A Tale of Two Studio Days

The past two days have, on paper, been very similar. Both have seen me spend most of the day holed up in the studio recording. However that's really all they have in common.

Yesterday I was putting the last touches to a cover version I'd been working on the previous week. I played all the parts -- vocals, drums, keyboards, guitars and bass -- myself and mixed and engineered it and almost even made my own tea. The end result is an imperfect but satisfying recording that's 100% my own work.

Today was very different. Today I was not a musician, I was just the engineer or perhaps producer. I'd laid down the structure and piano guide parts for two long pieces in advance a few days earlier, checked the positions of all the meter and tempo changes and our drummer was coming in to put down the first real tracks for the recording.

As much fun as it is doing everything yourself it's infinitely more satisfying working with other musicians and though I've got more solo efforts to record in the near future it's the next batch of tracks on top of today's drum tracks that I'm really looking forward to doing.

Recording courtesy of Ardour, an M-Audio Delta 1010, and a mix of Røde, Samson and unbranded PZM microphones. Drums by Yamaha, cymbals by Sabian and Wuhan. Telephone bells courtesy of a skip out side a BT exchange. Tea and coffee by the bucket load.