Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Back In The Recording Saddle

My house is quite cold, even though it's sunny out there. The heating's off to save money, but no amount of energy crisis can unplug creative brains. Back to the mixing board (see what I did just there!).

First of all I went back to edit a song that had driven me mad a couple of days ago, as I shifted blocks of music about the screen trying to make it sound OK. In the end, I decided not to save the changes and resolved to revisit it another day.

I listened all the way through, and there's nothing wrong with it at all. My listening has become microscopically critical (which is really annoying when I'm in crowds of people because I start 'mixing' their conversations), and a certain amount of imperfection makes the music warmer. McDad used to love oriental rugs because they all had deliberate mistakes: only Allah is perfect. I understand this completely, and I want that in my recordings: not that they should be sloppy, but that there should be a tiny bit of edge to everything.

I have some very high up vocals to sing, and I might tackle them later on. Meanwhile, I've changed a guitar part to a song that I thought was a spare and which might turn out to be one of the better ones. I can't know till they are all done. I have one more song to record from scratch, but I might do that one next week.

I have invited Sarah Vista's double bass player Emma Goss to play on at least one of these songs. I want that woody, deep and grounded sound, and she has said yes. There aren't many guests this time around; the only one I have so far is Steve Beresford doing some electronics. Mostly it's me playing guitar and also bass guitar.

I have made tea to warm my hands up.

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