Friday, July 26, 2024

Woke up today in considerable pain, but I did some of my physical therapy stretches and some of the stretches that Castiel showed me on Wednesday and that helped somewhat. I also spent 10 minutes on my vibration plate which helped as well.

Mowed the lawn.

Went down to the studio and started working on the album version of Valley Highway, because it feels like as good a place to start as any (even though it’s going to be the last track) and decided to take the opportunity to define the overall sound for the album, which mostly meant cycling through a bunch of microphones until I found the right one for the vocals, and also cycling through a bunch of guitars until I decided that my favorite one (an Ovation Elite TX) is the one I’ll use. Because it’s my favorite one to play, so, why wouldn’t I use it on the album? Plus I think it has the nicest tone of my three acoustic 6-strings.

The downside to the Elite is that it doesn’t have a traditional soundhole, so I can’t use my preferred pickup (a Seymour Duncan Woody) on it, but the Ovation’s built-in pickup is pretty good, and I record it in conjunction with a mic anyway.

I also recorded a bunch of guitar and drum takes and got annoyed at a few things so for now I’m using Logic’s AI drummer. I hope to rerecord it with real drums though. I’m just having trouble keeping steady time; my drumming is fine for live sets but studio albums call for a bit more precision than I can muster right now. Also my cheap nylon brushes started to fall apart even though I’ve barely used them. Meh. So I ordered some proper metal ones which should arrive tomorrow. I also finally got around to ordering a better drum throne, too, because the one which came with my kit is driving me absolutely nuts.

Also, not all of the songs on the album will use drums.

For strings I’m using NI Cremona Quartet as usual, although for some parts I’ll probably rerecord the cello using my actual cello, and some of the songs need some cello articulations which Cremona Quartet doesn’t provide so for those I’ll definitely be playing the real thing. I might even try to record some of the violin and viola parts with physical instruments but as much as I enjoy playing them, I’m really not all that good, and I want this album to sound as good as possible.

Anyway after all that I went to another VR yoga class.

Also I’ve had too much caffeine today and am feeling hyper and rambly, so, here’s some rambling about my musical instruments.

Rambling about my musical instruments

Since the Ovation is now in the studio I guess I should select a different guitar to keep in my living room for VR shows. My choices are the Gibson that my aunt gifted me a decade ago (she bought it thinking she’d learn to play but never got around to, and it was sitting in her attic for decades) or the Ibanez. I find the Gibson a bit easier to play so I’ll probably go with that one.

I have a bunch of acoustic guitars:

  • An Ibanez which I bought when I first moved to Seattle
  • The Ovation Elite TX, which I bought when I moved back to Seattle
  • The 1970s Gibson B-25N which my aunt gifted me (which is what I played on the 2022 Song Fight! Live! recording)
  • An Ovation 12-string that I bought when I lived in San Francisco (which I think I’ve only used on a single song)
  • A Martin backpacker classical guitar
  • A KLŌS carbon-fiber travel guitar that lives in my office

Of these, I only really like to play the Ovation Elite and the Gibson. I should probably sell the others.

My electric guitar selection is much smaller:

  • A Fender Squier which I bought before I moved to NYC
  • An Epiphone Sheraton II which I bought when I got a big bonus at Amazon the first time

I mostly just play the Epiphone, because it has an amazing tone. (This is what I used on the 2020 Song Fight! Live! recording.) The Squier is fun sometimes though, but I mostly just keep it around for sentimental reasons.

Similarly I have only two basses:

  • A Samick fretless jazz bass (no idea of model) which I’d bought used and the previous owner had modded the pickup to be active
  • A Rogue VB100 (clone of the classic Hofner viola bass)

I don’t play bass much (I usually just use a softsynth) but when I do it’s usually the Rogue. It has a surprisingly nice tone and is also pretty fun to play. The Samick also has a nice tone but I am just kinda crap at fretless. Also it’s heavy and makes my pain flare up.

I also have a pile of classical instruments, in order of most- to least-often played:

  • A cheap student acoustic cello
  • A Rogue mandolin
  • A cheap student viola
  • A cheap student violin
  • A cheap electric cello
  • An exceptionally crappy electric violin

The acoustic cello I’ve put a lot of upgrades into and it doesn’t sound too bad, especially considering that it originally cost $400. I’ve put about $1000 into it all told and it’s… well, about as good as a $1000 cello can be. (Good cellos start at more like $10,000 but I’d have a very hard time justifying that much for one.)

Anyway that’s not everything in my studio, of course, and at some point I need to do a proper inventory, especially for insurance purposes. I don’t have anything particularly valuable (the Gibson guitar is probably the single most valuable instrument and it’s probably worth maybe $2500?) but it’d suck to have to replace it all.

On that note I also have way too many microphones and I mostly just use a MXL V63M for everything. But for this album I’ve opted to go with an MXL V88 for the vocals, and the V63M for micing instruments.

I also auditioned an Electro-Voice PL80 dynamic mic (which I mostly use for live audio) and a NADY ribbon mic for the vocals but I didn’t like the tones, which were too bright and too dark, respectively. But the V88 felt Just Right. I also have a CAD M177 that I’ve used for voiceover recording but I’ve never liked how it sounds for music, although I suppose I should give it a chance too, since it has a reasonably flat response, but the V88’s also pretty flat (aside from a bigger bump around 10kHz) and it’s a known quantity for me. Of course all of these mics have a nice wide range and I could EQ them to make them sound however I want, but for this album I’m trying to go for as natural of a sound as I can.

My drums have a pretty okay mic setup on them but I should probably add a couple room mics as well, just to flesh it out a little more. I definitely have enough audio channels for that, and also enough microphones. Jeeze.

UPDATE: I ended up using the CAD M177 after all, as it gave me a nice balanced tone through the entire dynamic range (unlike the V63M which got way too bright for upper dynamics). This might be my favorite vocal mic now! For this album the V63M is now an instrument mic, and is doing double duty as a room mic for the drums.

In any case, for most of the album, the core instrumentation will be:

  • Guitar
  • Piano
  • String quartet
  • Drums (occasionally)

I will of course add on other things as needed; some things may call for larger symphonic strings, and sometimes I might want a bass or mandolin or whatever. But I’m intending to make it all sound organic and using non-synthesizer instruments. Keeping this sort of constraint is extremely atypical for me and also feels really good to try.