Rough Studio Journal

Bryan recording some "scratch" tracks

April 6, 2006
Wow, three months since a studio update! Well we got a bit sidetracked by the Nippo gig we did in February and other life issues, but this past Sunday we got together in the studio and began talking and working a bit on some more stuff. Sunday we worked on a song called About You which has been kicking around in our arsenal for quite a while. It's a cool little song but we've always struggled a bit with the arrangement. Well Sunday we started just jamming on it to re-aquaint ourselves with it and several new bits came together that really changed the song for the better in my opinion. We've got to get some scratch tracks down for Dave to lay a drum track to then we'll start work on recording that one. Tonight we'll be getting together to work on Believe, a rockin' song inspired by Shallow Hal and Tony Robbins.

Our goal is to get as many songs as we can to a semi-finished level and then decide which ones will make the cut to a CD we'll produce. Those songs will get a lot more attention and additional ear candy in the recording process to finish them up and the others...well, we'll have them for posterity!

Bryan

January 10, 2006
Well, it's another year, and we're still progressing on the CD! Good news though! We've been moving ahead with more determination and things have been progressing pretty well. Dave is slowly getting over his flag football injury so the drum tracks have been coming along pretty well. We're trying to do this CD "correctly", that is, the drums and bass parts first followed by guitars and vocals and then any other fill parts we think fit.

We've now got good foundation tracks for a new songs called Without You, I Need You, and Hazel Eyes...three very different songs. This past Sunday night, after wrapping the drum track on Without You, we had Scott record some initial takes at the lead vocal and we finished up the drums for Hazel Eyes. We've got drums nailed down for I Need You as well and we'll start adding the other parts to that song in the coming weeks.

Just a quick update for now. Once we've got some decent versions of some of these new songs we might put some pieces up on the site...we'll see.

Bryan

December 7, 2005
The new CD released for Christmas?  Hell ya!  NEXT CHRISTMAS maybe! However, we have made some significant moves over the last few weeks.  We got together and looked over the litany of songs and ideas we have amassed over the past few years, including the ones that didn't make "the cut" for the first CD - Long Road.  We came up with over 30 songs to put on the list.  Some got immediately eliminated and some were agreed to be worked on right away.  We have 5 songs to the 90% phase of recording: Drum track done, vocals pretty much done - at least the melody and the way we'll sing it and some vocal tracks laid down.  From the 90% phase, we will add "ear candy", solos, harmonies, adjust levels, mixes, effects etc. - but the foundation and the framework are done, we just need to do the finishes.  Then we have 3 or 4 ready for drum tracks and 4 or 5 with a good amount done as far as arrangement and melody. 

I am finding that we have written some more upbeat songs, some heavier songs with more electric guitar - mixing it up a little more from our debut CD.  One factor is that Scott and Bryan have written more of the lyrics than on the last one, which helps mix it up a little - we all have different writing styles and arrangements so that will make a difference.  The differences in the lyrical arrangements will make this CD more diverse.  I think we are on a great track for a well rounded, catchy and cool second CD - some ballads, some rockin' and some old fashion acoustic Rough songs.  Hopefully we will be able to put some time in over the next few months to hammer this out.  Of course, one thing that is slowing us down is that I am on the drumming disabled list as I took a pretty good hit playing flag football - yes, flag football and hurt my shoulder and broke a rib.  Hopefully my rehab will be fast and I can get back to whacking the pads!

Dave

June 20, 2005
Not much to report in the last couple weeks since we've been playing out it's tougher to get together to do recording. Since the last update we did get the recording software glitch fixed. It was nothing more than a corrupted database file....as Scott mentioned we're pretty lucky that hasn't happened more often given how much we use the software. So once the problem was fixed I took a pass at cleaning up the bass line, working out a first pass at a guitar solo using the acoustic and adding some electric parts here and there to fill out the song. I thought I'd come up with this really cool, kind of corny guitar riff that mimicked the bass line and kind of fit the feel of the song. I mixed it down and emailed Dave and Scott and the reaction wasn't "wow, Bry that's awesome!" it was more like "I like everything but..that guitar part!" And they're right. After listening to it many more times I'm sick of it too. So we'll be re-working some of those parts when we get back together to actually record and we'll probably start working on the reference tracks to a couple more songs.

Just a quick update....
Bryan

June 2, 2005
So here is my first foray into this studio journal concept.  It seems like a fun idea, to capture some of this in writing if for nothing more than our own gratification.  We capture quite a bit in email as it is, which has become a collaboration tool we rely on heavily since we all have jobs, families, and other commitments that occupy most of our time.  I'll try to be brief.

On this day, we had been going back and forth in email over ideas for Pop Song Inspiration.  We had finalized a solid drum track which is foundation upon which most songs need to be built.  Bry had put down guitar track so there would be some music to go with the the drums, and then he worked up a bass line.  Those familiar with Rough will remember that we normally operate as a trio with 2 acoustic guitars and drums, but without a bass player.  Some might question that logic but that's a whole other discussion I'll reserve for another time.  As usual Bry came up with a pretty nifty little bass line for this song, which can be a bit of an inflection point as the bass line can really change the nature of a song.  We write most of our music with acoustic guitars stuck to our guts, so when a bass line appears, it can really take over a song (as with Just Another Line) or it can just go a long with mood set by the guitars (as with Run), or somewhere in between. 

