studioeater
Where am I? What a time warp the studio is. I feel all funny.
The recording of basic tracks and vocals is complete after a long, extended weekend. What was ridiculously scheduled for 3 days got pushed to a long 4. We worked long and hard and I have no idea what we have. Here are outtakes from my studio logs:
Day 1:
we got a late start and are already behind. Danny has a few snare drum problems and just about quits before we start. Tape (and I do mean TAPE!!) is finally around 9:00. We hit the keyboard songs first and get some good takes on 2 Min. Hate, Choke, and Somnambulance II.
We called it a night at about 1:30. We had plans to stay at Jer CAsanatra's house and we had directions to get out to his house, which was a nice little jaunt out to Wisconsin. On the way to Jer's house, the directions were lost by someone in the van (not Danny or myself.) Now we were quite confused as no one would answer their phone this late to redirect us. I knew there was a strip club where we were supposed to turn, but I couldn't remember which way. We were lucky enough to find the strip club, and even the luckier to find Jer's address in the phone book in that strip club. That wasn't good enough, though, we still had to drive all around the strip club and get lost some more, go back to the strip club for more specific directions, before we FINALLY found Jer's house and promptly crashed out.
Day 2:
We roll out, pick up some breakfast, and get to the studio at 11:30. We are satisfied with the previous night's work so we move on to guitar tracks. We are able to get sweet drums down for Corydoor, Well Enough Alone, The Antidote, The Ghost Song Pt. 1, Synergy, and Aconite. We move on and I retrack some keyboard parts. Choke sounds pretty good so we leave the scratch take. Pooh starts doing some bass work around 8. A few hours later he has knocked it out and it's time to reamp the bass and keys. This took longer than expected and ended up finishing off the night. At about 2, Pooh and I leave to crash at Lance Casanatra's place (Danny stays at studio.) I need some fresh air so I spend the night in the van.
Day 3:
Poo and I get lost on our way back to the studio and arrive around noon. This is going to be a monster day if we are going to finish on time. We still have all the guitars to do and all the vocals. I try to dial in a somewhat non-crappy tone and we get crackin. I am able to finish basic guitar tracks by about 5. We take a little breather while our rather strange engineer (but wicked talented, yeah?) sets up vocal mikes. Around 8 we hit it hard and things go pretty well. My voice feels in good shape and we go with a lot of first or second takes. Zach, as usual, is also in terrific form and we are blazing through the songs. The clock is also blazing and finishing it all off is looking doubtful. At a quarter to 2, with Zach working on vocals for The Antidote, the poor engineer has hit the wall. After 14 hours in his chair, he must call it a day, and we have some decisions to make. We all have school or work the next morning, or rather in a few short hours. Lazlo (studio engineer) just so happens to have a free day to continue the next day, so we bite the bullet and resolve to finish it off, or at least try. Otherwise it would be another 200 bones in gas to make back to the cities. Tonight we stay at the studio, the fellas on couches, I retire to the van.
Day 4:
We go grab a bite and work continues around 1:30. Zach does some touchups on the Antidote, and its on to Well Enough Alone. My voice is not as strong this morning and I regret not being able to finish the night before. Oh well. We do our best and finish up the vocals. Our intentions were to go back and lay down some overdubs on some songs, but due to time constraints, the only overdub was a small snare drum click part that Danny felt was "integral" to the song. And that was it. Pretty anti-climactic, really. It was now about 6 p.m. We then slumped with exhaustion upon the couch while Lazlo dumped the tracks onto the computer. (It was quite strange recording with no computer on anywhere. totally awesome.) This took a few hours and just like that, we were on our way back home.
One year's worth of hard work, practice, revisions, sweat, performance, blood, practice, rewrites, tears, rehearsal, and love all on three little data discs, ready to be mixed.
Cross your fingers. Hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.
(I wrote that.)
