X Takes The Square - Goddess Of Cool

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Studio Log

Bill's diary of the Goddess Of Cool sessions...
...includes pictures of special guests appearances, grunt work and wacky hijinks...
...and what it takes to record a CD.

December 2000	January 2001	February 2001
March 2001	April 2001	May 2001
June 2001	July 2001	August 2001
September 2001	October 2001	November 2001
December 2001	January 2002	February 2002
March 2002	April 2002	May 2002
June 2002	July 2002	August 2002
September 2002	October 2002	November 2002

11.26.00 - I wanted to see if I could do a song all by myself (except for the female vocals, of course), so we got things going with the drums and bass for Endorphin
11.30.00 - I added the first few guitar tracks.
12.03.00 - Dana Victoria came in and sang, I added more guitar.
12.10.00 - Endorphin backing vocals by the crew pictured here, I added some keyboards.
12.13.00 - With Dennis Ristow at the controls and Barry "Skully" producing, we started mixing.
12.17.00 - Here's the final mix of Endorphin (600K .MP3)

1.17.01 - We had taken some time off for the holidays. This was the week Dennis, the most patient engineer in the world, returned from his Italian vacation, so we started right in on the drums and MIDI stuff for New Year's Eve, which I actually wrote on New Year's Day.
1.18.01 - Picking up where we left off the previous night, we EQ-ed and mixed the drums for New Year's Eve, and started the drums for Stand Straight.
1.21.01 - We finished up the drums for Stand Straight, and did the drums and keyboards for Goddess Of Cool.
1.24.01 - Recorded the drums and keyboards for 99 Times.
1.27.01 - This was a marathon session: we did the drums for From Sex To Serious and Whole, the 8-string bass parts for Whole, Goddess Of Cool and the hidden track (shhhh, don't tell anyone).
1.31.01 - We got the bass for both 99 Times and Stand Straight. Not bad for a Wednesday.

2.4.01 - I finally got to play my Jazz Bass in the studio. We did From Sex To Serious and some miscellaneous tweaking.
2.7.01 - I thought we were done with Cherry Blue , but my friend Dr. Rob noticed the intro sounded a lot like an Echo and the Bunnymen song. Since I don't like lawsuits, I rewrote and re-recorded the intro. We also edited the Virgin Dog bass loop.
2.10.01 - Another marathon session: Barry Waddell from Seasons Of The Wolf did a great job playing the guitar part of Goddess Of Cool. I did the bass solo and guitar of New Year's Eve.
2.14.01 - Did a rough mix of New Year's Eve.
2.18.01 - Scared was sounding a little thin, so we added a second rhythm guitar track and we started remixing.
2.24.01 - I went to a local music store and asked it they'd rent me the Rickenbacker 12-string hanging on the wall. The answer was no but the clerk told me, with a wink, about their 15-day return policy. I bought the guitar, brought it to the studio and Barry added the best "ringin' 'n' chimin'" this side of Roger McGuinn to From Sex To Serious. I returned the guitar for a full refund.

3.3.01 - As I was struggling with the guitar solo on From Sex To Serious, Barry learned it on another guitar. He nailed it on his third take.
3.7.01 - We remixed Scared so you can actually hear the cymbals.
3.11.01 - Mark Empire from Crizzy & The Punx surprised me with the excellent drum part he added to Virgin Dog. It isn't what I had in mind, it's better!
3.14.01 - I wanted to add some percussion to Virgin Dog but I couldn't get the feel of it. Dennis tried and did better but once again it took Barry to get the job done.
3.24.01 - Swallowed's first guitarist, Dale Welch, did a killer job on Whole. His timing is perfect.
3.28.01 - Did a rough mix of Whole.
3.31.01 - Dana Victoria did some scratch vocals on Goddess Of Cool so that some special guests will have an idea what to sing.

4.3.01 - Dennis Ristow played a Farfisa organ on What Differences? and put a whole new spin on the song. It's actually danceable, in a sick sort of way.
4.7.01 - I put another rhythm guitar track on Don't Go to fatten it up a bit. It sounds really lively now.
4.14.01 - Once Dana got her throat warmed up, she nailed From Sex To Serious.
4.18.01 - A short session - all we did was get a good drum/bass mix on Stand Straight. Now it's ready for guitars.
4.21.01 - We finally got the Kurzweil K2000 out of the shop and did the drum mix for Trouble and Tomorrow Never Knows. I put the bass on TNK and that's the end of the drums and bass parts. All I get to do from now on is produce!
4.25.01 - Dana put the vocals on Tomorrow Never Knows and we started adding some pretty psychedelic effects. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts means there won't be any recording for the next three weekends. Bummer!

