Well, dear readers, I do love when I get to be in my element and for part of yesterday I was in my element all the way. As you know, we made a new recording of And the World Goes Round – The Songs of Kander and Ebb. While the vocalist of our studio cast recording were as good as it gets, we had some pretty major problems with a couple of band members – good players but out of THEIR element and just not studio musicians. And when you’re trying to get the first complete recording of something and there is a LOT of music, you have no time for pleasantries or bottle-feeding, you need people who can cut the mustard or, at the very least, cut the mayonnaise. The first day was okay, but I knew we had some real problems as the day went on – I had to get Christiane Noll’s stuff done in that one day as she was leaving that evening on a red-eye. It was a bit of pressure, but had we had four-star musicians we would not have had a problem. We did the best we could. Sunday was much worse, especially the band-only tracks – people were getting tired and not at the top of their game, musicians-wise. So, at the end of that session, I warned our executive producers that there was definitely going to have to be a pick-up recording date – no way around it. And a fairly substantial one at that, mostly replacing horns.
My engineer has been very busy since our session, but a month ago I got all his rough mixes – emphasis on the rough, barely thrown together and none to my liking, although that wasn’t the point. The point was for me to assess the damage and figure out how much we were going to have to replace. But MY point was, hearing mixes that rough didn’t tell me anything because some stuff can be finessed and fixed – not the really egregious stuff, but you never know until you’re in the trenches. The one thing I knew was the vocals were great, and certain parts of the band were fine, too. So, yesterday at four we finally began the final mixes, which is the only way I was ever going to be able to tell what was what. However, based on the roughs, I’d already told our executive producers to expect the worst and that it could be as bad as replacing two-thirds, which would be a VERY long and costly day, but one that had to be done. But I told them I wouldn’t know anything for sure until I did my pass with my engineer.
We began with the first day of recording and went in order. Astonishingly, we recorded almost twenty things that day – it was unbelievable really. One smart thing I always do on difficult sessions is start with two easy songs so everyone feels good about getting two in the can right away – that’s what we did and getting the final mixes on those two was relatively easy and they sound great. Then we moved into the more difficult stuff. We did a total of twelve and I have to say that so far, of the twelve, we only have to fix the last half of one song – and depending on what happens today, we may not even have to do that. This part of the process can be maddening and frustrating, but when you fix something or finesse something you thought was impossible, boy does it feel good, and that happened on every song. There was one song that I thought there was no way we wouldn’t have to fix the horns on the entire track, but we had done two takes of it and the master take had these problems – so, we went into the other take and happily were able to grab the horns from there, where thankfully and luckily they’d played better on the problem parts. Through skillful Pro Tools work by John Adams, we fixed that most problematic of tracks and it now sounds fine. The simpler stuff, like late bass entrances or reed entrances were pretty easy to adjust – that’s the joy of Pro Tools. Of course, a lot of it is nitpicking because we have great vocals which sit on top of the band and that’s the most important thing. So, out of twelve, maybe we have half a song to fix – and it turns out we have another take of that song, so today we’ll see what we can do. The only other things that I may want to do on the pick-up date (besides horn replacements) are a handful of synth replacements – he had a very old keyboard and the string sounds are pretty cheesy – I’ve got them where they sound okay in the mix, pretty far back, but if I had good strings, I’d bring them up and they’d help – the guy who played synth at the ALS benefit had the best string sound I’ve ever heard, so he’s the guy I’d call – and replacing those few bits would really only take him thirty minutes at most. So, it was a very rewarding part of the day and evening – we worked five hours. If we get twelve things done today, then we only have about ten to twelve things left for another day.
Other than that, I had a perfectly okay day. I was up early, picked up the limitation sheets at Staples, then Jimmy Mulligan came over and signed the fifty of them. After he left, I signed them, too, so all that’s left is for Grant to sign them. I then had a quick meal o’ the day – a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich and some rice pudding. Then I moseyed on over to LACC for our first production meeting. We had set and costume folks there, as well as stage manager and ASM. We talked about our schedule, I said a few things about the set and costumes and everyone was great about everything. After we wrapped the meeting, the set fellow, who I really liked a lot, and I went to the theater and just batted around some ideas about the space and how things might work and where the band will live in the set and I won’t say anymore about THAT.
Then I came back to the Valley, picked up one package, and then came home. I didn’t have any time to really do anything before going over to the engineer’s. Once home from there, I just relaxed and ate some popcorn.
Today is another busy day. I have stuff to do in the morning and I’m hoping that’s when Grant can come by to sign. Then I’m lunching with David Wechter, then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and right after that it’s back to mixing the next batch of songs. I’m really hoping we get through the rest of the first session’s numbers so that we get to the second session, where the real problems are. I do know already that anything that was in the second half of the day will have to get redone – the unknown is whether we can save ANY of the horns, and frankly there is a bit of piano that will have to be redone as well. If we can save the drums, bass, and synth, then we should be okay to fix.
Tomorrow, I’m hoping I can just relax and prep our upcoming Encore Edition title. Sunday I’m attending an opening night (afternoon, really) at the Pasadena Playhouse, so that should be fun. Next week, we’ll finish finessing all the mixes, I have many meetings and meals, and several work sessions, including one with Lloyd Cooper for the Kritzerland show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, see Grant, lunch with David, mix with John and relax with BK. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, The Book Thief. DVD, the last of the Johan Falk movies. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall greet the day and then be in my element.