Gunnar Madsen Blog

I feel like a king. A good king. I had such a royal time recording at Skywalker Sound. When you drive through the gate, your jaw drops at the beauty of the place, the rolling green hills, longhorn cattle chewing grass, hawks circling above. Nestled against a hillside of olive trees and surrounded by grapevines is what appears to be a 150 year old building, some kind of huge barn of stone and wood. You walk through the doors, and the smell of fermenting grapes is noticeably absent. Something's different, off. Go through a few sets of double doors, and you're in heaven - If you love recording, that is. The smell of quality electronics giving off their heat, metal and plastic and glass, that's the smell in here. Yes, fermenting grapes or aging cheese is a 'better' smell, but if you love recording studios as much as I do, that technical smell can be quite heady, too. Through the huge wall of glass, you can see it -Acoustic Nirvana. A huge room the size of concert hall, made expressly for recording. It's a 5 minute walk just to get to the piano sitting in the middle of it. A lovely piano, fit for a king. Polished, gleaming, every note tuned perfectly, the pedals operating effortlessly and soundlessly, the keys giving way as if they were in love with your fingers. You sit. The red light turns on, you play. You play again, the red light glows red, you play and play and play, losing track of time. Eventually, your stomach tells you it's time to eat something. Reluctantly, you pull yourself away from the piano, and walk out the doors...

Hawks circle, cows chew grass, it's peaceful and beautiful. This is not a parking lot in Burbank blanketed by a brown hazy sky. This is paradise.

So, apart from feeling like I'd spent a few days at a five-star resort, I also got some great work done. I had prepared, and we were able to record everything in 2 long days. I'm now editing the takes (some pieces are one-take wonders, others will benefit from a bit of slicing and dicing) and working up the song order for the CD and writing the liner notes and etc. The CD will be done by this summer, as promised, but due to the exigencies of distribution, it won't be in stores and downloadable until late summer or fall.