SOME USA juggling takes priority, then it’s time to have a quick snack before we head off to see Catriona, Will and Freya.

We have a nice afternoon chatting, drinking coffee and eating cake.

It’s nearly 6pm when we get home and I need to get all the metadata sorted out and come up with some artwork done for the Whisky Trail song. I’m cutting it fine for a 21 June release and run out of time to upload before we walk along to Betty and Joe’s for dinner.

Lots of good chat, great food and red wine ensue and we make it home before midnight.

I knock out a recording of the new Whisky Trail song int he studio – release scheduled for 21 June!

AFTER breakfast outside in the sun we tidy up and make for the studio to record another version of the new Whisky Trail song.

The version  from the other day is good, but there’s a couple of lyrics I got mixed up.

Despite running through the song a few times with no mistakes, it’s not all plain sailing – when the mic’s on I seem to constantly screw up the (very simple!) intro…eventually I get it down and Margaret’s relieved of level-watching and  listening duties.

I add a little guitar behind the banjo and do a rough mix then go back to the office to give my ears a rest.

I’d hoped to get out for a walk but the day has flown by and I need to get back to the studio and finish the mix. I listen again and decide the guitar’s to busy and prominent so I re-record it. Then the computer crashes. I’ve not saved the fucking session.

The raw audio’s still on the hard drive, but it takes an age to set up a new session, import the audio, save the new session (!) and re-record a new guitar part.

I take the final mix to check it in the house. Once it’s on the Sonos system we can listen on the main hifi in stereo and on the wee all-in-one Sonos player in mono in the kitchen. It sounds fine, so I fire off to online mastering service landr – I’d normally do it myself or send it to a proper’ mastering engineer, but there’s no time (or money) to do that. Landr is adequate for a simple, digital-only release and at a tenner a pop, it’s affordable.

There’s a roast in the oven and I make some carrot and sweet potato fries to go with the beef and Maragret’s yorkies.