How I wrote/recorded my album "Disposable" (2025)

The origins

Writing and recording this album took exactly 7 months and 5 days. Plus a week to finish mixing it before I sent it off for mastering. I guess it's worth noting I was working 30-50 hours a week (variably) during the entire production process, so this is an album I made in my "leisure-time."

The way I approached the songwriting was to parse through some half-completed ideas (just two or three barely completed melodies over some chords) I had saved from around two or three summers ago. These were ideas I abandoned before further developing but knew had some sort of potential. I started from there. I hadn't written anything with vocals since then, (I took a three year break) so I picked up where I had left off.

The Mosrite gospel copy guitar I used on the album

One of my missions for this album was to add more song-parts than previously. I think some of my previous EPs suffer from being a bit simplistic. The songs have like only two or three parts, whereas I've noticed a lot of popular rock songs will have maybe 6-10 song parts-- mini bridges, guitar solos, outros, little breaks in songs, etc. For this album I tried to add more variation. 

I completed seventeen demos total, and 12 songs made the final album.

I've been recording myself for almost twenty years, so I'm comfortable doing it by now. I've created a system where I can get ideas down fast and move from drums to guitar to bass, to vocals seamlessly. 

Using analog gear and keeping everything nearby is key. I can flip a few switches, pick up my guitar or sit down at the microphone and click "Record" and I'm tracking the album like it's nothing. Just like that. Everything (the gain levels, mic orientations, etc.) is already dialed into the analog mixer which just gets A/D converted via the interface. I never touch the mixer or the interface once I dial in the gain knobs, they just sit there. I only touch the mixer's ON/OFF switch. 

For guitar purposes, having a pedal-train is key, because I can tune up my guitar with my KORG pedal tuner and I'm tracking within seconds. What I'm trying to say is, I leave everything not only set up, but dialed the entire time I am tracking. Yes, for seven months straight. Another critical piece of gear in terms of this idea-- several 25 foot long "Pig Hog" XLR cables that allowed me to have a livable space (I recorded this album in my living room) as they essentially acted as one big snaked set of XLRs, along the wall of the room. That way I never had to step over any cables for seven months straight-- instead they are routed along the wall.

Notes on vocals and tracking

To jump right into tracking notes, a few songs required many repetitions. For example, the song "Lovebomb" was recorded in full five times in a row before I felt it was good. The vocals for "Turn the page" were redone several times (maybe about ten or twelve full takes) until I felt good about how I sounded.

The amp I used for guitar (absolutely cranked it this time around)

One fun fact is that I played the entire album on guitar and bass while standing up. I sat down for all the vocals-- a practice I quite enjoy. In the past I used to think you should stand up for vocals and probably it's best if you want to sing as best as possible to stand (because of air flow), however sitting provides a comfort level that makes for more natural vocal recordings for me. It's also worth mentioning I recorded the entire album without any monitoring system in place. 

I monitored my own vocals by artfully displacing the right earphone of my headphones (Sennheiser HD 280 Pro) while tracking vocals. I believe this process also contributes to some sort of mental magic when listening back and evaluating my own vocals. Because I haven't fully heard them (via monitoring) until they are recorded, once I listen to playback I have a certain percentage (say, 35%) of unknown vocal-delivery tone that I am able to evaluate further. It's a strategy to remove myself somewhat from becoming too familiar with my own voice while I'm tracking vocals. I focus less on the actual sound of my own voice and more on the feelings of how I'm singing that are inaudible. Over the course of the album there's only one track that I believe I could've done slightly better vocals on. 

Really the only mistake I noticed I made while tracking (and fixed many times) was singing a little too "hard" at times. I preferred to chill out a bit on the vocals and not try as hard. On one song I was super chilled out on the demo, and the final version I pushed my voice a little, which is sort of like emo-rock... but whatever.

