Magic? You just pissed on a gypsy in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Recording on top of recordings.  My computer allows me to use somewhere around 28 tracks of audio before it starts turning tracks off. This is me hemming and hawing about having to mix down 20 some odd tracks so that I can add more and still hear it all. It doesn't make me happy.

And what instrument is so important that I need to mix things down just to add it?
You guessed it.

Tambourine.
You know, it doesn't get a whole lot of credit as an instrument- even in the recording process-it's a kind of an "add on at the end" thing but I feel like it's one of the few instruments you can't fake. It forces you to move. You can't half ass it and have anything sound anywhere near good. You have to get into it, which is why my hand is now red and the recording session turned into more of a workout than anything else.

And in the end, the tambourine gets put low in the mix.

If nothing else, a lesson in the importance of process even in the smallest of sounds.

-Mark