Musical recording is a spiritual tonic

I've always wanted to have a home music studio. Over the years I periodically dabbled in music recording, starting as an adolescent using my father's old headphones as a microphone (which actually works) and singing onto one channel of the cassette tape while Crosby, Stills, and Nash performed on the other. When played back on "mono", it sounded like I was in the studio with the band, adding my own not-quite-perfect vocal harmony to the already rich mix. In college, I got a chance to experiment with a state of the art 4-track system and had great fun laying down multiple vocal and instrument tracks. I found the master tape from that session a few years ago and managed to convert it to digital format through a somewhat painstaking process. The final song, Julia Dream by Pink Floyd, can be downloaded here.

There are, of course, many recordings of the Intangibles. The vast majority are captured on simple cassette tapes. We never really sat down "in the studio" to work out songs, which made perfect sense since we only played covers and lived for the thrill and fear of live performance. A compilation of selected Intangibles songs can be accessed on this site

Times have changed. I recently acquired the key components of a home studio setup and now am able to produce high quality music at home. It's fairly amazing how much one can do with a laptop computer and a few pieces of relatively inexpensive hardware like the DigiDesign Mbox (see photo) which comes with a powerful software package called Pro Tools. I took the plunge, turned a corner of my living space into the official studio zone, and have been slowly discovering this universe by recording various bits of music as time permits.

I am offering three experiments for public consumption at this time. The first, created last night when I found myself unexpectedly free due to social plans gone awry, is the classic Dear Prudence. I just started layering harmonies on top of the root melody, added some digital effects, and was surprised at how full the final cut sounds. The next two are collaborations. Back in November, a couple of old friends (Jack Thorpe and Justin Burroughs) were in from out-of-town and we spent a Sunday morning jamming and recording. Everything was fully improvised with lyrics invented in real-time and only one take permitted per tune. Somewhat memorable cuts are arbitrarily titled 72 hours ago and sunday jam. These tracks feature me on rhythm guitar and vocals, Justin playing lead guitar, and Jack alternating between percussion and vocals.

After spending a bit more time learing the software and hardware, I plan to record all my original songs and will release them to the few willing to listen. Stay tuned for future updates on this very site.

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