After being treated once again to the delights of a wonderful salad (so that our stomachs wouldn’t be louder than the guitars), we continued tracking acoustics from the day before, as the various microphones were already prepared for me to mistreat. “Frames Of The Past” was the first, and just after one take and then double-tracking it to get a fatter sound it was in the can.
“Berlin” was a little harder to get, as it’s quite a long number (around 5 minutes) and the guitar groove goes on forever. Probably I didn’t warm up my right wrist enough before it (Tobi had taken the Jenna Jameson magazine home), or probably I was just too damm stupid to get it right, but by the end I had a stiff right arm and it was fucking hurting from going non-stop on the guitar. I just bloody lost the plec as well, couldn’t get a grip, so it got a bit messy there and had to redo the whole thing again after a short pause.
And then, “Into The Sea” was there, probably one of my favourite tracks on the album. We started with the acoustics again, and after finishing them, the workhorse Gibson Songwriter went back into its case for the rest of the sessions, as it won’t be needed. Well, probably, you never know later on. We then added some amazingly sounding clean guitars with the ES-333 into the Peavey Classic 30 and into a 4x12” Engl cabinet… and it was one of those magic moments. For me, at least. It’s such a nice regular arpeggio going up and down that has something of a nursery rhyme in it. I had really a “floaty”, hypnotic feeling doing it (or perhaps I was just digesting the salad, go figure...) But it was nice anyway, I hope it comes through in the song. Fat guitars and the solo came later on, and this is where a Mesa Rectifier and a Les Paul can really do the job. And so, we finished “Into The Sea”, just waiting for the vocals to come. Did I say I liked the song?
We set up several smaller amps again to do some clean guitars on the next batch of songs, mainly the Classic 30, a Mesa 50 Caliber and the pair of AC30’s. For “Berlin”, we also used a few ultracool pedals, among them one from Sovtek called Small Stone. Ain’t that cool? Anyway, then we tried a few different amp setups for “Stroboscope”, not quite sure which one to use at the end, so we recorded all of them and Juergen will have to look in the mix which one suits better. Sometimes having too many possibilities can be a drag, as all of them sound nice, but using one or the other can change the mood completely. Sometimes I remember when I had my first shitty guitar and ever more shitty amp, and I was just so happy with that one shitty sound, as I didn’t know what was out there. Ignorance is bliss, they say, and a little truth is there too.
Before calling it a day, we almost finished “Scent” and its anti-solo (you’ll know why when you hear it) and took a try at “Time” with the Les Paul straight into an AC30 just ten minutes before going, which went surprinsingly well. At least it sounded so to our tired ears, it may all be just complete bullshit when we listen back to it next day. Such things hapen. Quite usually, indeed.
We’re taking a day off (cool) and will be there again on Thursday afternoon ready to frog and roll again. Stay tuned.
Songs done:
“Frames Of The Past”: acoustic guitars
“Berlin”: acoustic and electric guitars
“Into The Sea”: all guitars
“Stroboscope”: guitars
“Scent”: guitars
“Time”: guitars
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