recording studio

The recording session in Richmond Hill yesterday afternoon took place in a studio was called The Percussion Section, run by a very nice fellow named Seppo who likes Marvin the Martian and 50's memorabilia. A storage room beside the recording booth had an old-fashioned hairdryer, the kind Lucy Ricardo used in at least one episode. Seppo said his hairdryer even works! I wanted to try it, but there were too many musical instruments blocking the way. There was even an ashtray in one arm of the hairdryer - talk about days of yore.





But I digress. The recording session was, as I mentioned yesterday, for Allison and me to add a vocal and instrumental to Chris Conway's upcoming CD, and went pretty well.

I normally improvise my flute instrumental when we perform Alien Jellyfish, but the instrumental on Chris's version is longer than ours; I didn't want to screw up partway through, so I wrote it out on manuscript paper. It's nice to have the part written out; it'll make it easier for me when we perform the song live, and I still have lots of room to noodle about.

I remember being terrified the first time I was in a recording studio environment, back when we recorded our first album (Castles and Skyscrapers). While I'm still far from a pro, I do admit that I actually enjoy the general process now. It's kind of cool, laying down a single instrumental track and then having it become an integrated part of the final piece after all the recorded bits and mixing and mastering have been done by someone who knows what they're doing.

I've recorded in five professional recording studio environments so far (Sound Techniques, Watchmen Studios, Taxi Stand, The Percussion Section and a studio used by Lloyd Llanda and Karen Linsley for their album), as well quite a few casual recording environments (hotel rooms, Allison's living room). The last studio recording project I did was for Lloyd and Karen. The CD was released in 1999, a year before Lloyd died of a sudden heart attack. :-(


For those of you who have never recorded in a studio but are planning to, you should be warned that it's quite a different experience from recording in your living room, or live in concert. For one thing, the equipment is way better, and you are therefore made aware of every glitch and inaccuracy with brutal clarity. Most sound systems are designed to make recordings sound better than they really are. In a recording studio, nothing is hidden. You hear every lip smack, every microsecond lag behind the beat, every minute wavering of pitch.

Oh my god, I remember thinking the first time I truly heard myself play the flute through a mega-expensive microphone and headset. I sound awful. I can't play the flute. I suck. But you gradually learn to stop cringing (for the most part, anyway) and focus on the overall performance, crossing your fingers that your engineer will manage to make you sound good anyway.

I find that that the best way to cope is to overprepare, to practise the heck out of my part so that by the time I finally head into the studio, my usual studio jitters settle down as I warm up. And then I start having fun and am able to focus on getting the best possible performance onto the recording rather than hoping I merely make it through to the end without falling (musically, that is) flat on my face.



I also realized yesterday that I had never recorded a song like Alien Jellyfish in the studio before, a song where I generally moved around a lot while I was playing. The song's very upbeat, swinging, bluesy and WAY fun to perform. Seppo, however, had to keep asking me (very nicely) if I could please stopping moving, to keep my mouth close to the microphone. I obliged as well as I could, though it was incredibly difficult to restrain myself from bouncing around. I comforted myself by doing my bouncing between instrumental bits as the song was playing, and twirling my flute. I'm sure Seppo thought I was nuts.

Another challenge I faced yesterday was the untimely appearance of a GIANT MAN-EATING BLACK WASP IN THE RECORDING BOOTH WHILE I WAS LAYING DOWN MY PART. Ok, maybe the man-eating bit is an exaggeration, but this little bugger was pretty darned big.





It was kind enough to hover high up near the ceiling until I'd finished a take, and then Seppo came out with a big fly swatter to hunt it down while my supportive music partners sniggered in the other room. :-)

I did three takes of my long instrumental. I asked to do a third take because of a slight crack on one note 2/3 way through in the lower register. The others didn't notice it, but it would have driven me nuts to at least not give the instrumental one more shot. By then it was getting a bit warm in the recording booth, and my fingers were slipping on my flute keys....not good. But the take went well, and I was glad I did it.

Anyway, Chris, I hope you'll be pleased with how it all came out. Thanks for letting us play on your CD, and thanks for all your work so far on our CD!





I'm hoping to eventually learn Logic Audio well enough to start doing some recording at home. My Logic Audio videotape tutorial and Logic Audio book arrived recently, so I'm going to make it a summer project to learn this software well enough to make some simple recordings by the fall. Wish me luck. :-)

Still pretty humid in Toronto. I forgot to mention that the smoke from the fires in Montreal was so bad on the weekend that the daytime light was noticeably darker, and the sun was a bright red disk during the watergun party.

