Well we are alive in Los Angeles. We are creating new music, playing old songs, raising kids, making new friends, loving old friends. We’re doing life. We are also in the process of moving, so that’s all consuming. It’s a good move, just within town. More on that later.

This blog nags at me, taunts me, dares me to update. After awhile with no updates, as with all things shameful, I tend to ignore it. I have been considering a full blown autobiographical download of all the things we’ve learned in the past two years, as this move closes the chapter on a painful, thrilling, difficult, rewarding, and ultimately empowering season. I have also been considering the reality that I need to spend some time learning and mastering Wordpress, so that we can have a proper blog, one tied to Facebook and Twitter and all that good stuff.

But first, I have to go back to packing boxes. I’ve learned that the way I’m wired is that I have a mental queue. I can only eyeball the top five or so needs at any given moment. I’ve decided to stop pretending that this is not how I’m wired, and embrace it instead.

So, for the moment, allow me to share that we’re back at the Hotel next Friday night, July 17th. We will rawk it.

The Dailies @ The Hotel Cafe
July 17th, 2009 @ 9pm
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Later!

We’re debuting the live version of The Tempest, so even if you’ve seen us before, there’s something fresh. This is our absolute favorite venue to play, and we’d love to see you.

Tomorrow night, April 4th, we’re playing at a place called Crane’s Hollywood Tavern. We’re a little sketchy about it, as it appears to be a bit of a dive, and we’ve learned that if we’re going to get our people out, it’s a good idea to have a nice place to invite them. This… may not be the case for tomorrow.

Thus far, we’ve been using Facebook and MySpace and word of mouth to get people out, with pretty good results. Good enough, anyways, to get invited back to one of the best singer / songwriter venues in L.A.

But for tomorrow, we want to try something different. So… we’re trying a little experiment. For our date night tonight, we’re just going to go canvas the neighborhood around Crane’s and meet people, pass out flyers and even perhaps a few of our pre-production CDs, and see if we can get people out that way. It’s going to be a little adventure.

Think promotional thoughts for us!

Here’s what’s been going on:

1. Our new record, Mixing Metaphors is out. Check it out on iTunes. We are very, very proud of it, and we think it’s worth the $9.99 to buy it. Heck, it even comes with a PDF digital booklet so that you can have all the lyrics and see the cool artwork! How cool is that?

2. We did our official CD release show at The Hotel Cafe last weekend. It was a true thrill to play a set at the premiere Singer / Songwriter venue in Los Angeles. We had a great turnout and a great show, and we send much love to everyone who came.

3. We’ve been working with our friend Ash to update and redesign our website. It should be up in a few days. Stay tuned!

4. We started a new job! We have been hired as artists in residence at Calvary Community Church here in Westlake Village, CA. This is an ideal situation for us, as it leaves about 50% of our weeks with minimal work, while helping us stabilize our family life in these strange and turbulent times. We’ve been hoping and praying for work that would allow us to continue to focus on The Dailies. God has been good and faithful, indeed.

That’s a brief update. I’ll resume unpacking all the songs one by one later this week. It’s been a mad season, but things are stabilizing for us. In the meantime, go download our record and then go back and check out my previous blogs about how and why and where they were created.

Dailies out!

Go check it out!

We’ll be back to more behind the scenes blogging in a bit…

In the past, I’ve been breaking up the technical evolution and the emotional, artistic commentary, but in this case, I find it hard to separate them, so I will have a go at putting it all together.

First, some background. Some of you may remember that I resigned from a church music position in the middle of July 2007 to focus on free lance music and The Dailies full time. Without getting into the history in too much detail, although there is a song on the record about this experience, called Two Years Ago, it’s important to understand that the experience of being a leader in this church during that season was an incredibly emotionally taxing experience.

So there we are in 2007, thinking about this record. Starting to sketch out our songs, our ideas, and I have a massive case of writers block mixed with a little post-regular work hours depression. Yes, an artist who gets depressed, how original, I know. It was during this season of turmoil that The Tempest was born.

By Thanksgiving of that year, I had reached my low point. I hadn’t written much. In fact, there are 2-3 songs from that period that never made it even into the demo stage. They were just too unfocused and uninteresting. The money that we’d saved as a safety net against regular paychecks had been mostly spent. It was taking forever to see payment from a couple of high profile singing gigs I had done, as it takes a long time for residuals to filter through the corporate and SAG / AFTRA systems. It was a bad scene.

