Last Friday at the Central, our friend Kevin was in the crowd. He was the engineer who recorded us at Lang in June. He also mixed our tunes and as a result, we got a tiny bit of airplay on some local radio stations.
After the gig, he asked if we'd want to come up to Lang for a free studio day the following Sunday (yesterday). Listen, when a band gets offered a free day at a world class studio, that band better say yes or they should break up. Of course we said yes, and then we waited.
Thursday at practice, we planned to record a couple songs, Perspective and Darla's Song, and then we messed around and came up with parts for a new song. Really fast, power pop style, with some cool twists in it. We played it enough to come up with a rough structure and thought we might be able to pull it off in studio.
Sunday arrived and it was dreary as hell. However, any day spent at the studio is a good one, so I didn't care if it was dumping buckets or not. I brought my P and the L1k, my Orange Terror Bass and my 212 Avatar, thinking I could go direct and mic'ed.
Of course I was late, but no matter. Studio time is always, "show up at (insert time here)," but recording never starts until about 2 hours later. We spent time getting set up, tones dialed, etc. I also invited a friend to take some pictures. Andrew is a local music nerd who goes to tons of shows and takes incredible photos. He was stoked to come to Lang and he took approximately 500 pictures, he said. Those will be cool to see.
We ended up not using my amp or cab at all, instead, choosing to get the direct bass signal before the effects, and then the post effects signal out of my Tone Hammer. Overall results were quite pleasing to the ear.
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| pedal setup and my corner |
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| My POV |
The studio room is large and tall, with lots of hard, reflective surfaces. We had drums in there, of course, with Robb's amps in a room adjacent, and my bass going direct, so no rumble from there. The room gives great reverb and makes for an enormous drum sound. Cass hits so hard that the drums sound so huge and full and it is just inspiring to hear.
We started off with Perspective, which for me, is pretty basic, but is fast and needs pretty accurate picking. Structurally it's pretty easy as well, A-B-A-B-C, no solo or anything. The speed doesn't allow for much in the way of noodling, so my parts are pretty baked in. We did it about three times and listened back and were happy with how the drums sounded. I had a couple of punches to do, but left it for later.
Next up we tried the new song, which has no name. This song was pretty straightforward. Drums start quickly. I ramp in with a syncopated octave bassline, then Robb comes in with droning guitar texture. We ride that and he starts singing over those parts. One verse, instrumental interlude, then another verse, followed by a chorus. In practice when we did this, I came up with a high "oooh" background vocal, which was pretty cool. Didn't do it yesterday, but will do in the future.
After the chorus, we do a part that is reminiscent of "Flavor of the Month" by the Posies. A little more riffing, then one more chorus and we are out. We played through it a few times and we just couldn't get it right, so ultimately, we shelved it for the studio. We'll have to revisit it this week at practice. Maybe we can play it at our next show.
We tried Darla's Song next. It's keyboard based, with a descending left-hand bassline on it. Cass does duty on his high hats and I get to fill in the rest. Due to what Robb does on keys, I don't have a lot of room to do anything, so I keep it simple, with a root-5th-octave repeating line. This tune hasn't been my favorite as it's pretty boring to me, but Robb seems to love what I do in it, as does Kevin, so I guess it's OK. It's really a "serve the song" type of part for me.
Dustcloud was next, which is a pretty fast tune, likely our fastest. It has a galloping bassline and is really tricky to play with a pick. I have to do the E-A string jump and live and in practice, I can pull it off. It comes and goes quickly. In studio? Trickier, especially when you're constantly listening back. I wasn't striving for perfection and for the most part, it wasn't. Definitely close enough and under Cass' huge drums, it worked fine.
That was to be it, but Kevin was like, "Do whatever you guys want," so we decided to give Fought a Bear another try. We had already done a "studio" recording in Robb's basement a few months before and though passable, it is admittedly a basement studio recording. This is one of our most aggressive songs, quirky too, so I dialed up some grit on the Spark Booster and we went for it. Cass starts again on drums, then I come in with a back and forth root note bassline that's pretty easy. However, Robb starts doing some odd timed arpeggio and singing over a weird drum part that is just gnarly. I have to keep doing what I do, and somehow, miraculously, we end up at the same place.
That "place" is quick and loud and again, I'm striving for close enough. There's a passthrough on this part where I pick octaves. Root-root-octave-octave, then move to the next. I do that for 4 notes and though I can do it, on the recording, it was a little rough at times. Made a note to myself to simplify on my punches later.
With the drums signed off on (nice work Cass!), I did my bass punches. There were only a few and I was able to get them done fairly quickly. The main one was the Fought a Bear, getting those parts simplified and less crazy. I'll have to practice those more.
Robb started doing his vocals and watching him work was really cool. He just banged stuff out, boom, boom boom! He does it so much at home already, that when it's time to be on mic in the studio, no problem. Kevin hit record, Robb would do something once or twice, and it was done. Understanding that we were planning on an afternoon anyway, and we didn't have much time to indulge or put anything under a microscope, but still, he was pretty incredible. On one of the songs, he did some Queen/Boston type harmonies and though we'll never pull them off live, it sure sounded cool in the control room.
At that point of the day, it was around 5pm and I had to bounce to Sunset Grooves practice. Long day, but such a joy to spend all of it playing music with people I love. I'd rather do nothing else, to be honest. I only wish I was getting paid for it!!
Now that we have these four songs recorded, Kevin is gonna mix 'em and hopefully with these, plus Splinter and Decisions, maybe we do 2-3 more and we have a record. These one day sessions are cool, but it would really cool to be able to do a few days a little more methodically and with more attention to detail. As it is now, we are discussing maybe doing drums and bass next time and letting Robb do his vocals and guitar at his home studio.