I went running early yesterday morning. It was okay heading out, but the run back was deadly because of the heat (and the morning sun shining directly ahead of me). I still prefer it to treadmill running. My current running music: Jim Boggia, The Maggies, Aimee Mann, Hawksley Workman compilation on my Rio MP3 player.






Today's Blatherpics:

	Allison in the recording studio.
	Seppo's hairdryer.
	I knew Seppo had to be a decent sort when I saw the giant Marvin on his wall. I'm a big Marvin fan, as those of you who have heard my Marvin song already know.
	He had a little Marvin hanging from the screen door, too!
	Seppo manning the console (he was using Cubase).
	Me in the recording studio. Photo by Allison.

alien jellyfish

Hey, check out Allison's very first Web site. Focus: nature trails.

Going into the recording studio this afternoon so Allison can lay down some harmonies and I can add flute to Chris Conway's "Alien Jellyfish" CD track. Jodi's been spending a lot of time researching studios around Toronto (thanks, Jodi!).





Since I'm taking time off work today to do recording, I spent most of yesterday afternoon working on some Writing-World.com online work that's due at the end of today. Jeff and I went to my sister's place in the late afternoon for Sunday dinner with my family. Annie and I played soccer in the backyard while Jeff and Sara played frisbee. After Annie accidentally ran over my feet several times in her cleat soccer shoes, I found myself wishing I had worn runners instead of sandals.





Hoping to fit in a run and a few hours of novel writing this morning before I leave to meet Allison and Jodi in Richmond Hill, so a shorter Blathering today.

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More photos from Reid's and Luisa's watergun party on the weekend.

Today's Blatherpics:

	ScottM and me in a watergun battle (Scott's winning, obviously). Photo by Reid.
	Charlotte Koch (daughter of Micki and Harald).
	Iain Bradbury.
	Megan Kesner (daughter of Gail and Jeff).

watergun party

Great fun at Luisa's and Reid's watergun party yesterday. Some of you may recall my Blathering from last year's party, partly because Andrea immortalized the photo of me in a t-shirt for Interfilk and by Parki's Anti-Blathering parody featuring a photo of me from the party.

Upon arriving first at the party, Jeff and I discovered that Luisa had coordinated the creation of special t-shirts for her family in honour of the typo in my Relay For Life Blathering where I meant to write that Reid, Luisa, Michael and Ronnie were my first non-filk friends to see Urban Tapestry perform. Except I accidentally left out the word "filk" (thanks to Chris Conway for pointing this out!).

Anyway, I love their t-shirts. (See photo at the top of this page) The lowercase letters on each t-shirt comprise each person's posl-id. Ronnie's is "r2e2" because "rae" would have been the same as his father's posl-id.

Near the end of the party, Christine Miller asked me how she could be one of my non-friends, too. :-D

Some more photos...

Harald Koch (writes as "chk" in Blatherchat):





Peter Cook with son Jonathan:





Jeff in watergun battle mode:





Michelle and ScottM. Michelle is somewhat blurred because she is in the midst of trying to hit Scott in the chest. Scott had given her a big hug earlier in the evening while he was wearing wet clothes (and hers were dry):





Tom West (Michelle's husband):





Joanne and Rita:





Weaponry abandoned on the battlefield during dinner:





Dinner was an impressive spread; we all stuffed ourselves silly. Luisa manned the barbecue and cooked up a feast of chicken breasts, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, chicken souvlaki and also provided plates of fruit, vegetables, homemade offerings. People contributed drinks, food and desserts in addition to what Luisa had prepared until the buffet table was groaning beneath all the food. Dessert included a selection of banana cake, lemon mousse cake, two types of icecream cake, ice cream sandwiches, poppy seed cake with icing, and an assortment of candy, chips and cookies. There were Krispy Kreme and Tom Horton doughnuts out earlier in the day, but the KKs were gone before I could see what kind had been brought.

I'm getting hungry just typing all this.

I've posted the photos I took here but am only leaving these pics up for a couple of days so that attendees can scoop the photographs they want. I'll be posting some of these in upcoming Blatherings.

Many, many thanks to Reid, Luisa, Ronnie and Michael for hosting such a wonderful party. They're some of the best non-friends I've ever had.

;-)

dot-com adventures

I spent most of yesterday working on my novel, the first solid day I've been able to work on my fiction writing since before the audit. It felt VERY VERY GOOD to get back to that. I'm going to focus heavily on my novel for the next two months so I can send it off in September.

