Recording “Westwood”
We reached a milestone in our recording session Wednesday: with the recording of the songs “Westwood” and “Damn Fool Woman” we have recorded basic tracks for all the new songs. What are “basic tracks”, you ask? To answer that, let me tell you a bit about how we record these days.
Our recording studio, which I call “Van Hearlen IV Studio” (IV because it’s the fourth room I’ve used as a home studio; the first being my old bedroom at my parent’s home), is part of my basement. We record on my computer using software called a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). As in the ancient days of audio tape, we can combine different performances together on top of each other in “tracks”; basically one instrument per track.
So when we record a song, we record the basic tracks first. These are typically a rhythm guitar, bass, and drums, plus guide vocals. I program the drums ahead of time, and then we get together and perform the song while recording. Each instrument is recorded onto its own track. The vocals are recorded, too, even though they won’t be used in the final recording; they help us keep track of where we are in the song, hence “guide vocals”. Why aren’t they kept? Well, for one thing, I like to use a high-quality condenser microphone to record vocals, but they are so sensitive they pick up other sounds in the room, including instruments playing, and that’s not ideal for recording. The other thing is, it’s nice to be able to concentrate on singing without being distracted by playing at the same time. Well, anyway, once we have the basic tracks recorded, we can then go back and overdub, or layer other performances on top of them. A keyboard part, or other guitar parts, multiple vocal parts, other instruments, etc. As might be imagined, this process takes a while to complete, not least because we are both perfectionists (though we try not to be Steely Dan-obsessive about it).
It’s taken us a while to get the basic tracks to all the songs recorded. We are actually recording twenty songs, more than will fit on a CD; only somewhere between twelve and fourteen will end up on the new album. The rest will probably surface on the next one. Many were written before we started recording, some were finished after recording had begun, and at least three brand new songs were born during that time. So now we still have to do the remaining overdubs, and after that, mixing and mastering. Some songs have almost all their tracks recorded, others still have significant work to be done. I’ve given up trying to predict when the new album will be finished, but we are working diligently at it, and we believe that the finished product will be the best we’ve done to date!
