Radio Edit

Decided it was, by all those concerned, that a radio edit of How Come I'm Never Around needed to be made, to meet the requirements of the lovely radio people that will refuse to play any songs with even slightly suspect words or references. So last night I knocked up a new version with the offending passages removed. It also simultaneously gives us a comedy version, ideal for children's parties, funerals and clown conventions.
Its easy to become indifferent to technology these days, but the ease of putting this edit together really makes me appreciate it anew ...

An unimpressive pic of the studio where it all goes on


The Radio Edit

Guitar recordings

And, without pausing for nary a breath nor to chew on a kitten, its on with the guitar recordings the next day. All solos and rhythm parts are now done, which just leaves the vocals and mixing.

Bass Recording

Yesterday Steve came to my little studio to do the lions share of the bass guitar recording. Not much more I can really say about that ... he brought his bass, he plugged it in and played, and I recorded it. We have gone with the idea of D.I'ing it, and add the amp sound at a later stage.

Single 'B-Side'

Friday night saw the completion of the track that will be the B Side to How Come I'm Never Around ... with Steve's bass recording, Graham's guitar parts and all the vocals. Also done were the backing vocals for How Come ...
And all the while the rain came down ...

Giving it large with some backing vocals

Yank my leghair to stop my plug buzzing (have I got that the right way round?)

Also finished last night was the bass recording for How Come I'm Never Around, which makes the recording of the first song complete. Relax, release, repent, remix. And wonder about the unsightly smell. Well almost, complete that is not the latter, as there are backing vocals to do but they are quite happy to wait for another day thank you very much.
One note of amusement however was an anomolous buzz from Steve's bass. Despite turning off all the lights we couldn't cure it until he touched the plug coming from his DI box. Didn't go away when anyone else touched it only him, which posed the momentary problem of how could he play whilst having to touch the jack plug. In the end it was decided that Graham should complete the circuit, so the entire bass part was recorded with Graham lying on the floor with one hand on the offending jack plug and the other on the equally offensive leg of Steve, to general heckling of all others. I kid you not.

Whats going on here? Nothing you want to know about, trust me...

Drum recordings complete (take2!!!)

Last night saw the completion of the drum recordings. OK, so we had thought they were all done, but on listen back it became clear that I Know Your Name was way too fast, whilst Soul was so slow it felt like bad medication time .... Redone with a click track this time and a decent amount of time spent getting the tempos right. We all really felt for Drew with I KNow Your Name, its his favourite and that virtually guarantees difficulties for anyone! But we nailed it in the end. Which was nice.

Chris gives his facial opinion on endless drum recording. Let the stylish headgear indicate to all just how cold it can be in our little wooden box ...

First Mix!!!

Just finished the first mix of How Come I'm Never Around and it ROCKS!! Oh hell yeah, can't fait for this to see the light of day! Its on the cards to have some gang vocals added, to redo the bass guitar and perhaps to record my guitar parts again with a different amp, but its almost ready to go as is.
And I'm, as WrongDonalds say, Lovin' It.

This is something I have wanted to do for many years, record everything using real instruments, and hear it all come together, and its giving me a great feeling of satisfaction to hear it actually happening. Its so easy these days to put tracks together with loops, synthesized parts, fabulous drum samples and modern tech amp modelling, which almost makes it impossible to get a bad mix. And I know, cos I do it loads! But this is realworld; non perfect instruments in a non-perfect room and I am learning tons doing it. I mean, as well as finding the best ways to record the parts, we're even having to go away, analyze the results and come back and change setups when problems appear as we have no control room as yet. So when you hear what you hear, you're getting the actual sound of the band. No drum sound replacements, no autotune, just modern technology used in an old fashioned way!

Its actually kindling in me a desire to have a go at a true analogue recording one day. But not on this budget.

Peace y'all. C'est tout que j'aime. Rx

Vocal Time

Today Chris and I got together to record the vocals for How Come I'm Never Around. Always better doing vocals when no-ones up against the clock. In fact thats the beauty of this whole recording process, just not having the tick tock of your money filling someone else's pockets. Vocals came out great, some lovely takes and the usual cockups to be added to the pisspot of outtakes at the end ...

And as if that wasn't enough ...

We also pushed the boat out and got Graham's guitar parts down for How Come I'm Never Around. We had hoped to get the vocals down too, but by that time it was between half 12 and 1 in the morning and it really wasn't happening ...

I have a personal preference for recording small combos rather than full stacks. There are much fewer phasing problems between speaker at the mic point and they don't have to be catastrophically loud to get a good sound usually. Graham has a really good sounding Marshall combo that we opted to use instead of his TLS half stack, and we found a really good on it with an SM57 close on the speaker and the omnipresent 414 about 2-3 feet away. Graham did his annoying usual trick of nailing everything on the first go, but its nice to truly capture the unique sound of a solo being played as the guitarist falls over. Niiiicce! Unique!

Steve also tuned up and effeminately played an effeminate bass. Mine.

Breaking the back ...

Last night was a very long one, especially after a full days work for all concerned, but we got plenty done. Basically just got in there, got set up and went for it, and in one fell swoop, got the drums down for 8 songs in one go: Soul, My Life My Rules, World Turns Upside Down, Bring It On, I Know Your Name, If This Is It, Tempting Fate and All Or Nothing. Hats and bandanas off to Drew for managing all that lot on one sitting, thats impressive stuff! We had thought Bring It On and Tempting Fate were down from the last session but on listening back there were issues with the tempos, so we redid them with a click this time to prevent gig speed ...

We may find on listening that some need to be redone, but I'm keeping fingers crossed that we can go with what we have. The vibe certainly felt good this time which is why we kept going.