Right now we’re recording Gayleen’s piano in the studio.
She came and dropped off her gear last night – a dusty old Korg digital piano, an Alesis sound module, a well-worn acoustic guitar, and other odds and ends. I spent last night patching her gear into my studio, tested it all – it worked, so far so good.
We got started this morning around 9 and soon the rich piano chords of Wake the Dead filled the studio. My daughter Gillian heard this and started ballet dancing outside the studio door.
It didn’t take too long for the first few recording glitches to reveal themselves, though. Anyone who has ever done recording knows this is not a matter of if, but when. 
There was one software crash, needing a computer restart.
In the middle of one take, the piano sound she was playing on her Alesis module switched to a big loud synth brass patch without any warning. We tried another take, and it did it again! I think it was trying to awaken the hidden Europe within her.
Then her piano started dropping notes as she was playing – she would play the notes on the keyboard but some sporatically resulted in no sound. Other MIDI weirdness started happening too. This was getting pretty bad, and we had to stop.
Luckily, it seems the simplest of fixes is working. After some troubleshooting, it seems the problem was just a crappy MIDI cable. I’ve replaced the cable, and everything is working fine. Knock on wood.
Now we’re knocking off the raw piano tracks for each song, one by one.
Later,
Chris
