Cutting Out the Middleman (Even When That’s You)

Today I explain how things suddenly became much easier once I stopped getting in the way.

With all the guitar lines finished, the next job was sorting the bass. Having both Adrien and Ant involved turned out to be a massive advantage for several reasons. They’re both excellent players, they’ve worked together for years in Lost Brethren, and they’re completely comfortable sharing files and recording remotely. More importantly, they actually understand music theory.

While Adrien was learning the guitar parts, he transcribed everything properly and sent over sheet music for every song. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I trusted that Ant would. By the time I spoke to him, all the guitar parts and notation were already done.

From that point on, bass lines started arriving daily. Within four days, every track was finished. All I had to do was throw the two guitar lines and bass into GarageBand, apply my usual terrible guitar tone, do a very rough mix, and send the files to the drummer.

Lesson learned: once again, the less I’m involved, the smoother everything runs — which is becoming slightly uncomfortable to admit.

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