Just Drums! A quick snipet from the tune "Better Bring A Bomb".
.JPG)
The wall o'gear!
B. Mctear @ work.
.JPG)
D. Grubb checking shit in the phones.
.JPG)
Oh Leslie! Ran a few keyboard tracks through this monster for the final mix. Nice!
Friday, February 1, 2008
LAF Mixing Vids & Pics
Working on the Bass Gtr "Just A Light Hit".
Just Drums! A quick snipet from the tune "Better Bring A Bomb".
.JPG)
The wall o'gear!
B. Mctear @ work.
.JPG)
D. Grubb checking shit in the phones.
.JPG)
Oh Leslie! Ran a few keyboard tracks through this monster for the final mix. Nice!
Just Drums! A quick snipet from the tune "Better Bring A Bomb".
The wall o'gear!
B. Mctear @ work.
D. Grubb checking shit in the phones.
Oh Leslie! Ran a few keyboard tracks through this monster for the final mix. Nice!
With Wet Noodles For Legs And A Smile On My Face I Do Declare The Album Fini!
It’s been a very busy and crazy few weeks…..allow me to catch up…
So we wrapped up the final tracking a few weeks ago. The last night of tracking was smooth sailing. I played a single D chord with some tremolo on it and my job was finished. Then Pete went on to do some percussion while I kicked a puppets ass (see vid below) and did my best to empty the large amount of beer we had left in the studio refrigerator downstairs. We did have a visitor that night. Our good friend Brian McTear stopped by to check out the studio and hear a few tracks as we were set to start mixing at his Miner Street studio a few days later. We ended the tracking with some “gang” handclaps. Pretty funny to end the session with four of us (Pete, Jeff, Brian and I) drunk trying to clap in time (we had to fix a few not-so-in-time claps in the mixing process) with Dave G. running the gear. It was really cool to have the whole band together for the final night of tracking as it’s been kind of a scattered meeting of a few band members from day to day throughout the whole recording process. I ended the night at our home away from home with Pete for one and a half beers when I realized that I was two or more sheets to the wind and stumbled my drunk ass home. A fun and well deserved night of excess my friends! It’s been a long road but I snapped the through the finish line tape with wet noodles for legs, a beer soaked head and a big smile on my face.
So we started the mixing process on Jan. 11th. We had seven straight days booked with one “final“ day for last minute fixes set for the following Tuesday. 11am to 9pm every day. I couldn’t be there for every hour of mixing, but ended up being present for 90% of it. As I’ve talked about before in this here blog, this whole mixing at a “proper/real/not our own” studio with a engineer that had no participation in the recording of the album was very new to me, but I knew off the bat it was a good idea and the fact that the mixing engineer was a old musician friend of ours and has worked on some of the best recordings that have come out of Philly in the past couple of years kept my “control freak” mind at ease.
I’d be a fucking liar to say that the first two day of mixing didn’t freak me out man. We’d spent the last five months recording in our studio and/or me sitting alone in my home studio working away, day after day tweaking every fucking part and the shit sounded awesome in those two rooms. You get used to the way the raw recordings sound in the only two rooms you can hear them in while tracking. So much so, that when you finally hear them in a different room or a different set of monitors you tend to freak out a bit and I did for sure. So by day four of mixing with plenty of time spent in the Miner Street studio I started to relax as the mixes really started to take shape and I finally got a grasp on the sound of the new control room. We kind of threw McTear into the fire as most of our tunes have a ton of tracks/little/weird stuff going on that if you weren’t part of the recording process you’d have no idea what to do with it in a final mix, but after a few days of us being in the studio with him he caught on pretty quick and things were smooth sailing from there on. He tweaked away at every track and really did an amazing job while we sat in the room and helped him steer the ship. Dave G. and Pete helped in getting giving very good input on the overall sonic sound and it worked out very well. My job was to sit there and tell McTear to turn up everything. Not to pat myself on the back, but I did a great job. I must have said “can you turn that keyboard noise/guitar solo up?” about a million times in seven days. As my mother always said “love what you do and do it well!”. Thanks Ma! To say McTear stepped up to the challenge would be an understatement for sure. He kicked ass and as I sit here listening to the final mixes on my trusty headphones while typing this all I can say is that this album sounds great.