5.2.01 - We edited Dana's multitracked vocals on Tomorrow Never Knows and decided to layer some more vocals on.
5.9.01 - The Dirty Street Men's Choir stopped by to add a Gregorian touch to Tomorrow Never Knows.
5.16.01 - A mixing session: From Sex To Serious and New Year's Eve both sound better than ever.
5.19.01 - Dr. Robert Henner, of dental hygene fame, added some otherworldly sounds and hilarity to Tomorrow Never Knows. Now we have to mix this mess!
5.23.01 - Started mixing Tomorrow Never Knows. There's more tracks here than we know what to do with!
5.26.01 - Despite having a broken ankle, Naked Head's Bing Futch came all the way from Melbourne to add some dulcimer tracks to Virgin Dog. He also learned the new Cherry Blue riff and recorded it five minutes later.
5.30.01 - Jhon McElroy of E3 felt a little uneasy about 99 Times. It's probably the trickiest song of the bunch, but he nailed the guitar part with no problem.

6.1.01 - Crizzy and Billy Lord from Crizzy & The Punx arrived around 4:00 and I kept them there until midnight. Crizzy played a beautifully punk guitar on Stand Straight and Billy did a simple but effective Hammond organ part to Trouble. I then had him layer track after track of keyboards to the song's instrumental section in the middle.
6.6.01 - Dennis was under the weather, so we did some simple editing on Virgin Dog and went home early.
6.12.01 - Dana banged out the vocals for Trouble with no trouble whatsoever.
6.16.01 - Dana sang the main vocals for New Year's Eve. A few background harmonies and it's done.
6.19.01 - Dana did the harmonies and fell asleep on the floor as Dennis and I played with various mixes. It's still a rough mix but it sounds sweeeeet.
6.23.01 - It's been a good couple weeks for vocals. Dana put some real guts into Stand Straight.
6.30.01 - Dana did 10 takes of 99 Times. It'll take a while to sort through it all but it'll be a great mix.

7.5.01 - We needed to unbundle some older files to get them ready for vocals, so we did a little mixing on Virgin Dog and Goddess Of Cool.
7.7.01 - Mike Rogers stopped by to add his bit to the nameless hidden track, and I put the guitar on Trouble.
7.9.01 - We mixed Trouble. Just before I left, Barry had an idea for background vocals and he quickly added it just to see if it would work. It did but we couldn't keep his takes because he did it so quickly that it sounded like he hadn't bothered to clear his throat.
7.10.01 - I had been looking forward to this night. ErinMarie from Mr. Bella and Patti B. joined Dana on Goddess Of Cool. Each took a verse and sang together on the bridge. It was great to watch three goddesses at work.

ErinMarie listens to the playback.
Patti B. and Dana Victoria rework some lyrics.

Before the night was over, ErinMarie and Barry sang the backing vocal on Trouble, the part that Barry had dreamed up just the night before. EM did three harmony parts and Barry did two. It sounds like a bleedin' Motown record now!
7.14.01 - Dana finished off two songs tonight, Tomorrow Never Knows and Virgin Dog. Dennis and I did a bit of editing on both songs. Mark Empire stopped by to say hi and pointed out a small edit in his Virgin Dog drum part. It was total coincidence (and very welcome) that he showed up as we were working on his song.
7.17.01 - We started mixing Goddess Of Cool. It was a bit tricky because the 8-string bass didn't have much bottom end, but we fixed with a graphic EQ that looked like the Alps.
7.19.01 - Dana redid the vocals on From Sex To Serious, it's got a lot more balls now.
7.21.01 - We finished the mix of Goddess Of Cool. The vocals sound pretty sweet.
7.24.01 - Dana sang all the verses of Whole, smiling all the way. We'll do the choruses next time, which may be a while because I'm filling in for the recently departed Billy Lord of Crizzy & The Punx. They have several dates booked and don't want to cancel, so check their Web site to see if we'll be in a town near you.

