23 May 2006
I have begun to ride my bike to work. It's awful but it's also kind of great. If you never hear from me again it's because I've been crushed by a bus on the road to Rotherhithe.
Dave's in again to do the drums on Cinderella. We're beginning to get into a routine for the recording process. Mostly we're adhering to the structures of the demos, keeping in the piano and keyboard parts that Matt has already done and replacing and augmenting the other bits. It's amazing what an effect even just having real drums in has on the whole piece. It's like it's transforming from a statue into a person.
What's also becoming apparent is the value of our Plan A rehearsal period. Having knocked through these songs before has given us all a frame of reference, and Dave doesn't have to learn the songs first before recording them.
Cinderella is a challenge, though, because it's quite slow but needs to have a lot of energy in the delivery to stop it being leaden. Dan demands a mic on the hi-hat, which requires a bit of juggling because we've used all our preamps. But luckily there are 36 extra ones in the mixer if you don't mind doing some convoluted wiring. "You're good at that," says Dan, meaningfully, and I spend the next hour crouching behind the desk.
