First Solo Recording

After working on the lyric re-writes for about a week, I returned to the Goodsite studio to complete the demo.

When I arrived to work on the songs, Bob had a friend in the studio. Scott was a keyboard player that Bob was collaborating with and they had some work planned for a bit later in the day. Bob asked if I would mind that Scott hung around and though it did make me a little uncomfortable, I said it would be fine.

We listened to playback of the tracks from the previous session to get warmed up. I asked Bob if we could re-track a couple of the lead guitar overdubs that just didn't quite work. I ran down a basic feel that I wanted to change and Bob talked to me about using a new stomp box he just bought, a phase shifter. We hooked it up and did a quick rehearsal on one of the tracks I wanted to record. It sounded great! Little did I know that Bob ran live tape on the rehearsal take. When it was done, he said, "Dave, listen to this. I think that song is done now." He was right. My test became the keeper for that song. It just sort of flowed forth and with the phase shifter, it was a perfect fit. Quickly working through the remaining overdubs, we moved to the lyric parts.

Should have stopped while I was ahead. A singer, I'm not. Still.

Bob offered some ideas to help me with my delivery and did a fair amount of tape tricks to minimize the poor performance. Rather than trying to force something that just wasn't there, I decided to get the lyrics down and call it a day.

Despite the vocals, this session did a lot to bolster my self-confidence as a songwriter/performer. It allowed me to see that I could write material and perform it on my own. (I could always hire a singer, right? Take voice lessons?) For the next couple of months, I "shopped" my tape around to other musicians I knew and began to educate myself in recording techniques. I continued writing and fashioned a rudimentary multitrack recording set-up using 2 standard cassette recorders. This allowed me to develop my ideas in greater detail and rehearse the vocal parts in advance. This would help me to convey the concept to other musicians must easier and save me time and money and frustration.

Collision of Vision

I experienced a lot of frustration in the days following our meeting with Don Brewer. What added to my frustration was learning that members of our "entourage" were secretly laughing and poking fun at the tape behind our backs. I let my ego get the best of me and I began to lash out at the others involved in our project. This stressed the relationships with everyone and ultimately caused a cessation of rehearsals. The fact is: I quit. I began writing some new material and set a goal to record on my own. I auditioned for couple other local groups but found it difficult to absorb their respective cultures. In these cases, I was the extra member of the band and not really a contributor to the creative process. This left me largely unfulfilled and more frustrated.

About six months after the first recording sessions, I contacted Bob Goodsite again to schedule some more sessions and began recording some of the new material. I had written an overly ambitious medley of songs, a theme song in the style of "2112" by the band, Rush.

This time, I was the only person in the studio playing all instruments. Now, playing drums was NOT my forte and I quickly decided this session would be sans-percussion.

The first day of recording started as before, laying the basic foundation tracks for the piece. The medley was written for an approximate running time of 17 minutes. There were 6 distinct component passages to the work, 4 parts had lyric content woven with 2 instrumental segues. I ran through the piece once for setting proper levels before we began to print tape. Quickly, the rhythm guitar parts were laid and I started to overdub bass guitar. I immediately felt the piece was not going to work and I was losing my drive to salvage it in it's intend form.

I decided to break up the medley, using the stronger musical passages, and make them individual songs. This decision left me with 3 songs that I felt comfortable about and we began to re-track the foundations for the songs.

Song titles were:
1. Rain Forest of Tugin / Findleragin (I kept the concept from the original medley, "Infinite Destiny".)
2. Ocohed
3. We'll Be Together

The first session ended on a much higher note (sorry) than it had begun. All initial tracks recorded with bass guitar and lead guitar overdubs complete. There were some sound effects added to the Rain Forest song and these were finished as well. At the end of the day, Bob made me a rough mix dub tape and I would spend the next week fine tuning (sorry again) the lay of the lyrics.