Sat 16th August- we ventured back in to the studio for another weekend recording our debut album. After a late night the evening before playing the acoustic gig in Hemel, we opted for a late morning start. The plan for the day was to re-amp the bass parts that Sonny had recorded from the last sessions. Shane was first down, setting up the bass amp, and assisted in putting the mics in to position by Stee.
A couple of hours were spent positioning several microphones around the bass cab, with the intention of auditioning and using different mics for variations in bass sound for each song, and even sections within songs. Having experimented with positioning we achieved a variety of sounds that we were then able to try out within the context of the songs.
Marc arrived at the studio early afternoon, having been busy working on band promotion earlier in the day. Shane and Stee were busy re-amping the bass guitar for ‘Perfect Soldier’ and after some tinkering with compression and eq, we achieved a great bass sound with the desired punky feel. We then moved on to ‘The Chalice’ which we thought would suit a driving 70’s bass sound. The sound we settled on reminded Marc of ‘Ace of Spades’ by Motorhead. For ‘Tied to Shadows’ we decided to go for a mellower bass sound that worked with the softer sections of the song, and a more beefy, slightly distorted sound for the heavier sections. The plan had been for Sonny to make a start on recording the remaining bass lines, but unfortunately he wasn’t too well, so we postponed that until Sunday; Shane finishing off the session by doing a bit of editing of the takes before we called it a night.
Sun 17th August- Shane arrived in the studio mid-morning to finish up the previous days’ editing; ensuring the tracks were all ready to work on by the time Marc and Stee arrived at the studio. Fortunately they came armed with sufficient sustenance to get them through what was to be a monster session. Sonny although still suffering a little, put his bass takes down ready for re-amping.
With bass parts put down for Tama Connection, Coked Up Russians, When the Karma falls and Tied to Shadows, Sonny headed home for some much needed rest. Whilst Shane sorted through and edited the recorded bass tracks, Marc and Stee headed off for an hour in search of a backup hard drive from the nearby shops. A failure of an old backup drive meant that some earlier sessions needed to be restored, and with us about to revisit those tracks, we needed a backup drive to send off with the broken hard drive. Fingers crossed we can get the sessions back, or else it’ll mean re-recording what we had for Old Street, No Easy Target and Alarm.
The next task was to re-record the guitar verses for Coked Up Russians. Marc decided to use Stee’s Brian Moore i8.13, instead of the vintage Fender telecaster he’d been using for the majority of the album, to get a metallic, modern aggressive sound. Stee had to turn guitar tech and open up the back panel before we could start recording the guitar parts, as the battery in the Brian Moore was dead, and then again to re-string after Marc broke a string. After Marc stretched the strings out and tuned up, he got a couple of good takes, before switching to the piezo pickup to achieve a slightly fatter sound that would give Shane more options sound and tone wise when mixing the track.
With the guitar parts for Coked Up Russians finished in just over an hour, we took a short break for dinner and had a quick chat about the vocal ideas. Shane discussed the microphones we would be using to record vocal takes and the reason for their suitability when recording different types of voices.
Shane wanted to try backing vocals on The Chalice, which began with doubling up the falsetto vocal in the chorus of the song. This process involved us listening back carefully to the two vocal takes together to ensure that the vocals were the same length, had the same phrasing, and complemented each other in terms of dynamics and volume. Shane thought that the bridge vocal may want thickening up too, to match the intensity of the music, but having listened to it double tracked, Stee thought he may try a backing harmony instead. The harmony part seemed to work well, and when listening back Stee came up with a second harmony to sing over the top of the one that he had just recorded. The harmony vocal takes sounded great, but Stee was in a particularly creative frame of mind and despite the late hour, a further vocal idea began to formulate in his head which he immediately put down. When we listened to the vocals all mixed together but without the music, it sounded very much like a barber-shop quartet. Although the new parts took a little getting used to, after a few listens we all agreed that it could definitely work if lowered in the final mix of the song.
We were starting to feel pretty tired, but that didn’t stop Shane from rallying the troops to carry on into the early hours. We decided to record Marc’s backing vocal for Had I Known What You Know. After about four takes, Marc was starting to feel quite fatigued, and left further takes for another day when he had the energy to deliver the vocal. Stee with a sudden second-wind decided to ad-lib the breakdown section, resulting in him belting out the last ‘Go’, which from out of nowhere he held for over 20 seconds! Something he couldn’t normally do live as he’d be too busy throwing himself and mic stand around the stage. With the time approaching 2.30am we decided to call it a night after what had been a pretty productive weekends recording.
Tags: bass, dear acetate, guitar, harmony, Recording, vocals
