State of the Union... (Or a series of overdue updates)

Hi, there!  In case we haven't been previously acquainted, my name is Justin and I am a sometimes writer whose creative juices ebb and flow, sometimes to the point where a certain blog languishes for more than two years without any updates.  Major life events worth writing about sail by... and no posts.  Suffice it to say that, for the last 24 months, life has been very full, and while I've had time now and again to sit down and do some intentional reflecting, my energy expenditures and resting rhythms are just different now than they were when I began Häxprocess back in 2011.  Hopefully that's more reason than excuse, but either way I've lapsed and I'd like to get back to sharing more regular updates and ponderings.

If you're still here reading this, then you must be interested!  I'll start with the most recent talking points and work backward.

Album #2 Studio Updates

For those of you who have been looking for an update on our progress for the new Twenty Committee album, here are a few belated snapshots of our progress to date.

We came home from New York at the end of May with finished drum tracks and plenty of scratch material to build off of in order to track the other instruments.  For a few weeks, we listened back to rough board mixes, getting our bearings and formulating the direction we wanted to go.

In mid-June, Richmond began re-tracking bass parts.  The perfectionist in each musician always says, "Let me play it again -- I can do it better!" but there were also some really great bass tracks from our NY sessions that would have been difficult to top.  Some of them we cut again anyway, in search of more pop or resonance, and the results sound great.  However, some of what you'll hear on the final record is Richmond playing live at Rave's while we were also laying down the drum takes we wanted.

Through the rest of the summer, Geoff reworked his established keys.  He also began addressing some introductory and postlude content, and introduced some new layered synth ideas to the mix.  FYI, Record #2 is another concept album, so there will be recurring musical themes and sounds that we want to incorporate throughout its duration.  Some of this we'll still have to wait for the final mixes to be complete, in order to properly layer the effects and ideas during post-production.  But we can't really help ourselves from fooling around with ideas that we'll revisit later!  Geoff and I have also been occasionally trading lyric ideas for the songs that were last written as we move steadily toward recording vocal parts.  Some big themes the lyrical content of this album will address are as follows: human creativity and its purpose in relation to societal advancement, the ethics of conformity/nonconformity, true productivity, the relationship of individual parts to the whole, human pride and ambition, the quest for self-perfection...

In short, the record will cover life, the universe, and everything.

Joe's mostly been in an observing, cheerleading role, since he did the lion's share of the recording work in NY.  His performance truly shines on this record -- there are so many cool rhythmic things he does that I can't wait to hear with the final mixes.

In the last few weeks -- since the end of August -- it's been my turn to plug in and tune up my guitars.  Some of my parts I'd primarily worked out on the electric in the rehearsal space, but we'd always envisioned them on the acoustic.  So I re-recorded some of the things I did at Rave's on the electric, this time using both regular 6-string tuning and also "high-stringing" a second acoustic guitar to create a more nuanced 12-string sound by blending the two together.  While this method is less efficient than just playing a 12-string guitar, the approach creates dynamic sounds with far more voicing clarity than a traditional 12-string can provide.  The strategy also gives us greater ability to mix and manipulate the final takes.  I still have some more electric guitar work to do on a few of there complex passages of "Forevermore" and "Sparks in the Mind" as well, but other than that it's almost time for me to move on to my auxiliary keyboard sections.

Once we've completed all the instruments, it'll be time to move on to the vocals.  We've (I've) gotten quite a few chuckles from the scratch vocals that Geoff put down to simply direct traffic while we were in NY.  I might actually miss him saying, "Coming up on double chorus!" in the final mix...  That said, I can't wait to start working the actual parts.

Yes, we're taking our time with this project -- in part because we can (I mean, it's been eight years since we released A Lifeblood Psalm, so why rush now?), and in part because all of us are insanely busy.  I'm thankful for Jeff Bishop's expertise at the console, the modern technology that allows us to punch and splice takes without having to endlessly repeat the whole song until we get the perfect take, and for the amazing experience of writing and recording music.

Looking forward to the final product!

Album #2 Recording, Day 3

Today, with the drum work finalized, we listened back to all the work we'd done Friday and Saturday and spot-checked for errors in the bass and my guitar parts.  Since replicating the sounds we were getting on those instruments with different mics and equipment back home would be particularly challenging, they became our final area to focus on here at Rave's.  For most of the day, Richmond and I sat in the main recording area, listening back on headphones, in order to punch in fixes on the fly.  Joe, Geoff, and Jeff sat in the control room with Rave to observe overall and take production notes.

The note detective process can be tedious and frustrating.  In addition to having to zoom in on individual notes being played, you also have to manage a precarious balance between making necessary fixes and getting inside your own head.  Live takes have such a distinct character to them, and you don't want to lose the human element in your record.  You run the risk of lobotomizing your tracks if you make them too perfect.  But, of course, the perfectionist in each of us wants every element of our individual parts to be completely professional and without error!

We started the day listening to the big epic numbers, since they contain some of the most complicated sections.  Following that, we took a break to get some drum samples for later editing and production.  Joe sampled each one of his drums (including each of the 5 total snare drums he used during different songs over the weekend) so that we can use them for any necessary edits later in the production process.

