The 11, 426 mile sessions. Day 100+ and it is in the can!

Wow! 100+ days.... separate two musicians by a couple of continents, 12 timezones and add full time jobs, and things take a while. But finally we have a song.

In total time spent it's been two weeks but that's included remembering the song, working guide tracks backwards and forwards, recording the track properly (in two rooms on different continents ), learning how to use a DAW, learning how to mix with compression, eq, reverb and how to fatten vocals, warm guitars and programme drums.

It's a shame that we never got to use a live drummer, but it was one thing less to learn.

So here is the  journey by sound.

I can say that I am a better musician than I was six months ago and Ed never ceases to amaze me as a songwriter, producer and bass player.  And there's a lot to be said for the excitement of getting up in the morning and finding the next version of a new song waiting for you on Dropbox.

And now we have got an album in our sights.... but we know how to work it now so a song a month is the target we've set ourselves.

More soon

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 50ish. The song lives.

How this all started

The whole sorry tale

Well here we are at Day 50.  This week we've completely re-recorded the guide track with the new structure and arrangement. I've just finished loading and mixing Ed's bassline into the guide track for As Good As Ordinary Gets. And it is sounding great.  It's actually a song.  (The vocals are for guide/comedy purposes only. No autotune here).

Now we've got the structure and guidetrack finished, it's time to record drums. I've never done this before but the plan is to have Bungi (drummer) play along to the guide track while we record it. We'll mix it all down on to a stereo track and then it will be like traditional recording, bass first then guitars and finally vocals. Sounds easy.

Except Bungi's never played to click tracks and I've never recorded drums. What could possibly go wrong?!

Bungi - left handed drummer plays right handed kit.
















Current likelihood of success = UNKNOWN.

Here's the guide track of the song.

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 44ish

This has been a busy week. I've had to squeeze recording in around work and other projects. But thanks to recording to a click track, we've been able to turn around changes to the guide track of the song in next to no time.

Two easy lessons here:

1. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use a click track when recording a song with someone on a different continent.  It's essential for programming drums and assembling tracks recorded separately in Protools or Cubase etc. (I know people who say it detroys the feel, but you only really get 'feel' if you're all in the same room and you can work on that in other ways).  And it makes it possible to punch in and out automatically to make changes to the track, which means you don't need five pairs of hands.

2. GET SOMETHING DOWN. Getting versions of the track recorded that you can listen to and then change/edit helps to understand how the song works.  It's a very different way of working and while it may seem a bit clinical (Record - email - edit - email etc.) it's actually organic in it's own way and has the advantage that you can keep all your ideas and versions.

So far we have done 3 complete versions of guide tracks from:
3 rough ideas tracks
2 or 3 vocals tracks with harmonies
4 complete guitar tracks (3 x electric, 1 x 12-string acoustic)
7 guitar overdubs
3 or 4 bass tracks
3 drum tracks

This is my hi-tech reverb shield for recording in a glass conservatory


Here's how it is sounding 

To me it has echoes of The Cure but that is mainly down to the guitar effect preset I chose on the desk. We'll see how it develops...

This week's task is to figure out the middle 8. (It's after the 1st chorus on the track). We've had a few goes at this and now have 5 potential options. And I've just recorded them all back-to-back on iRig on my phone to hear how they work. In 4/4 strum through these to hear the different tension they create

D C D C D Bm Bb A
D C D C D C D Bm Bb
D C D C G Bm Bb A
D C D C D Em Bb A
D C D C Em Bm Bb A

The good thing is that writing/recording this way has highlighted a weak/lazy link in the song. But it's also the first time in the project, that I've felt stuck. I've thought I need Ed here....

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 37ish

This week has all been about the drums for the guide-track. The pre-programmed patterns in my BR600 desk, of which there were 300+ to choose from were rubbish. I don't think I've ever heard a drummer play like that.

It has been a little challenging as neither me or Ed are drummers but Ed came up with the patterns and I embellished (?) them.

Working with a track map has been essential to do this quickly.  Here's how we did it:

1. Found the tempo. Sounds simple but one track I did was the same speed as Ed's original track but because the drum pattern (P134 V1 on the BR600) was dull it made it sound ploddy.