8.21.01 - It was good to get back into the studio. I'd been playing with Crizzy & The Punx so I was out of town a lot. Also, the studio's main computer had been out of commission but now has a new motherboard and power supply. It easily handled all the mixing we did on Don't Go.
8.28.01 - By singing Whole's chorus, Dana finished the last of the vocal tracks. She seemed pleased. All that's left now is some minor instrumental stuff and a lot of mixing.

9.4.01 - I wanted some industrial sounding percussion for Tomorrow Never Knows so I went to Home Depot with a drumstick and hit stuff. Anything that sounded good went into the cart. Barry and I spent the night recording metal objects clanking together, falling to the floor and ringing like church bells hanging from the ceiling.
9.11.01 - Everyone was a little sombre given the days events. We decided it was best to just get to work, taking individual clanging noises recorded last week and looped them into percussion tracks. Tedious, but more interesting than maracas.
9.18.01 - More looping and some overall clean-up of Tomorrow Never Knows. It's not a final mix by any means, but it's getting there.
9.20.01 - Realizing that my listening party is this coming weekend, we did some emergency fixes on Tomorrow Never Knows and Virgin Dog.
9.22.01 - More emergency editing on New Year's Eve and 99 Times.
9.23.01 - The Listening Party! I invited all the musicians who played on the disk over to my house for a party. Everyone seemed excited to hear what the others had done, and perhaps a little anxious about hearing how their own performance came out in the mix. Overall, people seemed to like the results (though maybe it was just the beer talking) and they gave me some very helpful ideas for the final mix.

10.02.01 - Barry, Dennis and I went over the comments that came out of the listening party and devised a loose plan for the next few sessions. We're moving into the final round of mixing now, and Scared is much better for it.
10.10.01 - Endorphin was mixed pretty well to begin with, but after tonight - it cranks!
10.16.01 - Whole sounded a little lightweight with the female backing vocals behind the female lead vocal, so Barry and I pretended we were the Pips and added four-part harmonies. We went overboard and added fingersnaps and handclaps, but it works.
10.23.01 - We did a lot of fine tuning on Whole so now there's a good amount of separation between the instruments. On this final mix, you can actually hear the congas.
10.30.01 - We had trouble on Trouble getting the background vocals to stand out. Turns out that Billy Lord's Hammond organ was in the same frequency range as ErinMarie's voice. Dennis found the exact range and EQ-ed it out of the organ and, voila, the final mix was done.

11.6.01 - I wouldn't quite call it a final mix yet, but Stand Straight sounds much better with the guitars panned to the sides. We still need to do a little work on the vocals.
11.12.01 - Finished up the vocal mix on Stand Straight in no time, so we were able to completely restructure the start and end of Cherry Blue. It's a little more interesting now.
11.20.01 - We worked on From Sex To Serious, but didn't quite get a final mix. The 12-string guitar is getting stepped on by the 6-string. We took it as homework to listen to the Byrds, Tom Petty, The Cure and R.E.M. to figure out what we're doing wrong.
11.27.01 - After listening to last week's mix of From Sex To Serious, Barry thought that the problem was with the drums but I still thought it was the tone of the rhythm guitar. Since redoing the guitar is easier, we tried that first. Barry played his Gibson Flying V rather than the SG, used a different distortion setting and we didn't use a room mike. It did the trick. The rhythm guitar is now crisp and clean and doesn't interfere with anything else.

12.4.01 - Way back in May, Rob Henner had a moment of inspiration and added the melody of George Harrison's Within You Without You to our version of John Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows. As of last week, both Harrison and Lennon are gone, so it was totally appropriate to play with the juxtaposition. The results are great! I'm not quite sure it's a final mix just yet, but it's brilliant. Thanks Rob!
12.11.01 - I got the bright idea to sing the Within You Without You part on Tomorrow Never Knows, distort it and mix it in behind Rob's guitar synth. It's freaky but I like it.
12.13.01 - There was very little left to do on Don't Go and New Year's Eve, so we finished them up in no time. I'm happy with Don't Go, but I want to listen to New Year's Eve some more just to make sure it's right.

