As hard as I try I just don't think I'll ever understand or fall in love with the process of recording... it constantly reminds me of what I don't know.
I have been writing and recording songs since I was 13 and have never REALLY been comfortable with it. Writing seems to come to me in spurts, random and mysterious... and the only thing that I seem to be able to do to help the process along is to have something to record with when the spurt comes... and God help me if my little recorder is out in the car, because then I have to get off my lazy ass and get it... I know it doesn't seem like much of a hassle to do, but believe me that short little walk to the car is more than enough time for me to completely forget whatever brilliant idea I might have thought I had (or morph it into a lousy idea... or even worse turn it into the last Wilco song I listened to).
I don't like NOT being able to repeat a process logically... if the brakes need to be changed on my car I can open my Honda book, follow the directions and I'm done with it... the same with making a cake... hanging a picture... you get the point. I have a library of books on how to: write better songs, write jingles, record on a budget, mic placement, master a great vocal sound, etc., but they all seem to be someone's "opinion". Each one promises a path to follow, but ulitmately ends with "everyone is different, keep trying things until you come up with a sound you like"... what a load of bullshit and I fall for it every time!
Recording to me is the same as writing... except that I know even less about it. To be honest I don't want to learn about the properties of each mic, calculate delay times, cut/paste, trim, edit, bus, patch, blah, blah blah... I just want to hit record, capture the moment and be done with it, but of course it's not that easy and the people that do it well have a talent as skilled as any musician. So why do I bother trying to do it all myself? MONEY and TIME. That's all it all boils down to... I'm too poor to pay someone to do it, and when the spurt comes I don't have time to deal with trying to get someone into my basement studio to capture it. Big bands have the luxury of being able to pay to have someone sitting in a room waiting for them to catch that spark of creativity... I don't.
When I recorded "Eight Hit Wonders!" with the A.M. Band it took me just over 2 years to complete it... that's a long time if you consider that all of the songs were written in about a week or two and Matt, Stuart and I recorded the basic tracks in a couple of nights... the rest of the time was me muddling over the details. My friend Jim Haederle played keys on most of the album, but wanted me to tell him what I wanted him to play... if I knew what I wanted played I would have done it myself! In the end I gave him my rough ideas and he cleaned them up.
Everything done after that was an excruciating process of trying to find a quiet place to record my finished vocals, solos, harmonies while thumbing through a manual trying to figure out how to make my recorder do what I wanted it to (all this wound up being done in a little space above my landlord's garage... the ceiling was so low I did the vocals sitting down or crouched). Some people have the patience and enjoy that part of the "making music" process... I don't.
I must say though that I take great pride when something comes out the way I envisioned it (i.e. "C'mon, C'mon Sunshine" or "Here Comes Melanie"), while at the same time fuming because I can't figure out why other tunes didn't come as good (I won't point those out, you decide for yourself).
Well now I'm back recording again and remembering why it took so long to complete the A.M. project. I have never really stopped recording, but I haven't really been completing things because it brings me back to that mixing stage that involves coming up with all the little details that make a recording "finished". The difference this time is that I am doing all it alone, recording, playing all the instruments, singing all the parts... not because I want to necessarily, but mostly because I'm not good at waiting... and my attempts to collaborate over the past 3 years has mostly meant a lot of waiting. In light of recent events I have made a conscious decision not to wait anymore... time is too precious.
My game plan this time is to sort through what I have started to record and weed out what has potential... I have quite a bit of material on tape (OK hard drive) that sounds great and other stuff that I could spend a year trying to fix, but never salvage. If I don't hear the potential I'll scrap it and re-record.
My other recording goof up has been trying to record a whole album at one time... do all the basic tracks, then all the solos, all the vocals, and so on. The idea has been that it would give me a cohesive sound through all the songs... it sounds practical, but it doesn't work for me. The new plan is to finish a song THEN move on... the "moving on" part being my incentive to complete individual songs. So far it has been working.
Currently I am moving along at a pretty good pace... a lot of my time has been spent trying to come up with ways to make stuff work that I've already recorded... stuff that has something to it that I don't think I'd be able to recapture if I tried to record it again. Those songs contain things I consider "happy mistakes"... they are the little things I didn't plan and would never have purposely thought of doing, but somehow stumbled onto. Oh how I live for the happy mistakes!
There is a quote by the late Jay Bennett (formally guitarist/producer of Wilco) "if the overall sound feels right to you, you're gonna fall in love with the little parts of it that are fucked up"... this is my new mantra.
As for this blog... once again I started writing something that was supposed to be a quick little blurb and it turned into a novel (or should I say it started as a "rant" and turned into a "ramble"). Thanks for listening, I knew I could count on you...
Peace, Bryan
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