Back To The Editing Board

Of course, the day I decided to record Spanish guitar is the day a neighbour booked builders to do their roof. It's Ok actually- the thumping and banging is mild and sparse. It's the pealing and honking men's voices that carry the most, which of course they need to do on site. However, I am my own worst enemy. Halfway through a take, my phone dinged with a text: I'd forgotten to mute it. Stupidly, I checked the phone again during playback when the text rang out loud and clear from the recording! 

I deleted the Spanish guitar in the end, and just whisked a few overdubs into the background. Actually it was more blooming editing that the track needed, and I spent an hour chopping and shifting sections of vocals to the right places. It might sound better. I've no idea. I sank so deeply into listening that there has only been one possible remedy: Bargain Hunt on BBC 1. Such cheerful and pointless babbling! It's a tonic for an overworked brain.

I'm starting to miss recording already. I'm just waiting for the violin part to float down from Scotland, and to organise the double bass session, and then I'll be on the final strait. DIY is difficult- have I just created box of turds? Have I mixed the tracks well? There seems to be no logic (in-joke) to it all; I'll try to copy a vocal template on to another track and it simply doesn't work with that particular configuration of instruments. I have had to go with instinct and what I listen to in tracks when I'm audience rather than producer.

Getting things wrong in the guitar playing has been a remarkably good rehearsal technique. I now have a grip like a strong-man and biceps like a weightlifter. I daren't even think back to 2018 when I broke my funny bone, and my elbow was literally hanging off by a thread. No, don't think about it!