1.3.02 - Our first session of the new year. After catching up with everyone's holiday adventures, we mixed Goddess Of Cool. This is the song with ErinMarie, Patti B. and Dana each singing a verse and doing the bridge together. Even though ErinMarie and Dana have similar voices, we had to treat all three tracks very differently, removing almost all of EM's reverb and adding a digital delay to Dana. Despite the different effects, it sounds like they're standing right next to each other (which, in fact, they were).
1.10.02 - I had sorted through Dana's myriad of lead vocal takes for 99 Times, and tonight Dennis edited them together. I had also played with some effects for the keyboards and we applied those as well. It's still not a final mix, but it's very close.
1.11.02 - I met with director Josh Tammaro and his crew to kick around some ideas for a video. The first order of business was to select which song to do, and we settled on Cherry Blue. We came up with some great ideas but will meet again to start a storyboard.
1.15.02 - A little EQ here, a subtle reverb there, and suddenly all the instruments in 99 Times stand out on their own. I declared it a final mix and we played with the hidden track for a while.
1.20.02 - What Differences? has always been a quirky song, but not quite quirky enough. We had the bright idea to add some sound effects I had lying around, most of them from Hanna Barbara cartoons. They added a lot of spark to the song, but we're not sure we're going to keep them. They're interesting but not quite what the song needs. It'll require some more thought.
1.22.02 - Virgin Dog was sounding pretty good, so all it needed was a little EQ on the drums and a touch of reverb. We finished it so quickly that we touched up the vocals on 99 Times and still had time to lower a sound effect on Tomorrow Never Knows. All in all, a good night.
1.29.02 - We had done a bit of work on the hidden track, tonight we made it sound like the accident it was. That's a good thing!

2.1.02 - Josh Tammaro, his assistant Adam and I all went to scope out a location for the video shoot. It looks good and we got permission to use it, so we started on the storyboard.
2.5.02 - We did a couple of little touch-ups on Tomorrow Never Knows and Cherry Blue. And with that, we're done. For now, anyway. Aside from the video shoot this weekend, I'm not going to listen to the CD at all for a couple weeks. I want to hear it with fresh ears before I declare it done.
2.10.02 - Dana flew into town for a couple days, so we taped her part of the Cherry Blue video. It was WAY too early on a Sunday morning to be doing this sort of thing, but a trip to Starbuck's gave us the gusto we needed. I haven't seen it yet, but I think we got some great footage.

3.3.02 - I got up early, made some coffee and put my headphones on. I listened to the CD for the first time in two weeks. The thing that struck me most is that there wasn't enough bass. I hadn't wanted it to turn into a vanity project, but I guess I over compensated. I also decided to drop What Differences? because it just doesn't fit with the rest of the CD. Maybe it'll show up on a future release. Overall though, I was very happy.
3.5.02 - Back at the studio, we cranked the bass on Endorphin and From Sex To Serious. A few other minor tweaks and that's two songs completely finished.
3.19.02 - We added more bottom end to Goddess Of Cool and Virgin Dog. Virgin Dog sounds great, but I'm going to have to add a 4-string bass underneath the 8-string of Goddess Of Cool.
3.26.02 - We tweaked Don't Go and New Year's Eve so the bass really comes through. In the case of Don't Go we made it rattle like a saber and for New Year's Eve we cleaned up by boosting the mids.

4.2.02 - This was a very productive session. We tweaked Tomorrow Never Knows and Trouble so the bass really kicks. Scared took a lot more work, but it sounds better than I thought it could. It still needs a bit more work, but we're nearly there.
4.9.02 - I recorded some low, 4-string bass tracks under the 8-string bass parts on Goddess Of Cool and Whole. After a little mixing, they both sound much fuller.
4.19.02 - We finished up Scared, boosted the bass on Stand Straight and did a slight edit on Goddess Of Cool. After listening to Scared at the end of the night, none of us were satisfied with it. The performances aren't what they could be and the raw recording is a bit muddy. So even through we have a lot of time and money invested in it, we're going to try it again from scratch.
4.23.02 - I had created the new drum track for Scared over the weekend, so tonight it was just a matter of recording the bass. We decided to try two distorted tracks and one clean one, but the three tracks together was just too much. The final mix will have one distorted with the clean underneath just to give it a little more oomph.

