Marooned

As planned, today was all about the redo of the main guitar on "Marooned (Not Lost)".  I thought it would be the easier of the two; turns out it was harder and/or took longer.  I literally spent all afternoon trying to get the right sound, right microphones, right microphone placement, etc.   I didn't physically get around to doing the actual recording until about 7pm, of which I then did my usual 3 takes and edited the part.

I always feel bad for my neighbors when I do this because it's bad enough that they have to deal with the noise of the electric guitar thundering away, but even worse they have to hear me start and stop the same part over and over for hours as I'm testing things out.  I'm sure at least one neighbor is out there thinking, "Geez...is that the only part he can play or somethin'?!"

As much as it was a bit trying, it was a good day and weekend overall and I actually learned quite a bit about mic placement.  I've been wanting to toy with this for awhile now but I'm usually in a rush so I just default to my old standbys.  This weekend, though, I used both microphone pairings and mic placement that I've never used before and I found it kind of fascinating.  It's amazing the difference you get from just moving a mic literally a couple millimeters.

All in all, I think I got what I set out to accomplish on both tracks.  They sound a bit different, of course, but close enough that I don't think it'll be any major adjustment for me, and both now seem to play much better in mono as I had hoped.  Part of the secret seemed to be capturing the direct signal so that I could blend it on top of the mic'd signals, thus creating a clearer tone that cuts through better.  I ended up running those direct signals through the Eleven Lite plugin, one I've never used before, and I must say that it worked perfectly in comparison to the other weird distortion and overdrive pedal plugin's that I usually reach for.  I don't know if the Eleven Lite is a ProTools offering or if I have it because I physically own an Eleven unit; not sure.  Regardless, though, it has a very real sounding overdrive to it that I particularly like so I'm sure I'll be using it quite a bit going forward.

The downside is that I have a couple more electric guitar parts to lay down before I think this album's recording is done, at least instrumentally.  I still harmonies to record as well.  However, I think I'll try to lay down those last guitar parts maybe on Tuesday night and see how it goes.  I'm eager to get this wrapped up so I can move on to other projects.