We went to Erica’s Mom and Dad’s house for Thanksgiving that year. They live in a rural area East of San Diego near Alpine. They took one look at us early in the weekend and said something like… “Hey, umm… why we keep the kids on the last night and you guys go get a hotel somewhere and get away.” This sort of statement is like catnip to the parents of young children.

I went online and discovered that The Hotel Del Coronado was practically giving rooms away. It was the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and they were just trying to keep the hotel reasonably full. For the price of a night at the local Sheraton, we got a room at one of the coolest hotels in America.

That afternoon, we made our way down there and checked in. Erica suggested a walk on the beach, and so we got a little coffee and that’s what we did.

It was a crisp, California autumn day at the beach, cold… but not unpleasantly so. The air was clear and a smattering of clouds dotted the horizon. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. We were walking and talking and enjoying ourselves, and I realized two things. First, I was content. I hadn’t felt content in several months, and it was a refreshing feeling.

Second, I was struck by the beauty, the vastness, the majesty of the Pacific ocean. I realized that, even though we only live 20 minutes from the beach, that I hadn’t been down to see it all summer and fall. It had been beautiful every day, but I hadn’t come to see it. I had cloistered myself in my small studio, trying and failing to write good songs, but the ocean kept doing it’s thing, day in, and day out. The Tide did not care how I felt.

I found great comfort in this. I felt small, and unimportant. I felt like all the things I was stressing about were quite comical, and not at all interesting to this great, ancient, and massive thing that was my peaceful neighbor.

We finished our coffee, and went back to the room.

We had our guitars with us, Erica with her Taylor, me with my Fender acoustic bass. We often take them with us, even though neither of us are particularly great on them, to play together and relax. Erica sat down and started playing a simple little riff, that sounded like this:

[See post to listen to audio]

It pleased me. It hit me the right way. It was simple and lovely. I started playing a simple 8th note bass line underneath it, and began singing what came to me:

The waves roll out, and crash back in…
And I am somehow comforted by their indifference…

And our little song was born. The verses wouldn’t get written until much later, and we had a “B” section to the verses that got bagged and ultimately simplified and streamlined, but the essence of the song was created right there in a little room at the Hotel Del.

I’d say it was the 4th or 5th song we’d started, and yet immediately we knew that it was something special, and that it was going to be the last song on the record. I just had a sense about it.

Since I play exactly zero guitar, I had Erica lay down that little phrase once we got home. I started building parts around it, while crafting the lyric. Sometimes when I start a song, I just write, with not much of a goal in mind, this time, however, I knew with startling clarity what we were trying to say, and how to say it. The experience was simply too vivid to attempt anything other then simple describing what we felt in the moment itself.

It’s been too long since I stood here
At the edge of something vast
It’s been calling to me softly
And I answered it at last
Too long since I stood here
And let it wash my feet
Felt the touch of something ancient, something deep…

Once it was written, I demoed it up. Erica began a tradition during this time where she’d take the kids out of the house for several hours at a time on Mondays, as I was having a hard time focusing when I could hear them playing (or fighting) and wanting to engage. This demo was created on one of those days. We knew that Erica was going to sing lead from the moment we wrote it, so this is a rare and exciting chance to hear me singing way out of my range and making a general fool of myself. It should be noted, as I am listening right now to this demo for the first time in months, to hear the differences in the phrasing the way Erica heard it and sung it when it counted.

Anywhoo.. here’s my demo

[See post to listen to audio]

This is a great example of why we demo. On a tune like this, where we’re trying to go for a bit more of an epic sound, since we’re SOOO not guitar players, it’s hard to imagine it if we were just to sit around and play it for you. I, personally, need to hear it in a larger, more arranged context to make sure it’s gonna work. Also, since we have limited time in the studio with the band, we don’t have several hours to waste learning a tune. We have to give them a running start.

Speaking of the band guys, tracking this song lead to the single most enjoyable night of the Eldorado week. We did this one late in the game, and everyone had really settled into the flow. Also, this was the demo that everyone heard and had very little commentary. No one said… “Well, I hear where you’re going, but we’re going to have to consider this instead…” Everyone just sort of nodded and said, “That’s gonna be fun.”

