you need someone else’s expertise to pull from.

I chose one of the songs that was done, minus the vocals, and that I thought would be an easy one to do. I had a couple ideas and tried them and a few more that I come up with on the fly. I have such a new respect for singers who can come up with such wonderful melody lines. The likes of Brad Delp of Boston, Steve Walsh of Kansas, Ronnie James Dio and so many other great singers just blow my mind with the incredible melodies that they come up with to sing their songs to. Even Geddy Lee, who has a… unique and different voice, is a very good singer, comes up with some great melody lines.

While I have always appreciated good singers, I have a renewed respect for them now that I am trying to do what they do. You might think that putting lyrics to music would be easy but… not necessarily so. And in my case…. Yike!

So when I got to the studio Saturday morning, Jeff was already there and had the mic all set up in the iso booth. We got some levels and I tried my best to warm up during this time but what seemed like way too soon, I was laying tracks down. Now… I have always compared my voice to that of David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. That doesn’t mean I have a great singing voice like David does. That just means that I liken my singing style to his. That subtle, softer kind of voice… which will also make for a challenge as there a couple on this CD that I am going to have to BELT out!

So, being that the first one was relatively easy… two verses and two chorus’ and that’s it… it went pretty quickly. Like… about an hour and 45 minutes. Seems REALLY fast, huh? Yeah… I’ve already e-mailed Jeff this morning and said I wanted to do the chorus over. I left the studio knowing that there was a better line for it. I’ve got a couple more ideas I’ll be trying.

Overall, it was….fun! It was interesting. It was new. It was doing something I’ve always wanted to do but never have. It was just Jeff and I in the studio so I really wasn’t nervous and when I made a mistake, Jeff didn’t fall out of his chair laughing (Thanks for that, Jeff!)

I had hoped to do a 2^nd song and clearly I had time to at least start it. But once I put the lyric sheet up I realized that I didn’t have enough lyrics and I’ll have to go in and add to it. Shouldn’t be too hard to do as it’s a very dear subject to me and finding more to say on it shouldn’t be too difficult.

But it is my hope to complete the vocals on two songs on each session. I have 7 songs to do vocals on, so hopefully I’ll be knocking them out soon.

It’s been a very busy winter but now that March is here and spring is on its way things have started to settle a bit and I’m getting into the studio pretty much every Saturday.

Two songs have been sent out to the West Coast Connection and are being mixed and mastered out there. I’m very excited to have the friends out there that have showed excitement and enthusiasm to work with me on this. Indeed my gratitude has no bounds.

It’s getting close, people. It really is.