Big project

Wow yeah that sounds like a lot of work. Hope you like the genre.

Have fun, sounds like a good challenge if you feel like you need to sharpen your guitar chops.

The list was reduced to 10. He dropped 2 from the original list and added a different one. I have 5 completed. Finished another one yesterday. Most are averaging about 5 recorded tracks per song. Not all are always playing at the same time. I tend to put verses on one track, choruses on another, bridge on another, and solos separate. Sometimes there are multiple tracks playing simultaneously. I added 9 different tracks to one of the songs.

He emailed me rough stereo .mp3 mixes to use as a source to overdub to, mostly. There are a couple that are the complete session files with all the hi-res audio track files. I record the tracks in hi-res .wav files, zip them all together, and upload that file to Dropbox so he can download and import them to the session in his DAW. I have done this with many different projects in the UK, Austria, Spain, many in Italy, Brazil, and Canada, as well as different states all over the USA. I would have never thought I would do recording for people all over the world when I was younger. The internet has made that possible from meeting the clients to transferring the media back and forth. One of the best things is that I have access to use everything I have and don't have to go anywhere or move any gear other than maybe get a different guitar, cable, or microphone from the closet.

I do miss recording in commercial studios. That environment really appeals to me.  I haven't done any of that in decades. I miss the smell of hot tubes and electronics that permeate real studios. I also miss the collaboration factor working with other people in the room. I DON'T miss having to get the tracks down in a regimented amount of time. I spend a lot more time on them now but the final results are better IMO. I have time to scrutinize my efforts, I can work when I want, and in my underwear if I want to.  Not that I would EVER do that. 

I always spend way more time on the projects than I feel I should.  Sometimes I have to play through them for hours before I develop guitar parts I am happy with.  I could, and sometimes do, record them in little sections then piece them all together but that's not my typical approach.  It is my opinion that for as long as I have been playing and as much experience as I have I SHOULD be able to play and record each section in one uninterrupted pass.  No matter what the complexity level is.  If it's so complex I can't play it then I need to simplify or rethink what I'm doing.  I think the tracks sound better that way as well.  I guess that's due to all my years working with analog tape.  As a result of that I sometimes spend hours rehearsing a part after I have figured out to play before I ever hit the record button.  Mostly to make it as effective as I can.  If I were working with someone else I would do it faster but my opinion about what I play would not be as favorable unless it's a pretty simple part.  I have come to realize there is not really such a thing as a 'simple' part.  It's all about getting all the inflections right so it adds to the groove and attitude of the music.  Gotta get the feel right.  Some things take far less time than others.  If there's a bazillion notes flying by at 170BPM nobody will notice if a couple are missing or not played perfectly.  If there is empty space involved between the notes then everybody notices if there is something wrong.  I'm not going to be THAT guy.

Orchestrating music using guitars is fun but a lot of work. Some of the section changes in these songs are a little abrupt so I'm making an attempt to set them up before they arrive so they flow into each other more smoothly. I feel bad for any single guitar player who has to perform some of these songs live because there are some things that a single player won't be able to do without seriously compromising. Two guitarists in the band could pull it off but even that would be difficult with some of them.

I'm taking a day off today.  Been going at it hard and putting in 12 hour days for the last 3 days.  If it's not too wet after yesterday's rain I'll mow my yard.  That's a zen thing to do.

Sounds like a great opportunity to get your name into the mix over there.



There is plenty to love about creating music in real time as part of an ensemble. Even with the little goofs, etc., the energy in the room sometimes makes it onto the recording and you get some wonderful stuff.

The record business (and technology) is so vastly different these days, it's just too expensive to maintain studios in the numbers that used to exist. The hired guns I know don't set foot in a studio; they do it all at home.

UPDATE:

I'm 7 songs into the project. 6 completed. I worked on the 7th one all day yesterday. The arrangement and structure on this one are so sporadic and busy that I'm having a hard time coming up with parts that fit and contribute. The melody rhythms and vocal performance are incredibly awful. It's just a scratch vocal but it will need to be entirely rewritten to be anywhere near decent. The lyrics sound like they were written by a sewage plumber. No offense if there are any plumbers here. My point is that they don't sound like they were written by a musician and songwriter. Just because words rhyme doesn't mean they sing well in succession. It's very awkward sounding and I'm pretty sure it wasn't on purpose.

I came up with a good part for the 2 of the verses and constructed a pretty good guitar solo for that section. There are 2 completely different structured chord progressions for the 3 verses which all terminate at the same choruses. ?? A very busy bass riff that parallels the melody during one of the verses. The bridge has some good dynamics but doesn't belong in this song.

