That was a marathon. In fifteen days, I recorded 199 guitar tracks. Then…we found at least three chapters were missing music. So in the last possible minutes before I left, I recorded more tracks. So there are at least 210 guitar tracks floating in the cloud right now!
There are not that many chapters. So how did this work?
- I identified which tracks even needed guitars. Luckily, Steve is a whiz at file management and he'd color-coded all the tracks which needed to be replaced. I would be replacing HIS synth guitars with live guitars.
- Then…which tracks needed MULTIPLE guitars. And that would be most of them.
- Guitar one: a big spangly western minor chord with lots of whammy action on it. It would record it wet (lots of reverb), dry (only the mic'd amp--with that one it was the Fender Frontman 212R.) I would record it high up on the fret board (wet/dry), then a low version as well (wet/dry.) That's at least four tracks right there. Now--I only have ONE guitar with a working tremolo system. And it's this Randy Rhoads Flying V right here. Not your typical Spaghetti western sounding guitar--but it definitely got the job done!
- Guitar two: The Main Beast – my seven string ESP LTD. This did ALL the heavy lifting for the power chords and even a lot of the leads. Almost all of my guitars are in E-flat…except for the ESP. And almost all of the original tracks were in E. So that made it a little easier. But I would record the lowest power chord first, using a mic'd up Orange CR-120 through a Jim Root signature 2x12PPC closed back cab, also produced by Orange. Then I would record an inverted power chord (stacked 4ths on the bottom, then the 5th, then an octave.) It's my typical way of recording power chords. Makes them sound absolutely huge!
- Guitar three: The Acoustic One. Standard Yamaha dreadnought. Either mic'd up. Or using an iRig pickup. I'd record low, middle, and high versions of the track. On most of them. Not all. And sometimes I would also record a lead type bit. If I did, I would record it in different octaves.
- Forty-five music cues. Multiply that by the number of guitars, plus the number of extra tracks I recorded so that Steve could have PLENTY of extra madness to work with. More than two hundred tracks.
- DELIVERED BEFORE I LEFT ON MY CRUISE
Every chapter in this audiobook WILL HAVE MUSIC.
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