BDx13
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long-ass STARKWEATHER studio update and (part of) a new track
drum and bass tracks from new song here:
http://www.myspace.com/starkweather666
update from the studio below. not sure what this stuff is for in relation to the other album's worth of material i got last fall. anyway, i'm not
complaining.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Studio Update
"It doesn't always have to be tanks. Sometimes it can be boats." Alap Momin
After you've been here long enough, things that were important outside of the studio don't seem to matter much anymore. You don't sleep so much as lay
unconscious, your skin coated by a film of filth that fits like a wet blanket, you forget to eat, and you overload yourself on caffeine to the point
of shakes. The outside world is all but incinerated, the daylight a sliver in the live room window; just a pinpoint focus on the mission...
The Mission:
To translate forty plus years of disappointment, anger, disgrace, triumph, mental illness, and substance abuse into a near endless stream of 0's and
1's. To capture the kaleidoscope brilliance of mania, the dead weight of depression, the loosening of the reins that comes with psychosis with 10
fingers, seven strings, 2 amplifiers, and one cabinet.
The Songs:
Broken From Inside aka. Big Mama Jama
One Among Vermin aka. Gorguts Intro
Martyring aka. Junkyard Jazz
The Mechanics:
We spent about 6 hours changing the heads on Harry's kit, tuning them up, making sure that there were no rattling parts and then Alap entered with his
collection of microphones, including some super cheap Chinese mikes (MCA SP1's) that we used as overheads, a D112 on the kick, toms 1/2 had SM57's,
toms 3/4 had MD 421's and the last tom had a D112 to catch the bottom end. Alap put a Lawson L47, which is a handmade version of a Neumann U47, dead
center in front of the kit and a few scattered mikes aroud the room for some atmosphere.
All drums were run straight onto Alap's new Pro Tools HD system through some API mic pre's and as they stand right now there is NOTHING on the drums;
no EQ, no reverb, no filtering. Alap sat out in the live room and tweaked the drums until we loved the sound and then he moved microphones to capture
what we all heard.
Vins cabinets were miked with an MD421 on the Ampeg cab and a mike that I can't remember (D112?) on the Boogie 1X15. They were tucked back in the live
room behind a half wall facing into a corner and the sound, after a little bit of tweaking, was thunderous. Vin used both the clean and distortion
channels on his Ampeg head, and sometimes used both.
Alap ran me through Amp Farm, a digital software program that attempts to mimic a real amp, so that we could start running through the basic tracks
and get Harry and Vinny recorded.
The Music:
Big Mama was the first song we tried. We ran through it twice to work out the jitters and get all of our headphone levels set and after working out
the bugs the second track was a keeper. The second song we tried was Junkyard Jazz, which we hadn't really planned on doing. Everything sounded so
fucking good that we couldn't resist. Again, another few takes and it was done. Last song was Gorguts Intro and this took another few tries for Harry
to try out a couple of new parts and in two takes it was done. All told it took Harry about 2 hours to record about 28 minutes worth of music. there
is only one drum edit out of the 26 minutes of music recorded and that edit was just cutting and pasting one single tom hit that Harry missed. To put
that in perspective, an engineer down the hall that records a ton of screamo bands once did over 1,000 drum edits on one song!!! Every drum track is
one continuous take with no cuttting and pasting of different sections, no quantizing the drums, no triggers, no sound replacement, etc.
With Harry passed out on the couch it was Vin's turn to sit in the hot seat. With Alap that seat can get VERY hot. Different Engineer/producers have
different approaches and most guys will just capture whatever sound you're putting out. Since Alap's work with Dalek is all about beats, timing,
layers, and vocal rhythms, he can be very tough on sloppy play. As usual, Vin sat down and absolutely killed it. The most hysterical thing about Vin
doing his tracks was the fact that it was about 3 in the morning and in between every take, while listening back, he would fall asleep with his bass
in his hand and as soon as it was time to play again he would pick up EXACTLY where he left off. There's some fucked up link between he and Harry that
defies sense and he's able to lock in with Harry's ridiculous drumming in a way that I'll never be able to. There are sections where it's difficult to
diferrentiate between the kick drum and Vin's bass. Just amazing.
Alap: "Todd, play this part in 3/4."
Todd: "I don't know what the fuck 3/4 is..."