5.15.02 - When we had the listening party back in September '01, Dale Welch's comment about Scared was that we should redo the guitar "only because I want to play on it." Tonight he came in and laid down some tracks. It'll take us a while to slice and dice what we like but there's a lot of good stuff it there.
5.21.02 - I added another grungy rhythm guitar track to Scared just to beef it up a bit.
5.27.02 - I went to New York with my trusty laptop and a microphone and visited Dana. After tea and her delicious "guilt-free" pizza, she did the vocals for the new version of Scared, redid 99 Times with a bit more attitude, and added some backing vocals to Whole. I'm now keeping my fingers crossed hoping the technology won't let me down, I'll know when I get my laptop back to the studio. In the evening, we went to see Les Paul. He's nearly 87 and still plays every Monday at the Iridium Jazz Club. Though arthritis has slowed down his hands, his wit is as quick as ever.

6.3.02 - The vocals Dana recorded on my laptop for the song Scared were very nearly unusable. They had no warmth and the volume was inconsistent. It sounded like she was singing into the room from the doorway. What a difference the studio makes! Luckily, we were able to peel the vocals from the old version and use them with the new backing track. Dennis had to compress a few phrases to get them to match the tempo but it sounds like we were all in the same room at the same time. Whew! It'll be interesting to see how the other songs turned out....
6.5.02 - We did some more mixing on Scared and experimented with some strange effects on the vocals. Most didn't work, but it's fun trying.
6.10.02 - Still more mixing on Scared. I had settled on one vocal effect and some changes with levels. They all sound good, but we're not quite done yet.
6.13.02 - After listening to Scared over and over, I decided it needed more guitar. So I used Barry's SG, rather than my Strat, to give it a different tone. I did four takes, just to be safe, and they were all remarkably similar. Dennis thought it might be interesting to use all of them to get a "Wall O' Guitar" sound. It sounded great - big and thick and nasty - so we kept it. A little more mixing should finish it off. We also mixed in the harmony vocals Dana did for Whole while I was in NYC. They blend together nicely.
6.15.02 - We did only a few tweaks to Scared, mostly drums. There are so many guitar tracks that it was almost pointless to worry too much about any single one. They blend together and sound like one guitar. It's now a final mix. The bad news is that the vocals Dana sang into my laptop for 99 Times are unusable. My equipment just isn't good enough for remote recording. We'll have to figure something else out.

7.15.02 - My plans for getting a new vocal track on 99 Times seem to have fallen through. Dennis and I did some sound effect experiments with the vocals, adding distortion and a wah-wah. While they were interesting and even fun, they're just not right for the song. Too bad, it's the only thing left!

8.1.01 - Kat Gregory of Fort Meyers had told me she's a belter, and she definitely belted out 99 Times. It was pretty much what the song needed. She did six or seven takes of each section, so we'll now have to give it the fine-toothed comb treatment. Thanks Kat!
8.15.01 - Dennis and I sorted out Kat's best takes of 99 Times and spliced them together. We still need to work on overall EQ and such, but it's coming together nicely.
8.21.01 - We made the bass on 99 Times a little bassier and made the vocals a little crisper and took a listen. A few minor tweaks later and I think it's done. If so, that wraps up the entire CD!

9.14.02 - Kat Horton-Gregory, who sang on 99 Times has started a band in Ft. Myers called Odd Girl Out. They had a gig but no bass player so I filled it. It was a blast.
9.21.02 - I did a two song studio session in St. Petersburg for a band called Echo June. I don't know when it will come out but I'll post something here when it does.

10.8.02 - Dennis and I started piecing together the songs as they will appear on the CD. It's a little tricky because some songs overlap others, so they need to start at precisely the right millisecond. It's fun, though.
10.11.02 - This was my first gig filling in with Seasons Of The Wolf. The turnout was very low for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the venue doesn't have a sign out front. No one could find the place! Still, we played well and had a great time.
10.16.02 - Back at the studio, we made some final volume adjustments and started copying the songs to the Masterlink. Since that happens in real time, we spent most of the evening shooting the breeze and waiting.
10.29.02 - Dennis and I went through all the songs on the Masterlink, documenting their start and stop times. That's crucial information for the mastering lab. I now have the gold disks in hand. Now all I need to do is book mastering time. And pay for it, of course.

All the stuff that happened this month was behind the scenes. There were no trips to the studio, it was all working on graphics at my desk or talking with the mastering and pressing plants on the phone.

The good news is the tentative ship date is December 12, which puts the official release date at December 17, 2002. It's almost here!