Sunday, March 20, 2005

Studio Day 29

Mr. Knowitall drums are complete. I went in on a Sunday and cut the tracks without the band. Being bummed about last Thursday I decided I could go in and finish up the track. It only took about two hours. I had Terry, my brother in law who was in town for the Steve Vai concert, man the protools system. He handled starting and stopping of the recording.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Studio Day 28

Mr. Knowitall

Started working on drums around 8:20 or so. Got some good drum sounds and spent about 45 minutes working with Mike V on composing the perfect part. So far so good.

Time to cut the track. 2 hours later still didn't have a track I was completely satisfied with. I'll try to cut the track again next time.

Not a great night.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Studio Day 27

I made it back to the studio last night. We moved recording to Wednesday this week instead of Tuesday because Mike and Katie had a songwriting class.

I had a long conference call with the SK team last night so we got started just a little before 9pm. Ran through what they had recorded over the last two weeks and some great sounding acoustic parts as well as some cool bass lines on Lonely One. I could tell Mike G probably spent a good bit of time coming up with that new part.

Since my travel schedule doesn't appear to be letting up anytime soon they wanted to get me on drums to finish my last two tracks. Considering it had been nearly 4 weeks since I picked up sticks I knew there wasn't much hope for cutting a track. We started on Mr. Knowitall and realized the scratch guitar track didn't have the arrangement we wanted so first thing was to recut the scratch. Next, our time was spent on getting the mics set back on the drums and letting me run through a few takes. Tonight I hope to cut the track.

Goals tonight, spend about an hour working on sounds, and then spend 2 hours working on recording. Mike V had some good ideas on how to make the drum part both more tasteful and more interesting so that will probably take some time to work through. Fortunately this is one of the easiest tracks for me to play to so I'm hopeful we can get a keeper tonight.

Studio Day 25/26

Last week Katie sent a couple of more very quick updates.

So bass is done on Lonely and All About You and acoustic is done on Lonely One. It took us a couple days to get an acoustic sound. All About You won't take long to get the Acoustic done....so Tuesday should be a productive night assuming you can be here....if you won't to take a break from your travels we can start Wednesday.

And we even had an exchange about Mike G missing me :-)

Katie >
Mike G said you sux!!!
Me > what is that about? Mike G sux!
Katie > I guess that is his way of saying he misses you!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaha

Studio Day 25/26

Last week Katie sent a couple of more very quick updates.

So bass is done on Lonely and All About You and acoustic is done on Lonely One. It took us a couple days to get an acoustic sound. All About You won't take long to get the Acoustic done....so Tuesday should be a productive night assuming you can be here....if you won't to take a break from your travels we can start Wednesday.

And we even had an exchange about Mike G missing me :-)

Katie >
Mike G said you sux!!!
Me > what is that about? Mike G sux!
Katie > I guess that is his way of saying he misses you!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaha

Saturday, March 12, 2005

I'm back

I got back in the States last night. It's good to be back. Sleeping has always been a problem when I return to the US although last night I slept until about 6am. Realizing I normally wake up at 8:30am or so this wasn't too bad. However I took a 3 hour nap today which I'm sure will screw things up.

This next weekend Terry and Buffy are coming into town and Terry and I will be heading to the Steve Vai show with the EVO experience and meet and greet. I was planning to see Kings Of Leon Friday night but it looks like they've already sold out. I'll have to watch for tickets to open up or maybe catch them on their next tour.

Speaking of meet and greets and platinum experiences, when I was in Korea I ordered a couple of tickets to the Motley Crue show in Atlanta. I ordered the platinum tickets through their fan club and are guaranteed seats in the first two rows with a photo and meet and greet after the show. Just like the KISS ticket I had back in 2003. The funny thing is the price for 2 tickets with all original members to the Crue is less than 1 ticket to KISS with 2 original members. I guess Paul and Gene can still demand more than the Crue.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Norah Jones in Seoul

After working a few days in Seoul I glanced onto Pollstar's Site to see if there was any interesting shows in Seoul while I'm here. Norah Jones was listed so after spending one night trying to read Korean web sites, and then working two days with the concierge I finally managed to get tickets.

Turns out they don't seem to have a 24 hour ticketmaster type site so the first night I went to the hotel concierge they just stated that the box office was closed and to try again the next day. I came back a couple of nights later and finally got the concierge to get some information. Once again the box office was closed but the concierge managed to call the production company and reserved two tickets under my name.

Picking up will call tickets always makes me nervous, much less doing this in a foreign country but we had no problems getting them. Since we had VIP seats we were able to go to a pre party and post party event for free drinks. Nothing too exciting, and it turned out Chivas was the only thing served but at least it was free. We get inside the venue and it turns out we have 2nd row center tickets and no one ended up sitting on the front row so we had a great view the entire night.

Concert was great, the band was great and the the show was well mixed. The hall had quite a bit of echo which lent itself well for some of the tunes. Toward the end of the show Norah played Creepin' In a song that she did a duet with Dolly Parton on her cd. The crowd had been extremely calm, no talking, clapping immediately after a song then absolute silence. When she was introducing the song she mentioned that with the large space in front of the stage between the front row that people could use the space to dance. And then things got out of control. You had probably a hundred people on both sides of the venue crowd up on the edge of the front row trying to dance. It was an extremely bizarre sight, and Seoul security seemed in over their head.

The show lasted about two hours and covered many of my favorites including Nightingale.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Studio Day 23/24 update from Katie

And progress in the studio continues...

Here is an update from Katie on the studio activities this week.

Hey David,
If you wanted to keep your blog going for the studio days here is an
update.
Tuesday March 1st we worked on Bass for Lonely One. Mike G got his amp
fixed so he played through his amp for a couple run throughs, but listening
back to the bass through the Peavy sounded so much better. So, the Mike's
set up the bass in the hall with the Peavy and got a good sound. Mike G
played bass all night....I fell asleep and woke up at 10:30 finding that
the bass part had been changed and it sounded really cool. I left about
10:30 and the Mike's stayed punching in parts and had a late night....think
they ended up heading out abut midnight with a bass part that they were
happy with.

Tonight March 3rd will be the guitars!!!!!
I will be playing my acoustic on both Lonely One and All About You, guess
we will pick one and see how long it takes!!!! Then I have my rhythm
electric and Mike V has his lead parts.....hopefully we will be done with
all the guitars for both by the time you get back!!!!!!

If we finish before you get back I told Mike V that I am interested in
putting a very simple all acoustic song on the CD...it shouldn't take
long....but I thought it would show a little diversity and it's a song that
I personally really like and would like to hear it recorded. Just me
singing and my acoustic guitar.....we can toy with other instrument
ideas...but i don't want an electric sound....maybe a snare, shakers,
etc.....this will be a good test too for if we ever wanted to play acoustic
live.....The song is called "I didn't come here for this". I think we ran
through it one time in rehearsal, but that was it.......
Talk to ya later!

(C) 2003- 2008 ytsanyd | http://www.thedaveblog.com/ | david@jedi.net