Distortion
I've been working for too long without a break. Every day (including weekends) I have been waking to an alarm, which generally puts me in a bad place, mentally. But I've had good reason to keep on going and pushing through the tiredness. It's a bad coincidence that I'm also managing two projects simultaneously in my day job, but at least it's allowing the days to go by quicker.
On Friday, Alan Webb came over to record as many guitar tracks as possible. Neither of us had an amp to hand, so I borrowed (stole) Tim's Trace Elliot Super Tramp, which sounds buzzy and doesn't have a great definition, but there's something so likable about the Super Tramp because it sounds so real.. so rock n roll. DIing guitars is great, but sometimes there's nothing like getting some air in the recording and enjoying the sounds of hisses and buzzes.
We didn't have a head for the amp, so I decided I would use SansAmp as a head. To explain the loop:
1) Guitar is plugged into an input on the Digi003, which is directly recording onto a track in Pro Tools.
2) The output of that track is bussed to an AUX track, with SansAmp on.
3) The Aux is bussed out of the 003 and put to the input of the Super Tramp
4) The amp is miced up with an SM58 at the front and occasionally with an AKG C414 at the back.
5) This goes onto a separate track(s) in Pro Tools
So this not only acted as a head for the amp, but also enabled me to record a clean input of the guitars at the same time, so if I decided later on I was unhappy with the sound, I could still use something like GuitarRig directly on it. This rarely had to happen, though I did ask Alan to do a lot of double-tracking and created a nice phasing effect when hard panned. Not the most original technique, but it really brough out the definition of the songs.
By the end of Saturday, Alan and I had worked through 5 tracks, finishing just in time for him to catch a flight to Spain.
On Sunday, Mike Osborne finally showed up with his Bass cab and his pale blue Bass. Again, a similar story of not having a head, so I used the exact same technique for the cab as I did for Alan's guitars. The only problem here is that the cab is passive, and so all the level coming out of it was powered by the output of my 003. So when micing it, there is a lot of sub-bass coming out, but not so much definition. Regardless, Mike also performed on nearly everything that needed - and for the first time, I let him funk out on some of the songs, which I think he enjoyed lots (we had been listening to Primus, so it made sense).
I could go on, but I won't because I'm so tired, but to summerise, lots of the songs are really beginning to sound like songs and I'm really happy with how the majority of them have turned out. I have a LOT of editing, compressing and EQing to go, but it's not really a chore when you start loving your songs again.
Mark is coming over on Thursday to lay down the final set of guitars on a couple of tracks and I finally managed to organise studio time for the next couple of weekends where I can record piano with Judith Haustein and vocals. Have lots to get ready before then... no change there!!
On Friday, Alan Webb came over to record as many guitar tracks as possible. Neither of us had an amp to hand, so I borrowed (stole) Tim's Trace Elliot Super Tramp, which sounds buzzy and doesn't have a great definition, but there's something so likable about the Super Tramp because it sounds so real.. so rock n roll. DIing guitars is great, but sometimes there's nothing like getting some air in the recording and enjoying the sounds of hisses and buzzes.
We didn't have a head for the amp, so I decided I would use SansAmp as a head. To explain the loop:
1) Guitar is plugged into an input on the Digi003, which is directly recording onto a track in Pro Tools.
2) The output of that track is bussed to an AUX track, with SansAmp on.
3) The Aux is bussed out of the 003 and put to the input of the Super Tramp
4) The amp is miced up with an SM58 at the front and occasionally with an AKG C414 at the back.
5) This goes onto a separate track(s) in Pro Tools
So this not only acted as a head for the amp, but also enabled me to record a clean input of the guitars at the same time, so if I decided later on I was unhappy with the sound, I could still use something like GuitarRig directly on it. This rarely had to happen, though I did ask Alan to do a lot of double-tracking and created a nice phasing effect when hard panned. Not the most original technique, but it really brough out the definition of the songs.
By the end of Saturday, Alan and I had worked through 5 tracks, finishing just in time for him to catch a flight to Spain.
On Sunday, Mike Osborne finally showed up with his Bass cab and his pale blue Bass. Again, a similar story of not having a head, so I used the exact same technique for the cab as I did for Alan's guitars. The only problem here is that the cab is passive, and so all the level coming out of it was powered by the output of my 003. So when micing it, there is a lot of sub-bass coming out, but not so much definition. Regardless, Mike also performed on nearly everything that needed - and for the first time, I let him funk out on some of the songs, which I think he enjoyed lots (we had been listening to Primus, so it made sense).
I could go on, but I won't because I'm so tired, but to summerise, lots of the songs are really beginning to sound like songs and I'm really happy with how the majority of them have turned out. I have a LOT of editing, compressing and EQing to go, but it's not really a chore when you start loving your songs again.
Mark is coming over on Thursday to lay down the final set of guitars on a couple of tracks and I finally managed to organise studio time for the next couple of weekends where I can record piano with Judith Haustein and vocals. Have lots to get ready before then... no change there!!
posted by Angelchrome at 8:41 pm
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