This week I recorded with two of my former roommates, Pat Boerner and his fiancé Brittany Miller. This is actually the first song Pat ever wrote and Brittany helped out with, and now years later it’s finally recorded!

Something To Say
by Pat Boerner and Brittany Miller

Hey don’t you fret now I know you’ll make it
You’re feeling blue and your thoughts are racing
Just breathe in slow and let me squeeze my baby

Hey baby don’t wait too long to stop thinking
You keep so quiet, you’re not helping anybody
Well don’t be afraid, you can tell me

I don’t know why you keep me so far away
But I’ll wait, I’ll stay
Until you think you’ve got something to say
You keep me so far away
But I’ll wait, I’ll stay
Until you think you’ve got something to say

You’re so composed but I know you’re faking
You try to smile but your lips are shaking
So I’ll be here when you just can’t take it anymore

Hey baby don’t wait too long to stop thinking
You keep so quiet, you’re not helping anybody
Well don’t be afraid, you can tell me

I don’t know why you keep me so far away
But I’ll wait, I’ll stay
Until you think you’ve got something to say
You keep me so far away
But I’ll wait, I’ll stay
Until you think you’ve got something to say
Until you think you’ve got something to say
Cause if you think you’ve got something
Then say it to me baby
If you think you’ve got something to say
Think you’ve got something to say

Pat and Brittany have written and recorded several awesome songs, many for the SpinTunes songwriting contest (check out “Baby Go To Sleep” – one of my favorites). So I was excited to work with them and bounce ideas off of each other.

We started by recording pat’s piano part. I was considering recording the audio signal from Pat’s keyboard, but I decided instead to record only the MIDI signal from his keyboard. If you haven’t tried using MIDI, I highly recommend checking it out. Instead of recording the actual sounds from a keyboard, you record the raw data of which notes are pressed when. The old-school equivalent of MIDI is when people recorded piano rolls for player pianos. The sweet part about MIDI is that you can change the timing of notes, change the pitch of indiviual notes, or draw completely new notes in. You can also decide at any time what synth instrument you want to play the part.

So once we had the piano part down, we moved onto Pat’s vocals. He knew from his own recording experience that he would want to do a bunch of takes, so we ended up doing about seven of them. He pretty much nailed all of them, but it just gave me a bunch of different options for my “best of” mix that I did for the final vocal line.

Over the next few days, Pat recorded the trombone and trumpet lines, we assembled a MIDI drum track, I recorded the bass and guitar parts, and Brittany recorded the harmonies she wrote. It was that simple! Ha, if only. It took quite a bit of work to get all those parts recorded and mixed. The final count is 40 different instrument tracks, not including the takes we didn’t use. One night I stayed up til 2:30am recording the guitar, then woke up with an idea at 5:30am and recorded until I had to go into work. Totally worth it though.

Check back this week – my roommate Jeff Schwinghammer shot some behind the scenes footage, and is editing it as I type this post!