The Three Day Album Project

Spent the night recording an orchestra. Or the digital non-union equivalent. A big string orchestra waltz for “At Ease”.

So right now in the can, we have a pop hit single, a slightly sinister sounding, depressing song, a big Russian orchestra waltz, and a solo voice-and-piano ballad. So far so good. That will leave six songs to arrange/produce tomorrow.

We are working through a reoccurring problem/bug with my studio system: after a couple of hours of recording, for some reason the audio being recorded starts to have weird digital garbage thrown in for good measure. If I restart, it solves the problem for another couple of hours. We’ve probably restarted four-five times today. I suspect a bad audio driver for my M-Audio audio interface.

Anyway, good night.

Chris

If we wanted to be lazy, or if Gayleen simply wanted to have an album like the others she’s recorded – voice and piano for every track – we could call it quits right now and say we’ve won already.

By 1 this afternoon we had recorded all the raw piano tracks and vocals for every single track, including my own vocals on the cover we’re doing (a duet… another first for me!).

But we are not interested in settling for a Top 10 finish. The eyes are on the podium. So now comes the hard road. The building of sonic landscapes and arrangements around the bedrock of Gayleen’s songs, as played on piano.

Poor Gayleen – it must be booooooooring to sit and watch me mold sonic clay for hours until I get something that might be cool. But this is how it’s done. And I’ve got to hold up my end of the creative bargain now. I think it’ll be worth it. Already the title track (Past Closing) is sounding like a catchy single. To me, anyway.

Gold medal, here we come.

Chris