Why Re Do A Project That Was Already Released?
Friday, August 15, 2008 at 08:24AM “I don't visit your website as often as I should. I did see the reasoning behind what you did on "traces..." on an older post, but still curious as to your frequency of changes. I redid a old set of mine ( after 9 years!) because I am not all that big a fan of auto racing anymore, but saw the diversity happening. It's still funny. “ 
Got this post from a friend of mine in New York and I thought that I would use it as a topic today.
What happens to a performer as they do the same songs over and over again at different shows, different things happen. Even the lyrics change as you play it repeatedly. You begin to see different perspectives on the song and on the arrangement. The piece evolves as you perform it. And the evolution is almost unconscious. You cannot stop it. It just happens. So that might be one reason that you decide to change something, though in this particular instance, I would simply rerecord the song on a different cd.
Another thing that might occur (and did occur for me regarding the original Traces of the Old Road), is one of sequencing changes. I realized that the CD set it self up so much more powerfully if I reversed the first and second song. The ambience of “Last Day of Summer” exactly set the mood for all the songs that follow and the lyric references that occur later all relate to that first song. The longing, the sadness, the rain and the “sun, safe on the horizon” the uplifting at the end which is mirrored in the last song; so I just had to resequence it.
Upon listening to the CD, I noticed that some of my intonation was not as wonderful as I had once thought it was. Perhaps I was hearing it better because I hadn’t been listening to it for several months like one does during the production of a CD. Perhaps the volume or even I’ve been listening more carefully to intonation because there is so much out of tune singing on the radio these days. Whatever, I decided to fix the intonation.
And opening an old recording is like opening a can of worms. I realized that in fact it was the guitar that was a little squirrely on one string, so I re did that guitar. Once I did that, then the flood gates opened and I fixed something on eight different songs, all of which I had to remix.
After that, I simply stopped. I realized that I could continue to work on this recording or I could start a new one. I opted for moving on, even though I have not one regret about what I did. I just felt that my fine tuning was going into the microscopic phase, so I stopped. The New Traces of the Old Road will be available on September 11, 2008 and there are still copies of the old version at CD Baby, as well as samples of all eleven songs, so you can hear the difference (once you have the new version, that is).
Sort of a sly commercial, but it will only happen just this once, I swear…and this time I mean it.
Reader Comments (1)
I think its more than a long commercial...I've always loved the backstage story...sometimes more that what is going on on stage...and besides you are doing what everyone else does eventually anyway..."Newly Remastered for the 20th...50th...100th...aniversery of its release!"
And you are giving us more insight to your creative process...I am in favour of a DVD on the making of your next album...