Another in a series…..
I think it’ singe resting that this album uses 4 different recording processes. A lot of the time when you are recording an album you are generally only recording one way – most typical in the popular world is to work up some temporary tracks, record them, not worrying about perfection, and then overlay the rest of the music one layer at a time,
For the CHRISTmas album, though:
- Solo piano – so just me on piano, live. I also recorded some midi versions back at the house, and we are going to compare them to see which versions are musically better. Shadowsound Studio has some EXCELLENT digital piano plugins.
- Bring in the tracks recorded elsewhere – “Love Came Down at CHRISTmas” is an old Celtic tune that I recorded in the OutHouse studio – the little house out behind my home where I have my studio. I brought in the individual tracks, and we’ll mix them at Shadowsound.
- Record the band live – we did this with the jazz trio tunes. All three of us were playing at the same time, but in different rooms where we couldn’t see each other. It was all about the listening!
- Record the base layers – piano and drums – and then add the other layers later. We’re doing this to the title track, Break Forth, and a couple of others.
Which process to use really didn’t require much thought – sometimes it was decided by the piece of music – it wouldn’t work as well to layer the jazz trio stuff, for example – and sometimes by scheduling (the bass player was unavailable the day we HAD to track a couple of tunes because that was the ONLY day the drummer could be there.)
It will be interesting to see the difference as we head to the mixing stage.
More later……