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

Observations from the Studio, Post-Mortem

I'm apparently not much a blogger, because the guys in the band had to tell me to write this.  If I were truly a blogger, I would obviously have posted it before they had a chance to think of it.  The fact that I also haven't written anything since we left Nashville in October also says something...

But I digress.

For those of you hanging on tenterhooks, the Twenty Committee's album is finally 100% recorded, two full months after our trek to Nashville.  With the help of Stephen Wise, a friend and fellow musician who has appeared on albums by Stevie Wonder and The Roots, we were able to nail down the backing vocals and officially take a deep breath, knowing that the last stage of finalizing the album rests in the magical hands of Mr. Jerry Guidroz.  Back out west, the Nashville String Machine recorded string arrangements for tracks 3 and 6, songs entitled "Airtight" and "Tonight" (part III of The Knowledge Enterprise).  It's a testament, first, to the quality of Geoff's keyboard, because upon a first listen to the raw EP, the string parts which he recorded almost sound like they're being played by real cellos and violas.  It's also a testament, however, to the quality of real cellos and violas that they were able to add an organic element to those tracks which a synthesizer never could have managed.  The final mix, which none of us have heard yet, is sure to be absolutely stunning.

In other news, practices continue and Joe and I are now juggling instruments in order to keep the live performances of our material as close to the studio versions as possible.  Literally, juggling.  Also, a photoshoot is currently in the making, probably utilizing some rundown factory in Philadelphia or some similar overused rock album cliché.  We promise to make it really artsy and not at all cheesy.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for the album drop in January.  Personally, we can't wait to get it into your hands!

Observations from the Studio, Day #5

Our final day in the studio began with Steve polishing his solos and finalizing lead licks for How Wonderful (our potential single) and a 10-minute monster called Her Voice.  Meanwhile, I purchased t-shirts from the Radiant warehouse (AKA, Neal's garage), got to know Chris Thompson (Neal's personal assistant), and contemplated some final thoughts about our week in the studio.

I'd kind of been hoping that I would have something really poignant and eye-opening to say about our experience by our last day - something powerful and moving.  But the fact of the matter is that, despite being incredibly fun and exciting, nothing necessarily sticks out to me as perspective-changing.  It reminds me of how people would ask me how I felt about being married in the months immediately following my wedding, and I could say nothing more than it felt just about the same... and yet completely different.  I'd been excited out of my mind to tell Tara "I do," and I'd been thrilled about the concept of professionally recording our debut album - both were things I fantasized about, but couldn't possibly imagine actually happening.  However, upon entering into either time and place, I've found myself not feeling particularly different than I did before.  I suppose it's a matter of simply being ready, of experiencing a natural transition, and the change is so subtle it's not even noticeable.  The new setting becomes home, and the new faces become family.  I mean, Jerry's just like an older brother: he says things like "gnarly" and "groovin'" and makes fun of you when you mess up your parts.

I certainly can't speak for the rest of the band, but my time at Radiant has been a tremendous learning experience and my first (hopefully not last) introduction to the life of a professional musician.  Geoff is staying another week to finish his keyboard parts and to work with Jerry on the mastering process, but as far as the rest of the band is concerned, the project is finished.  We were calling the album "The Knowledge Enterprise," largely because the piece which concludes the project is a 5-part, 25-minute epic by the same title.  However, Geoff's been mulling around some other ideas and bouncing them off the rest of the band, and the new working title is currently "A Lovelorn Self."  But that's a post-production issue, TBD.

Other occurrences from today:
Joe tickling Geoff's feet, which produced much giggling and wrestling.  Lunch with Jerry at a place called Hollywood's, which prominently serves Hibachi.  Consuming an entire jar of Tostitos Salsa con Queso, in addition to our daily twin pots of coffee.  Joe playing Roller Coaster Tycoon and mumbling under his breath.  Titus smacking every available object with Joe's drumsticks.  Additional vocals, which resulted in us pondering whether or not Joe is actually Ben Folds in disguise.  Jerry's Sylvester impression.