Back to Pop Song...Bry had emailed out a rough mixdown of the drums, bass, guitar, and scratch vocal track, which we then listen to a bit on our own and "collaborate" via email.  This means lots of emails so we can discuss what we like and don't like and various changes.  For me this also means making feeble attempts to express musical ideas in ASCII characters.  For example, I had an idea for a section of the bass line that I though would sound cool as "bomp bomp bomp bomp".  That may not look like much, but when you hear it you will know what I mean, as Dave and Bry did.  After much back and forth, we decided we'd get together at the studio that the evening so Bry could try some of these idea for the bass line with Dave and I there to comment, and we could maybe tweak the drum fill that starts the song as well.

Sometimes it's hard for musicians to decide which guitar or bass to use for a song, and which amp/cab it should be paired with to get the "right" sound for the song.  In the case of this bass line and Rough in general, it is easy.  There is only on bass hanging on the wall in Bry's studio so it gets the nod, a classic Fender bass to boot.  And the power switch to the Peavey bass amp requires bending over and reaching behind it under a desk to turn it on, so we skip the amp and go straight into the board.  I'm exaggerating of course, not about the need to bend over to get to the switch, but rather the implication that we're too lazy to use the amp.  Bry actually gets a good sound going direct, so that's what we do. 

We don our headphones, Bry starts playing along to the song, we run through it a few times trying ideas, making suggestions to the bass line to get something we all like.  I generally make a lot of suggestions to the guys about what I think things should sound like, be that a melody or a guitar part or a bass line or a drum part or whatever.  Some of those suggestions are good, and there are some that I realize are not good once I hear them played, and some that are not good that I don't initially realize but the other guys tell me they are not good.  My worst nightmare is having to be someone who has to put up with me and my opinions and ideas, a credit to the other 2 legs of the Rough stool, and my wife for that matter but that's another song.

Once we settled on a bass line and the fills, riffs, and arrangement that it will be, Bry runs through a few takes and gets a good one, and the bass line is born.  Then we start to re-think the drum fill that starts the song.  Dave had worked up a bunch of options previously, and thanks to technology he had recorded and dumped those to a MIDI file that we can import into Pro Tools at the studio.  At least that is how it is supposed to work.  Some technical difficulties with timing and tempo have hampered some the efficiencies we had hoped to gain from our technological advancements.  So after fiddling with the drum fill for a while and not settling on anything better than what we already had we decide to leave it alone for the time being. 

We then move to try recording another lead vocal track, but recording in the main room instead of the sound booth.  I had found a vocal sound that I really liked while tinkering at home in the Yellow Room recording in the open directly facing a wall, so I was hoping we could replicate that sound in the studio.  It's rare that a singer (not that I am a singer) hears their own voice and is pleased with the sound of it, so this seemed worth pursuing.  I got one take in which was OK I think although we didn't get to listen to it...a technical glitch with Pro-Tools popped up.  We've had surprising few glitches with the software considering how much we've done with it, but this was just one of those things.  After some trouble shooting Bry determined it wasn't going to fixable right away, that take was lost, and it was after midnight already so we wrapped the session. 

As I look back on this entry in the studio journal, I am realizing how long it is.  My apologies.

-Scott

May 31, 2005
OK, who knows how well this journal idea will work but we've seen other bands pull this off and we thought we'd give it a try. We've been working on songs for a new CD for what seems like forever. I think the first songs we actually recorded were Just Another Line and When I Am back in January of 2004. It's tough to record and play as much as we have been and manage not to alienate our families!

Anyway, thanks to the Big Head's CD giveaway a couple weeks ago, we were able to really push forward on some songs and it got us back in the recording mode. We got versions of Rain Will Fall, Run, When I Am, and Just Another Line, worked up to a pretty good place. We're comfortable with the basic song structures, just need to work on mixing and probably re-recording a few pieces here an there.

Last Sunday night we got the drum track laid down for Pop Song Inspiration. This is one of serveral, simple, catchy tunes that we've started playing at gigs and seems to go over pretty well. Anyway, what we've learned between our first CD and the work on this next one is that it is absolutely critical to get the drums done first. So our process goes something like this. We all sit in my basement and stick a couple mics in the middle of the room so we can record a reference track for Dave to play to. After we set the tempo, Scott and I try to play to a click track, which is much harder than you'd think. So after a few takes we usually have a good enough reference track for Dave to record drums to. Since we use a Roland electronic kit, mic'ing the drums isn't a problem for us. We record digitially using midi code. While purists might take issue with this approach, it works for us and since we don't own an acoustic drum kit, it's really our only option. Plus the Roland drum sounds are actually very good and we've been happy with the results so far. The drum sounds on these newly recorded songs are leaps and bounds beyond what we had on Long Road and Dave is really playing well.

So we're moving forward on Pop Song right now and once the drums are recorded the songs move fairly quickly. We've got some initial guitar and bass tracks down, though these will need to be re-recorded and changed a bit and then we'll do all the vocal tracks and throw in whatever "ear candy" we think fits the song.

Ok, when I mentioned to Scott and Dave the idea about this journal they agreed it might be a cool idea, but Dave's advice was "keep it pretty short!" I think I've probably gone on enough...and I can go on still, but I'll save that for another time...

Stay tuned!

Bryan