2. Wrote a basic pattern that worked under the whole track.

3. Listened to some hits to hear what real drummers do. The reference tracks were There She Goes (The La's) and Not Nineteen Forever (The Courteeners).

4. Wrote different variations for verses and chorus.  Drummers don't just play a beat for 3 minutes. If yours does, have a word!!

5. Wrote variations on the verses and chorus patterns to punctuate the ends of vocal lines etc.

And watch out for volumes. If it's all programmed loud it doesn't sound human. Listen to any death metal band.

Programming the 2-bar patterns was the fun bit. Programming them into an arrangement for the song was really hard until I used this....



Each section of the song has a column showing how many bars it is, and the number of the first and last bars in that section. It makes navigating on screen really easy.  The drums aren't finished but they are moving in the right direction.

When I've put the real timing against the song chart, Ed and I have been able to see how quickly vocals come in, when the first chorus is, and how long the outro lasts etc.

Being on different continents, this means that we can talk about the song structure really clearly. If we were in the same room we'd be able to busk it out but Skype is good but not that good. It's much more like a producer's way of thinking, and has really made me think about how I write.

If I'm honest, I pretty much go with whatever presents itself - I don't really review and edit myself. I will be doing so in future.

So this week we've got two guide-tracks done with drums, guitars and vocal.... here's the latest.

Have a listen.... 

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 30ish

This post could easily be a moan about procrastination.  It's taken four weeks to actually get started. The thing about working in opposite timezones is that far from having double length days on the weekends, getting together is really hard.

But it isn't a moan, it is a celebration.  At 7am uk time this morning, I was playing my guitar and singing with Ed on the other side of the world.  Gotta love Skype, it was good enough to carry guitar, vocals and chatter. Some minor time lag but then guitarists and bassists get that when they are in the same room.  It really was just like old times 20 years ago.

First job was remembering the structure of the song. Then agreement on arrangement for guide track. Being apart really makes you apply discipline. The photo shows a song chart showing bars etc. I'll build a rudimentary drum track using this. Then we can use that to finalise the arrangement and record the final version.  

I'll post the drum track when it is done and you'll be able to hear how we build the track.

Here's a taster. https://soundcloud.com/dave-id-1/agaog-tasterhttps://soundcloud.com/dave-id-1/agaog-taster

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 3

You may be asking what happened to Day 2. Well, Day 2 was lost in a cloud of procrastination.

I was struggling to remember anything about the 20 year old song I've agreed to record with a man on a different continent, so in true guitarist style I blogged.....And listened to old demos of other tunes and posted them on soundcloud. Very useful.

Beyond that, I found an old lyric sheet and had a private cringe at them. So we have a title "As Good As Ordinary Gets", some lyrics (partly questionable) and a promise to get my arse in gear.

Speaking of gear I did dig out my Boss BR-600 and some Rode microphones so I can rough out a guide track. I'll get on with that as soon as I'm back from Cropredy Festival this weekend.

I'm sure it's got Em in it......

The 11,426 mile recording session - Day 1.

How do two people separated by 11,426 miles and 20 years, record a song that was never written down?

Twenty years ago I was in band called 'PretendFriends'. We were an indie-pop band based in Oxford, and riding on the boom in the Oxford music scene.  It was an extraordinary time. Lots of bands were successful locally, with the likes of Radiohead and Supergrass going on to international success.

We recorded two demo EPs - you can find some of our tunes here.

(Demos used to look like this).







Our claim to fame was that the local music mag 'Nightshift' included one of our songs in their Christmas Top 20 of 1995 alongside Radiohead's 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)'!


Ego, beer and delusional behaviour (mostly mine) put paid to PretendFriends, but I stayed in contact with Ed the bass player.   After a Facebook chat the other night, we have decided to record one of our old, vaguely remembered tunes.

Now it's the cold light of day and we're wondering where to start. Oh and Ed now lives 11,426 miles away in New Zealand. Hmmm. Ed suggests we both do acoustic demos of how we think the song goes.


11,426 miles away, Ed smirks at the thought of me trying to remember 20 year old guitar parts.