Hymns and Songs for Living: Phase II – 2019 to 2000
The Long Hiatus
The extended hiatus in completing the Hymns and Songs for Living album between phase I and phase II was driven by many competing things in the lives of both David Goettee and Ms. Heidi Gerber-Salins.
However, that extended hiatus gave the opportunity for numerous creative exchanges between Mr. Goette and Ms. Gerber-Salins that developed numerous guiding thoughts for improvements in the sonic quality for the envisioned final product. David critically analyzed existing draft materials, and brainstormed those thoughts with Ms. Heidi Gerber-Salins for building on the foundation completed in phase I. Those processes led to the detailed specifications for enhancments to more fully flesh out harmonies and accompaniments.
Examples of improvements identified, included:
The few hymns where additional vocal harmonies would help;
Hymns where the sound of the electronic keyboard accompaniments imitating pipe organ were bothersome;
Hymns where the "ear candy" for other percussion instrument accompaniments that was added with the electronic keyboards were bothersome;
One or two hymns where there was good material, but draft mix needed to be reworked.
Actions in Phase II
In his role as Associate Producer, Mr. Bill McElroy:
Reached out to persons he knew in the choral industry in the Ashland, Virginia regional area (Richmond to Fredericksburg) for recommendations of vocal artists in the area with skills that could provide the needed additional vocal harmony parts;
Nogotiated access to the best pipe organ in the Ashland area; and
Negotiated participation of the Professor at Randolph Macon College who teaches organ, to play the replacement pipe organ accompaniments. That included using a number of alternative accompaniment tunes on various verses of some hymns.
Ms. Heidi Gerber-Salins of All Access Audio of Silver Spring, MD, made time available from her teaching schedule to provide some post production audio processing. Unfortunately a car crash limited how much of that she was able to do. After the crash, David obtained needed software and performed the needed post production audio processing.
All other work on revisions to finalize this recording were performed by Mr. Bill McElroy of Slipped DISC of Ashland, VA. They included:
Scheduling and managing addition of vocal harmonies on hymns identified;
Re-recording Welcome Home with David as the lead, and the addition of a chorus for the refrains;
Identifying a source to write a new guitar accompaniment part for Welcome Home, and getting it recorded;
On location recording of real pipe organ at Duncan Memorial United Methodist Church;
Made himself available for off-site recording of handbells and shuttle pipe in Westminster, MD for interlude to Amazing Grace and last verse of Just A Closer Walk with Thee; and
Final mixing.
Technical Notes
For phase II, the previously recorded analogue tracks with Dolby SR noise reduction on the 2-inch, 24 track master tapes were converted by Bias Recording Studio to digital format at 24 bits at a sampling rate of 88.2 khz.