Day One - The Sessions

Our first day of recording, we had scheduled for four hours. In our ignorance, we figured we could record two songs in that time since the arrangements were minimal. Instead, we found there was much to absorb and adapt to before we were able to complete the first song.

When a song is recorded it is rarely done as a live cut. The song is broken down into its individual parts, or layers. This sounds less intimidating than it actually is. As a duo, my partner plays and sings her part and I play and sing mine. My brain was used to hearing and playing the song that way. When I went to dissect the song and play the different parts individually, it took a few tries for my brain to adjust.

That turned out to be something I loved about being in the studio -- really learning your song and being able to add pieces to it. I learned to listen in a new way, and really became acquainted with each song.

Here is a brief overview of the first three steps of recording a song:

1. Play the song as you would live. This is recorded as a live performance and will be played back into headphones you'll be wearing as you later play/sing each layer of the song separately. This is called a "scratch track."

2. Each instrument, the drum track(s) usually being first, is then played and recorded separately.

3. Once the music has been recorded, then the vocals are recorded, if there are any. For me, laying down the vocal tracks was the easiest part of the recording process. I found it really cool that if you mess up you don't have to start all over again. The engineer merely starts playing back the song over your headphones and you just proceed to sing. These are called "punch-ins". Punch-ins can also be done when playing an instrument, but can be trickier.

We came into the project hoping to record 7 or 8 songs. After the first day, we were humbled, but still wanted to give it a shot. The next two tries turned into ten and eleven hour days. But more about that next time.......

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