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the past week / recording vocals

i prepared a makeshift vocal booth for singers brittany painter, natalie byrd and stacy byrd : collectively known as long story short. i worked on and off all week getting the gear together that was going to be required to record three vocalists at the same time.

after staring at walls for quite some time - the vocal booth took a few hours to construct and ended up being kinda posh compared to what we have been using.

mid week i was still busy storing boxes from a move the week before. friday night i went out for a bit after getting all of my hair chopped off and made it back home in two hours. long story short made it into town from oxford about 1pm. we went to a homemade burger joint and pigged out then made it to the house about 1:45.

ashby, having a birthday the next day and some college friends in town hung around for the first few hours and had to split, but not before getting his mind thouroughly blown by the harmonies. i tried to record some of their candid moments, like them singing "going to the chapel" and others, but i could only get so much. sorry buddy.

this was truly life affirming stuff. we recorded various takes of three part harmonies on a very subtle acoustic track and multi-layered single, double and tripple harmonies on the song tentatively titled dreams. after three hours of recording, i was in awe of how tight their harmonies were.

at one point for the hell of it, i pulled up all of their takes. something like 5 takes of three part harmonies and a single voice here and there. basically 15 voices going on at the same time. no chorusing. no phasing. 100% air-tight vocals. sure there were differences in emphasis and breathing and tone - but the notes... perfect.

on the build-up part on dreams - natalie brought forth a vocal idea that is still giving me goosebumps several days later. it's actually going to inform the newly re-written piano part. i'm also thinking of scrapping the drums. the part is very creative and has a 3 over 4 feel, even though the song is in 4. however, i've never liked how it was recorded. anyway... i digress.

after recording and listening to the horrid girls+cars ep, and new demos - both ours and theirs, we got ready and went to workplay to catch the last 30 mins. of the kings of leon show. huge crowd. amber and laysea were introduced to lss, and we caught back up with ashby - along with jesse/amber, christine, her sister, etc. we talked industry crap and i tried to convey to natalie that they are already more than well equiped enough to play larger venues. they need an agent. well, a better agent.

after pointing them in the direction of oxford, by now it was after midnite and ashby was 27. whoah. time to go to a matini bar where they spin drum n' bass and project distorted anime on the walls. $16.50 for two drinks. right. went to the nick for about an hour and talked mellotron samples with jody. drank ice water. went home.

sunday = sleep, text messaging cramps, taxes. i began to turn gray. monday wasn't worth mentioning. apparently today, the world is scheduled to be destroyed once again by flood. somewhere around mid-day.

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