Dan, Ian and I recorded with John in Lansing this past weekend. We got all the drums done and Ian laid down most of the bass, which he’s going to finish when he has free time and can get together with John. So the new EP is going well. I’m going to be practicing my guitar parts and coming up with some keyboard stuff in the coming weeks and then I’ll head back up and record those as well. Also need to finish lyrics on a couple of the songs. I need to mine through my basement demos for any lines that stick out as usable.

Other than that, I bought an Alesis ControlPad, because I’ve been frustrated by my lack of ability to make loud drum noises (with real drums) at our condo. And inputting fake drums with a MIDI keyboard is tedious and unnatural. I’ve only messed around with the ControlPad a bit, but it’s pretty fun so far. I figured out how to set each pad to a different sound within FL Studio and worked on some drums for a idea I had a while ago. Nothing to share, but I’m pretty optimistic about the things I can do with it. It will never sound like real drums, obviously, but at least the input of fake drums will be more natural and make more sense using sticks-on-pads instead of fingers-on-keys. I plan to do some songs with it and post them at Part Time Songs really soon — hope to have some time to work with it over this long weekend. I’ll let you know how that works out and talk more about the ControlPad when I get a chance.

Anyway, just a few more hours of work! Have a great long weekend!