After the recording, what happens next?

The Attic, in Chicago.  With watchdog, Maddox!

What happens after spending months finding tunes we want to record, arranging the tunes, practicing the tunes (for many hours...), and then going into the studio to record the tunes?   Believe it or not, the process has only just begun.   Our recording engineer and David's son, Greg Magers, took all of our recorded tunes back to his studio in Chicago (The Attic) to begin work on the next phase. We will have 17 tracks on the CD - at least that's the plan! That actually worked out to 25 separate recorded sessions!


The Attic, in Chicago.  With Eleanora!

 
So far, David has made two trips to Chicago to  provide input in the editting process and to overdub some more guitar tracks and add drum (jjembe!) tracks.  We have also asked Graham Burris, Greg's assistant and bass player extraordinaire, to overdub bass tracks on our tunes to add some more color to the finished recording!   This work has been done.  What remains is for a guest recording on three tracks by Emily Magers, David's daughter and accomplished violinist/fiddler and the mixing and sequencing (another trip to Chicago by Stephanie) and the mastering. 

At that point, we will be ready to send our master to a CD manufacturing company to produce.  We have decided to not manufacture this CD ourselves as we have the previous two.  It's a lot of work to do and the commercial companies can do it faster, more professionally, and for about the same or less money!  But it does mean Stephanie is learning Coreldraw to produce the artwork for the CD packaging to submit when the master is ready!

Will we make it by Christmas?  Well... unfortunately it is looking a bit unlikely.  This process has taken more time that we expected - there have been a couple of unplanned delays and Greg's schedule has been a bit tight.  But, the silver cloud to this story is that The Looking Glass has agreed to host a CD release party for us mid to late January!  This will be our first ever release party - and based on the reviews of the editted tracks so far, this CD will be even better than our last one - so it will be more than worthy of a release party.  Stay tuned for details of the party!  Of course, as soon as the CD is produced and we have it in our hands, it will be available for sale - we have been asked a bunch of times when our next CD is coming out because folks want to buy it to add to their Red River Breeze collection!  And we absolutely appreciate and cherish the loyalty of our fans!  

Recording CD, #3 - October 11th and 12th, 2011

We recorded our third CD at 16 Ton Studios in Nashville, TN over a two day period in October 2011. This is the same studio where we recorded our second studio so it felt very familiar!  Michael Esser, the studio's engineer greeted us the first morning.  He worked with us on our second CD so his was familiar face.  He then left us in the very capable and friendly hands of his assistant, Tyler Cox.  Greg Magers, David's son, flew down from Chicago as he had done for the second CD to be our engineer.   Greg has his own very successful studio in Chicago, The Attic.

Stephanie, warming up before recording starts.

Melanie in her isolation room.

Because we are a band of four musicians, instead of the eight when we recorded our second CD in this studio, each one of us was in an isolation room this time.  That means we couldn't see each other but rather could hear each other through headphones and a box that allowed us to dial in exactly how much and how loud each of the other instruments sounded in our ears.   Playing with headphones on and without being able to read the body language of the rest of the band is definitely an added challenge to trying to record (forever!) our music.  

We recorded for 6+ hours each of the two days.   This meant recording everything at least twice to make sure we had a good take from each of the four instruments.  Stephanie also recorded some recorder and Irish whistle overdubs for several of the tunes (that means it's going to sound like Stephanie is playing hammered dulcimer and penny whistle at the same time!).



Byron, in his isolation room.



David, in his isolation area.



This is what a recorded tune looks like to the engineer!  Each instrument has it's own colored track (and the dulcimer has two!).  From this, the engineer can edit mistakes (we never made mistakes...!), mix the instruments so that one instruments doesn't - for example - overwhelm other instruments, and getting the tunes ready to be put on our CD.   But, of course that happens after the two days in the studio!  Stay tuned for the editting, mixing, mastering, producing portions of this project.   And fingers crossed we can get this done before Christmas!