Fun day!

I had a really fun day on Thursday. I was so busy I didn't have a chance to write a post about it.

Basically I really worked on the song for June. First I worked on the vocal tracks. That was interesting. I had trouble getting the first word out of several of the lines because the words were so close together. I would still be singing the end of one line when I would have to start the next one really quickly.

So I thought about it and decided to try a little recording trick. I used two tracks for the vocals and alternated lines. It worked great! You can hardly tell it's two tracks put together as one. I tried double tracking the vocals in a few parts of the song as an experiment and I didn't like it at all. It needs just one voice but the way I did the recordings it sounds like one voice.

Then I really listened to the music. While I was doing the vocal part I started to hear a string part in my head based on the string part in the original song. I also wanted the drum part to have a little more punch. Very specifically I wanted there to be a nice hard snare sound.

So first I played with all the drum sounds in Garageband and got the snare sound I wanted. It was "hip hop remix" as I recall. Then I practiced a few times and recorded me hitting it for 4 minutes straight. I must admit I impressed myself and got it on the first take. It's a little "funky" in some parts but I kept the beat going strong. I think it sounds great with the percussion Spoon recorded and the original percussion in the song.

Then I added the string part. That was the icing on the cake. It makes the whole song sound so awesome and beautiful. I ended up listening to my creation about 10 times in a row. I love it. I think it's a great little song and once again I can't wait to drop it out there. Once again I'm curious what the reaction will be. Love songs aren't "cool", and yet I think this could be the most accessible "pop" song I've recorded. Even more pop than "The Hate Song".