It was a success, and Groupé worked on the remainder of the album, "doing more new things, adding different harmonies, Moog counterpoints, putting overtures in front of pieces", and conducted the final orchestral arrangements with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Anderson pitched ideas for the orchestral arrangements and places in the songs where he wished for them to be by playing a MIDI guitar, a process Howe found intriguing. Around a week into the recording process, Weidner convinced the band to switch from using a 48-track analogue machine to digital recording with him operating the digital audio workstation software Pro Tools, and Pro Control for mixing. Both parties found that analogue became difficult to work in as the many changes in arrangements during the song development stage made tape editing increasingly impractical. Weidner recalled some scepticism from the group initially, but got into the process after they realised how flexible the digital system was. Two separate instances of the program were used to record the band and the other to compile and process what was put down. The orchestra was recorded across 40 tracks, causing these tracks to be mixed first prior to the main mixing process. Weidner recalled that lyrics and musical arrangements would change daily and roughly 300 GB of audio had been recorded at its completion. As the stereo mixes were finished, the band agreed to have Weidner use the tracks to create a new mix in 5.1 surround sound which he did with considerable ease using the software. The process allowed him to take advantage of space and not be faced with the constant challenge of Howe's guitars clashing with the orchestra. The majority of effects done on the vocal tracks were done with the Reverb One and Echo Farm TDM plug-ins. In May 2001, the vocals, guitars, and necessary overdubs were finished. Howe entered the project with enthusiasm which soon turned into caution. He later revealed that the album was a problematic one to make, and claimed it was only completed through the "relentless efforts" from executive producer Jordan Berliant, Weidner, and himself. Though he said the album contained too much music on the disc, he nonetheless said that the band "did get it right" when the project was complete. As the album was being made, Howe became aware that the orchestra would affect his sound and style of playing which he described as "a