I managed to set up my studio. Unfortunately it needs some work. The blue cinderblocks look great, but the sound bounces right off them. I knew it would be a problem, but didn’t know how much until yesterday. I was laying down an acoustic guitar track, so I had a microphone set up in front of the Gibson’s soundhole. It’s a small guitar, and has a thin, whispy sound. That’s exactly what I wanted for the song. I sat down, adjusted all the levels, and recorded the slide-guitar track.
When I listened to the playback, there was a deep, boomy reverberation. The sound was bouncing off the walls, and overpowering the microphone. It made the signal unusable. It was really frustrating – that was a tough guitar solo to play cleanly, and it took a lot of practice to get it right.
A few hours later, I realized that I could get an equally-cool sound from one of my Telecasters. And I could run it directly into the PC, so the echo wouldn’t affect the sound. Ten minutes later it was done. Then I listened to the song a dozen times, thrilled with the way it’s building.
This isn’t a new song either. I was sitting on the sofa watching TV one night, plucking away on the above-noted Gibson acoustic (we keep it in the living room, for emergency access). I absent-mindedly plucked one of the guitar licks from “Love Isn’t Enough,” but at a really slow tempo. Suddenly I realized that this song would work well in a new genre. I rushed down to the studio, programmed a basic drum pattern, and very quickly laid down bass, guitar, and vocal “scratch takes” before I could forget what I had in mind.
I’ve built on it now, but it’s a sparse and lonely take on LIE. I can’t wait to polish and release it online (once the studio echo is resolved).
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