In the summer of 2011, I had three weeks off: one to record music, one to have my wisdom teeth taken out, and one to visit my in-laws. I intended to use the second two weeks to work on editing the songs I'd record during the first week to give to family and friends. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?
I lugged my computer and monitor, studio monitors, headphones, mics, guitars, a bass, my head with two cabs, and a mess of cables. I practically moved into the house my friends lived in and graciously let me use and took over their dining room table.
Two of the guys living there slept during the morning hours and the others got home around 5 pm. My recording time was hamstrung by this, but I had a plan to work around it. I'd use the morning hours to program drums using EZ and Superior Drummer, record bass parts, and fart around on the internet. I'd record guitar (and vocals, which I never got around to) after the other two guys woke up.
Now, keep in mind that I'm going four years back here, so I'm doing my best to remember as many details as I can. Next time I do a recording, I plan to blog each step of the process.
First up, I'm goin to talk about what would have been the first track of this EP.
Spin
I went in with one "complete" song, "Spin". Here's an older version from 2008. I can't remember when I started using the reversed guitar part for the intro, but it's stuck with me for close to a decade now. I might be alone in my enjoyment of that.
Now, this is a song that's been around since the ol' Soulhitter days with John and Vic (who went by Matthew at the time). It's one I've always liked and so I never cannibalized it into other songs like I did with a handful of songs from that band.
I originally started recording a new version of what you can hear above. Fortunately, the rhythm guitar hasn't really changed since then. After getting the initial drum track and rhythm guitar down, I realized just how much of a thud the song starts with, especially for a song that would start the album. There was just no energy. As a mid-tempo song (most of my song sit in the 100-120 rpm range, according to my drum software), it needed something to push it along.
The first change came during the verse. I changed the drums to a 32nd notes on the hi-hats which gave the verses a little bit of drive. This immediately breathed some new life into the song for me. The second guitar part, and any variation of it that I messed around with didn't really fit with the new drum parts, so I opted to drop to just the rhythm guitar and bass for the verses, something I really haven't done much since the shift in my songwriting after the demise of Soulhitter.
The pre-chorus reverts back to something along the lines of the 2008 version. I wanted something more straightforward to go under the power chords leading up to the chorus. I originally recorded the second guitar part you hear in Spin08, but ultimately decided to drop it as well. It wasn't meshing with the vocals and how they flowed in a way that I wanted. I've actually rewritten the lyrics and there are no longer vocals in this part of the song, so I might just shorten it to two cycles instead of four and put the guitar part back in.
Since I'd already significantly departed from the one complete song I was bringing to the session, I decided to rework the intro too. Rather than starting the song with the verse progression, I decided to try doing something with the pre-chorus chords instead.
I've always been a fan of the driving, constant drum intro of Pearl Jam's "Last Exit". I wanted to emulate that, so I found a drum pattern and off I went. I played the chord progression a bit different...more staccato, if I remember my musical terms correctly. I immediately loved it. It gave the song the energy I was looking for. The energy dropped a little the verses, came back down for the pre-chorus, and a more aggressive drum part and distorted guitar in the chorus took it right back up.
Now, I just had to figure out what to play over the intro. I can't tell you what made me play the solo I came up with or how I put together, but 85% of the solo came through on the first take. I had to work on a few bit parts of it, but it wasn't long before I had a brand new version of an old song.
The bass is the part of the song that still needs the most work. I recorded XLR direct into my audio interface using my friends bass head, but it left a lot to be desired. The bass follows both the root notes of the rhythm guitar while working in notes from the now abandoned second guitar part. I just didn't play it with confidence. Eventually, for later tracks, I used another guy's Fender Rumble 100, which has a much better XLR out and liked it so much, I picked one up for myself.
A couple of years after recording the new version, I decided the vocals and lyrics needed work and did a nearly complete revision of the lyrics, rewrote the majority of the chorus vocal line, and removed the vocals altogether from the pre-chorus.
Here is the 2011 version of "Spin".
