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Went in to TopCat Studios today for a bit more mixing. I had planned to start mixing 'In The Beginning', the second song on the album but I wanted to tweak the mix of Brother Sun, Sister Moon first.

I've been listening to the first mix of the song for a couple of weeks now, and needed to adjust a couple of last week's settings, such as:

Today is a great day! As I write this I am sitting in Topcat Studios with Brad Wann - sound engineer extraordinaire - and we have officially started mixing my album - at last! 

Saturday, August 17th, after two days of abstaining from all coffee and sugary food, I decided to redo the main vocal line from Life Everlasting. My original vocal was a little "weak" - well-pitched, yet lacking in real dept and energy.

I decided to redo them with more of a well-supported reggae feel, with much more energy and a bigger sound overall. It worked well and lifted the overall energy of the so piece. I was very happy with the way it all came together! 

Spent half a day in Top Cat Studion's with Brad Wann yesterday working on Brother Sun, Sister Moon. As previously mentioned, I'm currently going through all the songs and tightening up all the harmonies, pitching issues, etc. that need to be done, this will enable us to focus more on mixing and less on editing once we're in working on the final mix of all the songs.

There's such a lot of layering in some of my songs, especially the three classical guitar based songs - Seesaw Marjorie Daw, Merlin's Song and Sweet Lady Life.

There are a great number of added tracks, over-dubs, etc. designed to give the final product a very rich and full sound, and with so many sound sources, it is very easy for them all to sound a little "clunky" or unpolished before editing.

Just a couple of days ago, on Tuesday, July 02, Brad and I were due to meet Riki in the studio for some vocal work, but unfortunately Riki was unable to stay, so instead Brad and I spent another couple of hours working on the alignment of all vocals - rhythmically and pitch-wise - for Seesaw Marjorie Daw.

Brad and I are now doing shorter sessions on a more regular basis at Top Cat Studios. We started mid-morning today and I added a couple of quick vocal lines with a gravelly, very low register morning voice! The first line was a simple low emphasis on a single word "war" in "Merlin's Song". It sat quite well in the mix and added a darker tone to the word.

Today I began the first session in my collaboration with a local author and illustrator, Riki Gray. Riki has written a gorgeous children's book and illustrated it beautifully and together we have created a song that will accompany the book on a CD. It's pretty "hush hush" at this stage but it's quite exciting and we recorded a song today that was awesome! Watch this space!

Yesterday, Saturday, May 25th, I took Jessi, my ten year old daughter and we headed back into the studio. She had done some awesome work on the 7 minute song about childhood, "Seesaw Marjorie Daw" and every time I play it to people they give a tremendous response! I feel so lucky, actually, because the song has come up far better than I would have ever imagined! Anyway, I'd been thinking about one or two other ideas - simple additions that Jessi could add to help the overall sound.

Had a short but great session at Top Cat on Friday, May 10, 2013. I worked on the song "One Day Soon" adding a series of backing vocals which built up to and ran with the choruses. I added lots of "ooh's and aah's" in three-part harmony and it's really given the song a nice sense of "lifting" and building into the chorus.

Here's a quick listen to the end of the second verse heading into the chorus: