mc

I recorded this song yesterday for my friend Georgia’s birthday. The goal was to write, record and mix a song within an hour then head over to her birthday party (sorta on time) to deliver the fresh-baked gift. In reality I clocked in at about three hours and arrived painfully late.

I started off with the drums and a vague idea for a single note guitar/bass line. Here’s the track list in order of first recorded:

• Drums - Sonor Sonic Force whatevers
• Acoustic Guitar - Mark’s Johnson (quit laughing perv)
• Bass - Hagstrom with flat wounds
• Backing Vocals - 3 harmonies each doubled for a total of 6 tracks
• Lead Vocals - doubled

The signal chain for all tracks went: GT67 mic -> Neve 1272 preamp -> UA 1176 compressor -> Summit TLA-100 limiter -> Cubase except for the bass which skipped the mic and went direct from an SVT Classic head to the 1272.

Everything went down easy within one or two takes except the bass track. I was trying to match the guitar line I had just improvised a minute earlier and could not recreate it to save my life. I ended up practicing the line at least 50 times and cutting three takes together. That snag alone cost me about 45 minutes of birthday BBQ time.

Special thanks to Yuko and Mark for standing in to check levels.

Happy Birthday Georgia!