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Dorkfest. Recording junk. May include lengthy details of electronic circuitry or the innane. (Just like every other blog) Mostly the whatsit and whosit of whatever audio and recording related things I'm working on but I want you to participate. |
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wFriday, October 17, 2003 |
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Last night we had a quick practice, running through the set once, covering a couple real small things, but overall a really light workout. Everyone was having fun and things seem to be coming together nicely. All of the hard work looks to be paying off.
I put new heads on my drums. Evans EQ3 on bass drum batter side. Evans hydraulic on Toms batter side. Remo coated Ambassador on snare batter side. I'm too lazy to change the resonant heads. The last time we recorded (Liam and I) with Greg I had clear ambassadors on both batter and resonant sides of the toms, and while the tone was awesome, they just rang like crazy - which wasn't as flattering to my playing. The hydraulic Evans are a change from what I had been using, coated ambassadors on the top heads. Listening to the radio show roughs made it clear that even dead coateds still had too much resonance in them - particularly in "Put it to Bed."
The radio station aired the set and then Booze Olympics from the demo. It was the first time I'd heard anything I recorded on the radio. The station had a rediculous amount of compression on the master out - and there was this horrible pumping going on. Oh well. It sounds awesome at home. Tonight we're off to relax and tommorow show at the Empty Bottle - then into the studio.
After practice Liam and I went to that new bar next to the western L stop and had a couple drinks and talked about everything. He played the "guess this producer" game to the music playing in the bar, and I totally failed. He said the snare drum sound gave it away, and it turns out it was Built to Spill and Phil Ek. He was the only one I could think of, but it didn't seem as flashy as Ek's more current stuff. I guess that was earlier. I never liked Built to Spill.
We had a quick throwback discussion about gathering found sounds and other shit for transitions and texture. I remembered we totally have to get on that. Liam reminded me we have till mastering before that really needs to be done, so that's cool.
Tonight we're gonna see a movie and lay low. Then again, we may go see Marilyn Manson's girlfriend do burlesque. We'll let you know how that turns out.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 2:34 PM
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wThursday, October 16, 2003 |
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whoooooo boy. i haven't posted anything here in ages. i'm gonna try and change that as there's some recording coming up.
Intro
OK, I'll try and provide and intro so this makes sense if you're just coming to it for the first time now. I'm in a band called New Black. We're about to make our first full-length record, that's to be released by THICK Records in Februrary 2004. The initial idea for this started as a result of reading the Mixerman Diaries, which I found fascinating - both from a studio nerd point of view, and a more humanistic point of view. Then there was a thread on the Tapeop Board and Billy's OIL Diary. So, at any rate, this isn't exactly a new concept - but I wanted to somehow document the experience for posterities sake - and what's going on.
Backstory
If we back up to May of 2003, we had just recorded our demo very quickly in our practice space, just a few short weeks after starting to play with Rachel and Patti. Liam and I had played together in The South of No North. I forget now what the songs were, but 2 of the songs I played by myself alone in the space completely off memory, with the intent of just setting up drum tones. When Liam got there we said "Fuck it" and decided to keep the reference tracks as keepers to build on top of. For the remaining songs, Liam and I played together. After the rhythm section was done, later in the week Patti came in and overdubbed all of her parts, as did Rachel. Then we added vocals and mixed. Everything was done very quickly with no second guessing. The main idea was to keep it rough around the edges and get it out so we could start getting shows. You can here these songs here. It's also cool to note that all 4 songs have since been used commercially on different comps and through other outlets than just our site - which is pretty darn cool. These songs were also more heavyily effected and "produced" than I normally would do, but we were trying to do everything that we "shouldn't" do for this recording.
I should quickly add that Trevor Sadler mastered these and did an amazing job.
We were able to get shows, and people liked what they heard and saw, and after a handful of shows between then and now, THICK offered to put out our record. Liam and I have a long history with Greg Norman at Electrical Audio - so of course we wanted to do the record with him. Initially there was a bit of a concern with the cost of studio time, and the thought was I could record the record and we'd save tons of money - but I vetoed that idea because I didn't want to have to worry about setting levels, mic placement, phase issues, etc. - when I really needed to be concentrating on making a great record. Having a limited budget in hand we tossed out a couple scenarios varying different studios, their respective rooms and recording formats - and we came back to Electrical - one of the best studios in the country, if not world. For me, the choice was based much on the physical rooms in the studio - and the amazing microphone selection there. Working with Greg was a no-brainer - and he is clearly most comfortable there, so we went with it.
After deciding where to do the record, we had to come up with a timeframe - allotting us enough time to write a handful more songs, in order to have a full length record. THICK made it clear they had no interest in putting out an EP as we initially thought we'd do. A few things came into play during pre-production, that made our lives easier in some respects. We were asked to play a show at the Empty Bottle on Oct. 18, and asked to play live on the radio the week before. This was a great way to make sure we were up to snuff on our songs and playing, and gave us a chance to do a full demo of the record, while leaving us time to make any necessary tweaks to the songs - and realize our weak points before going into the studio. I had always thought the best time to do a record would be after coming off tour, since you're so tight as a unit then - that starting recording the day after a show would be the closest we could come to meeting that idea.
The last two weeks have been practice after practice dissecting the songs. Actually, it's been a little tedious and stressful on all of us. We'd taken to recording the practices to MiniDisc as a reference that we could all take home and listen to. That's a brutally honest way to do things. Microphones don't lie. We made a LOT of changes as a result of the new mirror we were looking into. It also helped see the songs in a better light - as we started to see them as whole songs, as opposed to a series of parts strung together. It also helped separate the thinking "Hey, is this part tricky enough here - does this sound cool?" to that's just too busy and distracting from the song. Listening to the playback puts a completely different perspective of the songs, and makes you say, "Damn, I'm playing with some really talented people."
Last night was deemed the last of the nit-picky practices. From here out - we just play, and be a rock band again - and after all the hard work and minutia - it's time to back out to see the forest from the trees, and just rock again. Last night's practice was the first one in a while where everyone seemed to be having fun again, which is great - and how it should be. I think a lot of the newly found fun is that we've all seen how much we've worked at this to make a great record. We cut practice early because it was feeling good and didn't want to push it (as we've also jacked up the frequency of rehersals because of the recording - it's almost as if we are on tour). We then headed down to the Bob Inn to have a few beers with Greg. It felt real good to be on the verge of going in and making a record with a good friend, in a great studio. Greg, Liam and I had a quick chat about having two different drum setups - a dry, small setup, and another more traditional Electrical ass-kicking setup. The ladies went home after a drink and the three of us stayed too late and ended up getting Mexican food at this great 24 hr restaurant Greg showed us on Kimball and Armitage.
That brings us to today, where the radio show should be aired later tonight. We'll also be doing one last run through late tonight before our show Saturday, and then hitting the studio Sunday.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 4:14 PM
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