Saturday was a long but productive day. We worked in the studio from noon until just after 9:00 PM. We got a decent guide recording done and then proceeded to recording a variety of individual parts. Apologies in advance for the long post, but want to share an inside view of what goes on in a recording studio, and why bands can spend months recording an album.
Like we'd done yesterday, we all played the main part of the song together multiple times until we got a version we considered acceptable. There were a few mistakes here and there, but we knew we'd be replacing all the parts later. That was the guide (or scratch) track.
Next, Jeff and Tommy re-played the bass and drum parts together until the drums were the way we wanted them. They were hearing the guide track in their headphones to know where they were in the song, but trying to play it more perfectly. Then Jeff re-did his bass part by himself (listening to the "final" drums and some guitar and keyboards from the scratch track in his headphones). I didn't count how many attempts it took for the two of them combined, but it was quite a few. The goal here was to get the bass and drums playing completely in sync with no mistakes.
Once we were happy with the bass and drums, Steve re-played his keyboard parts, while listening to the new bass and drum tracks, plus the guitar and vocal from the scratch track. The keyboard parts are less complicated than the other instruments, so Steve was able to nail his final track in only two takes.
Next it was my turn. I think I played a total of eight (maybe nine) different guitar parts, mostly electric but also some acoustic. Some of those parts run through the whole song, and others are just for a portion of the song. Some of the parts were already determined and rehearsed, but some parts were made up on the spot as we came up with new ideas/layers to add to the song. I'm the King of Slop, so it took me a quite a few attempts to get them all as close to perfect as I was going to get them. (If we wanted perfect, we'd use a computer and build the song note by note like modern pop artists do. We're not modern pop artists, lol.) When it was my turn to do my tracks, I told the other guys they might as well go get something to eat, because knowing me and my sloppy playing, I was gonna be awhile. They decided to just stick around to offer moral support and heckling.
Through all of this, I was listening in my headphones to various combinations of the guide track and the new tracks the other guys had recorded. I eventually got all my parts recorded. It actually took less time than I expected, but it was still a pretty big chunk of time.
At this point, we had all the instrument parts for the main core of the song. Now we needed to add an intro and an ending to the song. In the original version of this song, there was no intro, and we just faded out at the end. We wanted to do it differently this time, so we pretty much came up with what we wanted to hear on the spot. Neither of these sections will have any bass guitar in them, but Tommy, Steve, and I all played multiple individual parts to be layered together in the final product. We spent a good 3 hours (at least) trying different ideas and getting a bit more than a minute of final takes recorded. Now we were finally done recording all the instruments. It should be noted that throughout all of this, there were no arguments or disagreements. We were just a bunch of good friends bouncing ideas off each other, joking around, and having tons of fun. If someone heard something they didn't think sounded right, they'd mention it and whoever was playing at the time would simply try the track again or change the part they were playing.
Keep in mind, this 9-hour day was spent just recording the instruments. Now that those parts are all done, Jeff will go back to the studio sometime next week and record all the singing parts. (Michael might also be adding some vocal in the process.) Once the vocal tracks are done we can begin the laborious process of mixing all the parts together to assemble the finished song. The mixing itself will be a multi-day process. We'll get a few versions we think are pretty close, then all of us will get a copy and listen to it at home and in the car to see what if anything should be changed. (The drums should louder in this part, or we need more reverb on the vocals in the chorus, etc.) After a few days of listening to these semi-final mixes, we'll get together again to finalize everything and turn it into the finished product. We all can tell already that this new version will blow the original version out of the water.
And as if this post isn't long enough already, here's the story about the piano parts I mentioned last night...
When our band (Off The Wall) recorded this, we were on a slim budget and were pretty short on the variety of instruments we had available to us. I think I recorded only about 2 or 3 different guitar tracks, and the keyboard parts were limited to what could be played on a Hammond organ, an original Moog synthesizer (that could only play one note at a time), and Hohner string machine (a keyboard from the '80s that sounded vaguely like an orchestra). Those were the only keyboards Steve owned at the time. A few months after Off the Wall broke up, Jeff joined a new band called Face to Face. Michael (who owns this studio 40+years later) was one of two keyboard players in Face to Face. Even back then, Michael had a nice assortment of instruments, including a Yamaha electric grand piano and a newer Moog synthesizer that could play more than one note at the same time. Both of these were expensive, groundbreaking instruments at the time. Face to Face decided they wanted to play Time Tripper, the song we're re-recording now. Since they had different instrumentation than Off The Wall had, they were able to come up with an improved arrangement of the song.
I originally wrote the music to Time Tripper, and Jeff wrote the lyrics. Like several of our songs back then, I came up with a guitar part I liked, and showed it to Jeff. He realized he had previously written some lyrics that would fit my chords. Soon after, we played the song for the other members of the band, and we all collaboratively decided what the keyboard and drum parts should be. Throughout all of this, Jeff was just singing the lyrics from memory. But when Face to Face decided to learn the song, Jeff discovered a verse he'd written down, but forgotten about. We never included that verse when Off The Wall played the song. It was the "forgotten verse". The guys in Face to Face decided to add the forgotten verse to the song as an ending. It was primarily Michael playing the electric grand piano and Jeff singing. The first time I heard Face to Face play it, I was amazed. The piano part at the end was just icing on the cake, and the "forgotten" lyrics summed up the rest of the song nicely.
Fast forward 40 years, and here were are with members of both Off The Wall and Face to Face in the studio together, so we wanted to be sure to add the forgotten verse and the cool piano part Michael had made up. (We're intentionally not duplicating what we played on the original record. We want to do a more modern take on the song with better instruments and studio tools, while still keeping the core of the song intact.) After four decades, Michael couldn't really remember what he'd played for this song, but yesterday Jeff and I tried to describe the feel of what he'd played, mostly saying highly technical musical terms like "it was kind of tinkley sounding."
Yesterday he noodled around on the piano for a few minutes to get a rough idea of what he'd play for the new version and then today he recorded it. The instrument of choice was the 9' Steinway concert grand piano that's one of the centerpieces of this studio. Here's a short video of Michael recording a couple of takes of the "tinkly bits". Jeff is in an isolation booth singing as Michael plays, since the two parts kind of play off each other. They can hear each other on their headphones, but you can't hear Jeff singing in this video. Keep in mind Michael is essentially making this part up on the spot. I love it.
I can't wait to hear this in the final recording. If you made it all the way to here, thanks for putting up with my rambling.
