Studio diary: day 15

Friday afternoon session to get more vocals done and more songs completed. Directly after arriving (and while eating some not-so-healthy food from the gas station next door), I sat on my recording chair in the fishbowl, put on the headphones and started right away with "Vertigo". Between takes, a mouthful of whatever I was eating and drinking a little bit of water, and off again until every word was sung correctly and the vocal harmonies were ready as well.

After the vocals were done, we tried to finish the other bits still pending, like sound effects, percussion and those kind of things you might not hear clearly on the records but which can give the song some interesting edges. There was a shaker for one verse and there is some sound effect for the choruses, but unfortunately, the MIDI keyboard was feeling kind of moody and decided to freeze the system every time we plugged it in. So after a few "fucks" and "motherfucks" and the likes, we just left the shit for a better occasion and concentrated on a small guitar lick that was missing from last time. There are always such bits that you forget to remember while tracking guitars that later pop in your brain at 3 in the morning and you just go "Shit, there is still a guitar part I did not record last week" or something like that. I keep a small piece of paper where I write down all those bits that I remember later, a sort of "To do" list that comes quite handy. And thus I took out the Telecaster and played just eight bars in the choruses, no more, no less, but as important all the same. Timo has to record a very cool part for the song as well, it's gonna be another "90-track festival song"...

With "Vertigo" finished save for the keyboard bit, we concentrated on "Talking To Nobody", which was easier to get done. After some discussions with Daniel on the use of British or American accents in certain parts (which can make a phrase sound like a Tennessee truck driver or an affected Lord from the isles) we were done with it, too. I also tried some percussion on the choruses, but a shaker sounded just not right, so once again more stuff left for the next time, maybe Tobi can bring in some crazy percussion shit from the shop, ahem...

Although we were ready to wrap it up i said "fuck it" and tried one last song before going home. "At least try, if it sounds bad, we'll leave it, but let me try at least, let's see how my throat does". And ramdomly picked "Twelve Years", which was OK, as it is possibilby the only song on the record with no vocal harmonies at all, just a main vocal and that's it. Yes, folks, sometimes I can manage to keep it simple too. Being a short song and a rather easy one to sing, we were done in less than half an hour, and so, with three songs completed in three and a half hours we shut the light, closed the doors and went home.

St

Songs recorded (Mar 12)

Vertigo: vocals, percussion, guitar licks

Talking To Nobody: vocals, percussion

Twelve Years: Vocals