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Christian Voegler
For my second and final recording for the program, I had intended to use a band one of the members of Jake the Hawk (the first band I recorded) had suggested, but they didn't reply to the email sent them. I tried contacting a few other bands, but they never responded either. Finally, as a last resort I asked the members of my own band if they'd be interested in recording one of our songs in the studio with me engineering the session. They jumped at the opportunity.
Ironically enough, I enjoy recording other people but I HATE to be recorded myself. My perfectionist tendencies turn against me and the song becomes a musical obstacle course that I MUST complete 100% flawlessly, on the first take, or I'm a hack, a failure, someone who has no business playing a musical instrument of any kind. Usually I'll only record quick demos for the band and tell them to ignore any mistakes, because it's just meant to give a general idea of how the song is supposed to sound. My mentor, Hollis Greathouse, said that many audio engineers don't like to record themselves; too much left-brain/right-brain confusion. I've gotten more comfortable over time, but I still get red light fever.
I briefly considered having the vocalist and lead guitarist (we actually trade off rhythm and lead duties, but admittedly he's the better player of the two of us) in the band record my parts, but then I considered the fact that this would likely be the only chance I'd have to track parts for a song I had a hand in creating in a pro setting. So I practiced the song relentlessly to make sure I made few, if any, mistakes in recording.
So finally it came time to do my parts. I had a few problems starting off (the song starts of with everone playing a staccato riff), but I was able to lay down some usuable takes relatively quickly. When I went to mix the song, though, it turned out I had made a few more mistakes than I thought. Fortunately, we had time to lay down a few more overdubs and I could fix everything.
As I and others have said, all's well that ends well. And now I know how to record a guitarist in the control room-a skill that may come in handy someday.
