Sooo, I was supposed to start tracking my guitars for our new CD yesterday but we took a little extra time for the bass and it sounds pretty fuckin good so far. It's been a while since I've been in the studio and I must say, it is my least favorite part of being in a band. Don't get me wrong, I like to hear the final product and have new songs to play but just the whole process of it stresses me out. We practiced/rehearsed for a whole month and came up with 11 songs to record. Recording started on Feb 27th, I believe, with Memphis laying down the drums. They sound ridiculous. This was our first time writing/recording with Memphis since he's been in the band and I was pretty psyched on getting these songs recorded.
I wasn't present for any of the drum recording since there was really no use for me there. I stayed in the city and worked cus I knew I'd be taking time off to do guitars. Anyways, next up was the bass. We decided that Frankie would record the bass since he had a lot of ideas for different bass lines and it would just be easier in the long run as far as consistency. We had Rob pick up the bass from Broken Neck Guitar in Boston and bring it to the studio. Of course, something is wrong. The bass was set up for E tuning. We play in Drop B. Useless bass. Rob brings the bass back up to Boston and explains what happened. The guy fixes it and Rob heads back to the studio. What do you know, the bass is right except for the lowest string. It's still in E!! What the fuck?! So now a day of recording is lost and I had Frankie pick up my guitars a couple days beforehand. He goes home and checks them. My main guitar is fine but the backup is wrong too! So we have to bring that back and get it set up AGAIN. What a mess. Because of this, I had to switch my time off which was a pain in the ass. In the end, it worked out. The bass sounds killer. We used a JCM800 guitar head into a Marshall cab. It sounds great.
Today I woke up at 8:45am. Got on the train around 9 to head to Braintree where Frankie was picking me up. We stopped at Wendy's real quick before we went to the studio cus I was starving. We get to the studio and are delayed by a locksmith putting in a new lock. While that happens, we set up the cab and the mics. After a while the locksmith is done and we start trying out sounds. We started with the 6505 using the settings I use live. We tweaked it a little. Brought the gain back and brought back the lows. We tried to incorporate the Tubescreamer but it just wasn't happening. After a little bit we got a basic guitar sound and tried a song out. It was a little rusty at first but I started to get into the groove of things. After a little while longer we get a good sound that Frankie and I both like. But we wanted to try out the Mesa Dual Rectifier as well just to see. We plugged it in and turned it on and got a basic sound out of it. We recorded the same part with both heads and the 6505 prevailed. I start off with the song that Memphis wrote. It's so goddamn catchy. It's one of the longer ones on the new CD but really fun to play. After laying down the skeleton we went back and picked apart each piece of the song. I still haven't fell into the groove but I was gettin' there. After a while we finally got the song done and sounding awesome. After that we did 2 more songs. One of the shortest songs on the album was probably the most pain in the ass song to record. I was getting so frustrated. After a while I nailed it, 3 songs in about 2 hours wasn't bad. Now it was time for a lunch break. Back to Wendy's we go.
Once we got back Jim got the next song up and ready to go. This song has a lot of fast palm-muted picking so I knew it was going to be a bitch to get precise but it's one of my favorites. Again, I laid down the skeleton for the song and then we went back and nitpicked everything. The fast picking was hard but I got it eventually. The guitar sounds so heavy mixed with what we have so far. I'm really happy with how it's sounding so far. While we were doing this song, Bryan showed up. He was really into how everything was sounding. After a while, I finally got the song done and we called it a day. I was really hoping to get this one done and try to do another song but we were spent. Tomorrow will be longer since everything's all set up and ready to go. We played Bryan the other songs and it sounds awesome so far. 4 down, a lot more to go.
Tomorrow we start at 10am. Hopefully, I can get the rest of my tracks done. I'm really psyched on these songs and can't wait for it to actually be out. It's definitely more fast-paced than our last CD. A lot more just straight up and in your face. We also throw in some different flavor as well. I think it will turn a lot of heads into seeing what we're really about. Either way, I just want the damn thing out so we can get back on the road again. I'm going crazy having a job. That's all for now.
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