I began working with a new engineer last night for my upcoming full-length CD. Her name is Vivian Stohl. Her studio, Two Tomatoes, is located in the East Village of New York City. My dear friend, Lee Frisari, who is going to work as the producer on the recording, recommended Vivian, and I couldn’t have been happier with our mini-session last night. We talked about my overall vision for the CD, including what kind of sound I’m hoping to end up with. I brought her samples of recordings I like, which consisted of some songs by Gillian Welch, Patty Griffin, and Amos Lee, who I’ve been listening to a lot of recently. The nicest part of the evening for me was definitely getting to try one song of just me on vocals and guitar as a trial run to see how it feels to work together. We also experimented with a few different mics to see what worked well with my voice and guitar. Wow, what great mics can do! Finally, we talked about dates and agreed that June will be a good time to get started on recording. I’m be spending the next month tweaking my performance and laying down scratch tracks in Lee’s home studio of vocals and guitar along with a click/drum track provided by Lee. Lee and I are looking to use this as a basis to start with that we can take into Vivian’s studio.