A long night in the recording studio

It is 2 a.m. at the time of this writing and I just got home from a recording studio. I am drinking a wonderful honey brown lager, relaxing, and trying to make myself go to bed after spending hours trying to make myself stay awake. My blues-rock band, Precinct Line, is recording demos (quickly made, not perfect songs to use as samples of music) and it took us five hours to record and finish two songs tonight. We have recorded six songs thus far.

That is actually quicker than average for what goes on in a studio, and we weren’t striving for “album quality.” We record a song three or four times until we have one take with the fewest mistakes, then listen to the best recording while noting tiny mistakes. Then each musician “punches in” their overdubs, which is re-recording over any mistake, and that is just for the music part. After all that we record the vocals the same way with each singer separately recording their parts and going back multiple times to re-record over booboos.

It takes a lot of practice, patients, Five Hour Energy’s, and a group of talented musicians who can get along like perfect siblings. It also takes a recording studio engineer with patients and experience.

Although I am pooped, I still dig the heck out of this. I am not a rock star and this is just my hobby, but there are not many hobby's where people pay money to see you and cheer for you. Some of my friends golf, and I tell them this is like golfing is to them, except a bunch of strangers would pay to watch you swing and go "Wooo!" every time you hit the ball.

You can find a couple of songs on our Facebook page at Precinct Line Band, and I will post a couple of songs here later. For now, I am going to bed. I'm pooped.

-Chris

Me with my drummer, Dan Manning, warming up behind me.

Me with my lead guitar player, Mike Prescott.

Our lead singer, guitar player, and harmonica player, Keith Hays.