Album #2, Recording Day 1

Eight years and 7 months ago, I set foot for the first time in a professional recording studio (that journey began here).  The Twenty Committee's first album, A Lifeblood Psalm, (check the sidebar) was recorded in the space of two weeks at Radiant Studios in Nashville, and released in 2013.  The drum work you hear on that album is almost entirely the result of one take, recorded live in the space of several hours on that first day as we were laying down scratch tracks.  The other instruments, with the exception of Geoff's keyboards, were all recorded each in a 10-12 hour day.  While we remain deeply proud of that first effort, we are looking forward to a more mature approach to fleshing out these tunes by building them properly, from the ground up, tracking the drums over several days, and then bringing the files home to overdub each instrument in turn.

Today, we began the process, this time with Rave Tesar of Renaissance at the helm.  I think he was excited to start the process, since he told us the night we arrived that he was going to "stay up all night" to get Joe's drums mic-ed and ready for the first session.  Jeff streamlined the process in advance by quantizing practice recordings of all the new tunes and setting them to click tracks (he may have aged several years in the process).  I don't know how we could possibly have worked these complex tunes out with any degree of tempo consistency without that work done prior to rolling the tape.  Even still, there were still some strange moments we needed to work out in the moment, or plan for overdubbing later.

We spent half the day (from 10-3) getting set up.  Anything with a speaker was set up and mic-ed in a separate room for sound insulation.  Geoff's keyboard station was with Rave in the control room.  Once all mics, DIs, and cables were checked, we sounded in each instrument and then established headphone mixes for monitoring purposes.  We took our lunch break standing up, just before hitting record for the first time.  The final take of the day wrapped up around 10:00.

We recorded 5 tunes today in total, each with three takes apiece.  The working titles are "Embers," "Robot Death," "Forevermore," "Star in the Eye," and "Sparks in the Mind (You Wasted Life)" -- all subject to change.  Some of these songs we've been playing/working for years.  Others, we literally were making changes to as of our last practice before this weekend.  We have two monster tunes left to do tomorrow, each broken into 3 parts.  These epics are the most complex numbers on the album in terms of arrangement, tempo variation, and nuance, so we anticipate putting another 12 hours into them -- again, with the primary intent being to walk away with drum mixes (and bass too, if possible).

Rave is a skilled musician and producer.  We are deeply grateful for the expertise, equipment, time, and eagerness he is bringing to the project, not to mention his anecdotes between takes.

Exhausted, but pleased, I close this post by delivering to you these quotable moments of the day:

"We all know that all good music is based off of the kick drum." - Rave

"Are you playing guess the guitar sound?" - Geoff

"Rave, if I open this box labeled 'Rave Miscellaneous,' will there be internal organs?" - Geoff

"There's one thing you'll never hear a Russian say..." - Rave

"Drum plop!" - the band

"Follow the click, not the lick." - Joe

"That's the warmth of my sincerity." - Jeff