How I make ideas

Early on in the writing/recording process, I felt like I had a lot of ideas and songwriting was effortless. I used a notebook to draft out ideas. As I started to write and record new songs I drafted out lengthy lists of song ideas (conceptual) that went to the 20+ range. I could draft an idea that would say something like, "Breeders Title TK guitar sound... Song about liquid metal/mercury, flow" and in my mind that would be enough of a starting point to create a snippet of music that would set the origin in place for the creation of at least an introductory melody over chords, maybe a drum part... and I could expand on that to create a tune. So I had a lot of ideas penned out like that and also names of B-sides I have recorded that I could've used as new material (although I never did this, and instead opted for writing everything from scratch).

I felt like everything was going well for the entire writing process, almost the entire duration. Only once did I make a time-wasting mistake and it was spending two weeks writing a song called "Pancake syrup" that conceptually held my interest, but once actualized didn't live up to my expectations.

More notes on engineering/creative process

Towards the end of writing and recording it's almost like I "blacked out." I just kept going without getting in my own head at all. I became very determined and serious once I had finished the twelve tracks to make sure I completed the album tracking correctly and make it as good as possible, but also making sure I was loose and carefree from a musical standpoint. This involved a significant amount of re-tracking songs once all twelve were written-- I'll elaborate more on this in a bit.

My pedalboard. The KORG tuner is my favorite.

I think a truth to music recording (and making art in general) is you have to balance between being natural, carefree and comfortable, effortless, really... but at the same time maintaining a very high level (systematic, almost) of focus and discipline-- if you can master and balance these two modes of thought, and also take a clear picture of what you're trying to do from your mind's eye into reality as cleanly as possible (while allowing for natural mistakes to occur) that's for the best. 

Personally, and I've said this before, if I'm tracking a song and there's some sort of small "mistake" on the recording, if it's something that's small enough, it's tolerable to me, insofar as... if I were to redo it, could I absolutely with full confidence do it better? If the answer is yes, I'll redo it. Many times, if it's a guitar take, the answer is yes-- I can replay stuff on guitar and almost always fix any errors because it's easy for me, but on vocals or drums it might be more subtle and if it's good enough, I just take it. Drums and the way I record mine (using only a few mics) heavily rely on dynamics-- if I hit a cymbal or snare an eighth of an inch differently it can change a lot from take to take. On one album cut I smashed my China cymbal in such a way that I wouldn't be able to re-create it in 100 tries if I had to. 

To me, there aren't any deal-breaker errors on the album from a technical standpoint. I spent extra time fixing every little thing, so that when I listen back in full nothing bothers me from the recorded audio. 

View of the drums, the orange music stand holds my reference sheets

I wonder about taking more time to write different bass lines that maybe hit on the root notes but also maybe walk along a bit more instead of being pinned to the guitar chords... but this can get tricky because I might inadvertently alter the harmonies in a negative way... so I normally don't do this. If I had to write entirely new, unique bass lines for every track I could potentially do it but I'm not sure how well and how long it would take. My approach would likely be to write melodies that matched the vocals but were variations on a theme (using a guitar, likely) and then use those as basslines. As much as I would like to do this, I evaluate the recordings on the spot for instantaneous feeling of yes or no and that's how I determine the songs are filled out enough. If I were to then spend extra time editing bass lines I'd be delaying the album's completion significantly while also messing with the fabric of the harmonies quite a bit and so it's a delicate task I often bypass when recording.

I did re-track some bass, though. For example, I knew I needed to play quarter notes on bass for 4-6 bars of a song instead of dotted half notes on a specific (unnamed) song. To fix it I re-tracked the entire song on bass again, two months after having originally recorded the song. I could've just left it but I knew I had to redo it because it would matter. When it came to this album I sorted through everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it lived up to my own quality standard.

How I tracked, then re-tracked

Believe it or not, as mentioned, I re-tracked a lot of the album. In fact, six songs (half the album) was re-recorded in three non-stop eight hour recording sessions by myself. I stayed up until two or three in the morning doing vocals on some songs, then clocked into work the next day at noon. Not bad. The next day, rinse and repeat. 

For example, In one seven hour session I fully re-tracked "I don't know," and "Ruin my life." A day later, I re-tracked "Seasonal" and "Day in the Life" in one night. And on the third day, "Fell into this world" and "Tomorrow is a new day" were re-tracked in a single night. This all happened without much thought about what I was doing, aside from mechanical considerations. I just knew it had to be done so I just did it without thinking. Like I said, I blacked out.

