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Thursday, October 29, 2009 It's done! After 70-80 hours at Uptown Recording (recording and mixing) and Gravity Studios (mastering), the music is done! I can't wait to let you all hear it. It's a little scary to be essentially finished with the album after so long - I've been planning this project for years. And now that it's done, I feel a bit like Inigo Montoya: "It's very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life." ("Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.") No more tweaking the songs. Or changing the track order. Or anything else. Doug at Gravity compared it to sending a kid off to college: at some point, you have to let go and trust that you did a good job. Of course, there's still a lot of work to do before the album will be truly done: I still need to do a photo shoot, design the album art, get the CDs pressed, and redesign this website. So there's plenty to do even though it feels like a chapter has closed. But it's done! Labels: music industry, recording ^ Top | 11:44 PM | | | 
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 Name the New Album! That's right, we're being very democratic around here. You get to choose the name of the recording I've been working on for the last few months! Labels: recording ^ Top | 1:45 AM | | |
Monday, July 20, 2009 Guzheng I got Yunqing (Allen) Pan, a guzheng player, into the studio on Saturday - he brought his wife and his two-year-old son, who wandered happily around the studio while he was playing. You would have thought he'd be interested in the drum set that was hanging out in the main room (apparently most kids are), but he was more interested in sitting on Allen's guzheng case or walking around behind the kit without actually looking at it. It was cute. With the guzheng (see video) done, the only thing left to record are some background vocals, which should be coming from another singer-songwriter in LA. Then on to mixing! ^ Top | 5:46 PM | | |
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Recording and Chinese Instruments Today's session was incredibly productive, in spite of the fact that the music I sent to Chihsuan never made it to her inbox (good thing I brought music anyway, just in case). Chihsuan Yang plays violin and erhu, the latter of which made an appearance today on seven of the eleven songs that are going on the new album. Few people on this side of the world are familiar with it, but the erhu is the Chinese equivalent of a violin - it's a two-stringed, fretless instrument that actually sounds fairly similar to a violin, though it looks like no instrument Westerners are familiar with. Where it differs acoustically is an encouragement of pitch bending (think bluegrass fiddle, if there's to be a comparison - this quality, which can sound amazing, also makes the instrument fiendishly difficult to keep in tune) and a more melancholy, haunting sound. My already pensive piano pieces seem more mournful. On a whim, we also experimented with pizzicato erhu on a Philip Glass-inspired reworking of a traditional Chinese folk song, which worked surprisingly well as another textural layer. I've been listening to the roughs for the last hour, and they sound fantastic - I'm excited for you all to hear the finished product! Labels: Asian culture, musical styles, musicians, recording ^ Top | 10:13 PM | | |
Thursday, June 04, 2009 Recording, Day 2 The band breezed through the session - we finished all of the upright bass, piano, and drum parts! Quote of the day: "Now play with yourself." Labels: recording ^ Top | 6:38 PM | | |
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Uptown Recording, Day 1 "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." To that end, here's a short video about what it's like to hang out with us in the studio. For reference, the non-introduced people are Joe (the drummer, who's bouncing around like a madman) and Rob (the engineer, who is hard at work - unlike the rest of us). I'm behind the camera. Apparently I'm constantly laughing. What can I say - I'm amused by the world. We actually had an extremely productive session today - the fingers on my fretting hand hurt, but we finished recording the majority of parts for the guitar songs. Labels: recording ^ Top | 9:34 PM | | |
Saturday, May 23, 2009 Recording! After a rather lengthy absence from the blogosphere, I'll be posting regular updates for the first time in months. It's actually been a nice, if unintentional hiatus. But I want to keep you up to date with some exciting news - I'll be starting to record that long-promised album next week! My trio, which consists of Joe Chellman (drums) and Cory Biggerstaff (upright bass), will be heading to Uptown Recording in a few days to work with engineer Rob Ruccia, who worked on a Grammy-nominated project combining Indian musicians with Miles Davis alumni. I'll be producing the album, which will feature some extra cast members (there may be some collaboration with musicians from other parts of the country), Uptown's new grand piano, and a slew of new material. So count on regular posts on the recording process - I'm hoping to have the album finished in its entirety by the end of the summer. ^ Top | 4:04 PM | | |
Sunday, January 14, 2007 A Serendipitous Session Recording for Amanda Sena Earlier today I mentioned to someone how it'd be wonderful--and too expensive for me--to record in Studio Chicago, one of the largest recording studios in the city. And then a few hours later, I did. The Music Industry Workshop is a resource center for musicians housed in the same building as the studio; it's the training branch of a facility that's used by major labels for recording the likes of Taj Mahal and the Smashing Pumpkins. I work with the promotional side of that operation and had just stopped by the studio to drop off a few things--and while I was hanging out in the lounge, one of the people playing Guitar Hero on the giant TV turned her head and said, "Dawn?!" It was none other than the amazing Amanda Sena, a fellow singer-songwriter who was there working on some new songs for her next album. We were both excited to see other other since it'd been a couple of months, and she asked me if I wanted to lay down some tracks for her recording--which I thought was a great idea. So a few minutes later, I was sitting at a Yamaha grand piano inside the most beautiful studio I've ever set foot in, listening to one of Amanda's songs on an iPod and creating a piano line. It was the most fun I've had this weekend (and it's been a good weekend), and it definitely made my day. Labels: recording ^ Top | 11:50 PM | | |
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