KAREN'S JOURNAL


Tuesday, June 26, 2007

well i'm at the home stretch. i have edited the strings and upright bass and am tying up a few small "loose ends" before beginning mixing the record! I've waited a long time for this point. First however, I will be spending the weekend in montreal for the jazz festival and I plan to use the opportunity get inspired!! (I also plan to start work on cover art while on the plane... so long as i can stay away from my newfound addiction to sudoku). I will miss the canada day festivities in toronto, which include a re-lighting of the cn tower that i was looking forward to watching from my living room window, but i've already seen a lot of the "testing" of the lights late at night and I don't know exactly what i think of them... it's kind of like a circus.

happy canada day, canadians... in advance!

k

Friday, June 15, 2007

i'm home from the string session, enjoying pizza and wine in celebration! i'm actually having trouble coming down from the adrenalin rush... i've been working so hard to get ready for today that i find it hard to believe it's done! but it was a long full day, starting out with recording upright bass and ending with the wonderful string quartet. i'm happy to report that everything went smoothly... my string parts sounded great, we got lots of material recorded and i'm excited to dive in and edit it. and for the last bit, we had some guests in the studio... some of our generous sponsors! :) it was very exciting to have them in the studio and give them a sneak peak of the record.

now i'm gonna go and try to relax... tomorrow i'll start editing!

k

Thursday, June 14, 2007

well i'm almost at the zero hour before going into the studio tomorrow for the string quartet recording session... i've worked my ass off all week fine-tuning parts, printing scores, and even going for a last minute consultation with a trusted string arranger to make sure that my arrangements look ok and are physically possible. (not implying that they're incredibly bach-like complicated; rather, to make sure that they conform to the basics for playability ie: they are written in the right pitch range for the instruments, etc!). i spent all day today preparing actual files for the studio... they use protools (software) and i'm a logic user, so whenever i work there i have to spend at least a day in advance just exporting all my current audio as "stems" (ie: each instrument with it's effects/reverb/etc) to be then brought into protools ...and then after the session import all the new material into my logic files... it's time consuming, mind-numbing work, but made good by the fact that i'm just so excited to hear a string quartet finally playing the music i've written - it's like a dream come true. (in some ways, i feel more connected to my classical music upbringing this week while working on all this... it's a really cool feeling. i guess becauase when i'm writing songs, i don't often get the opportunity to actually write out the music for someone else to play... usually when i bring a new song to the band, it's a demo recording i've done and they just learn it by ear). i do like the tactile written pages.

a big HUGE thank you to all the sponsors who donated money to make this session possible.... i am so grateful.

k

ps: my sister (the opera singer) is in town and is going to be able to come check out the recording... yay! :)

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Here's a little short slideshow of photos from the recent sessions... we took actual video too but haven't had the time to work through it all yet and edit something together. Enjoy!