The Mines have officially started the pre-production phase for our next CD. At our regular practice last night we were joined by producer extraordinaire Joel Ferguson (Papa Vegas singer/songwriter, sometimes Verve Pipe bassist, etc…) to walk through the songs we’ve lined up for the new, as yet untitled, CD. I gotta say: this is exciting! OK going into a new CD project I’m always excited, but this time we’re approaching the whole process a little differently, which is a new reason for being excited.
Not since we recorded our first three song demo with our good friend Aaron Niequist have we had an outside producer — someone to push us around, er… I mean kindly suggest things such as song arrangements, instrumentation, sounds, etc… After producing the first two CD’s on our own, I can tell you having a fifth person that we can trust to provide feedback in all aspects of the songs, and push/pull us into new territory, is a relief. Already Joel has pointed out certain things in a number of the songs that we hadn’t considered which have resulted in major improvements. Besides his skills on the production end, we’re also getting someone who is an experienced and professional songwriter to help guide every song.
Besides playing all of the songs for Joel last night and getting his feedback, we also talked through the approach we’re going to take to record the songs. For the next few days Ethan will be working on the scratch tracks that Todd will play to when recording the first two songs — “Tiger Beat” and “Behind The Eyes”. He’ll get those to Joel who will get the busy work of setting up the DAW out of the way before we show up to critique Todd’s every note. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Then we’ll start tracking the other instruments for those two songs before bringing Todd in to record more drums.
We have ALWAYS made Todd record every song in one day — (even on Metropolis which had 13 songs on it!) — in the interest of efficiency. It’s about time he’s allowed a little more space.
OK, I’ve rambled on enough for now. We’ll post more as the process rolls on. Stay tuned.
Greg
for ~The Mines