And it was. It was magical, actually. Now, bear in mind that when we recorded “What It Is,” in 2006, we had already tracked final vocals against the demos. We had it in our heads that it would help the process if the guys could hear really focused, tight vocals to play against. It worked, sorta. What we learned was that when listening to that record, we feel like the vocals are somehow detached in places. The band was feeling it 11, but we had only sung it at 8, if you will.

This time, we had nothing previously tracked going into the studio. Erica or I would actually sing live with the band on the first 2-3 passes, to give them that central focal point, but then once we got a decent pass, we’d back out and let them just play it down.

During The Tide, I remember clearly thinking that something special was afoot. Even though Erica was behind the soundproofed glass, singing in the control room, and the band was scattered throughout the tracking rooms of Eldorado, there was a unity. She’d belt a chorus, and the band would respond. She’d go soft at the end, and the band would respond.

As I’ve been typing this, I went back into the sessions and found her original scratch vocal, recorded against the band. For those of you who are nerdy, this band track is nearly raw. I’ve put a limiter across the 2-buss, and there’s a little reverb across everything, but other then that, this is what it sounded like going to tape. This is also a cool glimpse into an end to end vocal, warts and pitchy notes and all. No edits, no comps, no tuning… even a bit of distortion as she overdrives the mic pre.

[See post to listen to audio]

That ending, with all the alternate voicings on piano, was entirely improvised. I remember thinking it was so beautiful, holding my breath, praying for no foul notes. There were none. It was one of those songs where you could tell they wanted to play it again, not because we needed another pass, but just because it felt so good to play.

We took it home and went to work. We had made an aesthetic choice as we prepared for this record that we were going to simplify the sound of the vocals. Vocalists get a little heady about vocal tricks. Doubles, triples, stacks, licks, runs, bleh. Erica and are sorta over it. We just want to sing a phrase with good feel and good vibe. We made a decision that we were going to double at most, and only when it felt right, let it be the icing on the cake, rather then slathered throughout the recipe.

We made one exception to this rule, and it was for this song, specifically the bridge. I remember working on it, playing the bass part and thinking, “This needs to be epic. This is almost like the concluding statement of our whole record… the sum of what we’re learning right now… the sum of our artistry in this moment.”

Therefore, we decided to let it rip, vocally. Double the melody on the octaves? Yes please. Flesh out the harmonies? Yup. OOOOHHHH, how about some percussive ooohs and aahs! BRING IT!

For most of this tune, it’s 2 channels of vocals. On the bridge, it’s 26 channels. I just counted. I remember when Stick got a hold of this track for mix, he protested mightily at the taxing of his computer’s processing. Even his mighty Pro Tools HD3 rig was forced to bow to the mighty choir of Chads and Ericas. (Somewhere in the woods in Northern California, a very nice, very talented, very reasonable gentleman is shaking his head and muttering… “88.2 sucks…”)

Here’s the “Vocals Up” rough mix that came out of our machine after we had laid everything down.

[See post to listen to audio]

So we were pretty stoked on this tune. I especially dig the bridge, with all the vocals and the moving bass line and everyone just doing for it. For me, the lyric there sort of sums up the entirety of our last (almost) two years.

I may yet survive the tempest
But I won’t outlive the tide
It will breathe when I lay breathless
It cares nothing for my pride
For I am but a vapor
Drifting towards that other shore
Like every generation, every pilgrim gone before

I know that some people get wierded out by the fact that we, our lives, are really a blink in the eye of time. I find great comfort in it, personally. The self is not the center of the universe. We are all a part of something bigger and grander, and this realization is one of the keys to a life of significance, ironically. It’s nice to know, when you’re in the valley, that there’s a bigger, more beautiful world out there. The question remains, will you ascend the slopes around you long enough to take it in.

Now, the problem was that when it came to mix, the bridge section wasn’t about to ascend a blessed thing. It was collapsing into itself. Stick built, and rebuilt it, and still it wasn’t happening. He finally threw up his hands and said something like:

“Well.. the bass is playing up the octave and the low end disappears half the time. You can’t bring the thunder if the bass player is in the wrong octave!”

I sheepishly announced that since I love the sound of the bass high on the neck, that I had encouraged (read: directed) Dana to play it as such. Score one more for Chad, superproducer.

We went over to a friend of Stick’s and borrowed a Fender J-Bass, similar to the one Dana used on the record. One of the problems we had faced was that a typical four string’s low note is an E. This song is in the key of D, so that low root note is unavailable, unless you have a five string, or a drop-D tuner on your bass.

So, we just detuned the bottom string. This presented an issue, in that as I attempted to recut the part, the intervals were all out of whack if I tried to move to another string, and I’m just not a good enough bass player to make the mental transitions on the fly.

So, what you’ll hear on the final mix / master is this: Dana works his magic on everything except the bridge section, from the downbeat at 2:49 to where the band goes back into a straight groove at 3:43. In that bridge section, you hear me, playing that line on one string, like I’m in a Jr. High garage band. Rawk, baby.

Here’s the final mix, with the new bass part in place:

[See post to listen to audio]

As always, the mastering job did wonders to bring it to life. Keep in mind, as always, that the mastering is just the manipulation of the two channel mix. They do nothing other then apply final compression, limiting, and EQ. But man… what a difference it makes.

[See post to listen to audio]

In many ways, this song is the counter balance to the song we talked about previously, “The Tempest.” In fact, for about 10 minutes, we seriously considered calling the record “Tempest and Tide,” but then we went back to “Mixing Metaphors,” as we felt like it more accurately and interestingly described the record.

If you’ve actually read and listened all the way through this 2553 word epic, I salute and thank you. The record is actually done, and we get to pick up the copies this week. We’re looking forward to sharing it with you all.

I think anyone who spends time with Erica and me can tell you that this past year and a half has been a struggle. I quit my full-time job. We moved. We adjusted to an inconsistent and often insufficient income. We wrote and recorded this project together, self-producing. In the midst of all these things, we’re the parents of two young children, and we are attentive and committed parents at that. We’ve also stitched together a semblance of an income, doing musically related gigs of all shapes and sizes.

I don’t tell you all this to ask for pity, or pretend that we’re somehow regretting our decisions. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve both been taken aback by how much turmoil enters your life when you abandon a routine, when you abandon safety. I confess that I had romanticized the wild and unpredictable life of the free lance musician, the struggling artist.

It’s not a lot of fun, at least thus far. I can fully understand why people who take their crack and miss can grow bitter and resentful against musicians who are successful. You feel like you’ve put your life on the line, and for what?

I remember one night, Erica was deeply frustrated about something, and I was hearing about it. She wasn’t necessarily upset with me, just frustrated and in need of a place to vent. It was a hard scene for me, that night. I was feeling like I was somehow responsible for her stress, even though it was indirect responsibility. Money was tight, or there had been a schedule misfire, or something. I honestly can’t remember.

It was hurricane season, and even though we don’t fear them in Southern California, I think everyone dreads them post Katrina. None of us ever again want to watch our countrymen hanging out on the roofs of their flooded and ruined homes, pleading for help.

I remember some talking head on TV explaining how hurricanes are almost like the ocean blowing off steam, how too much accumulated heat in the water which leads to evaporation which leads to stuff that I don’t understand. The one thing that I did get was that it was a pressure release.

I see storm clouds gathering behind your eyes
A tempest brewing in your azure skies
Forces beyond your control
Stir up the sea of the soul

I got this idea that a person needs a place to blow off their steam, and where else but in the safety of a committed relationship? This is a hard thing. It’s hard to absorb someone else’s gale force winds and not get taken down.

I board the windows and I bolt the doors
Winds have buffeted this home before
Damage is done and repaired
All we can do is prepare

How tough is our home, how steely is our will? How solid and deep and wide is our foundation? Is our storehouse thick with supplies and food? Do we have a plan for shelter?

I once had a wise person, who had been married for a long time say something simple and profound to me. He said, “You know how to improve your chances of keeping your relationship together? Arrange it so that both of the parties come from parents who are still together.” He was being tongue in cheek, of course. One cannot control such things.

He went on, “It’s simple. People who come from intact families have a heightened sense of obligation not to be the break in the chain. They don’t want to be the ones who fail where the previous generation succeeded. It simply increases the mathematical percentages, that sense of legacy.”

