I've reached the stage of recording vocals on the FL LP4 project.
Often the last piece of the puzzle to be fitted into an arrangement, the singing can completely skew a song in a radically different direction. Much of the work up to this point has revolved around settling the multi-layered guitar and synth parts into comfortable spaces within the structure of the pieces.
Vocals have hitherto been absent from the mixing equation thus far; and I was concerned that there might not be room for the singing, or that further embellishments via backing vocals, harmonies and double tracking might overload the already multi-layered texture of some of the more ambient works.
I also had to remember how to sing lead lines that were only briefly visited upon during the hasty writing and recording process of several of the older pieces. As I did with the synth parts, I've gone back to the demos Brian and I made during improvised rehearsal, and made sure all licks, motifs and inflections that work are ported across to the studio version.
New lyrics have been written to complement the sometime brief offerings I had to hand during the writing process. I've gone back to my notebooks used at the time, read around the original lyric sheet to get a feel for the context, and then penned fresh lines.
Once all the vocals are in the can, I'll apply the same judicious approach as I did to the guitars and synth to ensure nothing is too cluttered. This body of work will be as rich as anything I've produced, but I'll be careful to avoid things sounding too busy.