Fun with VAT (and Other Minutiae)...

Connected with a new potential background singer living in Australia who’s got a wonderful high-register voice.  I’m hoping he’ll become our Kelly Groucutt; he’s even expressed an interest in taking some lead sections of tracks, much in the way Kelly did with tracks like “Poker”, “Sweet Is the Night” and “Nightrider" for ELO.  He’s working on the first track now; we’ll see how it goes.

Most of the basic instrumentation for the 10 primary album tracks are now complete; still need to add foundational guitar and strings for the last track.  Beyond that, next steps in the process will be: additional keyboards, backing vocals, finalizing string arrangements, and then guitar overdubs.  Lot of work!

Had to deal with a significant administrative issue the past week or so, essentially involving CD sales outside of the U.S.  Selling physical product within the States is relatively straightforward… cross-border, not so much.  VAT rules are cumbersome and vary by territory – and if you don’t get them right, packages can be rejected by customs agents and returned.

Finally came to the conclusion that the best approach will be to let the Bandcamp site (which is set up for determining correct VAT amounts, charging it at checkout and then remitting it to the appropriate taxing authorities) handle our international CD sales, so – the Interstate Island website now has a link for such fulfillment of any such international orders.  Hopefully the process will be easy to follow for our international listeners!  

Curse of Hollywood

 In the early stages of this one… just got the initial strings demo back from Steve, which I’ll post in the Express Lane section momentarily.  This is an upbeat song with a straightforward/basic chord structure that’s going to rely on its energy; it’s got something of a free-form vocal outro that I think is reminiscent of the outro of ELO’s “Rockaria!”.  I’m going to need to spend some time in the DAW to ensure all of the parts work in concert with one another, particularly since we’ve got an added layer of complexity with Robbie’s wonderfully creative/melodic basslines.  Ensuring the bass, foundational guitar and strings all work together in a tight structure will be essential before moving on to adding keyboards, backing vocals and guitar overdubs…       

Guitar Engines...

Had an interesting situation pop up this weekend with respect to the initial guitar parts for “A Different Kind of Weather”.  For a little background as to how these songs are built… I initially record demo parts for all of the instrumentation.  I do this using a keyboard controller; the process is fairly straightforward for keyboards, basslines and rudimentary string parts (since the notes themselves can be played directly on a keyboard).  Drum parts are built from a library of prerecorded patterns that are converted into midi format, so that they can be applied to an effectively unlimited variety of styles and tempos.   

For guitars, I use a complex simulator (https://www.applied-acoustics.com/strum-gs-2/).  It’s a great engine, but it’s got some limitations.  In addition to having to pick appropriate strumming patterns and guitar variants for the performance, I also have to choose chord types (e.g., drop lowest, movable-root, etc) and fret positions.  For whatever reason – there are some instances where no matter what variations of the chord type and position I use, the engine doesn’t pick up on some subtle changes.  I can see the chord changes register visually, but it doesn’t sound any different.  That was the case with some of the chord changes in this song. 

In this case, I provided the demo stems to Niels (the guitarist I’m working with) along with a lead sheet reflecting the chord changes.  In this case, Niels built the parts assuming the guitar demo stem was the intended structure, and that the lead sheet was outdated – when it fact, it was the lead sheet that was correct.  So we’re going to need to record those guitar parts again.  To facilitate this, I’ll head back to the workstation to generate a temporary basic (and very clear) keyboard pad reflecting the intended chord structure, so that Niels can develop the appropriate guitar voicings in concert with it.

And so it goes!

Sequential Recording...

Been focused the last few days on redesigning and developing a few new merch items.  Just got the first sample of a line of bathing suits that I’ll be introducing for the summer; looks pretty cool!

Also starting to go through Steve’s string arrangements in earnest; it takes a few hours to sit down with each set of demo stems and mix them into the rest of the recording so that I can really get a sense of what modifications and minor adjustments I’d like to address.  Any industrial engineers out there will be familiar with the “critical path” concept, where one task needs to be completed before any of the others can commence.  That concept comes into play when developing the overall arrangements sequentially, as we’re doing here.

The process of building each individual track is relatively straightforward at the outset.  You start with the rhythm section… record the drums, then the bassline that needs to work in conjunction with the drums (and in particular, the kick), then the foundational (e.g., rhythm/supporting) guitar.  This constitutes your basic track.

From that point is where things start to get interesting.  For most band/rock projects, adding guitar leads and supporting keys might be fairly straightforward – you’ve got some space, you pretty much know what’s going to fill it.  In our case, it’s a bit more complex.  The space available needs to be allocated among strings, lead guitar and keys.  In sticking to the ELO blueprint, the strings and keys are not just background instruments; rather, they are intended to have leading roles.

The string arrangements are by far the most complex, as they consist of multiple voices and lots of interesting runs and the like.  So, we generally want Steve to have enough space/freedom to develop those parts with little restriction.  We do, however, also have to consider where guitar and keyboard leads will be assigned – and develop sections where the strings will be responding to and/or supporting parts that haven’t yet been recorded.  And, we really can’t record those guitar/keyboard leads until the string parts have been finalized.

