On Recording…
Jack here with the latest on Shortwave Dahlia. This entry will probably be of most interest to someone curious about the process of recording a song.Last night Ethan Grim and I got together to record guitar tracks for “Red Square”. He went into the process with few firm expectations, and in a more backseat role I tried to only offer an opinion as to where I thought his parts were strongest in each take. Originally, I think we suspected we would make a ‘comp track’ of the best parts from each take—this is a pretty common practice in studio recording—but as it turned out we kept everything. The only real adjustments that were made were in volume in a couple of places and a fade at the very last seconds of one of the parts. There is a remnant of a guitar part I played just after the first verse that Mark and I had decided was a little too drastic, that Ethan ended up playing off of to great effect.
I did suggest we try a third part, a more freeform ‘ambient’ part washed out in reverb. This part sits in the background of the song and manages to highlight some of the harmonics in Ethan’s rhythm parts. It probably won’t be very audible as its own part in the final mix.
This morning, I played with the stereo field of these parts, panning the two rhythm parts slightly to the left and right. I kept the ambient take in the middle.
We will all be getting back together in January to continue recording.
Happy holidays!