Also went for a run along the lake in the late afternoon. I had less energy than usual, and got tired having to dodge around so many people (the Martin Goodman Trail), so I ended up taking more walking breaks than usual. I also ran out of water for the first time during a run.

I finally feel as if my life is getting back under control and in a direction I'm completely happy with for the first time in several years. Jeff and I were talking about this last night over dinner at a restaurant in BCE place last night. Since early 1999, I've been feeling as if I've been a rollercoaster ride. Exciting and fun at times, but I always felt as if the car I was in could fly off the rail at anytime (which it did, in a way).

The rollercoaster ride began on January 11th, 1999, when I received a phone call from Tony Astarita, then the Director of Corporate Finance at Barnes & Noble Inc. I was working on Inkspot at home at that point, didn't have an office yet. Things were looking pretty good for Inkspot; I didn't have trouble finding advertisers, even made enough to be able to hire some telecommuting help, was gradually expanding.

Astarita said that B&N was interested "in securing a majority interest share in Inkspot". He and someone else from B&N wanted to talk to me, and could they come fly to Toronto to meet in person? I was already in shock by that point, of course. I also remembering looking around my tiny and very cluttered home office, trying to picture two bigwigs in suits from B&N trying to cram themselves in the small space. Nope, definitely wouldn't do.

Jeff and I were supposed to fly to New York the following week to visit with some friends, so I suggested that we could meet in New York. Astarita agreed.

As soon as I got off the phone with B&N, of course, I called Jeff right away. As you can imagine, I wasn't very coherent. :-)

Two days later, I got a phone call from Jack Heffron, head of the Writer's Digest Book team at F&W Publications. They wanted me to write a book for them about online markets for writers. I was floored. Stunned. In shock. I also clearly remember that for a few split seconds, I was utterly panicked at the idea of trying to cope with doing a book during what was probably going to be an incredibly hectic and stressful time in life because of the B&N stuff in addition to Inkspot stuff, but I also knew that there was absolutely no way I could turn down a book offer. After hanging up the phone with Writer's Digest, I confess that I jumped up and down like a little kid. I don't remember if I yelled. I probably did.

I mean geez, I was GOING TO HAVE A BOOK PUBLISHED! This was what I had been dreaming about all my life. I never dreamed I'd get a nonfiction book published before a fiction title. So what if things were going to be a little hectic? I'd make time somehow.

After I finished jumping up and down, I called Jeff right away. I think I was even less coherent than my B&N news phone call.

On January 20th, Jeff and I flew to New York. We stayed with a friend of ours who is a lawyer at Goldman-Sachs; she gave me some advice for my meeting with B&N, helped calm my jitters somewhat. I was still terrified, of course.

We were taken on a tour of the BarnesandNoble.com offices. This was separate from the regular B&N head office, and was devoted to their online efforts. The office had a warehouse feel, with high ceilings and lots of space. Lots of cubicles.

We met with Astarita, the finance guy I had talked with on the phone, as well as Ken Brooks, then VP of B&N's E-Publishing division. They were both easygoing, super-friendly. Ken showed Jeff and me some of the cool tech toys he was checking out, including the new Rocketbook; I'd only seen photos of the e-book reader before, had never held one.

Hey, this is kind of fun, I thought. These guys don't seem like stuffy corporate types at all.

After our brief tour of the B&N.com, Jeff and I were taken to the Hercules room, where they had hooked up a projector so that we could browse the Web and see the results on a big screen. We sat at a long table with lots of chairs that was obviously built to accommodate very big and important B&N.com meetings with lots of people. We were told that the chairs were new and cost a lot of money. I remember almost fainting in shock when I heard the price of one chair; the amount would support Inkspot for several months.

They asked me to walk them through Inkspot, so I did. I was super-nervous at first, but then was fine. Inkspot was my baby, after all. Kind of funny, really...I'm a relatively shy person and normally despise public speaking of any kind, but when it came to Inkspot, the excitement I felt about the site and its community made me forget about everything else. I loved working on Inkspot, talking about Inkspot. So I took the B&N guys on a short tour of my site; they mostly listened, didn't ask many questions.

After, they asked me what my "vision" was for Inkspot. It was the first time the term had come up; I'd be hearing it many, many more times over the next few years. I told them some of my plans for Inkspot, but by this time I had grown somewhat cautious about specifics; I knew that B&N could afford to implement any of my ideas in their own site much more easily than I could if they wanted to.

At the end of the meeting, they said they wanted me to prepare a business plan that would "grow" Inkspot as quickly as possible. They gave very little specific information about their own vision for Inkspot or how it would help or fit into B&N.com, though they did mention the possibility of a new entity and that I could be a shareholder in this new entity. They said that would need to see the business plan before making a decision about an Inkspot/B&N deal.

