Studio Day 4

December 3rd, 2009 | By Kal

We started Studio Day 4 with the return of the piano.  We decided to re-record three piano parts that we already had from the first two days for various reasons.

Vedere, which I felt came out best this time, was recorded far to fast first time round.  I remember thinking at the time, that it was hard to take a breath between singing the lines, but with the pressure of the studio, we pushed on.  The beauty of the way we are recording material is that at each stage, not only do you get to hear the tracks, but we do as well.  A few weeks of listening to it and we decided to start from scratch.  This didn’t just mean redoing the piano, but we also had to redo the vocals, because they would be out of time with the new version.  Again they are guide vocals, but they really help when you’re adding new parts, or when you want to know what the finished song will sound like.

The other songs we started from scratch on Day 4 were All I Ever Wanted and Can’t Help Me Now.  These were re-done for another reason.  You.  One of the most frequent comments I heard was that all the first versions of our songs sounded the same, and you had a point!  How different can 6 tracks of piano and vocals sound?

Now, as you will hear on their latest versions, both songs are based around Rob’s acoustic guitar, which I feel gives them more of a rhythmic nature, if you’ll pardon the pretentious undertones of that statement!

Speaking of Can’t Help Me Now, while I may have mentioned this a lot, it really does sound different.  Give it a listen!  When I added my bassline to it on Day 4, Jim commented that it took on a Caribbean feel.  While that wasn’t my intention to start with, I kind of like it, and at least I now know that if all else fails I’ll have a career as a Calypso bassist to fall back on!

The day finished with an hour or so mixing down the tracks.  This basically means quickly sorting out each song that we had worked on so that you can hear every part, and then burning it to a CD.  Unfortunately, this also means that some parts interfere with others, or don’t mesh well, as the tracks have not been finished, but we really want your feedback on what parts you think work and which do not.

All in all, after a good nights sleep, I can say that I am proud of what we have achieved so far.  At first I might have been lulled into the idea that because we had added more and more parts to the songs, they could be compared to a finished article, but now I see the recordings for what they are – a stepping stone, that we need you to jump on and tell us what you think.  We are currently booking the next two days in the studio with Jim and between now and then, you will really be able to help us.  Like Matthew, one of the people who said that the songs sounded quite similar, your comments could drastically influence what we do next!