The Irving Sessions // Vol. Three: Contact
02.06.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Contact (The Irving Sessions) from David Alan Wright on Vimeo.
Audio:

Vol. Three brings us to an interesting place complete with a new milestone.  My birthday was three days ago, and to mark a quarter century worth of living, I opted to wear a different sweatshirt (which, as it turns out, happens to be a thoughtful birthday present).  Besides being generally cleaner this time around, I also come bearing a song yet to be debuted to the world.  Though not a new composition, I couldn’t find an archived set list with this song included.  I wrote this song in September of 2005 and recorded it shortly afterward, but I’m not sure of the exact date as it was captured on my standalone Boss BR-532 and I no longer have the original session.  I know I dumped it into GarageBand in July of ‘07 to get rid of an unusually long introduction, but it was recorded much earlier.

I never played this song live because it’s one of the more difficult ones to get right.  In fact, until recording this version for The Irving Sessions, I really didn’t have a good grasp of how many measures to use in certain places.  Nor could I figure out whether it was better to play with a click track or without.  I decided to go sans click for the new version and I think it turned out quite alright.

There were a few firsts for Vol. Three that I’d like to call out:

(a) I ended up keeping my first take, which definitely fits the spirit and purpose of these sessions.  My goal is to record the sessions live – audio and video – and avoid overdubs altogether.  Though I try to start and finish each volume in one night, the first two songs required a few attempts before I got them right.  Improvement on V3?  Perhaps.  Laziness overflowing?  Hard to say, but see (c) below.

(b) I had a few technical difficulties that resulted in a stop at Target on the way home from work and a trip to Guitar Center before the session was officially underway.  See, I have yet to invest in a couple of solid microphones, which makes recording live tracks a bit problematic.  For “Contact” I decided to run my guitar through a 1/4″ cable directly into the recorder but I was soon thrown off by a low humming noise to which I couldn’t quite pin down the source.  Unable to locate my spare 1/4″ cable, I decided to pick up a new one (hence the Target run heading home from the office).  Problem unsolved.  Next, after consulting my friend Justin, I decided a DI box might just do the trick.  Realizing I couldn’t make it to Guitar Center by the time they closed their doors for the night, I called ahead and they set aside a Radial ProDI for me and, believe it or not, agreed to wait a few extra minutes for me to arrive.  (They just turned me into a loyal customer and advocate).  Excited to give the new setup a whirl, I plugged everything in…and…the buzz was still there.  Next I borrowed a ground lift from downstairs – the $.99 solution rather than $99, mind you – and still, a buzz.  Baffled, I swapped guitars and sure enough, that did the trick.  So, two hours later I was ready to rock n’ roll after discovering I might need to take one of my guitars into the shop.

(c) I fell asleep on my office floor while mixing the song.  Though, as noted in (a) above, just one take was required to capture the song, I managed to wear myself out enough to fall asleep on the hardwood for almost an hour.

So, what you find here is a two-day effort, which, I believe makes it all the more special.  Below you’ll find the rough demo version I recorded sometime in 2005 for the sake of comparison.  The tempos, structure, etc. are fairly similar, but hopefully you feel the ‘09 version is a bit more polished and complete.  I would love to hear your thoughts on either take.

Version 1 / Recorded 2005, Nashville, TN

Version 2 / Recorded 02.06.09, Minneapolis, MN