Due to Steve’s intensive schedule (and the fact that we’re not only not in the same room or even city; we’re not even on the same continent), we have a situation where Steve is running the first pass on each track without my involvement/feedback; we will convene at a later date to finalize the arrangements for all of the tracks at the same time.  That might not be for a few months – and we’ll need to defer on recording not only lead guitar and keys, but also backing vocals, until that later date…

Rewriting...

There are a great many relatively mundane aspects that go into managing a recording project on a daily basis.  For example... there are the mechanical aspects of preparing stems and lead sheets for the musicians, importing and exporting wave files into and from the DAW (digital audio workstation), evaluating and editing content, generating rough mixes as the project progresses.... none of which is particularly rewarding.  Matt Wallace (who produced our first album) once told me that once he's finished producing an album, he can literally never listen to it again.  I honestly get where he's coming from.

Every once in awhile, I get to interrupt these processes with something I truly enjoy.  That just occurred the last couple of days with the opening track ("A Different Kind of Weather") for this next album.  It's an expansive track, with an extended keyboard/effects intro and a lot of electronica interspersed throughout - and it is very high energy (clocking in at over 150 bpm).  The structure is intended to be reminiscent of ELO's "Secret Messages", from 1983.  The title itself is borrowed from a recording made by a band that was on the A&M label while I was there; I loved that title and decided to build my own song around it.

The melody for the song itself was, like most other songs I write, developed in my head while on a drive.  I can generally "hear" (in my mind) the chord structures that will apply to a new song, and eventually work it out on a keyboard after the melody has been solidified   That was the case with this song, and I developed the demo parts for the entire song structure some time ago.

However... in the case, something about this song just didn't sit right with me.  Because it's such a high energy song, and the melody is fairly dynamic, I wasn't as focused on the chord structure - and what I reflected in the demo just seemed a bit too basic/repetitive to me.  I'd been feeling that way for awhile, and had made a mental note that I'd eventually need to roll up my sleeves to fix it.

That's not the easiest exercise in the world, particularly when the demo parts have been completely developed - but this week was a sticking point, since it's the last song that I have for which the drums have already been recorded, and I needed to get something the both Robbie (on bass) and Niels (on guitars).  So this week was it.

For the first time in awhile, I was able to go up to my studio, and sit down at the workstation not to perform mundane tasks, but to actually engage in a creative endeavor.  And, it was awesome.  Hours flew by, but I finally came up with those more interesting chord progressions that I love listening to, and was able to modify the demo parts so that they properly fit.

Still a slight bit of cleanup to do, but... mission effectively accomplished.  Can't wait to share it...           

String Arranging...

Been out of pocket in terms of updates for awhile, but have made progress on quite a few tracks.  Will post the current in-process versions in the “Express Lane” section shortly. 

At the moment, working in earnest with Steve on developing the string arrangement for “All In You”, which is an upbeat track with an intro that’s structured very similarly to that of ELO’s “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”.  We’re currently focused on just the first part of the song (through the first chorus), and are going back and forth a bit in terms of developing the overall style for the rest of the track (and really, the album).

A challenge we have is that Steve is initially developing the parts at his studio in the UK, and I’m providing feedback here in SoCal – so none of it is happening organically with us in the same room.  Each round of development and feedback takes a full day’s worth of time, whereas if we were sitting in the same room, it would be instantaneous. 

As I’m thinking about it, I think a better approach might be to have Steve develop the initial string parts for all tracks without revisions.  I can then take time analyzing each of those arrangements and coming up with revisions, and then we can work on those together “in the same room”, as it were – either in person at his studio, or virtually via some form of audio teleconference.   

Will propose this to him now… 

Capturing That Analogue Synth Feel...

Had a great teleconference this past week with Steve Turner (our illustrious UK-based string arranger), who is also going to be adding keyboard tracks for this next album.  Anyone who knows me is aware that I am an unabashed fan of ELO’s mid-70s offerings; particularly “A New World Record” and “Out of the Blue”.  The marriage of the complete string sections and the analogue synths on those ELO albums were simply otherworldly.  Jeff Lynne gradually moved away from that production style in the records that followed, beginning with a reduction in the lower-end strings on “Discovery”, and ending with an almost complete elimination of the orchestra on “Balance of Power” (along with the additional presence of more traditional saxophone parts, etc).

I mentioned to Steve that while I thought we did an admirable job of creating and recording the string parts on “Brave New World”, I felt (in retrospect) that there could have been a stronger analogue synth presence.  In analyzing why that was, Steve and I both came to the conclusion that (primarily as a result of my mandate that we primarily focus on development of the string parts), the wonderful string arrangements Steve came up with actually surpassed the level of complexity present on those ELO records.  In simple terms, while there were phenomenally complex string runs and the like in those ELO albums that were the hallmark of the band’s sound at that time, they were not omnipresent – rather, they would come to the forefront here and there, but then settle back into more of a supporting “pad” structure, thereby leaving room for complementary synth and backing vocal parts, etc.

Steve mentioned that he gave the “Out of the Blue” album a thorough listen to get a sense of the keyboard parts and textures that were present throughout.  For this next album, we’re planning to pare back some of the orchestral arrangements – just a bit - so that there is more room for synth parts and textures, which will hopefully give this next record a bit more of that mid-70s ELO vibe.