12-String and fiddle tracks=DONE!

   I spent this past weekend in Thornville, OH at a festival called the Dark Star Jubilee. This is a festival built around the band I work for as tour manager (Dark Star Orchestra); several other bands are also included to fill out the performance schedule. Working for a band that throws it’s own festival came in very handy this weekend when it came to setting up and recording tracks for the new album. It also helps that the guitar player in said band is also a master when it comes to recording and engineering. On Friday, Rob Eaton changed hats from guitar player to engineer when he set up some recording gear in the backstage production office to help make additions to the album. Basically it amounted to recording inside a wooden and cinder block barn with a metal roof- but it seemed like it would be a good place to record some 12 string guitar parts and perhaps some fiddle parts on Saturday.

   The music emanating from the stage outside didn’t start until 5 pm on Friday, which gave us most of the day to record without much bleed from the outside noise. This would all change by noon Saturday and we found a change of location would be necessary in order to get some solid useable recordings. Luckily, there was an RV a little further from the stage which offered a much more soundproof environment, when it came time for the fiddle tracks. Unfortunately, my fiddle player (Nicky Sanders) had to run a few errands and wasn’t able to make it back in time to record his tracks on Saturday- but he assured me Sunday would dedicated to the album.

    Originally, I had hoped to be able to add Jerry Douglas playing dobro on a few tracks, however our schedules weren’t able to line up on Saturday either and soon he had to leave; the idea of having his legendary sound on my album disappeared in dust behind the bus. Basically, Saturday was a let-down day. Rob Eaton spent most of the afternoon ironing out the electronic recording bugs and glitches between computers, hard drives and interfaces, only to get things working and find out there was no one to record. But I knew there would be days like this when I started. Nevertheless, this left one day to get the tracks needed for the album.

    Sunday was much more promising. By 3 pm we had set up in the RV and were laying down tracks; by 6:30 PM we had fiddle tracks for 8 songs and one step closer to finishing the album!

    The only other major goal I have for the next 2 weeks is to add organ and keyboards. After that I can spend my break time at home tying up the other loose ends. For now, things are looking good!