Now, obviously, there are counter arguments to this. Many people who come from broken marriages, or single parents go on to have successful relationships. Many couples stay together, but are locked in a perpetual Tempest, never experiencing the calm or serenity after a storm. I believe there are few sadder things then a couple trudging through life, loveless and resigned.

I think his point, and the point of our song, is that a decision to simply weather the storm, rather then abandoning one’s home and heading for the hills, radically increases the chances of survival. Eventually, one must decide if they are going to plant a flag and say, “This is the hill worth dying on. This is home.”

The sun will arise, my love
There’s light in the sky, my love
The sun will arise, my love
And we are alive, my love

Not the first… nor the last… but this tempest too shall pass

Even the fiercest storm eventually blows itself out. The trick is to not only survive, but rebuild and thrive….

…but that’s for another song.

So, I play just enough bass guitar to get myself in trouble. I picked up the instrument a few years back because I wanted to try something new and I thought, “Hey… I only have to worry about one note at a time… how hard can it be?” I took one lesson, and off I went. It was Rosy, actually, who sorta taught me how to play bass. About three years ago, Mike, Corey, Rosy, and I were hired to back up some friends of ours on a weekend gig at Hume Lake. This weekend was actually the first time The Dailies band played together, and lead to the making of the first record later that year.

Rosy at one point actually said to me something like… “Watch my kick drum. Don’t play a note unless you see me hitting the kick.” Some of you might be thinking… man… for him to say that… you must have been really bad. You’d be right. However, even though I’m a pretty noob-i-licious bass player, I’m a pretty good musician, and it all worked out. I do U2 style 8th notes quite well, thanks,

Anyways. I actually played bass on the 1st record, which is one of the many reasons why it has a for more garage band feel than this new one. After attempting to play a few gigs, singing and playing and fumbling and mumbling, we decided to hire a pro, our friend Dana Decker.

Playing bass, even though I’ll never be Sting, has lead me to make better choices as a musician, as a songwriter… well… most of the time. More on that in a moment. Even a rudimentary understanding of the instrument helps out. I’ve actually had a couple of bass players comment that it’s more fun to play with me when I’m on keys, because I stay out of their way these days. But I digress…

So we’re working on this song, “The Tempest,” and it all starts with a bass line and a hook idea. It was actually one of the first songs written for the project, which, I think, contributed to the issues we were having later on. It took a little while for the songwriting engine to get cranked up and firing on all cylinders.

So, we write the tune, and I demo it up. The bass line in question happens right at the 0:13 mark, and then loops… endlessly. I want you all to know that this is an exercise in humility for me to share this with you, but it’s a brave new interactive world out there, and here goes nothin’

[See post to listen to audio]

Man… that was rough. Glad we made it through there. So, if you’re like me, I hope you heard a lot of potential, but you most likely heard a fair amount of mush and dissonance. We did, too. At this point, as creative people, you start to rationalize with yourself.

“Well… that arrangement doesn’t quite work, but I really like the lyrics and the melody, and it’ll be fine once the band plays it.”

We moved on to other tunes, and other demos, and there you go. By the time we got to Eldorado a few months later, I was moderately dreading this tune. So many of the others, like Signal Chain, had seemed to pour so easily from the pen. Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize, and off we go.

Now, once the band played it, it did sorta come into focus. A bit. On a rock tune, nothing will help it feel better like a real guitar player and a real drummer. However, we were still a bit troubled by it. It just didn’t… feel right, and so many of the others felt great.

Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize… “Well… once the final vocals are in place, it’ll come into focus.”

We finish tracking week, and head home. Again… this tune is at the bottom of our list of favorite tunes, which is really bumming me out, because I had such high hopes for it when we started out. I mean… what a great bass line, right? Can I get a what what? Anyone? Moving on.

One of the big struggles when tracking this one was finding the right keyboard part. Mike is not exactly shy about coming up with great parts, but nothing really settled down. He took a few cracks at it in the studio, then I sat down and did one, and nothing felt right. The Rhodes part that you’ll hear below is actually me, spending WAAAY too much time at home trying to make it fit.

