In The Studio

[Sailor Steve]

We started our new recording project Saturday last (two days ago, October 29th). I only have a couple of pictures so far, taken with cell phones. I should be getting some more in a few days, and I'll put them up when I do.

We laid down basic scratch tracks for nine of the seventeen songs we intend to record, and since this is the only website I frequent I intend to keep a running record.

Charles the singer/songwriter and Steve the bass player.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/V__3684.jpg

Chris the drummer (and Charles' oldest son).

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/V__A282.jpg

Kelly the engineer and that old fart.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/V__AD69.jpg

Kelly with the miked-up drum kit.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000443.jpg

And two more of Chris.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000444.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000445.jpg

[1480]

Cannot wait to hear.

[Torplexed]

Nice in-studio pics.

Kelly with the miked-up drum kit.

What is a "milked-up" drum kit? Never heard that term before. :06:

[Herr-Berbunch]

What is a "milked-up" drum kit? Never heard that term before. :06:

M I K E D - as in microphone, I think. :D

Looking good, wonder how it sounds - time for requests: anything by Pink Floyd - preferably Run Like Hell. :rock:

[Torplexed]

M I K E D - as in microphone, I think. :D

Looking good, wonder how it sounds - time for requests: anything by Pink Floyd - preferably Run Like Hell. :rock:

Thanks. :DL I either gotta get glasses or a bigger monitor. :dead:

[the_tyrant]

New album?
good luck!:salute:

[Sailor Steve]

M I K E D - as in microphone, I think. :D
Exactly. These days instead of "mike" the favored spelling is "mic", but "Miced up" just wouldn't work no matter how I tried.

Looking good, wonder how it sounds - time for requests: anything by Pink Floyd - preferably Run Like Hell. :rock:
Sorry, all originals, all ours. You can get a tiny taste from the link in my sig, or by typing in 'Monkey Rum', 'Monkey Rum 2011' or 'Monkey Rum Acoustic' on YouTube. Our style varies so much I like to call it 'Folk-Rock-Country-Metal-Blues', but this one is going to be on the heavier side.

[TarJak]

Looking foward to hearing this Steve.:up:

[Jimbuna]

Bring it on mate :rock:

[Herr-Berbunch]

Exactly. These days instead of "mike" the favored spelling is "mic", but "Miced up" just wouldn't work no matter how I tried.

Can't see a problem with miced-up drums myself.

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8269/mousedrums.jpg

[papa_smurf]

Best of luck with the recording:up:

[Sailor Steve]

Can't see a problem with miced-up drums myself.
:rotfl2: Gotta love it! :rock:

To all those who can't wait, sorry but we're at the very very beginning of a very long process. Right now we're recording the songs just to get the drum tracks perfect, as they're the hardest to go back and fix if anything's wrong (as in impossible - it has to be done all over again). Then there's redoing the guitar tracks, then the vocals, then the mixing, then the final stereo mixing, then organizing the tracks in the order we want, then having pressed onto CDs, plus artwork. All this and currently we can only do it on Saturdays.

But I have some more pictures. :D

Engineer prep work.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000448.jpg

Soundboards.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000452.jpg

Processing stuff. Kelly has a computer with 24 GigaBytes of RAM. Imagine playing Silent Hunter with that!

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000453.jpg

Isolation booth for vocals.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000454.jpg

A couple more of Chris. Here you can see all the mics, at least one for each drum and cymbal, plus two inside the kick drum.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000451.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/WP_000450.jpg

What's odd is that there are no pictures of Clay the lead guitarist yet. I didn't take any pictures, but everybody else did.

[Penguin]

Good luck with the recording, Steve! :salute:
Any chance for a release on vinyl?

Exactly. These days instead of "mike" the favored spelling is "mic", but "Miced up" just wouldn't work no matter how I tried.


micced up?
Yes, somehow the words have changed around the turn of the century, at least in the Germish we use here. Maybe it is a conspiracy by all the audio guys who go by the name Michael. They were just fed up being the subject of jokes: give me the Mike, the Mike's broken, testing the Mike, etc.
But spelling it gives me mic-ups. :DL


Can't see a problem with miced-up drums myself.

