In the studio. Day number two. I got all 13 drum tracks done yesterday. They sound really fucking good. Nice and punchy and deep, lots of low end. Used a fat old Gretch snare that they have laying around the here, and it’s exactly the sound I was hoping for. It has that depth that my snare just can’t produce, no matter how hard it tries. Pretty much did two or three takes of every song. I ended up just doing everything to a click with Matt or Jameson providing a scratch track. I’d been practicing that way, so it was comfortable, and the tempos are fast enough that the songs still have that live energy. I was definitely getting tired towards the last couple, but I banged everything out. I was fucking BEAT when I got home at like 10, watched a movie, fell asleep and didn’t wake up till almost noon.
Jameson just finished laying down the first four bass tracks. He used a slightly different version of his funny old head, through a little ampeg cab, into a Distressor. Nice and round and bassy the way he likes it, but it has a good amount of punch too and is working with the kick drum. Our engineer Ethan is doing a great job keeping things flowing, getting good sounds, editing when it makes sense, but not all over the fucking place. Editing drums on Pro Tools HD is fucking insane. The way I’m used to it, fully editing a drum track is at least a couple hour process, but with this shit, it takes about twenty minutes. It’s kind of scary. Bass and drums are going down on legit two inch tape before going into Pro Tools, and it makes all the difference. This is the first time in the studio that I’ve been 100 percent confident that we’re going to have a totally solid rhythm foundation to build off of. Having the bass and drums this tight leaves room for the guitars, and that’s when shit starts to sound huge kids.
It’s around five oclock and we’ve been here since one. Ethan stepped out to get a bite to eat, and then it’s on to guitars. We’re going to go in four song chunks, rather than doing all of each instrument on the same day, so Matt and Jon don’t kill their voices doing 13 vocal tracks at the same time. The studio’s small but comfortable, it’s cheap as hell, everyone knows what they’re doing and has a good attitude, no pretentious bullshit, and the gear stacks up to anywhere else. I don’t know why you wouldn’t record here. We came in prepared, and it shows…things are moving really quickly. Since we decided last minute to do an extra 3 songs, making it 13 rather than 10, the gameplan is probably going to be to spend the whole week tracking, then come back in August for mixing…it’ll cost a little extra, so we just have to okay the money situation with everyone. Definitely takes a little pressure off knowing we don’t have to mix everything this week, and can take our time getting everything right. Shouldn’t affect our schedule too much since we weren’t planning on really touring to support it until January anyways, but taking the extra time will definitely push the release date back a bit. Better to take the time and get it right though.
Things between our new manager and the label seem to be working out well so far. Not sure how much I can talk about, but suffice it to say that it seems like everyone in the band and on the business end is on the same page. Last week was stressful, but the van is all set…insurance was way less expensive than we expected, but the sales tax was way more, so it ended up about where we thought it would. Barbara at Commerce Insurance was awesome, and Wanda at the RMV was totally not awesome. It’s all done though, paid for, insured and in Matt’s name. Still have to get it inspected, so we’ll take care of that Monday morning. Hopefully they don’t make us replace the windshield because the crack running down the right side. Definitely takes a huge weight off our shoulders knowing that shit is done. Now we can focus on making a great record, and take some time promoting the shows before we leave in a week.
Kevin and I finished recording a couple songs he’s been working on, and I finished mixing the first two the other day. One is an over produced, glossy, death cab style pop song. It’s kind of ridiculous and unlike anything we’ve done before, but it sounds great and it was a lot of fun. The other one is a rootsy alt countryish song. The recording and mixing is really straight forward, I don’t think there are more than 10 tracks. The two songs really couldn’t be more different but it’s cool, I had a good time working on them.
Shira’s first three songs are mixed and mastered and up at mypsace.com/milkhouseengineersteve. They came out really well. We’ve started work on three more, so I gotta find the time to get some drums down on them sometime this week.
Emily’s next song is coming along too. It has a Rock and roll country vibe to it, more upbeat than her last one. I have to edit bass and drums and mix it this week as well. Don’t know when I’ll have the time to do it, but I’ll make it happen one way or another.