This is a rough mix, coming from our computer, after we had finished tracking the leads. Ok… we can make it through, ok? This story has a happy ending. You really don’t have to listen to the whole thing, unless you’re a HUGE Dailies fan. Or a masochist. For some reason, this particular bounce hit the 2-bus too hard, and all the distortion somehow adds to the fact that the arrangement sucks.

[See post to listen to audio]

Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize. “Well… the problems with this song will be resolved once it’s all mixed and pretty.” This actually turned out to be true, but not in the way we thought.

When we finished all the vocal tracking, and were prepping for mix, I wrote up a whole mess of notes and ideas for Stick, our mixer. Keep in mind that Stick is a songwriter, player, producer, and arranger, as well as a mixer. He, like so many of us, wears any musical hat that will keep his kids eating food and the house out of foreclosure. Most of my notes were things like this, “So, on the 1st verse of this tune, I really like the guitar lick at bar 14, so make sure it’s up enough in the mix to hear it.”

On The Tempest, this was my note:

“This is our problem child song. Save this one for a day when you’re feeling like a challenge. Any and all ideas you have will be welcomed. Feel free to employ anything you can think of to give the song more arc.”

So, we clone our drive. FedEx the copy to him, and he goes to work. Now, June (Stick’s wife) told me a story after the mix was completed that went something like this. “Well, Chad, it’s funny… For about three days he was at work in the studio, and he’d come back happy and energized. Then, one night, he came in all downcast. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘Hmmm…. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do with this song.’”

Stick called me the next morning and said…. “How much leeway do I have with tune.” Considering I was on the verge of cutting it from the album, I answered, “How much leeway do you want?”

“Well,” he said, “I think we can keep the Drums, the B3 (organ) and the vocals.” I remember thinking to myself… at least he said we could keep the vocals.

The problem lay in the bass. With all that movement, all that schmutz, there was just nowhere for everyone else to go. Also, the nature of the line I wrote lead everyone else to play like it was some sort of southern fried rock tune, instead of a modern rock anthem. He put together a demo for his idea and sent it to me.

[See post to listen to audio]

Aaaaah yes. Everything gets simplified. Everything falls into place. Gone is the bass part that dominates and muddies everything. In it’s place, big guitars and a signature keyboard part. I love this guy! The other major change comes in the chorus. The original version went like this:

G//// G7//// C//// Cm7////

Stickman changed one chord, and the entire character of the thing changes.

G//// Em7//// C//// Cm7////

All of a sudden our little red headed stepchild is getting straight A’s and dating the prom queen. Now the fun begins. All the guitars you heard were Stick hammering away his studio and the bass is a sample, from Spectrasonic’s Trilogy plug-in. Turns out that Corey was going to be in studio the following day, for an unrelated session. Also turns out that they had the whole day booked and only about four hours of work scheduled. Corey, Stick, and I got on the phone and talked through the new parts, and off he went. Dana, excited to get to play a proper bass part, stopped by our place the next day and laid down some stank.

So, after a few more tweaks, and a little more love, here’s a final mix:

[See post to listen to audio]

Since this is a big, loud, four chord rock tune, it really benefited from the mastering process.

[See post to listen to audio]

So, what’s the moral of this story? Well, it’s simple! Write bad arrangements and then hire a great mixer to fix everything for you! Rationalize those structure issues away! Next song!

So, the actual moral of this songwriting near-miss-almost-disaster is this: I will not be fixed in the mix. A big studio won’t fix it. A great vocal won’t fix it. If your song isn’t working, it isn’t working. Strip it bare and find what’s wrong. Do not get attached. If I’m being perfectly honest, I think this track could have been even stronger still if we had done the extreme makeover earlier in the process.

As it is, we’re pretty grateful that we were able to not only keep it in the mix, but that it turned out to be one of our favorites. We were affirmed in that feeling a few weeks ago, when Crucial Music selected it as one of six of our tunes that will be added to their library.

If this tune goes platinum, I’ll have to do something really nice for Stick, like get him a monogrammed pen or a gift card to Starbucks or something. We know how to take care of our people, ya’ll.

So begins our record.

…digital to analogue, conversion on the breath..
it travels on a wave the length of which cannot be seen
but anyone can hear it, if anyone is near..
cause it goes….alllllllllll the waaaaaay…..