Some of the re-tracked songs I hadn't actually played since I wrote them (back in August or September 2024) so the sensation of re-learning them on guitar paired with the tactile feeling of smashing the drums (and using a new metal snare I had acquired) lent the performances to have more energy and excitement. I surprised myself on how enthusiastic the end results were compared to the demo versions. I had fun re-learning the parts too.

Two guitars and a bass.... in front of my kick drum

I mostly write using major barre chords (though I added a few different chords into the mix for this album), so it's easy to play the songs, but also, easy to remember how to play them. That's one reason I almost exclusively use major barre chords-- it stylistically helps my vocals sound more ambiguous (minor chords + my soft voice = a bit weak) and if I were to use complicated chords/riffs I may not be able to remember how to play the songs. Using the barre chords ensures I can play these songs for years to come without forgetting how to.

Example of the reference sheets I use to track drums

In terms of drums, I always use reference sheets I draw out myself using shapes for song parts (shaded rectangle = verse with vocals, triangle = chorus, circle = bridge, swirly design = post-chorus, etc). 

But anyway, to give an example of how my drum tracking goes... when I was re-tracking drums for "Tomorrow is a new day" I re-learned the song on drums over the course of maybe a half hour and within about another twenty minutes and had completed the recorded drum take. I used my system of reference sheets and my orange music stand to get it done.

I guess one key to the album was the pairing of my OCD distortion pedal with another guitar pedal I'm not sure I will reveal what it is... though it's not pictured above. But it adds that shoegaze sound you hear on the songs. I also used a DS-1 pedal and definitely figured out how to make it sound good, there's a specific setting you need to have it on. I also used an MXR multi-flanger and a electro-harmonix "Holy Grail" reverb pedal as well. I probably should've spent more time dialing in crazy guitar sounds and adding overdubs but I pretty much abide by the Steve Albini rule of evaluation where upon listening back, you ask yourself, "Are you instantly pleased by the sound you're hearing back?" If yes, then you're done. That's how I go about the recording process as a whole, really. 

I played a sonic blue Stratocaster that was custom built (lightweight) and a Mosrite gospel copy guitar on the album. Also my Spector bass (through the Radial DI) which is probably the most expensive instrument I own, believe it or not. Also I made sure everything had fresh batteries, including the pickups on my bass. I also made sure every guitar had new strings. I also spent one night doing a setup on my strat which involved carefully sanding down the nut and adjusting the intonation--something I tweaked over the course of about three days. One interesting note was I listened to the Russian Circles album "Blood Year" while setting up my guitar and I had a fun time that night.

When re-tracking I was really into playing the strat so I don't believe I re-tracked anything using the Mosrite copy, aside from some overdubs on "Seasonal" if I'm not mistaken. The sound of the Mosrite copy guitar can be heard on the song "Figure It Out" for sure, and its comparable to a Les Paul type of "chord-banging" sound, if you ask me. 

Don't get me wrong I play the Mosrite copy on half the album. It's more thick and chunky compared to the more spindly sounds of the strat. Put more simply, the strat has a different style of note articulation. For reference, the strat has Telnico V pickups and I recorded using all pickup configurations, occasionally using the rhythm pickup, as I found it gave me a pleasing sensation of fizzing soda (Mug root beer, anyone?) as I played it through the amp. 

For reference, again, my amp was absolutely cranked when recording, this time around. Not so cranked that it was at ear-bleeding levels, but way louder than it needed to be to be considered "loud" in the room I recorded in. Into a Shure PG56 mic that was 15 inches away, slightly off-center from the cone's center. Some guitar tracks were recorded through the same mic I used for vocals, which is a Nady SPC-15. At one point I'd actually move the mic from the guitar amp and reset it on the boom stand for vocals, but eventually I just plugged and unplugged the XLR cable to achieve this switch off and also swapped out the Nady (condenser) for the Shure (dynamic).

