Jeff Loomis - the recording chronicles (2011)

Can't wait for this album to drop! Will you be contributing anything music-wise, Aaron? Maybe a solo or something?
 
I have to say Aaron, I have massive respect for you. Many reasons of course, but specifically right now....your mixing/etc is amazing. I cannot wait to hear this album.

Oh, and of course put me down for a pre-order of the "Aaron & Jeff Native Drum & Ukulele Extravaganza" album ;)
 
Terminus said:
Can't wait for this album to drop! Will you be contributing anything music-wise, Aaron? Maybe a solo or something?
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I'll probably just leave the soloing up to Jeff, haha. I'm capable of writing a tasteful solo (unfortunately the 7H7E record isn't out yet, so I can't point to my best examples), but I have never considered playing leads to be my strongest point as a guitarist...I'm much more of a riffing/rhythm/songwriting/big picture kind of guy.

That said, I've played on several places on the record so far...pretty much any part that I've personally come up with, Jeff has just said "Hey man, it's your part, so you should play it!". Off the top of my head, there's an octave part on the chorus of one of Christine's songs that I played, a short clean guitar lead-ish kind of thing before a chorus on a different song, an acoustic guitar bit we did yesterday, and a few little bass guitar runs throughout the record as well. There's actually one section, probably about 40 seconds long, that I just straight up wrote and played all the rhythm guitars/bass on as well, haha. It was the last song Jeff wrote for the album, and he was totally stressing out with trying to get it finished and sent off to Dirk in time, so I came over and helped him figure out how to tie it all together. The guitar playing in that section is nothing flashy, just dramatic layered octaves and power chords basically, but Dirk goes off pretty crazy on the drums there and I think it turned out great.

Other than the playing, my producing "fingerprints" are all over the record as well. Some structural changes, drum ideas, and I wrote a lot of the little tasteful bass guitar things that I would hear in my head (parts that briefly depart from the guitars, etc), although Shane has a much smoother finger touch than I do on the bass, so I would just write/teach him those parts and he would play it. And then with vocals, Christine came with all her lyrics and a lot of musical ideas in mind, but it was pretty common for me to really stretch her ideas into something completely different (and then of course, writing harmonies). She didn't necessarily have a ton of bad ideas, but the parts she wrote tended to be kind of "safe" and conservative sounding (almost like she was afraid to sing too loudly), so I had to really push her to sound commanding and convincing as a lead vocalist. I am happy to report that she handled it all quite well, and I was able to really get her out of her shell. On all four of her songs, I truly feel like her vocals make the song better than it already was, which is pretty much mandatory as far as I'm concerned. Lots of big, layered, harmonized, catchy choruses too (which you can get a taste of in the video Serameun posted).

Glenn Fricker said:
So do we get some stills of some miced up cabs? :)
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For sure! Haven't made it that far yet though.

Today we're going to finish up a couple little electric clean parts, as well as a couple acoustic parts, then we'll jump into some pattern of working on leads and MIDI programming. All the acoustics so far have been with a 12-string, which sounds fantastic. I'm going to pick a part to bounce and share later with the acoustics and cleans soloed together, it sounds pretty amazing. Acoustic chain goes AKG 414 > Chameleon Labs 7602 > Distressor (about -4 dB max) > Crane Song HEDD.
 
Mago said:
I guess that explains your latest thread about MIDI based Strings and DAW stability Aaron? ;)
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Haha, actually it's not as related as you might think! Jeff and I have composed a fairly elaborate intro for one of the tracks so far, with probably about 20 voices total coming from Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs (including a couple "Master" patches with keyswitches), and it was running just fine. My thread was more just based on something I had been wondering for a long time, and was kind of pushed into the forefront of my mind upon seriously considering buying a copy of Hollywood Strings...
 
Aaron Smith said:
Haha, actually it's not as related as you might think! Jeff and I have composed a fairly elaborate intro for one of the tracks so far, with probably about 20 voices total coming from Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs (including a couple "Master" patches with keyswitches), and it was running just fine. My thread was more just based on something I had been wondering for a long time, and was kind of pushed into the forefront of my mind upon seriously considering buying a copy of Hollywood Strings...
Click to expand...

haha ah ok, I would have expected that the stuff you guys come up with would be too epic to be handled, even for your setup ;)
Glad to hear it's not related, so no 2nd Wintersun-orcherstra-issues are around the corner lol

the vocal clip sounds phenomenal btw
Vocals have always been an issue with Nevermore for me, so I'm REALLY stoked on this one now. Even if there are only 4 songs with vocals on it :D
 
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