What is a Signal Chain? In the studio, the signal chain refers to every piece of gear that transports a sound from an analog source into a recording system and then back out again so that one might hear it. Think about it like this:

A singer hits the booth at a recording studio. They hear the track as it stands coming off of a previously recorded source, say a DAW like Pro Tools or Logic. They then sing into a microphone which transforms its reading of the sound wave into electrical information which is then passed along through an audio cable where it hits the microphone preamplifier. This device takes the sound and, as advertised, amplifies it to a level that can be detected and recorded. After the amp, a little equalization is applied if the engineer feels its necessary. After the EQ, one might insert a compressor, to help the singer avoid losing a blown take because the signal overdrives and distorts, and also because the sound of rock and roll is the sound of compression. After the signal has been squished and squashed in a hopefully pleasing manner, it hits a device called an analog to digital converter. Now it’s all just zeros and ones, baby.

Now bear in mind that this is a rudimentary description of really only one part of recording an album. 14 signal chains for drums. 3 per piano pass. 2-3 guitar overdubs, 4-6 vocal passes, 1 track for bass, a partridge in a pear tree, and you can see how it starts to get REALLY important that you hire a great engineer, and a great mixer. They are supposed to know which knobs to turn and which buttons to push to make sure that every one of the signal chains in a recording process sounds as good as it should.

I got to thinking about signal chains as a metaphor when we recorded our first record. It was the first time that we had produced a full length album of original music in a large studio with multiple musicians. As songwriters, we start long before the signal chain even comes into play, with an idea. A hook. Something that’s just eating at us and won’t leave us alone until we write a song about it.

Sometimes we’ve tried to write songs and they just don’t come out right, either recorded or played live. Getting that idea from it’s fledgling state… I call it the baby fawn stage, as in, “Don’t criticize my freshly written verse yet! It’s a vulnerable baby fawn”… into a fully baked song with a beat and a vibe and an arrangement and the idea still intact is quite a thing to accomplish. Why, in our very next installment, of this ongoing 28 part series, we’ll talk about “The Tempest,” a song which almost got the axe!

So, I had this thought that ideas go down a signal chain. Then I had this other thought, that the whole idea of God has come down a signal chain as well. Generations are like signal chains. One generation hears the original idea and records it. The next amplifies. The next adds this crazy fx pedal and everything gets all loopy and phased out. (think… oh I dunno… the dark ages)

Then the next generation decides they don’t like that effect and they go back and discover that the original signal was split off and also recorded without all the additional schmutz on it, so they go back to the purest source so they can remix it properly.

On and on it goes until it reaches the listener. Or the lack of listeners. I would suppose it had to do with the strength of the signal and the quality of the chain.

We called this record Mixing Metaphors for a reason. We spent a lot of time trying to find new and interesting ways to express what we’re thinking about. It’s purposeful that some of the lyrics are vague and evocative rather than explicit and obvious. There was imagery that flashed into my mind that I couldn’t shake. I giggled at the idea of Moses hearing the voice of God from an Marshall stack… burning, of course. I enjoy the imagery of the last verse, talking about reverb and decay. It brings to mind the old, stale cathedrals that dot Europe. Is there still a melody bouncing around those old places?

I dunno.

But I know that we really like our opening cut. Hope you do, too.

I have always a huge fan of the liner notes. One of the great losses of the post iPod era is the artwork, in my opinion. I remember getting excited when I’d buy a CD and it felt heavy. That meant that there were pages and pages of pictures, lyrics, credits, and if I was lucky, something more.

I remember getting John Mayer’s “Heavier Things,” which has some VERY clever charts and graphs mapping out the location of where each song was written, in which key, which tempo, and even an amusing chart describing how you were supposed to feel while listening to it, complete with emoticons and whatnot. Very funny.

These days, the best we can hope for is an album cover that looks good on our iPhone. (What’s that? Chad got an iPhone for Christmas? What a lucky boy!) I heard someone say that the internet and one’s webpage is the new artwork, and in reality, it’s better, because it’s not static. I’m not totally certain that I agree. Artwork is great because it is static. It’s a portrait of a moment. It gets dated and then it looks silly and then if you’re lucky, it looks like a classic.

However, Pandora’s box is open and there’s no going back. In that spirit, one of these days we’ll drop a bunch of coin on making this website look fantastic, and you can all ooh and aah. In the meantime, I thought I’d satiate you with some digital liner notes, with a little added bonus.

