Blissful Misery » Studio Journal

Studio Update

Michael — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:13:53 +0000

I worked on a few things in the studio this week, but wasn’t able to get any of the guitar parts recorded. Instead I ended up doing a little more planning and brainstorming for the song. I think in the end it will pay off too.

I won’t be in the studio for the next two weeks at least, because I have an extremely busy schedule. After that I should be able to finish up the song fairly fast though.

Scorcher

Michael — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:44:18 +0000

Unfortunately today was a scorcher, and the temperature easily reached 100 in the studio. It’s just now starting to cool off a little, but it’s still too hot to boot up the guitar recording equipment and do anything.

I will work on the vocal melody as much as possible today, but it looks like recording guitar is out of the question. I hope that tonight / tomorrow morning will be a little cooler. The electric guitar tracks shouldn’t take too long to record, but all of the processing may take a while once the takes are done. The acoustic guitar parts, if put in the song at all, will be a more direct approach as they won’t be processed as much.

I am still hoping to find a 12 string acoustic sometime soon that I can at least rent to record the chorus and maybe verse parts with as well. This song sounds so good with all of the guitar parts layered properly.

Madness In The Studio

Michael — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:17:09 +0000

Tonight marked the start of the bands venture into the studio to record The Madness. I used my usual methods to record both bass and drum tracks. I also managed to set up a nice tone for each as well. I may still tweak the drums sound, but for now this will work. If I do end up tweaking the sound it will only take a few minutes to have it back and ready to go once I’m done.

During the days this week, if I get the chance, I’m going to be working on writing a better vocal melody for the song. Everything else is written and ready to go. However, with the bands restart came a slight change in solo policy. From now on I will be using written solos as guidelines only. Those written guidelines may even be rewritten completely as well. I feel that the music as well as my skill at writing has evolved greatly over the years. While I love playing flashy solos I want to convey the mood of the song more than anything. Sometimes flashy solos still convey the emotions, but more often than not a total flash solo just doesn’t make the song feel complete.

The next three nights I’m going to be working on recording guitar tracks. There will be a total of four electric layers of guitar, and may be two or three acoustic layers if everything goes right. I’m dying to put a 12 string acoustic into this recording, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.

That’s all for tonight I’ll be back at it tomorrow. Stay Blissful…

Keys Of Madness

Michael — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:16:23 +0000

Today I finished writing the keyboard parts to The Madness, which you can read about in the Band Journal post called Song Update: The Madness (5).

Using Sonar at the Unbounded Productions Studio I created a 3 layer keyboard track, and a strings only keyboard track. I’m going to post them both here for your listening pleasure. Note that the second and third tracks, Warm and Echo Pads, are mixed quite a bit lower than the string section. If you listen carefully though you can hear the difference between the two versions.

I’ll probably be entering the studio again soon to add the bass and drums. I still have to write the vocal melody before I do any singing, but I may go on and record the guitar tracks soon as well.

The Madness: Strings Only

The Madness: Keyboard - Synth Tracks