I think my colds are gone now.

I’m starting the week with ideas of multi-tracking in my head. I bought some strings for my uke, and I’m thinking of incorporating some piano into the recordings. I’ve more ideas than time to do them, so I’ve got make sure I stay focused. It’s crunch time.
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I did some recording tests with the fostex and I’ve added Valerie’s ART Tube Preamp to my setup (it helps give my SM58 some juice). I’m using the line6’s XLR outs mixed with the SM58 on the unamplified Klein to get the guitar sound. Mixing an amped and an acoustic sound together is a Tim Miller trick. It’s a big part of his last album: Trio. I haven’t mastered it yet, but I like it’s potential.

After recording a quick example I transfered the tracks over to the Computer via USB. Playing around in Cool Edit Pro, I normalized the levels, added a pinch of reverb to the acoustic tracks and cleaned up the front and back of each track. Here is a quick and dirty mix down of my first recording test. I’m going to do a couple of things different on the next recording, but that is close to acceptable (from a recording perspective).

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I finished writing my first “ensemble” tune Wednesday night. I call it an ensemble tune because it was specifically written for banjo, guitar & uke trio. It’s a tune for my sister Megan, and it’s something I started in 1999. I was digging around in my old computer looking for some ideas and I found an old sketch folder for Megan’s birthday. The sketch that I liked had a chord progression and a very simple and boring melody. I kept the chord progression (not rocket science: | G Am | Bm C | D | D |), wrote a new melody and worked out a B-section. I think the piece may need a bit more polishing, but it’s mostly there and it’s a certified tune. The other pieces I’m working on are little more through-written than this one. I’m not sure if I prefer one over the other.

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Later in the week I recorded Megan’s tune using 5 tracks in a loose, live-type recording setup. I wanted to test the recording process… The things I discovered were:

• Recording a three minute song takes longer than you’d think
• After recording for an hour I’m not in the mood to mix
• This song needs a bridge
• I shouldn’t move so much when I play banjo
• My nylon guitar needs new strings
• My uke may be unplayable
• I should lay down a guide track next time
• It takes me a while to warm up to playing percussion

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One of the things that I like about this whole “Walbum-Journal” thing is that it’s a great way for me to learn about myself. It’s hard to hide from my procrastinating tendencies when I’m left with 20 days to record 10 tunes (let alone finish the compositions), and I had given myself 4 months to do it. It’s also showcasing my over ambitiousness (or at least that’s how I feel now). I have big ideas, but big ideas need big action; otherwise I’m just another dreamer.

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The end of the week finds me at the demo stage. I’m doing recording and composition tests at the same time. I have over a dozen tunes that I’m playing around with. I’m thinking of using most of them and focus on shorter recordings. But who knows? Let’s just see what happens next week…