The recording sessions are finished. All instruments and vocals are tracked – one step closer to getting the music in your ears.

The time in the studio was a thrill. I want to tell you all about it, though let me introduce the guys first.

The Guys

Brian Douglas Phillips is a wizard. He produces, absolutely walks the dog on bass, and makes your heart cry out with the pedal steel.

Fred Mandujano is steady as a heartbeat on the drums. Don’t let his pretty drum kit fool you. It’s just a kit without the guy sitting behind it.

Jacob Hildebrand bounces around the guitar neck like a kangaroo in the outback. The man shreds with style.

Sean Giddings tickles the ivory keys and blows wind in the sails of the songs with the Hammond organ.

The Studio

Brian converted his garage into a home studio. You get there by way of backyard. The side gate clicks shut behind you before you walk through a portal into another dimension.

The Time

Days One and Two

So, from what I understand (which isn’t much), most songs these days are recorded in pieces – each instrument recorded separately. The song is then pieced together like a puzzle.

But we took our inspiration from the 60s and 70s.

Our primary focus was to record the instruments as close to a live performance as possible – guitars, bass, and drums. The music has more feel to it this way, I think.

To start, I performed the songs for them acoustically – pretty much exactly like the video I shared last week. They took notes then made suggestions – Let’s cut that turnaround; What if we held onto that chord for an extra few bars?; Can we pick up the tempo? Slow it down?; We can end it like this.

I replayed the song for them with the changes. They charted out the new version, which essentially means that they wrote out the form of the songs so they could follow along while we performed them. I went into the booth and Fred counted us off once Brian hit record.

We’d find our way in the first few takes – Fred would find his fills, Brian his bass line, Jacob his licks, and I’d try to overwrite the rhythm that had become muscle memory. By take four we’d be locked in. We played probably six total takes per song.

After we felt good about it, we set our instruments down and listened back. We chose the best take as the foundation of the song and pulled a couple things from other takes – I liked my lick there on take six; I liked my fill here on take five.

Then Fred added some extra rhythmic stuff he heard like a tambourine, shaker, or bongos.

Brian waved his wand and we moved onto the next one. From the top.

Day Three

Vocals. We couldn’t record vocals live because of sound bleed. Plus, candidly, it’s way easier to sing when it’s the only thing you’re focused on. It was fun to get into the songs and really belt out.

Brian then sang some beautiful harmonies on top.

Day Four

Sean met me and Brian at the studio on the last day to track keys and organ on all the tunes. It was so fun to listen to him do his thing. Man, keys add so much to the songs. And Sean is top notch like the rest of ‘em. Brian also has a killer collection of keys – upright piano, Hammond, Wurlitzer.

Brian and I touched up the tunes with harmonies after Sean took off. I re-sang one because it sounded weird from the other day.

Five songs. Four days. Just like that.

It went by way too quick.

Donors, you made this happen.

These sessions could not have happened without you.

I can’t tell you how helpful it was to be able to walk in there without a single financial worry. It liberated my mind to focus solely on the music.

Thank you.

What’s next?

All tracks are being mixed now. This means that the audio on all the instruments and vocals are adjusted to create a balanced sound.

Once we feel good about the mixes, they’ll be sent off to be mastered. This is the final stage in audio post-production. The audio is fine-tuned for distribution by enhancing clarity, quality, and consistency across all devices.

In the meantime I am figuring out which t’s to cross and i’s to dot as far as documentation goes.