At long last Paul Hodgert’s schedule allowed him to go back to fixing the recording of The Boat Song. Yesterday, he and Luke Bergen re-recorded the drum track to the song. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the click track behind the tracks we laid down last summer had vanished. This would not have mattered except that there were some flaws in timing of the performances, and these could not be fixed without reference to the click track, which can be divided into up to ten- thousands of a beat - allowing accurate tweaking of the wave forms of the voice and instruments. We asked out favourite drummer, Luke Bergen (drummer for Boats, and for his solo project Beautiful Pipes) to do the drums again. He said he was ready any time Paul was.

Paul and Luke started yesterday morning to jam the song, trying out different drum and bass combinations. The ‘old’ rhythm section parts were very good, but, being perfectionists, they thought they could do better. When they had something they thought worked, Paul put done scratch rhythm guitar and vocal tracks over the click - matched as closely as possible to the beat of the old tracks (about 150 bpm). More interestingly, Paul also had to fake one of Tony Buchner’s electric guitar tracks - on an acoustic! This was necessary because the guitar part is effectively the ‘vocal’ for parts of the song. Anyway, Paul had fun using slurs instead of bends (not possible on acoustic), and trying to figure out the solo a few bars ahead of what he was playing. Since all that was required was for the timing to fit, this worked out fine.

The tracking of the drums took about 15 takes, with the best take chosen for each of the individual piece - snare, kick, side tom, floor tom, and high-hat, crash and ride cymbals. Each drum was separately miked, and an overhead mike caught the cymbals and the blended effect. I reviewed the result and said i was very pleased. The new drums have a slightly different beat from the original, but I am not qualified to explain the difference. I like it better the new way!

Paul will next track the new bass part. Using the new rhythm section parts and the click track, he will next attempt to fit the existing electric guitar parts to the new bed tracks. Then he’ll try to fit the old vocals to the verses and the choruses. Paul and I will probably re-record the vocals for the bridge, because we were not completely satisfied with the old bridge tracks. Finally, we will review the length of the bridge, and the arrangement. When we have something cool, we’ll put in down. Paul will then mix, review with me, and master. Then, after many months delay, I’ll post the finished track on this site.

As we wrapped up yesterday evening, I told Luke I owed him, to quote what I had earlier said to Darren Fast, “... a Godfather type favour. Like the undertaker in Godfather I, I said he could call me at any time if he needed anything - no questions asked.” He smiled and put it in his pocket.