Friday 31 July 2009

End of Term

Hi campers, sorry for the lack of updates this week, its been a busy one! But the good news is that all the bass and main guitars are DONE :)

tuesday/wednesday was mostly laying down some lovely clean guitars with ed's gordon smith and a bit of ehx holy grail, proper job, before richard departed on wednesday night. Since then jonny's been going nuts adding some overdubs in the dark on his tod, ed's been popping in for aftenoon tea and to sing a bit here and there and i've been finshing off the bass. wrapped up today with 'piano' (working title, no prizes for guessing why we called it that, given our taste for stating the obvious. other tracks include 'obamageddon'. serial.) and 'baroque', which is currently the album closer and an absolute beast (although our definition of baroque might differ somewhat from the orthodox)

so we've built up the bones, organs, nervous system and muscles of our brand new baby and we're just waiting for the skin, some freckles and a bit of belly fuzz. simples.

we're now having a short break while jonny starts tracking some tunes for our best buddies rinoa (no rest for the wikkid) and reconvening throughout august to finish this motherbitch off!

hope you're all doing well, don't forget about us!

Iain et al.

Monday 27 July 2009

Tone - the holy grail

OK, so we know that videos have been a bit sparse over the past week - we are working on it and should have some new footage to put up soon. Guitars are coming along swimmingly now. We had a few issues at the start but we cracked it and are ploughing through the tracks. We have started spreading the bass around a bit and its all sounding lush.

Our days begin with a bit of Friends with brekkie and ends with more Friends, food and whatever dire movie happens to be on freeview. The Wii has made a comeback too, with me kicking Eds ass at Wii golf - what a dooshbag! We seem to be in a freakish area of absolutely no O2 mobile reception here, so contact with the outside world is difficult - luckily wifi is saving the day.

We had some good friends come over on saturday to do some vocal stuff for one of the tracks. I am sure there will be more on this and a bit of footage in the next vid. But thanks to the Rinoa gents and Leo from Tetters for their expert vocal talents.

So another few days left for me until I head back to London and quite a bit still to do so a busy 2 days ahead, but also a few more wicked sic meals cooked by Eds mum - ftw!



Rick

bring the noise

Yesterday was our day off from the studio, which we spent at noisefest in reading. It was really cool to hangout with so many friends and see people we haven't seen for ages. After our short lived break which has actually made us more tired than we would have been, we're back into the studio today but at a slightly later time so we can have a bit of a sleep after getting in late. Which stupidly, I'm not taking advantage of.

x

Wednesday 22 July 2009

aaaaIIiiiAAAuuuiiiIIIIaaauUUAaa

Today Iain got up nice and early and got himself over the studio, he trotted his way through some bass! So far everything is sounding huge, everyone says that though like they'd say otherwise. So far the record is sounding really weak, flat and boring, half as heavy as before and and 5 times lamer.

While Iain was doing this I was in the car driving home from guildford, my girlfriend bought me some white chocolate mice, which I love, but I can't eat them until vocals are done, they will be a celebratory snack / overeat. Got to put down some more vocals today which I was really happy with, and now I am watching big trouble in little china. bosh.

Ed
x

also fyi, I have been informed that hope is a rip off of a 65 days of static song, we are both british and both played guilfest last year, so we MUST have ripped it off....

and so it continues...

second day of 'tracking' bass today, first three tunes down now! not too much to report, just heads down, consummate professionalism, as you have grown to expect from us...

spent a good while trying to get our heads around a samba rhythm that some bastard had decided to write into one of the tracks. song is utter mayhem but all the better for it. finished off the day with some tasty riffs. fairly into our stride now so hopefully tomorrow will be a productive one, once jonny is back from picking up a tele we're borrowing (think lamb of god meets the la's. not that any of the new songs sound anything like that, but just IMAGINE. carnage.)

had the pleasure of keeping richard amused for the night as edward is off in guilford. evening very well spent playing a Peruvian dice based bluffing game and watching charlie brooker be angry on telly.

¡hasta maƱana!

Monday 20 July 2009

The takeover...

I feel at this point i should probably start writing some stuff seeing as I am just about entering the proceedings stage left...

as has already been mentioned, my part of today was fumbling around in search of the holy grail. after several hours of gain tweaks, clever parallel signal routing, phase adjustments, mic placement, saddle raising to accommodate overzealous playing and about a million test recordings, we cracked it. high mids with character and a warm rounded bottom.

got half a song done too!

lessons learned for tomorrow: bring packed lunch to avoid improvised smelly sandwiches. leave shoes on. set cowbell to 'kill'.

Iain.

a bit of everything!

well instead of getting one thing done, then moving to the next and so on, we're doing a bit of everything as we go! Today we sorted the bass sound and then recorded some, we also did some vocals too! Good times! Iain leaves his wallet everywhere, proving easy to steal. take note. He also likes pepperoni on his sandwich!

x

Friday 17 July 2009

Games?

I have never seen such a non game as this!

mybrute

Yet I can't stop playing!

Today we got on with more guitars while taking breaks to send our tour manager voice notes about willies and how he has no balls!

x

Thursday 16 July 2009

Onwards!

Well we get in today, turns out that we did not like the guitar sound in the morning. We worked on it further and ended up reverting to an older setting and placement. Ohh well, finally we're getting on with it and getting on nicely!

Ed

x

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Drums Finished

Well today we officially finished recording drums, before we said goodbye to Leks as he went off to prepare for a friends wedding we got up to some fun that Slipknot would be proud of! Check it out!



After that we started setting up guitars and working on a guitar sound to start putting them down tomorrow. Lets just hope when we get in tomorrow morning we still like what we hear!!

peace

Ed

Monday 13 July 2009

Drums!

So a week has passed and the drums are now finished! The usual barrage of farts, pub-metal vocal relief and studio cabin fever was endured but ended up worth the while. We even got to see the Williams F1 car testing at a nearby airfield on our break!!!

Check the video for some of the action from last week!

More pictures and videos soon!

Jonny

Sunday 5 July 2009

ALBUM 2 Studio Blog!

Hello and Welcome! This here blog has been hijacked, and will now be giving you some massive cool updates on how and what we are doing in the studio. Yesterday we went into a practice room to do one last run through the songs before we start putting down the drums on monday (6th July). To kick this off we made a short video of what we got up to yesterday!



Peace Out!

x