Back in the studio

Last month (Apr 17) The Hoodoo Hounds went back to the studio. We went back to the same studio we went to almost two years ago now (see sound check). I usually don't like identifying people by name in these posts (unless they want me to), so I'll just say it's the studio up towards Central, in this one fellow's basement. He's got it pretty well decked out with good recording equipment, including a variety of mic's and a computer. He knows what he's doing and I'm always impressed by the sound of the playback in my headphones. The only real difficulty for me is that the drum track gets recorded first. Which means that I get minimal band accompaniment. A professional drummer would likely just count out what he's supposed to do. I'm not a professional drummer :) So while I am still learning to count, I sometimes get lost in the song, e.g., which verse we're on, etc. It is much easier to play when you hear the rest of the band playing along. Anyway, we managed to get four tracks down: Got the Blues This Morning, Daisy Mae Blues, Crossroad Blues, and Sheepnose. Sheepnose is a fairly long number with various fills. I almost had it right on the first take, except that I forgot about the extra solo verse in the middle. So as our front man was showing me the measure count on his fingers (which really helps), I thought we were in on our last verse and so I started to do the ending. Meanwhile, he kept on counting, as did the rhythm guitarist who was playing rhythm to help me keep my place. Now by this time I was already pretty wiped—it takes me about an hour to set up, and I had already been playing for about four hours without a break (two takes per song if I remember correctly). So on to take two...on this take I kept track of where I was but somehow managed to botch the ending. Luckily, the sound producer can do some "magic" with the software to fix that in post :) It was a long day, but now I'm done. Later this month the rest of the band is going back in to lay down their tracks. I'm really looking forward to hearing the finished product, I think the new songs should be pretty good.