as i said i went back…when was it…this past thursday, two days ago, to do vocals. i actually redid the electric part on questions because i’d used a volume pedal, which i never used, and i pretty much suck at the technique of it so i redid it without that effect, which was better. then i also added the ebow stuff and we fixed up the intro to king forever. then it was onto vocals.

i figured it would be one of the toughest parts, but maybe it was exactly that expectation that made it not seem so bad. it was a lot of work to be sure, but not too bad. first we tested out two of the mics he has and chose which one sounded better (an AKG, i think).

i started with ‘questions’ because that’s the lowest register of the three and seemed like the best to warm up with. in retrospect it was the easiest one to finish. i’ve found it’s hard for me in the moment to really ‘hear’ how something sounds; i find it hard to assess the actual quality of what’s been done in that particular session until afterward and out of context. i don’t know, maybe it’s mental, but that seems to be the truth of the matter.

vocals were no exception, so it was nice to have bethany and darian both giving their feedback along the way. part of me is worried that when i go back and hear it again i’ll hate lots of parts of it, but….no point in bothering about it unless it actually happens.

so getting back on track – i started with ‘questions’ and that went pretty smoothly. ‘not the end’ was much more difficult to get right; there are a lot of tricky parts in that song to sing perfectly one right after another. so there were a lot of takes but we pieced it together. then i sang the melody part for ‘king forever’, which i’m the most comfortable with and have sung the most, and that went pretty smoothly too – probably ranks number 2 on the smoothness list.

then bethany came back and added a harmony or two she heard for ‘not the end’ which we’ll have to decide if we’ll keep or not. on ‘questions’ i was certain that the nature of the song would be ruined if another voice were added, and ‘not the end’ may be the same way. but i’m not certain yet, so we laid it down just to have it and we’ll see how it works. then she added harmony to ‘king forever’ which i think came out great and i even added a third part to the choruses. so once that’s all dialed in and polished up it may be fantastic. there’s a chance.

it’s amazing how much you hear every little waver and mistake in your voice when recording like this – it takes a lot of work to sound as good as you can. playing live is much more forgiving in that way, which i probably take for granted. you can be playing live and easily think “i’m nailing this” but if you were recorded and hear it back you’re like “no…..no i wasn’t nailing anything.”

also i think i unwittingly prepared myself mentally for criticism and that there would likely be a lot of redos and punches and that really made it pretty easy not to take anything personally during the vocal session. i think it made the whole process a lot smoother.

so anyway, here we are! he’s working on a first mix over the next week or so, so then we’ll sit down and polish it up and this puppy should be done!