Signal Chain was a song that was written in the middle of the process. It’s one of those songs that just sorta spilled out of me, with not a lot of effort. Erica, who plays the often unappreciated but totally necessary role of editor had really nothing to say about this one, which was another good sign.

When we first write a song, at least for this and the previous record, we do a demo. We do this for our own benefit as well as the band’s. For us, it allows us to listen a few times through and decide if it’s worth recording. It’s one thing to sit at the piano, in the thrill of creation, and sing and feel great. It’s another thing to hear it in the car, and clinically think… is this thing any good?

If the demo passes our ears, it gets put on the playlist of tunes for the record, and goes to the band. We don’t have the luxury of hours and hours to sit and figure out the arrangement of each song in the studio or in a rehearsal space, so the demo helps them get an idea of what we are hearing, and then they add their own special sauce.

Here’s the demo:

[See post to listen to audio]

So, from the get-go, the bass line defined the tune. There was just something about that phrase that did it for me. I remember the band guys all jumping at it, as the arrangement on this one was pretty solid. There are other tunes, as you will hear, that are very evolved in their final form compared to where they started.

The one exception to this was with Rosy, who got a little nervous about the drum part on the verses. I am not a drummer, so all the stuff you heard on that demo was programmed drums. A computer has no problem whatsoever playing intricate, two handed 16th note hi-hat patterns while doing cross stick at the same time.

Humans, however… not so much. This is not an issue of Rosy’s ability, mind you, it’s more a reflection on the fact that he, in fact, only possess two hands.

Another major change was simplifying the keyboard part and changing the verse from the a piano to a rhodes. I had to be convinced on that one, as I felt like the verse didn’t have enough movement in it. However, the first time I sat down at the big Genelecs at Eldorado and listened after Mike laid down a pass, and that first Rhodes chord hits and just swallowed me up, I was hooked.

So the song evolves, from the demo to the studio. From samples to real players. From an idea to a real song. After tracking, we took our raw audio home and started working on the final vocals. The next track is an unmixed bounce of the final vocals after they were recorded against the band. This is our rough mix for listening purposes.

[See post to listen to audio]

So, then, after about 10,000 listens, we decided that it was fully baked and ready to go to mix. When the mixer gets a hold of a tune, all bets are off. It’s his or her job to hear through everything and help the artist decide what’s important and what should be brought forward or back. At this point, we’ve lost all perspective on this thing. We’ve been through it so many times that we vacillate between thinking it’s the greatest song ever written one minute and then we hate it the next.

Stick got a hold of this one, and took right to it. He opened up the drums, using a lot of the room sounds to give it a more natural sound, especially in the bridge. Listen for how the snare just opens up and fills the whole sound field.

[See post to listen to audio]

Now, bear in mind that this is merely the final track and mix. All along this journey, there are variations on this song, with minor tweaks. For example, I had to rerecord my entire vocal. I did the whole thing, doubles, edits and all, listened to it for a few days, and then Erica and I decided that it wasn’t right, and back into the booth I went. This version of the band track that you’re hearing is one of about six we laid down. This pass was the one we felt was the best. The mix that you’re hearing is revision 5 or 6. I can’t remember. Push Erica’s vocal up, Stick! Now pull it back! More guitar! Less guitar!

Etc. One can almost understand how it took 14 years for Axl to make Chinese Democracy. Almost.

If you’re still reading and listening, you might have found yourself reaching for your volume knob on the final mix. It’s left quiet on purpose. The job of bringing up the levels and applying a final eq and compression to the whole mix is the job of the mastering engineer.

Speaking of which, here’s the final master!

[See post to listen to audio]

I think the cool thing on this tune is how close the demo feels to the final. The vibe, instrumentation, arrangement, vocal feel, and even the mix is similar. For example, when I first did the demo, I felt like it wanted big, long, epic delays on the vocals on the bridge. I was gratified to hear Stick’s first mix, as when we hit the bridge, what appeared but big, long delays. I hadn’t asked for them. The song did.

This is one of my very favorite tunes on the record, and in part two, I’ll give some thoughts on what the song means to us and maybe unpack some of the lyrical choices.

Happy new year to you all. We look forward to sharing our music with you in 2009.

Peace!