Day 12+13: More dubs

Thursday:

This is our last day downstairs in Studio A. “Beauty’s Growing” is first on the list. Having finished the bass track, now is the time for guitars. Tyler and Mark do there thing. Ricky keeps mentioning “arena rock.” I add a little bit of Kevin Shields swirly Jazzmaster over the song and it’s a keeper. Next we hit “Last Day of March.” This song has undergone an interesting evolution. It’s sounded like everything from punk to stadium rock and back to new wave. Let’s just say there are now four synth tracks and some mellowtron flutes, coupled with a giant Les Paul sound. And yet, it still sounds very LT. The day ends with putting down the final bass on “Day and Night.” John pushes me for some more melodic bass lines and the result is quite nice. No vocals as of yet, as Mark is still a bit under the weather. We press on.

Friday:

The day begins early as we meet with Jonathan at the studio to discuss some promotion strategy for the record. Today we move upstairs to Studio B to continue with overdubs. “Safe and Sound” is up. This is definitely the best this song has sounded. We managed to get the guitar tones just right. Then we top it off with a sweet solo, ala Dinosaur Jr and we’re set. While this is going on, I picked up some acoustic 12-string strings to “high string” my J50. This will be used to double the acoustic parts on “For You” and “Day and Night.” Next we lay down electric and acoustic parts on “Rest,” which has ended up with a bit groovier beat–90s trip-hop style. This may sound odd, but it really makes the song. Little bit of Hammond and Rhodes and we wrap that one up. We conclude the day preparing the sound for Tyler’s ebow part on “For You.” Knowing that some glockenspiel is eminent, I can sleep easy. Saturday is our last scheduled day for overdubs. Hopefully, the instruments/percussion will be finished and we can move on to some vocals for the second half of the day. We may have to add two additional days to add the vocals. Though we have been pretty efficient, the project is still a lot work to accomplish in the time we had planned. However, our chins are up.

–Matt