-j
So we wrapped up the final tracking a few weeks ago. The last night of tracking was smooth sailing. I played a single D chord with some tremolo on it and my job was finished. Then Pete went on to do some percussion while I kicked a puppets ass (see vid below) and did my best to empty the large amount of beer we had left in the studio refrigerator downstairs. We did have a visitor that night. Our good friend Brian McTear stopped by to check out the studio and hear a few tracks as we were set to start mixing at his Miner Street studio a few days later. We ended the tracking with some “gang” handclaps. Pretty funny to end the session with four of us (Pete, Jeff, Brian and I) drunk trying to clap in time (we had to fix a few not-so-in-time claps in the mixing process) with Dave G. running the gear. It was really cool to have the whole band together for the final night of tracking as it’s been kind of a scattered meeting of a few band members from day to day throughout the whole recording process. I ended the night at our home away from home with Pete for one and a half beers when I realized that I was two or more sheets to the wind and stumbled my drunk ass home. A fun and well deserved night of excess my friends! It’s been a long road but I snapped the through the finish line tape with wet noodles for legs, a beer soaked head and a big smile on my face.
So we started the mixing process on Jan. 11th. We had seven straight days booked with one “final“ day for last minute fixes set for the following Tuesday. 11am to 9pm every day. I couldn’t be there for every hour of mixing, but ended up being present for 90% of it. As I’ve talked about before in this here blog, this whole mixing at a “proper/real/not our own” studio with a engineer that had no participation in the recording of the album was very new to me, but I knew off the bat it was a good idea and the fact that the mixing engineer was a old musician friend of ours and has worked on some of the best recordings that have come out of Philly in the past couple of years kept my “control freak” mind at ease.
I’d be a fucking liar to say that the first two day of mixing didn’t freak me out man. We’d spent the last five months recording in our studio and/or me sitting alone in my home studio working away, day after day tweaking every fucking part and the shit sounded awesome in those two rooms. You get used to the way the raw recordings sound in the only two rooms you can hear them in while tracking. So much so, that when you finally hear them in a different room or a different set of monitors you tend to freak out a bit and I did for sure. So by day four of mixing with plenty of time spent in the Miner Street studio I started to relax as the mixes really started to take shape and I finally got a grasp on the sound of the new control room. We kind of threw McTear into the fire as most of our tunes have a ton of tracks/little/weird stuff going on that if you weren’t part of the recording process you’d have no idea what to do with it in a final mix, but after a few days of us being in the studio with him he caught on pretty quick and things were smooth sailing from there on. He tweaked away at every track and really did an amazing job while we sat in the room and helped him steer the ship. Dave G. and Pete helped in getting giving very good input on the overall sonic sound and it worked out very well. My job was to sit there and tell McTear to turn up everything. Not to pat myself on the back, but I did a great job. I must have said “can you turn that keyboard noise/guitar solo up?” about a million times in seven days. As my mother always said “love what you do and do it well!”. Thanks Ma! To say McTear stepped up to the challenge would be an understatement for sure. He kicked ass and as I sit here listening to the final mixes on my trusty headphones while typing this all I can say is that this album sounds great.
-j
Thursday, January 17, 2008
one armed pro tools engineer...
you never see those guys any more... this guy had it pretty rough too...
that was the last day of tracking. i think beer had something to do with that...
we've moved on to the next step and have been mixing for the past week. a few more passes of each song and we'll be done!!!
that was the last day of tracking. i think beer had something to do with that...
we've moved on to the next step and have been mixing for the past week. a few more passes of each song and we'll be done!!!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Save The Date!
The Game is on…We have booked time at our friend Brian McTear’s Miner Street Studios to start mixing the album on Jan. 11th. Fuck, it feels really good to type that. It marks the end of a really long/fun/ sometimes very frustrating (go back to the earlier posts when we spent a month just trying to get our studio computer to work correctly) and what now seems like endless good times making music that I’m almost sad to see come to an end. We’re not officially finished, but we’re damn close. I put down the last of the vocal tracks and final “lead” gtr a few nights ago. I still have three tunes that need keys, but I’m already on that shit. It’s tough to concentrate on the final touches in the holiday season. Too many family deals and parties to attend, but with the mixing date set we’re doing our best to get the shit done. I do think the holidays are a great time to be wrapping up the recording of this album though. Not to sound like a hippy, but the good vibes seem to be on our side as we lay down the final tracks.
