As promised, here is the first of my weekly posts from the upcoming album, Half the Man. “Walking the Wire” is one that I’ve played dozens of times solo since I wrote it in 1997, so it’s particularly gratifying to flesh out some of the things I’ve heard in my head all these years.
As with all of the songs I’ll be posting throughout the summer, I’ve given myself a time limit of a week per song to force myself to finish the recordings. My hope is that uploading these “good as I can get in 7 days” drafts will allow me to gain a little distance and perspective by the end of the summer. At that point I should have a good idea of which songs are working, which need a little attention, and which I need to drop from the album.
And now it’s your turn. Give me some feedback. Do you like the song? Is the recording working, generally? Are there specific problems that jump out of the mix? Any feedback you have is welcome. Here are some things I’m thinking about:
- I like the mix generally. (As of 7:04pm today.) I especially like the bass, I’m pleased with the re-recorded lead vocal, and it feels like the song’s groove is in the pocket (always a concern when multi-tracking).
- I thought I needed a drummer n the song, but now I’m liking the combination of percussion.
- I’m wondering if the vocal echoes in the chorus are too much.
- When I come back to this I’ll probably do some minute tweaking of the lead vocals.
- To my ear there is a “sonic glue” issue that I’ll need to address with either reverb or in the mastering phase.
