So rather than composition this time, another aspect of my learning process was working in the recording studio. I spent a LOT of hours in here. While most students were doing the bare minimum to get a pass here, I was pulling all nighters in there, booking 9 hour slots when nobody else wanted it through the night, going home and to bed at 9am, only to wake up at 3pm and go straight back.

I still wasn't good at the time of this song, and I didn't really become fully established at this art until long after Uni. But, this was one of the first major projects I did:

Now the main problem to me was that the only singer willing to do it who had the appropriate vocal range was my girlfriend at the time, (basically a girl that followed me around because she was a nerd and knew I liked Lord of the Rings), and a tenor who was a classically trained opera singer/barbershop quartet performer. Not the most ideal set up for Fleetwood Mac, but it would have to do.

I suppose another problem is that it was once again just too big a project for a single, complete n00b to do, and I had to do the guitar and the bass and everything in between on top of that so it was a pretty hefty job. I did get a Greek drummer, though.

It also didn't help that I was using the Unvierrsity's Mac computer studio. It was a brilliant recording studio on the whole but I just couldn't work a Mac without constant stress. I adjusted over the 3 year period but was glad to see the back of it. I used Pro Tools too, which I was never too fond of, just because it's the industry standard doesn't make it great. I mean it was fine I guess, I'm just biased because Macs.

The Greek

Not much to say on this post really other than how ashamed I am that I did this song. One proud memory, however, was around 3am, me and my friend were in there mixing and putting the final touches in before the deadline a few days from there, and we got a mysterious knock on the door. We opened it to find the Greek drummer guy!

He was practically in tears, and broke into a few after explaining that he hadn't even started his project yet. Given the monstrous size of the workloads, nobody could have gotten it done in that time (it was like 3 full songs or something, i forget).

My friend and I looked at each other and were like... let's do this and triggered a musical montage scene of the three of us just spending the rest of our lives in the studio, helping this Greek guy with his whole project AND finishing off our own. I had to do the guitar and bass for almost everything and at one point the tips of my fingers literally started bleeding from playing so much.

Sometimes one of us would do a food run and get some sustenance from the Tesco or other convenience store, and we'd continue on.

We got it done, and we got him a pretty decent grade (a 2:1 for those familiar with the UK system) as well as teaching him a lot in the process so it wasn't like cheating. He was so happy that he did all the drums for my exponentially more difficult tracks over the years.

He was a seriously good drummer IMO, he would just come in the day after we tell him which song to do, and have it down, compared to the professional, classically trained musicians we borrowed could barely figure out simple dotted rhythms

He also said I'm welcome to stay with him in Greece any time I want in the future. Hah. Take that @trumpman @ruth-girl @alexander-alexis. I even have my fingers in Greek pies. The very idea of a Greek pie disgusts me, though.

Anyway, A few more of these posts to come then I'm gonna mix it up a bit. Science to come later on today.