So back to my original point of this post is that we are actually going into a proper studio to mix the album. This is a first for me man. Usually when we finish recording that only means we have two months of endless mixing to do on our own. Second guessing, and never being quite happy with the results. It’s like trying to put the final touches on a 4’ x 8’ painting you’ve spent 5 months on with your nose pressed up to the middle of the canvas. You just can’t see (hear) it clearly and it’s great to finally have an outside ear really help us dial it in. Can’t wait!
-j
So back to my original point of this post is that we are actually going into a proper studio to mix the album. This is a first for me man. Usually when we finish recording that only means we have two months of endless mixing to do on our own. Second guessing, and never being quite happy with the results. It’s like trying to put the final touches on a 4’ x 8’ painting you’ve spent 5 months on with your nose pressed up to the middle of the canvas. You just can’t see (hear) it clearly and it’s great to finally have an outside ear really help us dial it in. Can’t wait!
-j
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Happy Holidays! Still At It.
I hope you all had a great Christmas and have some fun NYE plans ahead of you. So far the holidays have been great for me.
Got back at it tonight in my home studio. Started laying down some keyboards on two of the last three tunes that need’em. Spent about 4 hours and ended up getting three solid tracks down. Pretty good for a post Christmas hangover evening.
Here’s the deal. The actual breakdown of what we have to complete before we are set to start mixing this album.
Tomorrow night will mark the second to last night of tracking in the “real” studio and here’s what I hope to get done:
1. Put down the vocals for one of the first tunes we started many months ago called “Gold”. I’ve been re-working the lyrics for weeks and finally got’em together earlier this evening and I’m ready to go.
2. Put some secondary rhythm gtr’s and the final gtr solo on a tune called “Heard The Shot”. The gtr stuff is always the easiest and most fun for me.
3. Re-do a harmony vocal on another tune (working title “I Don’t Know”) that was recorded a while back. The track sounds great and my vocals have been going down pretty smooth, but this one part really kinda sucks and has to be fixed.
Once all that’s tacked down and I get the last bit of keys tracked we’ll have one last night of recording ahead of us to put down the last of the percussion stuff and fix anything we see fit after a we run through the songs with a fine tooth comb.
Sorry for the LAF "to do" post, I promise some better reading next time around.
Be well, be safe and check back often!
-j
One of the tracks i put down tonight.
Got back at it tonight in my home studio. Started laying down some keyboards on two of the last three tunes that need’em. Spent about 4 hours and ended up getting three solid tracks down. Pretty good for a post Christmas hangover evening.
Here’s the deal. The actual breakdown of what we have to complete before we are set to start mixing this album.
Tomorrow night will mark the second to last night of tracking in the “real” studio and here’s what I hope to get done:
1. Put down the vocals for one of the first tunes we started many months ago called “Gold”. I’ve been re-working the lyrics for weeks and finally got’em together earlier this evening and I’m ready to go.
2. Put some secondary rhythm gtr’s and the final gtr solo on a tune called “Heard The Shot”. The gtr stuff is always the easiest and most fun for me.
3. Re-do a harmony vocal on another tune (working title “I Don’t Know”) that was recorded a while back. The track sounds great and my vocals have been going down pretty smooth, but this one part really kinda sucks and has to be fixed.
Once all that’s tacked down and I get the last bit of keys tracked we’ll have one last night of recording ahead of us to put down the last of the percussion stuff and fix anything we see fit after a we run through the songs with a fine tooth comb.
Sorry for the LAF "to do" post, I promise some better reading next time around.
Be well, be safe and check back often!
-j
One of the tracks i put down tonight.