After a minor heart attack where we thought we'd lost an entire song file (!!!), we packed Joe into his car to head home (he has an early start for work tomorrow), then dove back into the final tracks.

Not all of you will care, but what follows are notes I was taking for my own sake during the production work we did today.  Instead of deleting them, here they are, preserved for posterity:

• "Timepiece Creator," Part 1 -- several minor bass correction
• "Timepiece Creator," Part 2 -- bass correction on the final note to fix a crackle, cleaned up a transition lick, addressed a questionable note
• "Timepiece Creator," Part 3a -- re-addressed some of the bass passages on the verses
• "Timepiece Creator," Part 3b -- pure awesome, no changes needed
• 5/4 Monster ("The First Song") Part 1 -- spliced a couple of different takes to get the sustained forward momentum we wanted, and added a sweet bass slide
• 5/4 Monster Part 2 -- fixed one guitar chord, a few crackles in the bass, and re-tuned a couple notes
• 5/4 Monster Part 3 -- fixed a few bass notes, added a second sweet bass slide for symmetry
• "Embers" -- reworked the first verse on the guitar, and eliminated one noisy crackle on the bass
• "Forevermore" -- corrected the pitch on several slightly out-of-tune notes on the bass; lead part, chorus 2
• "Robot Death" -- to be addressed later
• "Sparks in the Mind (You Wasted Life)" -- bass: a few riff adjustments; guitar 2: first chorus hiccup; second chorus hiccup; bridge hiccup; intro/interlude riff
• "Star in the Eye" -- guitar 2 parts will most likely be replaced with acoustic at home; bass is good to go

With our edits completed, we packed the gear while Rave began exporting the files to take home.  Homeward bound, we are listening to Kansas, breathing another sigh of relief that Rave found the WAV files for "Embers," and talking guitar tones.

We can't wait to get this album finished and into your hands!

Final quotables:

"Match that same level of depressiveness." - Rave

"Oh, no -- I'm drinking decaf." - Geoff

"Hooray for subtle mistakes." - Richmond

"A drum well-done." - Joe

Scenes from our auditory escapades today:

Nigel, the note-taker

Drum sampling.

Carlton bros in the office.

Packing for home.

Album #2, Recording Day 2

We got back to Rave's at 9:00 this morning, reestablished our headphone mixes, and officially launched into the home stretch of the album around 10:00.  The two epics we worked on today have a lot of cool pieces that interlock.  Playing them live, we have the luxury of eye-contact and spontaneity, but for studio purposes, we had to record them in smaller chunks and will later stitch the segments together.

Part one of the album opener (as yet unnamed) is a monster to navigate for recording.  It's only 2 minutes and 21 seconds long, but the tempo and time changes galore meant listening very, very carefully to the click track.  My parts for this section still need some fleshing out, so I took the opportunity as the rest of the guys were working to shoot some video (well, shoot some video, get interrupted by out-of-storage notifications, delete a bunch of stuff off of my phone to make room, keep filming, rinse, lather, repeat...) and also jot down these notes.  It took us a significant number of attempts to get decent takes for part one -- probably 7 or 8 before we had enough quality material to work with.

Part two is a straightforward ballad that we nailed down in two takes.  I love that piece for its simple but compelling melody, shared between Geoff's keys and Jeff's guitar.  We only hiccuped once before going to tape, trying to remember how many passes through a solo section we should go around.

Because we worked out a confusing issue with the click track for the opening section, the third part of the monster -- a reprise of part one -- avoided one potential pitfall, but still had its challenges.  We had to work through overthinking one segment and also blasting through another section that, in a live setting, we would likely play a little faster.

We began part one of the final number, currently titled "Timepiece Creator," at 4:30.  Richmond switched over to the 5-string bass, and I also got to set up the auxiliary keyboard.  Because we prioritized drums and bass for the weekend, we omitted the other keyboard parts I typically play for overdubbing at home.  The final section, however, has an integral Moog lead that anchors a very loose and ethereal section.  We'll still need to address the strings pads I play in Part 2 (maybe tomorrow).

By 8:00pm, we had locked in the final template for Part 3 of the finale.  After that, a certain member of the crew worked for a little bit longer on a special section of the song that we simply can't wait to unveil to the public.... but won't spoil here.

Tomorrow: a 9:00 AM start time to listen back to all the takes in order to identify the keepers, spot-check things we like for minor edits, take notes on what we want to spend special time with in production, and then -- as time allows -- punch in to fix little things here and there that would make more sense to correct with Rave's setup than with ours.  I'm looking forward to sitting in the control room and listening back with a critical ear.  Even if we walk away with finished drum and bass tracks, there will still be tons of work we still need to do at home with guitars, keyboards, and vocals.  But it's amazing how quality microphones and equipment, noise insulation, and experience at the console can create stellar demos that almost... almost sound finished.

Non-contextual quotables:

"You mean after I cradle them against my face?" - Joe

"It was arguably the worst movie of all time, and that's what makes it great." - Rave

"We're just discussing our failures as humans." - Joe

"You've got your blmph.  You got your space.  You've got your click.  And you've got your music.  Or at least your song." - Rave

"The roof of your toe, or just your toe?" - Jeff

"There's this great sense of relief, and also this great sense of 'O gosh, what have I done?'" - Joe

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