One final preview until the album is released, and a farewell to Radiant Studios:

Last words:

"Let's skip all the stupid chords and play all the good chords." (Jerry)

"I can't wait to turn the knobs on this thing." (Geoff, about Neal's Moog)

"I rocked my headphones off my head before." (Steve)

"Isn't it something like 'Crabswallow?'" (Geoff, on the name of a street in White House, which was actually 'Lee')

"If you translate it into Japanese, it means giant fig balloon." (Joe)

"It's like boxing with a beehive." (Geoff)

"I feel like I'm in a circus at this point." (Tara, listening to the raw 'Airtight' waltz)

"Spit it out, man!" (Richmond)

"Taacoooos..." (Geoff, in the next room)

Gran Finale

Observations from the Studio, Day #4

Our fourth day in the studio was slotted for nailing down the electric guitar parts, which unsurprisingly would prove to be one of the more complex and time-consuming parts of the recording process.  Over the course of the day, in addition to countless re-dubs and second takes (not to mention writing new parts), Jerry, Geoff and Steve spent hours measuring delay times, tweaking gain settings, and cleaning up sustain and fuzz (just a few of Steve's favorite things).  Phrasing for electric guitar is so important, and today we learned that what we should have been doing during practices was nailing down exactly what we were each playing, because jamming quality does not equate to studio quality.  Each note needs to be carefully orchestrated, and purposefully articulated - that goes especially for something as technically involved as lead guitar.

School's out.

Some low-quality samples of what you loyal fans are in for (and more of Jerry's superb drumming):

Today's Overheard:
"Baaanaaanaaa..." (Geoff, in the next room)

"I'll give you some feedback..." (Jerry, to Steve)

"I'm playing with the grabber." (Richmond)

"Do whatever you did yesterday to get rid of all that... squishiness." (Jerry)

"My e-mail wants me to improve my love life." (Richmond)

"Tuning translated into Japanese means 'avocado of the sea.'" (Joe, via the internet)

"Listen to the bass.  It's incredibly tight with the drums.  I know, because I put it there." (Jerry)

"This next part is ugly, nasty, and terrible." (Steve)

"Well, if you can think of a way to make it not ugly, nasty, and terrible, then we can use it." (Jerry)

"I think we should just do that song from Zelda, and modify it to fit in there." (Joe)

"This guitar tends to hit amps like a sock full of nickels." (Steve)

"...and then... there were guitar players." (Jerry)

"Your feet are mildly moist." (Joe)

"Oooooh...  Chooooclate..." (Geoff, in the next room)


Tomorrow: vocals and cleanup detail!

Observations from the Studio, Day #3

With bass and drums finalized, Thursday became my turn in the spotlight.  Geoff was the one to vocalize an observation that I'd already been mulling around, albeit in less precise terms: as a worship leader and one of the frontmen of Synaesthesia, my guitar-playing style is typically more driving than finessed.  Therefore, my biggest challenge in recording Twenty Committee songs was less wrapping my brain (and fingers) around awkward chords and obscure time changes than in learning when to push the song and when to "sit back and groove" (as Jerry would say).  It's learning finesse and practicing give-and-take, or finding a niche and expanding it to its fullest capacity - without spilling over into the rest of the mix.

Another hard-learned observation from today is that just because the music is technically correct doesn't necessarily mean that it will always sound correct.  Sometimes notes will rub the wrong way - partially due to the instrumentation and voicing, partially due to the equipment - and the challenge is to find alternate harmonics in order to make the music sound less abrasive.  In other words, what's right for the song is not always the proper notes - something that took us the better part of a half hour to figure out.

In other news, Jerry has re-christened us as follows:

Me = "Clark"

Steve = "Vinny"

Joe = "Vince"

Richmond = "Gregory"

Geoff = "Clarence" (circa 10:00am to 4:45pm, and briefly at 7:15pm), "Gary" (current)

We, in turn, have renamed him Pepe.  All of this for no particular reason.

Also, this happened today:

What I failed to capture was Jerry admitting, "That's why I stay I the other side of the glass, man."

Two days left!