My Yamaha analog mixer, never touched it once dialed

I tried to be as disciplined as possible with the engineering this time around, in terms of keeping the mixer dialed, not tearing down gear, and tracking bass on every song. The only piece of "discipline" I left behind was the use of a pop filter. 

There's some philosophy to recording yourself, and not taking yourself too seriously is part of it. If I'm setting up the pop filter it seems like I might be "trying too hard," but my vocal takes are as casual and comfortable as possible, yet there are some "p" sound plosives I had to spend two mixing sessions fixing. This involved sorting through the mixes again and applying a 100db roll off EQ to every instance. There were 44 total instances. I wrote them all down in a notebook while evaluating the pops through my HiFI setup. I actually parsed through, listened back and evaluated all of the plosives against the time-coded notes twice-- once at night, and then again the next morning again after sleeping in.

When I was tracking I always used a foam covering for the microphone. I must add, I was aware of the p sounds while tracking after a while and did my best to avoid popping my ps into the mic as I sang on songs, for sure. So, I did my best with it, without ever busting out the pop filter. It wasn't too bad to sort through and fix... just a slight annoyance. I wanted to send the best possible mixes off for mastering so this was yet again a further step I took to ensure I was making the best album I could possibly make.

One key to the recording and mixing process is that I always kept the stereo drum bus at 0dB and mixed the bass, guitar and vocals from there, for every single song. Easy as pie.

Re-recording process

To re-iterate what I was talking about before, I had "finished" all the songs/demos, but then I kept recording. I only did that after I evaluated all of the songs while driving around late at night. Over the course of two days I knew I needed to re-record six songs off the album. Certain aspects of the original recordings were either flawed, or bothering me in the fact the snare sound wasn't as forceful as the steel snare.

As mentioned, I had recently acquired a steel snare drum that was adding a different sound to the songs, so it was used on all the re-recordings. In fact, it appears on eight of the twelve tracks. The four tracks it does not appear on provide a nice balance for the listener. I believe the steel snare (and how hard I was hitting it) could become a bit grating for the full album and possibly cause ear fatigue, so I'm happy some of the songs have my wooden snare on them, instead. It's certainly a warmer tonality.

One interesting part of the writing/recording process was how I wrote and recorded the final three songs on the album. I put all three songs to tape pretty easily, just off-the-cuff. I had the lyrics written out for two of the songs from months prior just waiting to be used over music. I spent a few weeks procrastinating on putting the words to music until one day I was finally ready.

Normally I work the other way (music first then words), but I'm comfortable doing either, really. Vocal melodies are somewhat independent of the actual written words (aside from engrained syllabic inflections), and many times you can sing certain words into a melody of choice. Though occasionally the lyrics won't actually work and will need to be rewritten if they were composed without music. In my experience, at least. I have written several notebooks full of lyrics that were actually unusable to reach this conclusion/hypothesis. It seems this time around I was inspired by words to create music that would be able to express the ideas the words conveyed. In previous music writing sessions I was much more focused on music first, so this was a nice change of pace, and probably the result of feeling more comfortable with my musical compositions forming as per my intentions. 

Where I sit and watch Star Trek on mute while listening back

I mixed those first two (of the final 3 tracks on the album) songs as best as possible right after writing/recording and then did not listen to them at all until all three were done. It was about a two-and-a-half-week period. This required discipline and the thinking is that once you listen back you're more apt to write something too similar to what you've just written (the melodies seep into your subconscious). I didn't listen back for that reason, to avoid repeating the song twice. When I finally did listen back it was a cool feeling because I didn't even remember the songs at all. 

I definitely felt I could have continued writing more shoegaze-type songs but then again, once I finished three (and rounded out an album of twelve songs) I quit while I was ahead. Similarly, I usually required a week off between writing songs for this album. At my best I believe I wrote about three songs (completely from nothing) in three weeks, which was definitely a speed record of mine.

There was something about this album's writing process that seemed like I was being guided along by what you might call a "Guardian Angel" or something. It's like every step of the way I knew what I needed to do and it was never a struggle to complete that task. 