Friday, December 21, 2007
12.20.07 Twenty Tracks Of Vocals
Back at it tonight. Put the vocals down on “Nice Person” this evening and when I say “vocals” I mean a shit ton of vocals. I think we topped out at around 20 tracks. That’s not to say there are 20 simultaneous tracks going at the same time, but we broke down each individual part into separate tracks to help ease the mixing process. Plenty of doubled vocals on each part and a ton of harmony deals. I laid down the foundation stuff and Jeff did some harmony stuff and I finished the whole thing off with yet more harmony stuff. The highlight was an amazing three part harmony in the chorus. One of the best on the whole album. This “Nice Person” tune is gonna end up being one of the best on the album for sure. I really can’t wait for you guys to hear this stuff.
I know when I hear about a band doing a bunch of excessive harmony vocals I usually think of a Beach Boys rip-off. Well let me tell you, I wouldn’t even consider an attempt at such vocal styling’s. Brian Wilson could burp a better vocal than I could ever imagine actually singing. I'm going for a much different deal. I’m shooting for a little better than the video below.
I'm the "dood" in the middle going for it and the other guys in the band (actually chicks in this vid, but you get the idea) are the ones that have to reign me in. This process seems to be working as of late.
-j
I know when I hear about a band doing a bunch of excessive harmony vocals I usually think of a Beach Boys rip-off. Well let me tell you, I wouldn’t even consider an attempt at such vocal styling’s. Brian Wilson could burp a better vocal than I could ever imagine actually singing. I'm going for a much different deal. I’m shooting for a little better than the video below.
I'm the "dood" in the middle going for it and the other guys in the band (actually chicks in this vid, but you get the idea) are the ones that have to reign me in. This process seems to be working as of late.
-j
12.19.07 Gtr’s, They’re Our Friends!
Yeah, you guessed it. We laid down some gtr’s tonight. Put the last bits on the tune “Nice Person” tonight. One secondary rhythm deal, a quick “blues” deal that Pete (yeah, he’s the drummer, but he did throw an acoustic gtr on and came up with a pretty sweet old school blues riff that I ended up putting down to tape and I got to say it really makes the part) and a sweet full blown, wha pedal laden solo. I must admit I’m pretty into the wha pedal when it comes to recording leads. Not the “prono” type wha stuff, but just kicking it up mid way and getting that “vocal type” tone on the gtr. Think Brian May or Deen Ween (hit the 1:32 mark and enjoy!) and you’ll get the idea. It’s just a cool way to tweek and/or bend the tone that I really dig.
Yet another strong evening in the trenches my friends.
A pic and a vid below for your enjoyment.
As always, thanks for reading!
-j
Just imagine this "jamming" on top of one of the best tunes you've never heard. Do it, it will make the vid much better.
Yet another strong evening in the trenches my friends.
A pic and a vid below for your enjoyment.
As always, thanks for reading!
-j
Just imagine this "jamming" on top of one of the best tunes you've never heard. Do it, it will make the vid much better.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
the last three sessions, for me...
so the last three sessions have been great. the first did start off a little weird for me. i was having a problem hearing brians bass. i'm not sure what it was but everything sounded really loud and really muddy. thank god dave was there. we moved the mic, tweaked some knobs on the bass head and things started to clear up. dave and i have been splitting up most of the engineering, mostly by who's able to be there. some nights i'm working so daves the man in charge and some nights daves got stuff to do or is/was on the beach kite surfing. after this night me and jay stopped at the the p.o.p.e for a night cap and jay forgot to mention what happened in his post but the next day we ended up on philebrity...
im in the background laughing...
the other two nights were awesome! everything is sounding really good and we seem to be moving along rather quickly. jeff and brian have really kicked it up for these last few songs. and i feel like we are getting into a grove again. the guitar parts have been super easy to record. it's like all we have to do is turn the amp on plug any guitar into it and put a mic in front of it and it sounds good. it seems to easy i know but thats how it goes i guess...
pg...
im in the background laughing...
the other two nights were awesome! everything is sounding really good and we seem to be moving along rather quickly. jeff and brian have really kicked it up for these last few songs. and i feel like we are getting into a grove again. the guitar parts have been super easy to record. it's like all we have to do is turn the amp on plug any guitar into it and put a mic in front of it and it sounds good. it seems to easy i know but thats how it goes i guess...
pg...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
