So a month into writing and rehearsing with the new outfit, it was time to get the new compositions down on record!
Four of our tunes were plucked from the list as the chosen ones, mainly because at the time they were the most complete and polished tracks out of the lot. It wasn't a tough decision. A couple of weeks rehearsals were allocated to get them sounding top notch, then it was eyes down and headphones on for a month of hard work and frustration!
With the recording to take place in our very own rehearsal space in South London, (aptly named 'Daisy Dog Studios' for reasons, Im sure you can work out for yourself), sessions were done individually, and over the course of two days a week, for a month.
We have recorded a few times in the past in this room and always captured a great sound so it was an easy choice to re-capture in the room once again.
It has always worked in our favour when we do a DIY job. Firstly it costs a hell of a lot less, actually it cost us nothing as it is the drummers converted front room! And secondly, if you know pretty much what your doing then it is a lot less stressful knowing that you are not paying for every wasted minute when things go wrong...because something always goes wrong!
You can really take your time and you will always get your desired outcome, without some sound guy butting in with their ideas (even though this can be very helpful) we prefer to do it our way! Yes, we are stubborn like that!
Lastly, it is extremely rewarding to know, that every time you pass your CD on to someone, or you have an ascending play count on SoundCloud or Myspace, that you did that yourself, it is your own work. What an achievement I say!
For reasons of our own convenience we laid the tracks down in rather an unconvenional way. We started by laying down, to a click, the piano parts. This was followed by the guitar parts. The drums were then layed down, preceded by the vocals, organ and recorder. Lastly the overdubs were done, consisting of cymbal sounds, and vocals layering.
The next two weeks were taken up by the mixing of the four tracks. All recording was done on a Macbook Pro with Logic 9. The vocals were processed using Izotope Nectar, a fantastic plugin we discovered a few days before recording commenced. Various Waves plugins were used to process the guitars and drums, however, not a great deal of processing was needed as the room gave us such a wonderful natural sound.
Finally the EP was complete, all that was needed was the upload onto various sites such as SoundCloud and Myspace, and the duplication of CDs (a long and arduous procedure). So go have a listen, enjoy, let us know what you think and tell your friends!!
TIG
