Saturday - Another Overview session

So we are having a listening session to the body of work so far. Andy and Vince are finalising lyrical tweaks, and we are checking out the overall impact of the tracks. A couple of tracks need to be tried faster, and the final arrangement is of course still being worked on. Andy and I resolve to finalise tempos early in the session next week.Some beats will be changed too (bring back some more four on the floor!). Also I will be honing quite a few of the drum sounds (shorter envelopes on snares). We are thinking of a sticker on the album "Warning - pure electronic". And after a long period of referring to the songs by numbers we are moving over to referring to the songs by name, so Andy is sharing his (working) titles with us. Excellent. Today is our last day in Falmouth. Andy and I are off to London tomorrow, where we will continue working and Vince will be communicating with us via the man-made miracle that is the Internet.

Joe Brien Filming

Joe has been a brilliant help setting up the session to start with, keeping us running and filming in the studio. He has shot over 9 hours of Video, which will be edited and hopefully used later as part of a DVD or something.

Two Men at Work, looking a bit the worse for wear

A Lunch date with Oscar

Today Oscar (and Tracy) came to visit the studio before we went all off to lunch together at the Flatbread Company.

The Glamour and The Thrills

This is a little peek into the non stop excitement that we have in the Studio. In this clip your heroes study the Masters and seek inspiration from them. We are not worthy.

Today's Work

A really interesting and productive day. We carried on working on one of my favorite songs (the fastest one!) - I was really excited about it when I rough mixed it this morning. Last night I had layered on the Virus parts that I had crafted, and that brought the track back to here it needed to be, IMHO. It had me dancing around the house (fwiw). Still we knew it could be improved and Vince focussed in on the Intro and the Coda. We made a really vibey intro from the chorous riff, and Vince wrote a new riff on the coda. Andy's vocal from last night sounded really good to Vince & I, in spite of the fact that he was not that happy with it last night. Sounding great - I really am excited to mix it. It's a statement (for me anyway). Great lyrics too - Dada. Also great backing vocals to come. The other song (and the final song of the "rework" session) is the song where we reinstated the sequence piano (at our A&R guy's suggestion). Also we remade the beat on the song again (indebted to a bit of Kraftwerk inspiration for that) and we also crafted a beautiful middle part - Vince wrote an unusually lyrical melody for this part, which we enhance with Virus and Reaktor OBX sound. Andy sung on this song in the evening, and also very confidently and very beautifully. We are really at the level now where the lead vocals are satisfying to Andy and I. (Andy is his own biggest critic I believe). Andy went off to DJ at Spring Street, and I rough mixed, bounced and backed up. Downloaded Intego Personal Backup - seems pretty useful. At least it doesn't do that annoying juddering in the DVD writer that Retrospect seems to do these days.