The band Ten Times Gravity had been in the studio to work on their album. Typically Jim is the engineer, however, Jim allowed Chase to gain experience as an engineer during the session since Jim was hired to play drums. The bass guitar player, Brian, was playing in the control room. He played different notes and measures because they were trying to figure out the bass part to the song. Throughout this time, Jim stopped him when he noticed that the bass was off key. Therefore, Brian tuned his bass and checked if it was on pitch again. Hearing many notes that are out of tune can actually de-train someone's ear, I learned. I believe that there are many reasons for guitars to go out of pitch. For example, if the player uses the guitar for a long time or if the player strums too aggressively on the strings, the strings could loosen and change the sound. Jim listened back to the song to "punch in" a few parts. In order to get the sound that you want, it takes a lot of playing and listening back to recorded pieces of the song. I wasn't aware of this, but there are several ways you could hit a note on the guitar. It might sound different than what you desire if you hit it too hard or too soft. Brian hit a note in a way that was different than what Jim wanted so, Brian cut his nails. I thought that this was kind of funny, but I understand now that it could make a difference in the way he played a note. It was interesting to me to see that if Jim couldn't find the notes he wanted to hear, he would sing them. In return, Brian would play the note Jim was looking for on the bass.
Chase spent hours adjusting and adding microphones to the drum kit that they used the previous day when the entire band was in the studio. He also made files, which means he named all of the instruments that they would use in the session into the appropriate computer program. In addition, he made the mix for one song, and copied it as a template into all of the others. Chase also was the engineer for that day while they recorded. He explained to me that it can get frustrating because there were guests in the studio talking and observing the session, so sometimes it was difficult to hear Jim when he spoke behind the kit.
Jim clarified to Chase that in order to save time editing later, now Chase could be very precise with the "punch ins." The bass player continued to play and even when he messed up Jim allowed him to keep on playing to get the feel of what he wanted. Sometimes the musician will play parts that he thinks of on his own. Other times, he does things over until he gets the "right" sound. As I have mentioned before, in order to succeed here, you must be creative and unafraid of failure. A musician will never be able to please everyone, but you have to be persistent. In addition, I observed that you have to be responsible and aware while in a session, no matter if you are the musician, engineer, or producer. All through the session, Jim was alert of the constant key of the bass, it was "off" to him. In my opinion, he is very observant and notices small things that could ultimately affect the song in a negative way and tries to fix them immediately. However, it seemed that there was nothing they could do as of that moment that could fix the issue with the bass. Jim wouldn't add tuning and noise reduction to the song, because he doesn't like how it sounds and said it "doesn't sound right." Since there was a recurring problem with the bass, Jim and Brian decided not to continue on with the bass part, after working on it for many hours. Jim says all the time that the bass is the most important part of the song, so he wants it to be perfect. They both wanted to continue but they preferred a five string guitar and not a four string, which is what Brian was using for the session. It appears to be an exhausting process but the outcome is the significant reward! I enjoy watching the process, honestly. It truly makes me appreciate a song more just knowing how much dedication, hard work, and passion goes into it. I always knew that before coming to the studio. However, being able to view it in front of me gives me a whole different perception. I was expecting the part of the process where the artist writes the lyrics, comes up with the instrumental parts, including guitar, drums, vocals, back-up vocals and more. Yet, I knew very little about the actual recording process and how much work goes into that!