In the past I've struggled to fill out an album, but this time around it's like it was pre-destined that this was going to happen, no matter what. It's hard to describe but it's like a hand was guiding me the entire time to complete the songs. Whenever I needed a specific instrumental or tool to aide in the recording/production process it was instantly at my fingertips. Whenever I thought about what to do next I felt at ease with the decision making process and just went for it. The recording process and writing process, especially towards the end of tracking was very seamless in that way. 

I must admit I practiced meditation for several months during the final stages of the writing process, though never focused on music during my meditations. I also took a lot of time off during the seven months wherein I didn't track any music or think about music whatsoever. At one point I was rendered unable to play guitar for a solid month due to an injury, and thankfully recovered. I watched the World Series during these times and researched saloon music. I stared at my keyboard and wanted badly to play it, but my body wouldn't allow for that. Eventually after a month off, I recovered.

Now what?

After completing my EP "Can't be Anyone but Myself" back in 2021 I continued to write and write and record more for a solid year afterwards, which ultimately led to the material getting worse and worse, in my opinion. All the best outtakes from that continued writing made my second EP "Mike's Garage" which is basically a bunch of B-sides. 

After I finished tracking for "Disposable" and filled out a thirty-minute album I was more cautious this time around to just stop. In fact, I might just stop entirely with singing over music. I may just pull a Billy Joel and claim, "I can't write songs anymore." Not because I can't technically, but because I'm pretty old and a 40 year old singing rock songs comes off a bit cheezy, doesn't it? Perhaps some more mellow, acoustic music is in the cards. I'm taking a considerable amount of time off, first, though. That's for sure. If you've followed along with me at all you'll know I've been changing my musical proclivities to Handel and Bach on synthesizers for the past few years and that's where I still aim to be, going forward. It's the most satisfying way for me to engage with music as of now.

With "Disposable" I finally indulged in something I've been avoiding for a decade which is writing what I call "chick songs." The meaning of that is up for you to decipher, but I definitely wrote a lot of them for this album. So it's probably best I step back for a while. The good news is I'm still juiced about playing vintage synthesizers and the music of composers like Bach, Handel and maybe even Rachmaninoff on those 80's synthesizers, and I will absolutely continue that project whole-heartedly. I'm also interested in saloon/ragtime music as well so my desire to improve as a keyboardist is still alive. And, if you think about it, if I wanted to play a concert I certainly have enough material to front a 3-piece. And no I'm not playing bass... I'm playing guitar and singing. Best believe that.

"Disposable" along with my EPs were all written with the idea of a 3-piece band, which is why I never go too crazy with overdubs or creating some sort of sonic collage that's impossible to recreate, although when I listen to a lot of studio albums (Smashing Pumpkins, anyone?) I hear a lot of overdubs and noises etc. added in, so I start to think aww sh*t, maybe I should've added more stuff in there for people to listen to. But strangely it seems I can listen back to these stripped down recordings and get something new from them each time, which is a good sign. It seems following the recording ethos of my most dissected album (as a fan) In Utero has reaped some sort of benefits. I've created something that to me sounds beautiful one day, and perhaps lackluster the next, and so on. At the least it's forced me to think, and hopefully the listener feels similarly. Moving along, back to some thoughts on the finished product.

My thoughts on the outcome

Overall I'm definitely happy I did so much re-recording on Disposable because it helped the album sound better and more polished. Plus, some of my writing process is to track while I write, so having the demos as reference for several months, then re-tracking them from memory provided final cuts with more energy and looseness. 

I literally could not sing "Day in the life" at first because it was too complicated (a lot of words), but when I re-tracked it I was able to just sing the song in one take because I had memorized it. The demo was sort of pieced together.

Similarly, some of my other demos sounded a little disjointed because I also wrote them as I tracked them. Some of the demos also contained literal flaws like playing the wrong notes on guitar. I lived with those flaws, as it was just a reference anyway, and became dangerously close to just "living with" those errors forever-- some of them almost made the final cut, until I told myself, no not this time and re-recorded everything that was flawed to the best of my ability. For example, the original versions of "I don't know" and "Ruin my life" while good, contained such flaws.

