Guitarist Steve Vai has issued the following studio updates on his latest project, Sound Current:

March 13, 2007:

"Have been mixing the 'The Attitude Song'.

The work on this one started 15 years ago when I first orchestrated it for an orchestra in Rochester. Without much rehearsal time back then the piece suffered so I figured I needed to re-orchestrate it. When the Aching Hunger project came up I dusted off the old arrangement for this one and tweaked it a bit. It went through some further tweaks and then Tom Trapp cleaned it up in Finale.

I could never hear the intricacies of the arrangement because whenever it was being played, I was playing along. With a song like this you really have to think about what you're doing and where it's going and just lock into the drums. And plus, my guitar is the loudest thing in the world sometimes.

The arrangement always sounded very odd and I could never quite wrap my 'what were your intentions with this Vai???'-brain around it.

After taking it apart in the mix and fixing some wrong notes and timing things in the orchestra, the arrangement exploded in my face. There it was, all those things I was thinking about 15 years ago when I first orchestrated it. Some of those ideas are so bizarre yet ultra-cool. And here was the payoff, right in front of my steaming ears. It made all those hours of all the work so worth it.

This does not sound like 'orchestra music' one would expect when that phrase comes up. It's something very different. It's difficult to get an orchestra to work with an electric guitar and rock band. They are so different. It's like comparing apples with beef yoghurt! But somehow it's working in a 20th century kind of way.

I don't know. You decide when you hear it.

And then I think that sometimes I'm just living on my own little island, on Venus.

Hey, you're invited."

March 15, 2007:

"Over the last few days I have been working on 'Gentle Ways'. I was very much looking forward to this one because I knew the mix was going to be an easy one and I had made a mental note that I played this one well. After listening to my part I found that I had played it virtually perfect, yay!

I just finished the mix of 'Gentle Ways' and after listening through the entire piece, fully mixed, for the first time, I just broke down and started to sob in gratitude. It was a little slice of heaven on Earth. Sort of a... a euphoria of gratefulness to whatever power it is that allows us to express such things for each other. Some believe that to be God.

And then I prayed to never let myself take selfish advantage of any gift I have. But how do you remember that all of the minutes of the day and night? That's the real challenge, life."

March 16, 2007:

"I thought 'Liberty' would be a piece of cake but then I opened the files and found out that some of the root session sound files got shifted slightly in the transfers. So I spent all day just tracking that down. In the middle of all this I received the deadlines from Sony for all the parts of the record and DVD.

This means crunch time because just getting the art work together is a major undertaking. There are concepts that come up and are discussed, and then refined, and then discussed and then... you get it. And then the credits have to be written and the photo shoot needs to be discussed. Oh, yeah, that's on Wednesday.

So tonight I just stopped everything and listened to 'Gentle Ways' a few times.

Ahhhh, that's better."

Steve

For complete details on Sound Current check out Vai's in-depth report here.