I prefer milfed-up drums. :D

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1736/j15js.jpg

[Onkel Neal]

Subscribed :rock:

[Sailor Steve]

Good luck with the recording, Steve! :salute:
Any chance for a release on vinyl?
Good idea. Don't know if it'll happen, but there's always a chance.

micced up?
That's a good one, and looks right. I'll try to remember it. Thanks!

I prefer milfed-up drums. :D
So do I. Hotcha! On the other hand, it's pretty sad when somebody's milf is to young for me. :dead:

[TarJak]

Never mind. You're only as young as the woman you feel.:D

[Penguin]

Good idea. Don't know if it'll happen, but there's always a chance.


Yay! :up: I'd take one!
Most bands here press in the Czech Republic, good quality and prices; however considereng the bad $-€ exchange rate this is no alternative for you.
If you have concrete plans, I can ask around for some good pressing plants in the US, most bands that make "my" music are also only small bands, so the usual amount is 300-500 vinyl copies - 500 for the better-known ones. The sensible minimum to press is about 100, if you make fewer the cost ratio gets really bad.



So do I. Hotcha! On the other hand, it's pretty sad when somebody's milf is to young for me. :dead:

One man's milf is the other man's ilf :D.
Cindy Blackman was built in '59, so she's closer to your age than mine - and you find pictures which show she's got some wrinkles. ;)

[Sailor Steve]

DAY TWO.

Phase one is finished. We spent another eight hours working on scratch tracks - the guitars are there as guideposts while the drum tracks are perfected. And perfect they are. My old friend Kelly did a great job guiding us through the process, and Chris had all new heads on his drums, and perfectly tuned. And his playing was fantastic! Eighteen songs with great drums, waiting for the guitars to be retracked and perfected.

My turn is next. We start redoing and perfecting the bass tracks sometime this week. Kelly is borrowing several different basses. I'm happy with mine, but he wants to try some different sounds. It's harder work than some might imagine, but it's also a lot of fun.

[nikimcbee]

:salute::yeah:

Too, bad you weren't able to do the last subsim meet. We went to Bon Jovi's cousin's recording studio:haha: at Sonalysist. You would have like it.

[Jimbuna]

Sounds very cool Steve...best of luck with your session :yeah:

[Tchocky]

Looking forward to having a listen!

[MothBalls]

This is awesome. We all get to be a part of history.

When Pink Floyd V2.0 started, we got to see the first pics of them in the studio, a Subsim exclusive.

Seriously, best of luck with the project(s). Really looking forward to "The Final Cut".

[Sailor Steve]

DAY TWO-AND-A-HALF

I went to the studio alone today, to start fixing and finalizing bass tracks. Unfortunately I didn't have my processor with me, which messed everything up. The first day I had recorded with one of my two Peavey six-strings, going through a Digitech bass processor, which lets you program different sounds. The second day I used the other Peavey, which has aftermarket EMG pickups, again with the processor. Today I tried a borrowed Fender Jazz Bass. The sound was good, but several of the songs require the six-string. So we spent some time trying to get the right sound, and then made one song perfect, drums and bass both. Later in the day I went by our practice place and picked the processor up, so Thursday should be more productive.

No pictures, as it was just the two of us, but Chris the drummer put up a new one from last Saturday, and it has Clay in it, even though his back is to the camera.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/GuitarWork.jpg
Clay the lead guitarist, Kelly the engineer, Steve the bass player and Charles the singer/songwriter. Chris the drummer isn't in this one, since he took the picture, but there are lots of him anyway.