Sure, I said, not knowing what else to say. I could do that.

We had brunch with Steve Riggio (then the Vice Chairman of B&N, now the CEO) at a nearby fancy hotel. Astarita, Brooks, Jeff and I waited for about half an hour before Riggio showed up; apparently he was coming from another meeting. When he arrived, the atmosphere at our table immediately changed. It felt almost as if Astarita and Brooks stepped back, even though they never moved in their chairs. I can see part of the reason Riggio attracts so much media attention. He's vibrant, full of energy, intense, wiry; he's one of those people whose very presence makes everyone beside him seem to pale in comparison. His passion and enthusiasm make him a natural leader-type.

After very minimal smalltalk, he launched right into Inkspot discussion. He wanted to know my vision for Inkspot. He wanted to know how Inkspot got started and more about my background. When I told him about the Writer's Digest book, he said that they could feature my book in the front display case of every Barnes and Noble store. Like Brooks and Astarita, he told me that I should put together some numbers for the future Inkspot.

Riggio left brunch early because he had another meeting to attend. He never touched his food. As soon as Riggio started talking with me, I felt as if a giant spotlight was fixed on me, that everyone in the room, not just our table, was listening. I don't think I ate much during that brunch, either, but more from sheer terror than because of time constraints. I'm sure I sounded like a blathering idiot during that conversation, though Jeff reassured me I did fine. :-)

When I got home, I began working on the business plan right away. Unfortunately I had never written a business plan before. I bought some books on business plans (including "Business Plans For Dummies" :-) ) and pored over them. I also had zero experience in planning large-scale business ventures. B&N didn't want to tell me how much money they were willing to invest in Inkspot, so I didn't even know what my financial parameters were. They also didn't tell me what they hoped to get out of Inkspot. Obviously they wanted to make money, but how?

I spent the next several months researching web development companies, office space, database software and programmers, and other services. One web development company gave me a quote of nearly $500,000. I began to realize that I was way out of my depth; I wasn't used to working with these kind of numbers. B&N would e-mail or call every week or so to see how the business plan was coming. I told them it was tough; could they please give me more info about what they wanted from Inkspot? Direct profit from advertisers or services? How much? More users? How many more? "Whatever you think is necessary," Brooks told me.

Meanwhile, I was also working on my book for Writer's Digest. They basically wanted a big version of an Inklings issue. I would organize and write the framework but also commission and edit articles about online markets for writers, as well as researching online markets. As you can imagine, I was pretty stressed out during those first few months of 1999.

I had no idea how much more stressful and hectic things were going to get.

More in a future Blathering.

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Today's Blatherpic:

Sunrise at the cottage.

Urban Tapestry

Allison and Jodi came downtown last night for an Urban Tapestry practice. We ran through our concert set for Conchord as well as practising some other songs we might do in open filk that we haven't played in a while.

We've accumulated so many songs in our binders that we've decided to bring a subset to Conchord, leaving behind songs we wrote and sang back nine years ago that we will likely never sing again, for example, or songs that we don't like well enough to keep practising. I estimate that we've learned at least 200 songs over the years we've been together, maybe more. It's reached the point where it's physically impossible to bring all our music to conventions, or at least without risking serious physical injury. :-)

We'll be going into the recording studio on Monday to add some flute and vocals to Chris Conway's new CD, on his "Alien Jellyfish" song. Urban Tapestry covers this song pretty frequently because it's fun to do and gets a great audience response. Chris (who writes as "christo" in Blatherchat) is an incredibly talented songwriter and musician, and one of the only filkers I know who makes a living as a full-time musician. He's played with Peter Tork (ex-Monkee!) and members of Jethro Tull and Fairport Convention. You can listen to some of his music on his site.

Chris Conway is doing the mastering and most of the mixing for our next CD, which will be a selection of live recordings from various concerts we've done over the years. Chris Croughton helped with the initial mixing process and also did the recording for our UK concert. We're pretty excited about this project, which will be our first new product since Myths and Urban Legends in 1997. To avoid the high-stress time crunch of last time, we've avoided committing to an official release date for this CD. It'll be ready when it's ready. :-)

Both Chris's are in the UK; Jodi's been exchanging MP3s with both of them through e-mail, then working with Allison and me for feedback and comments. I love the Internet.

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Today's Blatherpics:

Annie and Sara watching "Shrek" on my laptop at the cottage during some downtime.