This song is a real head scratcher for me but I have to do SOMETHING. I think I may just double the bass riff in some of the busy parts just to have something there. Maybe that will spark another idea. I have this feeling anything I do to this one will be intrusive and detract from what's already there, if that's even possible. I'm trying to stay out of the way of the vocal and add rhythmic reinforcement. There may be something good in this song but I'm not seeing it. Hopefully this guy will realize it and leave it off the album.

You've all heard of polishing a turd. I'm not sure that's even possible when dealing with diarrhea. There may be a guitar player out there somewhere who can write something that works for all of the sections in this song where it flows better. I'm starting to question my abilities. I've never had a project I couldn't come up with something that made the end result better but GEEEEEESE, this one is giving me fits. I just have to keep throwing stuff at it to see if I can find something that sticks and doesn't slide into the toilet with the rest of it.

I hope the 3 remaining songs don't give me this much grief.

Most of the other songs turned out okay but OMG it takes me a long time to come up with the parts and record them.

I'm supposedly a 'professional' and as such my personal like or dislike shouldn't enter into it. Yes, it has been a number of years since I did anything of this magnitude so I'm taking that into account for the time it's taking but throwing 13 hours at something and only getting tracks for about 2 minutes of a 4 minute song is ridiculous to me.

That's what I get for getting selfish and only working on my stuff and things that I like from other friends of mine for the last 10 or 15 years. It made me lazy and very picky. I have no problem with picky but lazy is unacceptable. I need to step up and do it more often. My musical-guitar-playing-brain is getting foggy and out of practice. It takes me longer to find things than it used to.

I still seem to do okay with guitar solos but other parts, not as much. My only problem with guitar solos is I always hear things in my head that are harder to play than my fingers can do easily so I have to work on them until I can execute them with the appropriate nuances to get the feel right. Having not gigged regularly for the last 20 years has really stifled that ability. I have more technical ability than I have ever had but I don't have the instantaneous polish that gigging all the time provides. I miss that but not enough to go out looking for a gig in a band that plays 4 or 5 nights a week to fix it. I just need to play more.

I'll get it eventually. I always do. I just needed to vent a little. I could spit out stuff quickly but it wouldn't be to my satisfaction and wouldn't do the music justice as far as I'm concerned. Someone else probably wouldn't scrutinize it as closely as I do. Since the guy I'm working for usually gets reviewed in trade magazines and works with some big names sometimes I want to put my best work out there. Even if the material sux I need to sound good.

I finally finished recording the guitars for my friend in Japan's album project yesterday. I took a few weeks off to take care of some projects I needed to do. I saved the song I disliked the most for last. It turned out a lot better than I expected but I had to do it twice. I did it twice before I found an arrangement I was satisfied with.


I usually save any guitar solos for last so I can have all the other parts to play off of when constructing the solo. Sometimes I'll hear a solo line early on and put it down then but that's not the norm. On the first arrangement I got to the parts with the solos and I couldn't find anything I liked so I shelved it for a few days and went back to it. Still couldn't get into the zone. That's when I decided to start over on the entire song. After I changed some parts around I got to the solos. They fell right into place that time. The client, my friend, really liked it so the project is done.

He said he has a new one in the works and will be starting on it sometime in the fall and he wants me to play on it as well. Fall will be a better time for me. My home maintenance work load decreases considerably during the cold months so I'll have more time to work on the project.

Yes, I just send him the hi-res tracks and he takes it from there.  He has a very good mixer he works with.  Everything I have heard that he does is sonically done very well.  I don't necessarily agree with all his balance decisions but it's their project and they can do whatever they want.  I have no problem with that. 

At least my buddy hired a better singer than him doing the vocals himself.  The singer he is using is much better than he is but still not great.  I am really spoiled when it comes to singers after working with some really exceptional ones for most of my career.  That kind of makes me cringe when I hear one that doesn't just blow the doors off.  That really makes me skeptical when I have to sing one myself because my vocal abilities can't live up to my own expectations.  Background vocals are my specialty.  Those I can do.  I do lead vocals out of necessity.  Not because I am good at it.

Cool! Maybe you could ask him to send a mix without the lead guitar and put something down as an alternate to the other player's track.


"Mostly pentatonic stuff with an extra note thrown in here and there."

Hey hey now, don't go giving trade secrets away, lol. That flatted fifth is the secret sauce!