Information
Studio Diary - 01/16/2001 (Day #10)
Neal Morse:Tuesday, 16, 2001
Wow. What a week. Very intense. There are some amazing collaborations going on over here. The way we've found to work eachother's themes and ideas has been really startling. Just incredible. That we could do something like this in less than a week is scary. I don't know exactly what forces are at work but something very special is afoot.
Yesterday we worked all these kind of pop ideas into a 2nd side of Abbey Road kind of thing. I was skeptical (as usual) but listening down today I think it rocks!
I woke up a little later this morning (I'm a morning person and Mike....well you know....) so that was good, and I got some good lyric ideas. It's fuuny....I'll wake up saying "we've got to put that section in again" and immediatly start figuring it out. Good thing we're recording on to hard disk so we can cut and paste. There has been some problems (computer crashes) but I think I'm hooked. Especially for something like this that is constantly changing.
I've actually written a bunch of lyrics for this stuff in the down time of the last few days so we may be able to do some vocals while we're together.
Gotta go,
Neal
Mike Portnoy:
Well since I finished my drums yesterday, what the hell am I still doing here????
: )
I came in late today while Neal did some piano stuff and Roine & Pete fixed up some of their parts...
Once I arrived, we record a new section to insert in the new piece.
We did a photo session for album pictures once I arrived..some interesting locations around the studio (still no hovercrafts)
The studio owner Robin Crow (who just finished a record with Jon Anderson) made a big BBQ for us which was great...
After dinner, we start laying down some vocals (we're a little limited with that at the moment as only a few bits of lyrics are ready)
The 4 of us do some cool 4 part Beatles harmonies as well as some handclap overdubs on one section of the big Suite.
Our engineers Ed and Todd then spend the rest of the night making ADAT transfers for overdubs as this is our last night at Dark Horse.
Tomorrow we go back to Neal's for 2 days of various overdubs and NAMM rehearsals before leaving for LA on Friday......
Being that the bulk of my work is now done, this will be my last diary entry....
I have to sum up by saying, that the SMPTe CD is one of my favorite recordings I've ever done and I was sceptical that we'd be able to top it in terms of composition....
but we ABSOLUTELY have!!!
There is even more variety in this one....and I think the writing and arranging of all 4 of us shine through alot more on this one...even if a song started with one person's idea, by the time we got finished with it, it truly transformed into something that was completely Transatlantic (and not Spock's Beard or Flower Kings, etc)
I feel all of the songs on this CD are masterpieces in their own rights and once again I am incredibly proud to have been involved in the making of such a great record...
Can't wait for you all to hear it!
MP over & audi 5000 G....
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