:rotfl2: I can tell exactly which song we're playing. We're doing Clay's song 'Lady In Black', and the intro and exit have no drums, which is why Chris was free to take the picture. The other clue is that that intro is why I wanted a six-string in the first place. I play a run that goes from the very top if the high C-string to almost the very bottom of the low B-string - almost four octaves. So this was taken at the very start of that run, when I'm playing up near the top of the neck. :D

[Gerald]

Very interesting Steve, you are going to load up so it can Stream down, :up:

[Sailor Steve]

When it's finished. Actually Kelly has a great video camera and obviously the wherewithall to combine video and sound, so he's thinking of making a video with clips from some of the songs before we're done. Just a taste.

[Gerald]

Once you have done the video finished, you are known as the big in the business, you can take out fat contracts and go tour worldwide, :sunny:

[Sailor Steve]

One can only dream. :sunny:

[Jimbuna]

One can only dream. :sunny:

Nothing wrong with dreaming mate...unless the dreamer perceives them to be reality :DL

[Sailor Steve]

Nothing wrong with dreaming mate...unless the dreamer perceives them to be reality :DL
So when your dreams are your reality, and nothing else is left? Look that up in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of me. :D

[Gerald]

Jim is right, dreams are a part of our life as you know, and dreams are to be fulfilled .... be sure to have the page updated, so we know what is happening on the music front,thanks :sunny:

[Jimbuna]

So when your dreams are your reality, and nothing else is left? Look that up in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of me. :D

Standing alongside me :cool:

[Sailor Steve]

DAY THREE

Kelly and I got to work alone again. It's funny that we played in a band together over thirty years ago, and now some whim of fate has brought us together again.

We spent part of the day editing drum tracks. The reason for this is that even the best drummer isn't perfect, and when you record a lot of the fills (drum rolls and odd beats) can be a little off. Back in the old days you recorded 'live' and then picked the best out of a bunch of tracks. Today you record everything as a 'scratch' track except for the drums. Once they're perfect you move on. But, as I said, even the best isn't necessarily perfect. So I watched and gave helpful advice (only when asked, of course) while Kelly actually took one beat from the kick (bass) drum that was a little off the metronome track and digitally moved it to the exact spot, and then moved some more single beats and a couple of small sections to be spot on. It's amazing to watch and hear. He also said that yeah, it seems a bit like cheating, but everybody does it because with today's technology you're a loser if you don't. On the other hand you don't want to overdo it, because if you go too far it becomes too perfect (yes, there really is such a thing) and then you might as well use a drum machine, which a lot of people do anyway. The problem there is that while the drums may be perfect, it starts to lose the soul that an actual player brings to the process. So you walk a fine line between 'perfection' and actual quality.

I rerecorded and 'fixed' five of the seventeen tracks we laid down over the previous two Saturdays, so with the one we finished Monday we now have six songs on which the drums and bass are pretty much as good as we can make them. I suggested to Charles that he start working on his parts on the coming Saturday, since I can work weekdays and he can't, but he said he didn't mind waiting and was willing to have all the bass tracks done first. So, in two days I'm back at it again. :sunny:

[Sailor Steve]

DAY FOUR

Yesterday (Saturday) we got the bass tracks to five more songs finalized. Only six to go and then I'm done until we get to the vocals. :sunny:

We did one song on the Fender Jazz Bass, which is legendary for its sound, but Kelly decided that for the type of music we're doing he actually prefers the sound of my Peavey six-string going through the processor. It has a kind of growl to it that is great for the harder stuff, and when you hit the low B it sounds almost like a piano string. Some players put down the Grind as the cheap cousin of Peavey's Cirrus bass, but Kelly says that as an engineer he finds passive electronics much easier to work with than active.

