Finishing an album is always a painful process for me, especially when it is 20 songs on two discs. I have trouble calling anything done, but, I also cannot engage fully in new projects until I complete the current project. This is where the problem lies, as I feel that with more time I could always execute some instrumental or vocal performance better. I often forget that the any finished work art is nothing more than a snap shot in time, or in the multi-track recording world, multiple different snapshots of time layered on top of one another.
Having the artwork completed I determined that Thursday, which I had off from work, would be the day that the album must be completed as I would begin recording
Nick Shattuck again the next day. While I started the day feeling I had side one of the album done, I soon found myself fixing vocals, tweaking mixes, mastering and remastering as I listened to the mixes on all of the music devices in the house. In the end, I just had to say done! Still spent the next 3 days second guessing myself, convinced I could fire off an emergency email to the manufacturer to halt the press until my improved masters arrived.
I guess in the end I will probably never be 100% satisfied with something I have recorded, especially if I look at the last 14 years are any example. Ironically enough this doesn't bother me. I have slowly learned to enjoy the process more and not take myself to seriously. While I still torture myself over some details I let some others go without a thought. Glad to be done with "
Animist" and on to a rich musical year in 2010.
Friday, Nick arrived early at Ghost in My House Studio (a.k.a my basement) We set to work finalizing basic guitar tracks which took the first few hours of the day but went very smoothly. After the noon hour Nick basically killed it, knocking out the main vocal tracks for every song on the album. Not to be deterred by progress, he also completed his harmonica parts in one take. Called it a day in the late afternoon, happy to have gotten a large piece of the musical pie finished.
Saturday was mostly spent on errands, cleaning, relaxing and eating. Did get a chance to test out 7 different microphones on the snare drum. While I like the condenser at a close range the best, it would pick up to much hi-hat bleed to be useful, ended up deciding the SM57 still worked the best. I also taught my 7th lesson to my first guitar student. I have really been enjoying the process of rediscovering the guitar from a 10 year olds perspective, reminds me I need to get back to the basics.
