More guitar work today. Daniel & I decided to take it a little bit mellower and started setting up the amps and mics for cleaner guitar sounds (yes, folks, we have that, too!) We first tried a Fender Twin Reverb that was left in the studio from a previous session, and although it sounded beautiful, its tubes were so fucked up that it was plain unusable for recording. It was like having an iron lung working full throttle behind the guitar sound. A pity, could have been fun to use. And so we stuck to our trustworthy and versatile Classic 50 and its open back to pick up the chimey sound at its best.Continuing with the pendulum theme throughout the sessions, we're doing something different from last time around. While for Not Completely Clean I used a bloody lot of different amps and boxes, this time we're doing like we did on Allergic, that is, sticking more to a certain amp sound but tweaking it differently for each take so that, although it actually sounds different every time, you can still recognize its "(am)personality" (sorry for the bad pun). Yes, we do have different pedals, speakers and configurations, but I must admit that it is somewhat relaxing to know how your sound will be without spending a lot of time trying different amps, with its share of mic-placing, cable-laying, eternal knob-tweaking, etc. It's more a plug'n play situation, spend more time playing and less time fumbling around. We'll certainly be doing some experiments, of course, but we'll try to keep them at a normal level. We're here to put to tape (hard disk) a few songs, if you want to experiment, go and try LSD at home.
Starting with "Ink" as my hands were still pretty numb from the cold wasn't exactly a good idea, and it took me too many takes to get the arpeggiated bits right. I should really stop writing parts that are too complicated for me to get right... what a shame. After what seemed forever we had it and turned the attention to "Eye In The Sky" and "The Wounds Inside", which were tweaked, recorded and double-tracked in the blink of an eye in comparison.
"Instead" was again a little more technical, but was finished surprisingly fast. Same with "Vertigo" and its chimey harmonics. To finish the session, we dove into the newest song of the pack, "One Another" (or as Timo calls it, "Uno, Otro"). That one was written on the spot at the last band rehearsal before going into the studio, and it still has no lyrics at all, and I bet my ass that Timo & Tobi cannot remember shit about the song, haha! We tried to build a wall of sound by layering several guitar tracks played very clean, and I must say I was amazed by how heavy it sounded without a bit of distortion on it. I'm especially looking forward to the finished version of this one. Probably because, unlike all the others, I don't have the faintest idea of what I want it to be like. We're deciding as we go along. Normally I come into the studio with a very clear vision of what I want for each song, how I'd like it to sound like, but not with this one. It's still a complete mystery to me, and by extension, to everyone else. Surprise, surprise.
And with more tracks finished than I'd expected, we decided to call it a day (night, rather), as it was already late and I had other very important things to get done (like writing this, for example, haha). We'll continue next week with dirrrrty guitars, which are more fun to do.
Happy weekend, don't freeze your balls out there.
St
Songs recorded (Jan 21):
Starting with "Ink" as my hands were still pretty numb from the cold wasn't exactly a good idea, and it took me too many takes to get the arpeggiated bits right. I should really stop writing parts that are too complicated for me to get right... what a shame. After what seemed forever we had it and turned the attention to "Eye In The Sky" and "The Wounds Inside", which were tweaked, recorded and double-tracked in the blink of an eye in comparison.
"Instead" was again a little more technical, but was finished surprisingly fast. Same with "Vertigo" and its chimey harmonics. To finish the session, we dove into the newest song of the pack, "One Another" (or as Timo calls it, "Uno, Otro"). That one was written on the spot at the last band rehearsal before going into the studio, and it still has no lyrics at all, and I bet my ass that Timo & Tobi cannot remember shit about the song, haha! We tried to build a wall of sound by layering several guitar tracks played very clean, and I must say I was amazed by how heavy it sounded without a bit of distortion on it. I'm especially looking forward to the finished version of this one. Probably because, unlike all the others, I don't have the faintest idea of what I want it to be like. We're deciding as we go along. Normally I come into the studio with a very clear vision of what I want for each song, how I'd like it to sound like, but not with this one. It's still a complete mystery to me, and by extension, to everyone else. Surprise, surprise.And with more tracks finished than I'd expected, we decided to call it a day (night, rather), as it was already late and I had other very important things to get done (like writing this, for example, haha). We'll continue next week with dirrrrty guitars, which are more fun to do.
Happy weekend, don't freeze your balls out there.
St
Songs recorded (Jan 21):
Ink: electric guitars
Eye In The Sky: electric guitars
The Wounds Inside: electric guitars
Instead: electric guitars
Vertigo: electric guitars
One Another: electric guitars
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