This blog is part 7 in an ongoing series. If you missed it, jump back to part 6.

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The following week I re-recorded my acoustic guitar rhythm track and we’d spoken in person about booking the Thursday to meet up again and go over everything and continue the project so I was anticipating that. I also very quickly re-recorded a new scratch vocal track just for general timing and to ensure the melody didn’t get lost under whatever else we were going to add to this. 

In retrospect, the first big mistake that was made during this project was when the engineer had me record a vocal over the rhythm guitar I tracked in studio, because as soon as you start to tweak the timing of the recorded acoustic guitar, it’ll fall out of pocket with the vocal which is exactly what happened and why I was sure to get something new down to compensate. But since I recorded that at home as well, I didn’t exactly give it an all star effort and that would have been obvious to anyone listening to that one. It wasn’t terrible, but it sure wasn’t single-worthy. 

Later that week before our scheduled session, I heard from the producer that he misread the schedule and we’d be rescheduling again. This was becoming an entirely too common occurrence for me. In my experience, it’s usually the artist that’s flaky about sessions (and permitted to be), not the production crew, but I rolled with that, too. I am generally a very easy going person.

Instead he asked that I send over what I’d recorded and we’d book a virtual meeting to discuss next steps. 

I went ahead and sent the files, but it was a while before I heard back from him. We didn’t end up having a virtual meeting. Weeks went by and I reached out twice in that time for an update before he sent me the scheduling link to book. 

Our next meeting was on August 29th and when I arrived, I was surprised that our engineer was on site – but not the engineer I’d met before. Rather, it was a new guy who seemed young and must have been fresh out of school or just beginning to learn.

Honestly, I was happy to see a new face. 

The other guy couldn’t make it for whatever reason (no worries) so the producer invited this one in instead. Works for me. I wasn’t sure we even needed an engineer for the way we were working, to be honest. By the end of this day and I thought he might just invite these guys in so they could get some experience doing the work more than anything else, which is kind of a nice thing because it can be tough to get placements at studios – lots of graduates, very few job roles. Anyway.

The producer mentioned he received my files (great) and the timing was bang on the grid (thanks), so we could proceed (woohoo). 

He asked openly what else I might be thinking of adding to the track and after giving it a brief think, I offered, “I can definitely hear some strings on this. Violin or cello even,” and he agreed. I was thinking about Green Day’s “Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)” at the time. 

“Maybe some piano,” he agreed with that, too. We both thought about it another second or two but, we seemed to agree on those main instruments. I mentioned that it could definitely use something to give it some shine. I was really envisioning something quite polished, clean and uplifting on this, so some higher-tone key work, bells or swelling strings could all add a nice tone to achieve that or even some accent percussive instruments. No brass, nothing too heavy on the drums, not a lot of cymbal work – the temperament should still remain steady and optimistic. 

The song was ultimately about love; Falling for the character you see in someone else and the way that feeling seems to overtake you, stopping you right where you stand to marvel at them for a moment. 

But it also addresses how the fear of rejection or your own lack of confidence can stop you from ever actually making a real move to telling them how you feel, so although mostly a positive song, it ends on the realization that there is something (yourself or perhaps some other entity or forcefield) stopping you from going after the person you want to be with. 

Anyway, we didn’t have any string instruments or a string player, but this producer plays a little bit of keys and had an idea to try so we decided to start there. 

I felt reasonably good about this. He was once again taking some initiative and had something tangible to offer the song, and I imagined he must be a better keys player than I was because he had a full scale keyboard and was able to use both hands while he played through chords, so I was excited to hear what he’d come up with. 

I use a short-scale midi keyboard at home when I compose, so I’m a one-handed player right now. Akai MPC gang, what up. 

First he needed the chords I was playing, but thankfully I’d been wise enough to print out a reference sheet. But it took a second to sort out because I didn’t write it out like a chord chart, I just sort of wrote down the chords ahead of the verse or chorus they appear in, because for me that’s well enough to remember what I was doing in the track. Kind of like how I did for you in the previous post. Where the chord changes happen is kind of obvious in this one.

He started to play through something that had a bit of bounce and I thought it worked well for the track. I describe it as “parlor piano,” but I’m not sure that’s the best descriptor – like saloon music, almost. It plays off the same chords I’m playing but moves a little faster. I thought it might be good for it to replace the rhythm guitar entirely. 

He wanted to get his idea down (he used those words a lot which kept leading me to believe these were all rough ideas we’d polish up later), so he grabbed that same stereo mic pair from the booth and pointed it at the outboard speaker of the piano he had. 

A bit of an unusual choice, I thought, but hey if it’s just to get an idea down…

It’s like using your iPhone to record your guitar amp. If that’s your desired sound, sure I guess, but there are just so many better ways to capture your performance. He even had a little MPC on the ledge behind it that would’ve been cleaner sounding.

Because of the way things are set-up in this studio-not-really-a-studio, he had to turn off the monitors in the room while he tracked, so I couldn’t hear it in context until after he finished getting the part down. 

He fumbled a bit at the bridge and challenged me that it wasn’t a Bminor I was playing there (it is), and I pulled out my guitar to show so (I made sure to bring it today in cae the producer changed their mind and wanted me to re-record my rhythm guitar in the space – they didn’t). Eventually, he found a chord that worked well for him there and carried on and got the whole song down.

“What chord is that?” the keys player asked me as he played it.

Fuck if I know. “No idea, but it sounds fine in context.”  

It definitely gave the track a bit more bounce which I liked as it added to the pop-sensibility I wanted, so we said that was a good idea for the song. 

I had brief conversations with the new engineer throughout whenever it wasn’t distracting from the actual session. He seemed very new to the recording world and was hoping, I think, to get a chance to engineer this session. It was easier for the producer to just jump between his laptop and the piano to get this all down, so the kid didn’t get much of an opportunity to get any hands-on experience, but he seemed happy enough to be in the room and observe. I remember those days. We chatted a bit about DAW’s and he asked me if I felt it was worthwhile to go to school for music production.

It both is and isn’t, you can learn a lot more online nowadays and the technology has made it easier to learn on your own time, but there’s a certain benefit to being at a good school – there are a lot of bad schools, however, too, and it’s a very expensive commitment and you’re unlikely to see any of that money back for a long time because of how challenging it is to get steady paid work. I went to Metalworks, it was one of the better schools at the time. The producer went to Berkely, but I’m unsure if he took a production route or a business stream, or maybe a bit of both.

The new engineer asked me what instruments I play and I explained a little bit of everything, but I was mainly a guitarist and bass player.

Both he and the producer seemed amazed by this. Especially the bass part. “Wow, you play bass?” I felt like they were putting me on. “Yeah?” “Wow!” I was certain now the producer had not listened to a single second of the work I had given him and also probably wasn’t paying attention when we spoke about any of this multiple times before and that all made me uneasy.

The session lasted maybe an hour before the producer said that was enough for the day. Again, he’d send me the days tracks and next time, we could do bass. Or rather, I could play bass. “Bring your bass in next time and we’ll do that.”

Sure, great, let’s get rollin’. 

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Come back soon for part 8.