Deliverance

I mentioned in an earlier post that VOP has just finished recording. Here is a list of the songs along with the arranger, or deranger, depending on your view point.
1. Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing (Tim Rumsey)
2. We Pray To Thee (Unsure of the arranger I know it is an old King's Heralds Piece)
3. Didn't My Lord Deliver (Wayne Hooper)
4. Old Rugged Cross (Walt Harrah)
5. Come To Me (Wayne Hooper)
6. Set Me As A Seal (Rene Clausen)
7. Down By The Riverside (Kirby Shaw)
8. Holy Is The Lord (Morten J Luvaas)
9. Man Of Sorrows (Jon Zehr)
10. Create In Me (Walt Harrah)
11. Wonderful Peace (Wayne Hooper)
12. Kids Song Medley including This little Light Of Mine/He's Got The Whole World In His Hands/Jesus Loves The Little Children (Tim Rumsey)
13. Bright New World (Unknown)
14. Benediction (Jon Zehr)
I must say this recording session was by far the most difficult I have been a part of. Physically and emotionally draining. It isn't very fun to realize your not as good as you thought or do not know the songs as well as you thought. Also, have you tried standing for 12 hours a day? I don't believe the songs were harder but our engineer (McVey) pushed us farther than he ever has before (which we wanted him to do). We worked hard on making everything rhythmical, specifically breaths. We discovered when we all breathed together at the beginning of the song the take would invariably be a keeper. He also managed to get us to do more note bending then we have done in the past. One day Josh's dad, Nathan, was there and we were working on Wonderful Peace. He was there roughly two hours and we were a big disappointment to him I am sure. When he left we still did not have a keeper. The reason for this is based on the fact that we had to unlearn what we had learned. We were not being rhythmical and it sounded pathetic. We did finally get it down and it sounds fairly good now but at the time I was beginning to hate the song. It was very draining emotionally and physcalogicaly. Some people think when we are recording we are on vacation, not true, my little friend. I know some people wonder why we would spend so much time on one song. We as a group have decided the better the product, the clearer the message. I am currently listening to my copy of the reference CD and am listening for whatever I think sounds goofy. In all honesty I think this is the best album I have been a part of. However, I am not sure that it is better than the Love So Amazing album recorded by the original group. Going back to four guys was not really an issue in the studio because we do a lot of dubbing. It is more difficult in a program, I have not figured out how to sing out of both sides of my mouth. The two Rumsey pieces were arranged for five voices so we asked Lyndon to help on those two songs. It was fun to sing with him again. We flew McVey in from Colorado to be our engineer. Due to his schedule we were only able to do a very rough mix before he needed to go home. He is currently working on the album in his spare time and will be getting us another reference CD in a few weeks. Because of this we are hoping the album is available by Thanksgiving but I think it will be the first of the year.