?I had a band stop by my house the other day beating on my door at 9pm. (Not that 9pm is anywhere close to late to me. It's just that I find it personally revolting for someone to knock on my door PERIOD!) Anyway, it turned out that I'm good friends with the band so it was actually sort of a welcomed visit.

They wanted me to record 4 songs for them. Of course, I explained to them that I wasn't interested in simply slapping a microphone in front of instruments and letting the cards fall where they may. I told them that I was heavily involved in producing these days and I didn't have much time. I certainly didn't have time to crank out yet another crappy sounding demo for a band wanting to half ass it.

This particular band, Fists of Phoenix, have worked with me several times before and they are certainly one of my favorite bands to work with. They do sound and play very well and are fairly easy to record. So, I shot them a price that seamed reasonable for everyone and told them they would get two weekend days and two evenings during the week to record their masterpiece.

Basically, I allotted enough time to do a very good recording where no one felt too rushed, but I did place a time limit which I never really like to do when I'm producing a band.

Back To 18 Hour Days!

Well, I had forgotten just how much work real engineering can be. I hadn't recorded a drumset in 3 months. (I didn't really miss it, either! Toontrack's DFH Superior is just too good!) I must say that I wasn't all that excited about recording drums in my crappy room. This is the one major compromise I made that I expect will ultimately ruin the recording for me personally and make the record sound “cheap”.

The day started with the drummer beating on my door at 9:45am, which woke me up. From there, we got started. We were in no hurry. This worked out well for us because I wanted to create an atmosphere where the band didn't feel remotely rushed.

Unfortunately, the downside to that was I put in an 18 hour day yesterday. I had some computer issues which took me about an hour to fix and many other problems sprung up because I hadn't recorded a drumset in a while.

My Thoughts On Engineering vs Producing

The days are much, much longer. This is okay, but I had to give up a few things in my personal life to achieve to engineer these 4 songs. I had absolutely no control over anything creative. It's not that I had this excessive power trip over songs. It's more an issue that you don't realize what you are giving an entire day (I mean every second of that day!) to 4 songs that I have no idea if they are any good or not.

I guess the last thing I want to do is waste my life working on songs that won't “matter”. This recording was more of a favor for friends than anything, so I guess I shouldn't make too big of deal about it. However, the next time I'm a little strapped for cash, I'll make sure that I love every song before doing the project!

Brandon