A Day at Studio D

Today we recorded a few tracks at a place called Studio D for a Ghosts and Girls related project. I have never stepped foot inside a recording studio before. I've never recorded anything professionally before. I've never even been in spitting range of such expensive mics before.

A few of us loaded in last night. My first impressions of the place were a mix of awe and naivete. Awe because there was so much high tech equipment and cool isolation rooms and computers and soundboards and giant speakers and acoustic panelling and the personnel were professional and knew everything. And there was the extreme naivete on my part because I just wanted to exclaim wow! and cool! and, this is just like in the movies! 

We set up the drums and they microphoned us and put mics up to pick up the "room." I have no clue about these things, but later when we actually recorded it sounded fabulous. It sounded much more immediate than when you play them live. 

And with all those mics around picking up everything, they did just that--picked up everything. Every sound. Every don and every ka. And every hesitation and missed beat. We recorded a little last night in sound check and listened to it and I realized, omg, those mics don't miss a thing. After I got home I went straight to the chasm to practice my timing. 

Today we recorded Chikara, a song so beautiful that I still get goosebumps sometimes when I hear it. The hard part of the song is the timing. There is a lot ma, and to make it harder, the song is in 6/8. Our first take was just awful for me. Second and third takes weren't much better. My problem is that when I'm nervous, I lose my confidence, and when I lose my confidence, I'm late. And as we were all standing there in that absolute silence, headphones on, mics on, the engineer setting things up in the booth, I started to get nervous. I don't mean just jittery, but full-body nervous. I've never been so nervous to play a song--ever. My whole body went cold and I started to shake, and of course when we started playing, that made me late and after that first missed beat, it's hard to get back.

After a while my nerves were starting to get the better of me and I had to force myself to focus. I had to tell myself to stop being nervous, and to just stop thinking too hard and to just feel the music and embrace it and allow it to take over my body and give me the joy and happiness that fuels my love for taiko in the first place.  After that it wasn't easy, but I managed to stay in time. I tried to strip away all my personal insecurities and I looked over at Janet and tried sinc-in with her breath and energy and play with her and forget that we were recording and instead tried to make music. 

Joel, the engineer guy, was a wiz at the controls. After we recorded a few takes, he managed to take the best parts of each take and pieced them together seamlessly. I don't really know how he did it. He would ask us for our input and then would start clicking away at the computer. He has mastered the use of the word "standby," which for some reason makes everyone shut up as he does his magic. Joel is great and funny too. Here is a pic of me and him at the controls. Of course I'm not controlling anything, but he was nice enough to let me look like I was:

After we finally were happy with Chikara, it was time for Kai to Ryu. For extended (and I mean extended) commentary on my trials and tribulations with Kai, do a search for it on this blog. I have struggled over this song for years. But after my last experience with it at drum camp I have released Kai to Ryu's power to intimidate or conquer me. I have been through every incarnation of frustration, depression and resignation. Janet said the song would be stressful to record, but I absolutely refused to let that guide me. We did a few takes of the song, ran into the usual brain farts and road blocks, and finally had something to piece together. But there is one tiny little moment that is a leap of faith to pull off, and just so beautiful when it goes right, but we couldn't get it right today. After we went through the song with the engineer, he asked if there was anything we wanted to work on, and I decided I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't mention that little part that we never got right during our takes. So we went back out and tried it. The first time was as bad as the original. The second was no better. And the third time I psyched myself up, looked over at Janet and said to myself, this is going to be it. And we nailed it.

And now that it is over, my brain is tired. I have the biggest head ache ever. But I won't end this on that note. We took some fun snapshots in between the stressful moments.

Matt the studio assistant looked strikingly like Josh Grobin. Crissy couldn't resist the urge to exploit the comparison:

Janet and Crissy hamming it up in Mark's isolation booth:

Me and my Kai to Ryu set-up:

Sheesh. I am glad I have this under my belt. I learned a lot about myself and the recording process. It is not easy. But now I have some things to think about, and some things to work on. More later when we get the songs mixed and mastered and all that jazz.