What's the difference? I'm glad you asked. Electric guitars work by having metal strings vibrate above a pickup, which is a magnet wrapped with an amazing amount of copper wire. The strings vibrating above the pickup create a magnetic field which carries down the wire to the amplifier. This can also go through a variety of effects boxes which create different sounds. This is why a country guitar and a metal guitar sound so different. Part of it is in the design of the instrument itself, but mostly it comes down to the effects pedals. An alternative to a whole lot of pedals connected together is the digital processor. This is a single big box that can recreate all of the different effects via an onboard computer, which eliminates a lot of signal noise (humming or buzzing) and allows you to program in different sounds and then just step on one pedal to make the sound come out. The processor also acts as a pre-amp, boosting the signal before it gets to the amplifier. My processor actually can recreate the distinct sounds of different legendary amplifiers (Fender Bassman, Acoustic, Hartke, Vox and a lot more) and duplicate the effect of having different speaker cabinet setups (4x10-inch speakers in one cabinet, 8x10s, 1x15, 2x15, 1x18), so it's capable of reproducing the distinct sounds of different amplifiers.

Active electronics in a guitar actually have a small pre-amp inside the instrument itself. It is powered by one or two 9-volt batteries which boost the signal before it ever leaves the guitar. With passive electronics the tone controls only cut the tone. This means that there is a certain amount of treble tone, which makes the sound sharp, biting, or twangy. If you turn down, or 'roll off' the tone knob the sound becomes a lot bassier, which can also be 'boomy' sounding, and muddy in that it's not as crisp or clear. An active system gives you a lot more control over the sound because its tone knobs can actually boost the high tones and boost the low tones. This is nice because you can get so many different sounds out of the guitar itself. The bad news is that those signals going into a recording system can cause the sound to distort on the recording, and it's very much harder for the engineer to set up the right sounds. So, great for live playing but bad for recording. Also, some people fell that passive instruments make better use of the wood itself, giving a more natural, 'real' or 'earthy' sound both live and recorded.

With my processor I can get very good sounds equal to the active bass, but still have passive electronics. How does it sound? I think we're getting some fantastic sounds, but you'll be able to decide for yourselves soon enough. Well, maybe not soon enough, but sometime in the not-too-distant future.

[Madox58]

I'm watching this thread Steve.
I worked with Bands years ago and just started doing some stuff at home again just for fun because of your postings here.
:)
With the software I've got and looking for a simple MIDI keyboard I'm looking to get?

You inspired me to finally put what I hear in my head into a sound track.
:salute:

Thank You Mate for doing that.

[Sailor Steve]

DAY FIVE

Kelly called me yesterday morning saying he was having back pains from moving some heavy stuff, so we had to postpone what we hoped would be our last session together. Today he felt better so we got together and got to work.

There were more drum tracks to fix, so we worked on those for one song and then redid the bass tracks. It went fairly smoothly for four hours and we took a lunch break. We came back and got to work on the very last song, and it took a bit longer than we expected. The original track was good, so we decided to just punch in a few troubling spots. The punches didn't line up with the original track. Then we tried overdubbing bigger sections. Then we decided to rerecord the bass for the whole song, which was what we were doing for the other songs anyway. We were just getting ready when the room went dark. We called the power company and they said they were fixing a problem for the whole neighborhood and the power would be back on in about four hours. Kelly had to be somewhere before then, so we still have one song left unfinished.

We'll be back at it either tomorrow or Thursday. If all goes well Charles and Clay will be starting the rythm overdubs on Saturday. Then the lead guitars. Then we'll all get together for the vocals. Then comes the mixing. Then mixing it down to stereo. Then deciding on the order. Then putting it all on a CD and taking it to the printers. Then CD labels, and the artwork, and then putting it all together. And someday maybe, just maybe, we'll have something to share. :sunny:

[kiwi_2005]

nice work!

[JU_88]

@ Steve, just had listen to your band on my space for the first time,
very impressive mate, I like 'Church Shoes' :DL

Recently I been listening to alot of the Reverend Horton Heat and the 'Cramps' two of my favorite all time US bands.

[Sailor Steve]

very impressive mate, I like 'Church Shoes' :DL
Thanks. That one gets a lot of requests. My favorite version so far is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GATXSoBlRmo

[vienna]

Dude, can you guys, like, play "Free Bird"?... :DL

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl2: :har: :haha:.

