To Err is Human...

I'm used to making mistakes as a musician. Part of my m.o. is to be a jack of all trades, master of none. This is never more obvious to me than when I try to record, which I attempted to do today.

I had told Amy that I wanted to do some recording which means that I need the computer and a bit of space so as to not record children or deal with the feeling of having someone looking over my shoulder through the whole process. Amy packed Maia up and took her grocery shopping while Xander kept himself occupied playing and I set about recording "Behold the King" which is a Christmas song I wrote several years ago and revamped last year. We were able to do it a few times at Hanfield last year, but we never got a decent recording of it.

I first had to deal with getting the computer ready which entailed plugging in my M-Audio Mobile-Pre recording device, restarting the computer and changing the audio input and output options. Then I had to set up my guitar amp, a few pedals and a microphone. I was able to get most of the gear set up before Amy left so I could maximize my time.

Once I was ready to start, I found a drum loop in Garage Band that I could use for a scratch track to help me keep tempo. I finished setting that up and was ready to start recording my electric. The song starts with a four bar, picked eighth note pattern that repeats through all of the chorus sections of the song. I made my first run at it and the guitar needed a new battery. Once that was changed, I was finally able to start recording. I figured that I needed two clean runs at the pattern to be able to have enough material to be able to copy and paste to the other chorus sections since I knew that a flawless trip all the way through the song was not a realistic expectation. I wrote the lead line, but I wrote it for someone else to play. I couldn't even manage two back-to-back trips through the line without mistakes and finally gave up after about 15 minutes of fruitless picking.

I decided to get the acoustic out and at least get some scratch work done on that which will help me with arranging and redoing the drum parts. It took me a few minutes to get the level set where the signal wouldn't clip (crack/pop) and I dove in. The nice thing with knowing that it was going to be a scratch track (practice track) was that I didn't stop for minor mistakes if I didn't hit things perfectly. My hope was that I could then go back and do some of the other parts on electric that wouldn't be quite as intricate. As soon as I finished the acoustic track, Amy and Maia were home, ending today's session.

To err is human, but to do so while recording is extremely frustrating. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some more before next week so I can keep it moving forward. Otherwise it might stall out and sit unfinished for another year.