Thanks for the compliments, guys! This one was an interesting one, to say the least. After preaching to these guys for weeks about bringing the guitars in properly setup & ready to go, I was treated to 2 thinbody Ibanez guitars, one with missing nut locks & fine tuners on the floyd, scratchy volume knobs, one with a missing input jack & the other with the ground not hooked up! I've mentioned before, it's a good thing I don't keep guns in the studio........
Thankfully, one of them was loaded with an EMG, otherwise, the guitars would not have come out as good as they did. Here's a pic of the one we used for rhtyhms....
It pisses me off to see clients throw their money away on studio time spent fixing guitars, rather than tracking performances. Don't get me wrong, the extra cash was nice, but the band could have saved a rather large sum off the final bill by taking their stuff to a tech beforehand.
What was really hilarious was when the lead guitarist asked, "How come the rhythm guitars don't sound like Pantera?"
My reply:
"Ummm... let's see.... because you don't have Dimebag in the band? That's a pretty good start.... You're tuned too high, you're playing basswood Ibanez & not Dean or Washburn, & your riffs sound nothing like Pantera. Does that clear things up for you?"
Anyway, once we got the guitars sorted out, I must say the rhythm guitarist really stepped up to the plate... considering he'd only been with the group for about 2 months! Guitar tone went through a few revisions as well. After intial tracking, I reamped the entire album twice (I thought I had something cool, but found something even better due to another project I was working on), until I found this tone. It's a combination of 5150 & Mesa Rectifier using the dual 57 on/off axis technique. Quad tracked.
Bass was cool, & went by fairly painlessly. One track featured the bassist using a Canadian dollar coin (affectionatley nicknamed the "loonie" after the government that brought this in) as a pick for a pretty damn cool effect. We've also got 8 Djembe tracks playing along with it & Megan, the female vocalist, doing some heavy breathing into the mic for a pretty cool "tribal war dance" effect. As of now, I only have permission to post the song I have up now, but I might get the chance to post this other track once the record comes out.
Drums were quite enjoyable to track, featuring the drummer from the Final Stage video with the horrible timing. Well, this time we cut to a click & it made a world of difference. The kit is 100% natural & I'm really happy with how the kick & snare turned out. Especially considering the weird signal chain we used on the snare... well, weird for me, anyway... it's very different from my normal 57 into a Great River pre. We used an Audix i5 into a Ward Beck M480c preamp. We also used a Remo Powerstroke 3 snare head instead of my usual Evans Genera Dry. All in all, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
Vocals, well, those were the high point. Megan Wilson, the female vocalist, is a blast to work with. She's definitley not the 'prissy' type. Actually, she tells some of the filthiest jokes I've ever heard!
Adam, the male vocalist sort of struggled at the beginning of tracking his stuff. He knew what he wanted, but couldn't quite seem to get it out. Well, I lent him my copy of "The Zen of Screaming" & had him come back a week later. ...It was like working with a completely different singer. What a difference. If you don't have this video, you might want to get a copy. It can save you a lot of grief.
That, & the guy is a theater arts major at the local university... and is quite funny in his own right. Tracking vocals with him was a lot of fun due to his off the cuff banter, which I've got archived away for future blackmail material.....
Anyway, thanks again for the comments, guys! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
-0z-
