Hey! I’m working hard in the studio today on what will be track 2 of the next Lives EP. The song is called “Something Easy”. It’s bascially Cate’s only song for the next EP, which is based around Max’s life following book one. I wrote this with Brad Whitley.

The song is a bit different then the first EP. And I think this EP will be more straight up rock ‘n roll then Volume I. The first two songs are going in that direction.

So, “Something Easy” picks up with Cate on the train after leaving Demming. It basically goes through her thought process and how shes just wants life to be easy.

I used my Les Paul and Les Paul Jr. exclusively on this track. Plugged into my Marshall amp on the clean channel and driven hard to overdrive it. So it’s not a distortion as much as a nice clean overdive. I have a Marshall JTM60, with and extension cabinet. So I mic’d the amp with an SM57 and an MXL V63M, the extension cab got a MXL 1006, and then I used an MXL991 pencil mic about 4 feet from the amp directly in front for some room ambience. So each take was four tracks. I used the Les Paul for the rhythm tracks left and right, as well as the lead, on the neck pickup. For the intro and chorus guitar tag line, i used my Les Paul Jr. Gave it a slightly different tone to help it stand out in the track. The lead was on the Les Paul, with the Amp on the lead channel and really driving it hard, and using the neck pickup. Gave it a nice round tone.

The bass went direct as well as through my Hartke amp which i mic’d with a kick drum mic for a nice thick sound. The drums were fun to play on this one. A very open losse sound on them. Not processed at all. Just a bit of the room mic for some life.

Vocally, i went into my Sterling Audio ST65 tube mic, through a tube pre-amp, into my dbx 166XL for some light compression and then a little more in the box, a little delay and thats about it. Vocals are very clean, and nearly dry. I LOVE the way this mic makes my voice sound.

So, all thats really left to do is get the keys laid down. Lee J. Turner is going to be doing the keys. Lee lives in Nashville and is a good friend of mine who has played with many top names. He’s currently touring with Darius Rucker. Lee played keys on “Make A Mistake With Me” off the first Lives EP. I love his style and that he has real vintage Hammond and Wurlitzer organs. The sound cant be beat.

So once the keys are down, it’ll be done. Then just a good mix and we are set!

OK, well thats about it. I’ll be working on After Farewell a lot this weekend, so I’ll hopefully have some more detail for you on that in a few days!

Thanks for reading!
J.T. 

Hey all, I’ve been writing studio notes for the new EP. I’ve never done this before, and it’s pretty fun. I’ve posted them on the LIVES message board, but I thought I’d condense them here as well into a blog…so here goes!

SONG 1 – After Farewell
Brad and I have penned the first track for Volume II. It’s called “After Farewell”. It picks the story up right where the book left off and when Cate and Max part. Its a rocker and I will start recording it this coming weekend.
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Hey all. I’m getting set to work on this song in the studio. I’m still pondering aboutn the chorus as i’m not sure that it’s strong enough. So there may be some changes lyrically, but musically, i think i’s set, so I’m going to get moving on the recording this week!
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Ok, so the drums, bass and basic rhythm guitars are done! I spent a few hours today working on the song and I’m really happy with it so far.

The drums were done in one take which always makes me happy. I played a little differently than I normally do to get a bit more of a groove into the song. I played around with how i worked the hi-hat a bit and like how it came out as well as some of the fills. For the bass on this one, I went direct and skipped the amp. This has always worked well for me. My bass has a great tone when i go direct. I ran it through my Art TPSII Tube preamp and then through my dbx166xl for some compression at a 4:1 setting. Makes it nice and round. Then a little more compression in the box to smooth it even more. I add an EQ cutting everything below 120hz with a nice slope so it doesnt sit too heavy on the kick drum.

For guitars so far I used my Les Paul straight into my Marshall JTM60 with a similar mic set up as I used on the “Something Easy” recording. I mic’d the amp with an MXL V63M and a Shure SM51. The extension cabinet was mic’d with an MXL 1006 and then I used an MXL991 pencil about 4 feet away for some room ambience. I recorded a seperate left and right track to make it nice and thick sounding. The Marshall was on the clean channel driven on 10 and the master volume about half way up.

Thats as far as I got for today. But I’ll be back on it tomorrow afternoon to work on some more guitar parts. After I get those done, I’ll update this thread and give you some more details
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HEY! Ok, so the song is for the most part done! I spent a good part of the last two days working on lead guitars, fills and taste parts, as well as lead and backing vocals.

For the guitars, I used several different pieces to color the song from fills inside the verses to nice intro and connector fills as well. In the 2nd & 4th verses, i added a cool double plucked, two note riff that runs on the beat…really gives the ear something to find in the mix. I also wound up adding it to the outro of the song and it will ultimately fade out on it.

For the vocals, i sang everything into my Sterling Audio ST66 Tube mic…LOVE that thing. I sang all the verses first, then went to the Bparts and then the chorus parts. I was struggling with the actual lyrics in the chorus. Brad and I wrote what we thought was a really cool chorus, and musically it worked well, but on second and third looks, singing it was awkward. So i re-wrote the lyrics and structure. I used some of what we had already. I would up doing sort of a call and answer with a nice 3-part harmony doing the call part and answering in a scruffy, throaty voice. I’m really happy with how it came out.

For the bridge, Brad had come up with a cool riff when we wrote the song, so I took that idea, and expanded on it building the riff with each pass into a 3-part guitar harmony underneath a lead. About half way through the band kicks back in full and the solo rocks out. I like it a lot.

All thats really left is to have Lee lay some keyboards on it. Hopefully we’ll get some of that done next week. I start travelling Tuesday for 4 weeks, so I want to get the songs to Lee before I leave so he can work on them and have the parts done when i get back.

I’m going to start to put some daily’s together to let you hear what I’m up to!

OK, now it’s time to get to writing the rest of the EP! I hope that you are enjoying these studio updates! Let me know if you have any questions…thanks.
J.T.