[Jimbuna]

Dude, can you guys, like, play "Free Bird"?... :DL

Thjey wrote it....somebody copied it :stare:

:03:

[frau kaleun]

I just hope the studio dudes can somehow manage to capture the indescribable magic of one of Steve's live performances...

http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/internet-memes-bass-solo.jpg

:O:

J/K, sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun!

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl2: Love it! I used to know a guy who would borrow a guitar and just bang on it - no fingerwork, no chords, no left hand at all, just bang the open strings.

My one short solo is nothing to write home about, but it's a little more progressive than just one note. Still, I saved that pic for my collection. :sunny:

[vienna]

:rotfl2: Love it! I used to know a guy who would borrow a guitar and just bang on it - no fingerwork, no chords, no left hand at all, just bang the open strings.



Wow, I didn't know you knew the Ramones!... :DL

[Penguin]

I just hope the studio dudes can somehow manage to capture the indescribable magic of one of Steve's live performances...

http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/internet-memes-bass-solo.jpg



http://i40.tinypic.com/15u64n.gif

That's bassist!

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

I am so glad I wasn't eating or drinking anything when I saw that! :har:

[Sailor Steve]

DAY SIX

We went in yesterday (Thursday) to do the final song, plus some more drum editing. Then we reviewed the stuff I did on my first couple of days, and ended up redoing some more. And now my part is done, at least until we get to the vocals. My total playing time redoing the bass tracks was around twelve hours of seventeen spent in the studio. The rest consisted of listening while Kelly fixed the drum tracks.

Tomorrow Charles and Clay go in to do real rythm tracks. Then they'll both work on their leads. They'll keep me posted, and I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I finally have a picture of Clay, working with Charles.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/SailorSteve/SteveStuff/CharlesClay.jpg

[Jimbuna]

Carry on :sunny:

[Madox58]

Great updates Steve.
:up:

Brings back memories of the Old Days for me!
:yep:

One of my close friends built a recording studio and still plays live.
I use to run sound and went to a school for it here in Ohio years ago.
http://www.recordingworkshop.com/?gclid=COXJ4MWcwawCFYXrKgodFAIHqg

So I can relate to the work involved by you Guys.
:)

[Sailor Steve]

Pretty cool, Jeff! :rock:

I talked to Kelly on the phone this morning, and he told me about when he started audio engineering school. He said the instructor asked him what he knew about snare drums. He said "That they're snare drums", which exactly what I would have said. Now, more than twenty-five years later, he can talk knowledgeably about all the different kinds of snare drums, how they're built, how to get the best sounds out of one type or another, which kinds have the best sounds for different styles of music, and he can listen to a song on the radio and tell if any of the instruments, including the drums, were out of tune when they were recorded.

It makes me feel like the guy who looked under the hood of a car and said "Yep, that's an engine!"

[Sailor Steve]

DAY SEVEN

I'm sort of out of the loop now, but we're keeping each other posted as to what's going on. Charles, Clay and Kelly discussed the pros and cons of either having them go in one at a time or both together. They decided that to discuss it the three of them would meet at the studio yesterday. They started working on different sounds through Kelly's new processor. They liked some of the sounds they were getting, but for feedback they are both going to need their amplifiers, micced (see, I'm learning) up to the mixing board. Charles and Clay started bouncing ideas off one another, and Kelly decided that they would probably accomplish more together than separately, so that's the way they're going to do it.

They had some problems with one song, mainly because Clay has some ideas he hasn't worked out yet. In four hours they only got the rythm tracks done for one song, plus a fill run (one that goes while all the other instruments stop). Not much, but they're still figuring out how they want to do it.

Charles had a funny side-note, similar to one of mine. I told the story about active and passive pickups, and how my processor is giving a good active sound with passive electronics. When they were first meeting Kelly, Charles was worried about CuBase, the program Kelly prefers, compared to ProTools, "The Industry Standard". Some people feel that ProTools is the industry standard solely because they were first, and did the best advertising. True or not, Kelly asserted that any program could be ported into any other, and it was the guy twiddling the knobs that made the difference. The proof is in the pudding, which means that the final result is the only thing that counts.

