Michael Built His House All Spiral
I've spent the last few nights overdubbing vocals onto the piano tracks for the IHML. You wouldn't believe the lengths I've gone to. Let me describe it to you:
I was going to use our little guitar studio space to record in, but when I drove all the way there, I realized I'd forgotten a mike stand. So, I decided instead to just do the recordings in my apartment. The trouble is, my apartment has a wall of windows that overlooks a busy intersection, so it's very noisy. I also have to contend with Lily, mewling and sniffing and head butting everything. So, I shut all my windows and banished Lily to the hall. Then, in order to combat the noise and take advantage of the natural reverb, I set up the equipment in my teeny tiny bathroom. When I'm recording the 16-track mixing board is underneath my sink, tilted at an angle because the bathroom is too narrow to accomodate it. My laptop sits on top of the toilet, and the microphone stand towers above the bathtub, with the microphone jutting out at an odd angle because, again, the entire bathroom isn't wide enough to accomodate the length of the boom stand. The lyrics and music lie open on top of the kitty litter box, which is right next to the toilet. When I sing, I sit on the edge of the bathtub, stooping over slightly. It's very uncomfortable. Fortunately I keep my bathroom impeccably clean. Anyway, I draped a bunch of towels and such over the bathtub curtain rod in order to cut down on...well, I don't really have a scientific explanation for why I did that. I just kind of thought it would help. In the same spirit, there are two jackets hanging from hooks on the door. They're meant to cut down the noise from the windows. But what about the sounds of my neighbor talking, using her shower, or turning on her faucets? Well, that will just have to end up immortalized on the IHML. We do what we can. I just hope she and her boyfriend can refrain from any kind of intimate activities in thier bathroom while I'm holed up within earshot. I've heard them at it before, and I can tell you, getting those noises on tape would make the IHML a completely different kind of album.
And so, stooped over in my tiny bathroom, with the scent of kitty litter filling my nostrils, I cranked out the vocals for 6 of the songs. I have to redo one because of corrections to my French. Other than that, things are going along smoothly. I'm very excited to see the tracks nearing completion.
Incidentally, since my last post I've been getting emails of consolation! Thanks everyone, but, well, when I said Reclinerland had flat-lined, I didn't mean that it was dead. I merely meant that the shape of my progress in music was more of a straight line than an upward climb. One of you, however, offered a better shape for my "hobby": that of a spiral. I like that shape better, and shall adopt it forthwith into my philisophical grapple with the past 10 years. However, considering that I started off recording in warehouses and ended up recording in my tiny bathroom, I'm left to wonder whether the spiral is upward or downward shaped. I'm happy either way. And so will you be when you hear these tracks. Yay!
I was going to use our little guitar studio space to record in, but when I drove all the way there, I realized I'd forgotten a mike stand. So, I decided instead to just do the recordings in my apartment. The trouble is, my apartment has a wall of windows that overlooks a busy intersection, so it's very noisy. I also have to contend with Lily, mewling and sniffing and head butting everything. So, I shut all my windows and banished Lily to the hall. Then, in order to combat the noise and take advantage of the natural reverb, I set up the equipment in my teeny tiny bathroom. When I'm recording the 16-track mixing board is underneath my sink, tilted at an angle because the bathroom is too narrow to accomodate it. My laptop sits on top of the toilet, and the microphone stand towers above the bathtub, with the microphone jutting out at an odd angle because, again, the entire bathroom isn't wide enough to accomodate the length of the boom stand. The lyrics and music lie open on top of the kitty litter box, which is right next to the toilet. When I sing, I sit on the edge of the bathtub, stooping over slightly. It's very uncomfortable. Fortunately I keep my bathroom impeccably clean. Anyway, I draped a bunch of towels and such over the bathtub curtain rod in order to cut down on...well, I don't really have a scientific explanation for why I did that. I just kind of thought it would help. In the same spirit, there are two jackets hanging from hooks on the door. They're meant to cut down the noise from the windows. But what about the sounds of my neighbor talking, using her shower, or turning on her faucets? Well, that will just have to end up immortalized on the IHML. We do what we can. I just hope she and her boyfriend can refrain from any kind of intimate activities in thier bathroom while I'm holed up within earshot. I've heard them at it before, and I can tell you, getting those noises on tape would make the IHML a completely different kind of album.
And so, stooped over in my tiny bathroom, with the scent of kitty litter filling my nostrils, I cranked out the vocals for 6 of the songs. I have to redo one because of corrections to my French. Other than that, things are going along smoothly. I'm very excited to see the tracks nearing completion.
Incidentally, since my last post I've been getting emails of consolation! Thanks everyone, but, well, when I said Reclinerland had flat-lined, I didn't mean that it was dead. I merely meant that the shape of my progress in music was more of a straight line than an upward climb. One of you, however, offered a better shape for my "hobby": that of a spiral. I like that shape better, and shall adopt it forthwith into my philisophical grapple with the past 10 years. However, considering that I started off recording in warehouses and ended up recording in my tiny bathroom, I'm left to wonder whether the spiral is upward or downward shaped. I'm happy either way. And so will you be when you hear these tracks. Yay!