Back from Florida, Back to Bloggin'

Back from Florida everybody!

Taken by: Yours Truly

Oh my God, I really should have done this blog post before I left for my relaxation marathon. Now I have two to do before Tuesday... hooray... (Max slowly cocks the gun back).
Anyway, as much as I would like to regale you all with tales of Florida and the astounding amount of sitting around I did, this blog is about my quest to make an album right? Well, there is a lot on that end too, so, here goes.

So, the week before this, I had a week long recording session with Owen. Literally every day for 4-8 hours recording using several instruments. The lineup is: Owen on drums, keys, some guitar, some bass, and maybe vocals (More recording tomorrow, haven't planned that far). I am on guitar, horns, some bass, vocals, and being the sex symbol for the band (not shown on the album but I assure you, it is a major part of the music). So, recording has been really rough.                                            
                                                                         
DAY ONE:

Somewhere between Ringo and Peart

The first day we recorded (being Tuesday before this week) was really rough. Reading about Reaper and monkeying around with it on my computer was one thing; actually recording with it was another. It literally took us 2 hours just to learn how to work Reaper with Owen's audio-recorder to get clear recording quality. Thanks a lot hours of reading the Reaper user guide and other random Reaper learning devices! You have taught me nothing! Anyway, after we got through the incredibly depressing first two hours, we were just about ready to shoot ourselves before we got a clear nice sounding rhythm guitar track down. Although not much, it was nice to actually have a real track done and recorded. From there, we recorded lead guitar, bass, drums, and keys. I also recorded the most godawful vocal track in the history of man that night, luckily, on day two, that was obliterated from the face of this planet.
DAY TWO:

Meet Max Franklin, the one who sang at the after-inauguration.

On the start of the second day, we already kind of had our things worked out and we were ready to go. That day, I had read a bit on http://www.makingitinmusic.net/vocalist-corner/blending-your-head-and-chest-voice-to-increase-your-vocal-range.html on how to sing better. My main problem was how to blend your "Chest voice" (Or your lower voice that I basically only use) and your "Head voice" (Or your higher, more Aretha Franklin- Esq voice). The site was pretty helpful for learning how to do this, or as helpful as a little internet lesson can be. In the end, when it came time to start singin', I think I was semi-prepared to try it out! So, we re-recorded the vocal track for our first song and then the drum track. Owen recorded a very simple drum track for us to record over the first time and wanted a more complex one to be on the real album. With that, our first song was BAM! DONE! If I could, I would definitely post the song for your listening pleasure. Unfortunately  I have no clue how and seeing as how it is 12:58 AM at the moment, I'm not going to figure it out right now. Day two was spent mixing the first song for the most part (getting things aligned and at the correct volume). We did start on song two though. We got down bass (recorded by that man/woman thing in the photo above) and drums down that night and then proceeded to do a bit of procrastination between going home.
DAY THREE: (Jeez, I should have just split this post into two and knocked em both out)

You can tell who the looks of the family is (Humor me please)

So, Thursday ended up being cut way short. For about four hours, I worked on the Social Studies project in which we made a board game! That is a blog and story for another day though. Anyway, when we finally got back to the ol' studio (AKA Owen's basement) we quickly recorded some lead and rhythm guitar for song two. We planned to finish everything on that song that day but unfortunately, we forgot to write lyrics for it. We decided a good way to save time would be to just get rhythm tracks down for song three instead and finish them when I got back. Again, we were cut short by my sister coming home from college, I had to rush off at around 5 to go and become a Family Guy (The question: do I paste my face on to Peter Griffin's also?). On the bright side, seeing my sister was great (Shout-out to you Summer!).

So, in the end Friday ended up being Owen and my Jazz Competition and then I took off for Florida that night (let me relive it all again!). Recording will commence once again tomorrow along with the preparation for our TED talk. You will be seeing another blog post on that tomorrow as well.
Thanks for reading this excessively long post.

~~Max