Guitar Time...We tried doing a setup of 2 amps running through 2 separate cabinets simultaneously, a Boogie Racktifier through my oversized Boogie cab
and a .50 Caliber through an old Carvin cab loaded with V30's. From the start the sound wasn't working even though the sound in the room was
absolutely terrifiying. After many microphone shifts and tweaks to the amps, we decided to go back to what worked last time we were in the
studio...one amp/one cab. My idea prior to going into the studio was to create 2 completely different guitar tracks for each song and to pan them hard
left and right to create a huge, expansive sound. We decided to scrap the .50 Caliber (that I had just paid almost $200 to repair) and set up my
Peavey 5150 and the Racktifier running through the Boogie cab. The Boogie sounded amazing but the 5150 had some horrible fucking squealing noise that
we couldn't tame so we retubed the whole amp; only to discover that the Tube Screamer I'd placed in front of the amp was the culprit.
With all of our tech difficulties out of the way, we mapped out how I would record each song. What we ended up doing was 4 tracks of guitar for the
basic tracks, mixing both amps and both guitars, with the first 2 tracks using my normal rehearsal high gain settings, and 2 tracks with the gain
backed off to an almost AC/DC tone for some clarity. The first take through each song can be tough, especially getting used to the drums and bass
lines that weren't clear at rehearsal or on the demos. Once the first track was down as a blueprint I had a fairly easy time adding the additional 3
tracks. I'm not sure how many hours it took me to get the basic tracks done, but it seemed that we spent more time getting tones and working on tech
difficulties than we did recording. Alap kept on me about my timing, attack, etc and once the foundation tracks were laid down we started working on
'second guitarist's' tracks. I'd worked out the additional guitar tracks for Big Mama and Gorguts Intro, but had almost nothing set for Junkyard Jazz.
I honestly didn't think we would have the time to get through all 3 songs in the 4 days we'd booked. I think we started with Mama and as tends to
happen, the ideas started flowing between Alap and I. This is only the second time that I've ever done guitar tracks without Rennie in the room and
it's still a little bit unsettling. Thankfully Alap is a perfect foil for me, torturing me when necessary and slowing things down when I get too nuts.
I think we did 2 or 3 tracks of the 'second' guitar tracks and then Alap started to kook out with some 'My Bloody Valentine' tremolo bends, fucked up
arpeggiated notes with conflicting delays, and the fucking Waldorf, which is some sort of fucked up effects box that he loves, as well as some tracks
run through wah pedals, boost pedals, delays, and god knows what else. The end result is that this album, which was never really intended to be an
album, is as lush, deep, chaotic, and layered as I'd always wanted SW to be.
Vocals:
Rennie got called into work on Saturday night, leaving Alap, Troy and I to complete the guitars. When Ren came back on Monday morning there were just
a few loose ends guitar-wise to finish up and then it was vocal time. Alap once again used the Lawson U47 for the vocals. Rennie hates wearing
headphones so we set up a system that had the backing tracks playing through one of Dalek's PA speakers pointed away from Rennie. This allowed him to
hear things better than with headphones, at a lower volume, and he was able to move in front of the mic a bit more so that it felt more natural.
Because Rennie's vocal patterns so closely play off of Harry's drums, and the fact that Harry never plays the songs the same way twice, Ren does a ton
of fine tuning once in the studio of the basic vocal tracks and the overdubs that he does are a combination of pre-planned and improvised ideas. Ren's
initial plan was to keep the vocals fairly stripped down, with fewer of the crazy overdubs than we used on 'Croatoan', but these songs really called
for some layering, some Rennie style harmonizing, and screaming layers. The most insane part of the whole vocal session was Rennie doing 6 vocal
tracks in a middle section of "Broken From Inside' where he was able to harmonize with himself without hearing the original tracks through the PA! It
creates one of my all time favorite Starkweather vocal sections, especially when the music fades and Rennie's harmonies continue on like some fucked
up Brian Wilson meets Starkweather section. All told, It took Ren about a day and a half to finish his tracks and we were on our way home by about
10pm.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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LordActionWood
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amazing read, thanks BD....good techie stuff, there.
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Siczine.com
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Very good read indeed.
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BDx13
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i don't know what half of that shit means, but i'm stoked there's more music on the way so soon!
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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morgan
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| Quote: | Originally posted by BD
i don't know what half of that shit means, but i'm stoked there's more music on the way so soon! |
Support the arts, shoot a rapper.
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SHAKO KEN
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there's a version with vocals and guitar up now too.
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BDx13
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| Quote: | Originally posted by SHAKO KEN
there's a version with vocals and guitar up now too. |
huh, i have a copy of this track from the recordings they did last fall. this version sounds a little different, though.
Don’t Blame Us For Metalcore is fucking funny.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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