The True Believer Sessions, Day Six

With my newfound motivation for recording, I ordered the upgrade to the newest version of SONAR while I was starting this project. Yesterday, I tried installing it for the latest chapter, but the @#$!%$^#& serial number they gave me doesn't work.

As I played "Not This Time" for my friend Steve yesterday, I realized I could probably still bump the vocals up a bit. I may do that today.

Yesterday, though, involved tracking a quick-and-dirty acoustic version of the song, so I can post "before and after" MP3s at some point. Then it was on to basic tracks for the next one, that open D acoustic bit that I was able to Frankenstein together. One thing I'm trying to do it to get away from similar chord rhythms in the verses and choruses of songs, particularly when I'm playing them acoustically. So there was one major switch in the structure of this tune. Of course, all that may change once I start adding lyrics.

To that end, I was bouncing back and forth between either three or four chord cycles in the verse. My first pass had three. Then, I dropped the volume way down on those tracks while adding a double, except it was too quiet for me to realize that I had only done three passes, and the new tracks did four. I had that nagging sense that something wasn't quite right, but figured it was just something subtle in my strumming rhythm. I thought about cutting and pasting to make them match up, but I'll just keep the second pass and junk the first. That'll give me an opportunity to tweak the two-headed acoustic sound a bit, going direct into the mixer from the pickup, instead of through the POD, while simultaneously recording from a microphone. That'll give me a bonus track that I can fuck with later that will have a bit of a different sound to it.

All that said, I have a sneaking suspicion that this tune will become less and less acoustic the more I work on it.

Vocally, I've got some bits that I like for the melody -- mostly for the chorus, and the snippets of actual words could lead to something about moral absolutism. That nut was already there, in a sense, but may have been reinforced by a quote from Keith Olbermann that resonated very strongly with me yesterday.