More quotable XXCMTE (from here on referred to by their new names!):

"Gary is boring.  He gets most of the sounds he needs out of his Korg-M50." (Vinny, probably in comparative reference to his 600 guitar pedals)

"I can read sheet music!" (Gary, indignantly)

"We'll call him Yokel!" (Jerry, about Gary)

"I'm sure he feels different - just look at him!" (Pepe, about Vinny, who was in the next room and didn't hear)

"What Pepe wants, Pepe gets!" (Gary)

"You've got different textures!  You've got shouting, you've got screaming, you've got shrieking..." (Vinny, rebutting Gary on the varieties of metal)

"Yeah, they're like bat-fart notes." (Gary, on James LaBrie)

"Well, Gary's a nerd turd.  A re-turded nerd turd." (Vince)

"This is probably going to end up on your blog, but I'm going to say it anyway: slather this on your carrot." (Gary, pouring Ranch dressing into a cup)

"Is everybody happy?  I'm happy." (Gregory)

Observations from the Studio, Day #2

Today was a 9:30 start, and bass day.  Richmond flew in from Philadelphia at 11:30 last night and promptly spent a 12-hour day locking in the low end while the rest of us played basketball, jammed in the other room, or sat on our laptops.  It's a tough life, this whole musician thing.  Radiant also provides endless snacks and coffee.

Things overheard in the studio today:

"Oh crap, these guys have shields??"  (Stephen Kostas, playing games on his computer).

"No, no - we're looking for the brlamp brlamp brlamp.  The brlamp brlamp brlamp." (Jerry Guidroz, on synchronizing Richmond's bass with Joe's fills)

"If my gum still has a lot of flavor, then I just stick it in my hand to save it for later." (Joe Henderson, after arising from his midday nap on the portico swing)

"My head's about to come off if it goes up any more." (Jerry, on the 3-minute atonal jam)

"I just feel like smacking you with this sweet salty nut." (Geoff Langley, to Joe, for no apparent reason)

"After this part, everyone can go back to their Mars-Volta-ing." (Jerry, on the 3-minute atonal jam)

"Yeah, some guitar-chestration." (Geoff, acknowledging Steve's ideas on orchestrating)

"Wait, what does this fruit do?" (Steve, playing games on his computer)

"Steve, do you suck like that description of Robo-Cop remix?" (Joe)

"I think that works - I just have to do one more measure of beat-detective." (Jerry, on correcting a drum goof)

"Geoff, stop spilling everywhere." (Joe, on Geoff's poor vocal take)

"Ahhhh, it's a pink dragon.  Pink dragons take you to bonus levels."  (you guessed it)

Observations from the Studio, Day #1

After two days of travel (6 hours to West Virginia on Saturday, and 9 hours to Tennessee from there on Sunday), we arrived in our rental cabin 30 miles outside of Nashville, well after nightfall.  Upon arrival, we made two immediate realizations: one, that we'd crossed into central time (largely thanks to our iPhones being smarter than we are), and two, that spiders in Nashville are much larger than those in Jersey.

Monday, day one of recording at Radiant Studios, yielded a fair number of simple yet foundational observations which may or may not be helpful to the up-and-coming musician debating whether to go to a professional studio to record his debut album or to attempt doing it himself at home.  Speaking as a member of various indie bands who, over the years, have opted to do home recordings for EPs, things such as decent headphones for playback monitoring and proper sound-proofing were luxuries which could be done without.  Entering into a fully stocked, professional recording studio, where such things are not only commonplace but staples of the trade, I was struck by the humbling revelation that anything I may have done using Audacity at home - no matter how many over-dubs, firewire interfaces, or painstaking EQ adjustments - would never equate to the sloppy warm-up takes we did before lunch.  The studio is certainly going to be a big investment, undeniably, but so is recording in your basement - an investment of another kind.

The following are some observations that I made for the day, in no particular order:

1). Technicalities, once glossed over as acceptable "EP quality" imperfections, are in fact major issues.  This is especially true for progressive rock.

2). Setting up and mixing the drums is, predictably, the most time-consuming process of day #1.  For us, this was quite the change from simply dropping a single 57 over Joe's head to catch his cymbals, taping one to his snare, and shoving a condenser into the bass drum.

3). In a similar vein, playing white-boy basketball in the driveway while said drums are being mixed is not quite the ego-boost we might have hoped.

4). Recording scratch tracks is not glamorous, but it is foundational.  Live takes are amazing when they happen, but when they happen is never.

5). Getting that fat and full sound is less dependent upon the bucks you dropped for your guitar (although that certainly helps too) than having quality sound equipment and an experienced producer at the helm.

6). That perfect first take is idealized, but not always golden.  Seasoning comes with subsequent punch-ins.

7). You will get very well acquainted with the comfy furniture available in the recording booth.  And your dummer's shoulder.  And your own tunes, as they will invariably be stuck in your head after the day is done.

More tomorrow.