Neil Fein's Blog

Hookay... Sunday was a tough day. I got home a bit after noon on Sunday, and the plan was to record "Tell Me How You Feel", the guitar and guide vocal at the least. However, things didn't turn out that way.

I didn't feel up to recording (physically slightly ill) so I decided to get other "studio" work done. I used my new label machine and labelled all the discs that will be used on the CD; and I was going to go bring a Nanoverb to the repair shop (I had dropped it about 2 years ago), and then I saw the mixing deck staring at me.

So I sat down, popped in a fresh disc, and set the Dr. Rhythm to give me a click track at 88bpm; patched it into the deck, and set up two SM57 microphones to record my 12-string. (The battery in the pickup is about 2 years old; I suspect I wouldn't get the best fidelity there.)

It took me six takes, but I got a good, solid track of the 12-string for "Tell Me How You Feel". Enough that I can now record the vocals with Craig. I tried to do the bass, but my fingers wouldn't listen to me, so I called it a day. Now all I have is the 6-string acoustic, the bass, the drums, the percussion, the electric guitar, and the vocals.

At least I got the Nanoverb into the repair shop afterwards...

Craig and I have scheduled a session in Washington, DC to record vocals. Looking at the table on this page, there are a few songs that can use it...

We'll be using the conference room at Turner Consulting Group; Daniel Turner has kindly lent us the conference room to use. The room is acoustically quite good, if memory serves. Better than Craig's apartment, at any case.

I spent several hours hooking up the old 4-track Portastudio, listening to some old tapes. Some go back to 1996(!) and are... interesting. I don't think there's anything there to be salvaged, at least not the studio material. "Blow Out The Candle" can't be used; I may shelve it for this album.

The possibility of doing a "live" CD from this material still exists; e.g., the early Chapter One gigs. But this would be a secondary project, as the studio album comes first.

There are about a dozen tapes unlabeled; I'll have to sit and listen to them at some point. (Always label tapes and discs!)

I call your attention to one item in the Studio Log. "Blow Out The Candle". The entry for this song is, "Needs restoration form 4-track master, Flute (JR), Vocals (NF,JM,CO)".

The original was recorded on 4-track cassette. The original, instrumentals-only studio recording is most likely the best recording Craig and I made on the 4-track. (This would be around 1997.)

Rather than re-record this entire extravaganza, I'm going to attempt to transfer it to minidisc. At this point I'll have one of two choices, restoration or replacement of the tracks.

I suspect I'll end up doing some of both, depending on the condition of the audio. But we'll still need to add vocals and flute, so expect this.

Laid down tracks for my vocal on "Minorly Disconcerted", replacing the guide vocal. Also added harmony bits to Craig's vocal in the bridge.