Big fan of the "partscaster" Stratocaster I used

Something I improved on for this recording process was the idea of focus. In the past I would've let issues from my personal life affect the result of the recordings, but not this time. But I can't tell you how to improve on this, other than with practice. I guess a good comparison is playing soccer. When you're on a soccer team and at practice at the field, you tend to "forget all the bullshit" and only focus on playing soccer. It's almost meditative in a sense. Same goes for skateboarding. 

At this point in time, same goes for me and music, but it wasn't always that way. Being a musician/artist requires "sensitivity" but sometimes you can start becoming paranoid and develop some sort of OCD level of sensitivity to where you can't perform unless you have some sort of perfect environment that becomes almost impossible to find in natural life. Writing and recording this album in isolation is a great pleasure and honor because it affords me the solace to operate at pretty much the highest level I possibly can. I tried my best to split the arrow of focus/discipline and artistic effort as best I could. You've gotta remember I'm also engineering myself here and evaluating everything myself. It's quite an undertaking to complete something like this without help from anyone whatsoever, completely by myself and in total silence from others. Not a single person was privy to my activities or heard any of the music as I recorded it, other than me. The first person to hear the album was of course the mastering engineer.

Philosophy behind self-recording

Taking yourself too seriously is an Achilles heel, so then how do you accomplish anything that projects balance, completion and professionalism in its presentation? Can you do this while also being "non-serious?" The answer to this hypothetical question requires going a further step beyond just having a quiet environment and it's something I've tried to conquer with my recording of "Disposable." After listening back to the album I'm left asking myself, "Could I have written even better music?" In my mind, the answer is yes, but in reality, the answer is just "maybe."

Music is more emotion-based than sports, so it's easy to let your creativity get stuffed up by outside influence. And if you've read this article you can tell I'm weary of naively forging ahead with unrealized delusions about my ability to pen more and more good songs as if it were just that easy. It might be, but I'm a little bit seasoned by now and sort of jaded when it comes to hitting a songwriting "hot streak" as it were. I'd rather stop and not press my luck. Once you've think you've got it figured out, you slowly realize you were wrong.

But in terms of letting outside influences affect or not affect me, over time I've become better at separating what I'm doing as a leisure activity (writing and recording music) from my personal life, to where I am no longer affected by what's happening outside of the music. 

If you were to be a fly on the wall I think it might shock you how I was able to write and record a lot of this stuff after dealing with specific situations outside of the music writing. Of course, music is somewhat like therapy and that element is critical to what I'm describing here. But in the past I would've let the outside influences hinder my progress and affect the final result, but this time around I was much more ruthless and very focused on completing the album, no matter what... The strange part is, I can't even tell you why. I didn't feel driven to finishing this album for any specific reason, other than just having fun, I guess? I can't even tell you why I recorded it other than I like music and wanted to create something I'd want to hear, I guess. I don't even know!! 

But as I was saying, when I was writing and recording I did it in a way where nothing else affected me, and I did not even consider that a possibility. Strange but true. I surprised myself when I listened back to some of it. Sort of wondering just how and why have I recorded this? I didn't think about anything, I just did it. There's something to be said for this type of meditative denial. Also bear in mind I wasn't supposed to be recording this album in the first place. I'm supposed to be playing Bach on my Korg DW-6000 synthesizer until I finish my 80's synth album. 

This wasn't supposed to happen, as I was in the process of self-denial in terms of recording songs. Until I started to see it come together and then I didn't stand in the way of the natural progression of events and how it all played out. In fact, quite the opposite as I've mentioned I felt someone else's hand was guiding me towards completion the whole time, with sort sort of mystical even magical timing. I always agreed with these messages from the universe (or whatever you want to call them) and let them help guide me towards completing this music.

Where's the album?

The album is done I am just working on the cover art. It will likely be available first on YouTube on Mike's Garage page, then on streaming services and (maybe?) available as a CD-R with a hand-painted jacket/sleeve. I haven't decided how to release the album quite yet. But when I do it'll be posted here too!! Until next time. - Mike