Recording Log Recording Log
July 2002: We are approached by Cortes Island Music & Arts Festival Coordinator Milan Starcic following our set with an offer to record. Wow! We’ve been dreaming of this for a long time and now it’s gonna happen! August 2003: After cooling our heels for a year awaiting the construction of Milan Starcic’s Junction Studios, Peter and Phoenix arrive on Cortes and lay down basic tracks for nearly half the album, and not in the new studio after all, but in a makeshift interim studio (a trailer). It’s tight, but we are amazed at what can be done in a small space. Arron the fiddle player has 20 minutes to lay down his awesome solo on “Love Came To Hell” and rushes right off to catch a plane to Toronto. Milan checks in with some really great fretless bass on “Acceptance” and “The Forgotten Warrior”. April 2004: The new studio on Cortes recently completed, the remainder of basic tracks, including drums, guitars and lead vocals, as well as overdubbed harmonica and bass is finished. In less than a week we’ve got the bare bones for the whole album! June 2004: All electric lead and rhythm guitar tracks begun and completed by Seamas in two days. We are blown away! Milan also does some excellent bass work overdubs on “Come Home With Me” but outdoes himself with Indigo—including a truly unique descending high bass line at the climax and outro of the song. Bet you’ve never heard a bass do that before! Further overdubbed harmonies, bass, keyboards and percussion added. September 2004: Final mixdown commences. The plan was to complete the mixing during that session, but of course, we got home and listened back to the tracks and heard all sorts of things that needed fixing. Oh, well… back to the studio. November 2004: Several vocal parts and basslines re-done, more mixing. Decisions made, disagreements ensued and resolved, again we leave feeling excited about having finished. And again we listen back and find things that need to be fixed! Back to Cortes we go… when will it end? December 2004: Need I say more? But this time, only a couple small fixes will be required—we’re certain that one more trip will do it.. February 2005: And it does! Mixing completed. Whew! It was worth the time—we’re really happy with the results. Altogether the mixing took quite a lot longer than the recording, which is pretty normal, I hear… Also in February: We got the website up and running. Coooooool. It took a few intensive months of home study for Phoenix (newbie web designer) working from library books learning Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Even then, the site was pretty basic. But watch—it’ll get cooler. March 2005: Sleeve design completed, guided by Peter’s artistic vision and Phoenix’s Photoshop um, expertise… well, semi-competence... Manufacturing to begin soon. The total concentrated recording and mixdown time for "Deeper Than Grass" was approximately six weeks. June 2005: Well, we said it would happen in the spring, and here it is almost officially summer and the CD is still awaiting manufacture. A couple of unavoidable delays have sprung up. Primarily, we had some financial emergencies that necessitated dipping into our CD-fund coffers! Rats! So now we are waiting for the treasury to refill—which shouldn’t take too long--we hope. November 2005: One piece remains before replication begins: to finalize the CD imprint artwork. This has been delayed due to some health problems Phee has been experiencing. Once she is feeling better, things will be progressing rather more quickly. Now, we hope to release this baby by the end of the year. December 2005: Replication begins, and low level details of the process are worked out between the production coordinator and the two of us. Still trying to get these puppies in hand by year's end! |
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updated June 15, 2006