What an amazing day yesterday.  It will take me a while to put my thoughts about it together.  Up at 4 AM and out the door, I arrived just in time for my 10:00 session.  

Capitol Records--Hollywood and Vine--a building filled with musical history.  After standing on John Lennons' Star in the sidewalk outside, I'm sitting in a room where so many great albums have been polished up.  Ron McMaster has been Mastering for Capitol for 25 years--a guy who loves his job and does it well.  

We took out the first song, 'Another Piece Of me', and started talking about what I was after--what the album meant to me--and what kind of sound would help bring that out.  He started adjusting knobs and the music began to lift up and become three dimensional.  By the time he was done with the first song, it sounded like I was playing it right in the room.  For a CD that's just guitar/vocal, that intimacy  is what I wanted to hear.  I'm not a great guitar  player, but I use that instrument to really drive the songs forward and Ron was able to give it a very full yet natural sound that I'm really happy with.

We went through all the songs one at a time, bringing out the character  of each song and then comparing it to the first one looking for continuity while still maintaining the personality of each one.  7 hours later I walked out with a beautiful Master recording.

When I first took on this project in July, I wasn't sure what the end result would be like, being my first attempt at anything with guitar as well as my first released project with vocals.  I'm so happy to be able to present these songs in such a great sounding and professional manner.

Afterward, I had a brief visit with Barry Keys, an artist friend from North Hollywood, and then scrambled back to  the airport for the trip home, arriving safe and sound at 12:30 AM.  A most amazing 20 hours!