So Kelly confided to me at one point that he doesn't really like EMG pickups, and he's not that fond of Scheckter guitars. So Charles is playing his Scheckter with EMGs and Kelly is listening to the playback and is absolutely praising the sounds he's hearing. The final answer is in the player; not so much that some people can make any guitar sound good, but that some instruments and some players are just suited for each other. I'm getting just the sound I want out of my bass now, and Charles gets the sound that's right for him out of the Scheckter.

I guess it's the same with anything, really. Others may not like your car, but if it's the one that fits you then nothing else matters. We are getting the sounds we want, and the engineer is picking up on that, and we think we have something special. And if not, at least it feels right to us.

So, four hours down the drain, not a lot accomplished, but we feel like we're on the right track. We'll see.

[CCIP]

True or not, Kelly asserted that any program could be ported into any other, and it was the guy twiddling the knobs that made the difference. The proof is in the pudding, which means that the final result is the only thing that counts.

Yup! My dad (a professional musician all his life) also prefers Cubase and does all his recording in that. And in all fairness, industry benchmark or not, a program is not a nice box and label - it's in the features and the user. If the features do what the user wants to do, and the user knows exactly what he wants, you'll get great sounds. If not, then it's a mess. Same for guitars!

Sheckter seems to get a bad rep more than anything for the fact they've been associated with "nu-metal" bands lately (and affordable guitars they market to their fans), which a lot of the grizzled veterans in all types of rock/metal genres like to scoff at. I also somewhat scoffed at the guitars, and then while helping my friend shop for a guitar I got to try a couple. Turned out to be very good axes with a lovely tone, made a lovely bluesy sort of sound I liked. But again you're right - you gotta match the guitar with the player.

[Sailor Steve]

Yup! My dad (a professional musician all his life) also prefers Cubase and does all his recording in that. And in all fairness, industry benchmark or not, a program is not a nice box and label - it's in the features and the user. If the features do what the user wants to do, and the user knows exactly what he wants, you'll get great sounds. If not, then it's a mess. Same for guitars!
Kelly told us some time ago of a professional guitarist he sometimes works with. The guy lives somewhere in the midwest. People in Los Angeles send him unfinished tracks by email. He records his parts on ProTools and then sends them to Kelly here in Salt Lake. Kelly dumps them into CuBase and mixes the guitar tracks, then sends them back to L.A. for the final mix.

Modern technology still amazes me.

Sheckter seems to get a bad rep more than anything for the fact they've been associated with "nu-metal" bands lately (and affordable guitars they market to their fans), which a lot of the grizzled veterans in all types of rock/metal genres like to scoff at. I also somewhat scoffed at the guitars, and then while helping my friend shop for a guitar I got to try a couple. Turned out to be very good axes with a lovely tone, made a lovely bluesy sort of sound I liked. But again you're right - you gotta match the guitar with the player.
I've read a lot of guitar and bass forums lately, and that seems to be true of pretty much everything. Some love one, some hate it, and almost always it sounds just fine.

[Sailor Steve]

DAY TEN

I didn't talk to anyone in more than a week, mainly because while I wanted to know what was going on without me I also didn't want to be pushy about it. I finally gave in and called Kelly, and then Charles. Both of them apologized for just not thinking about me. I can understand that, "Out of sight, out of mind." They brought me up to date.

Progress is slow, with Charles and Clay both working on rythm and fill parts at the same time. That said, progress is being made, and Kelly and I are getting together in a day or two so I can hear the tracks that are done. To my surprise people are complimenting my work on the songs, including a professional studio bassman Kelly sometimes works with.

I also bought a cheap fretless bass and some flatwound strings, just for one song, because I thought it would be better with a little of the "upright" sound. :sunny:

[Sailor Steve]

Well, seven months later I'm resurrecting this thread. What's gone on in the meantime was Charles and Clay working on guitar parts, then Charles starting on the lead vocals. Progress was slow because Kelly got busy and could only work a couple hours a week, always on Saturday mornings, which means that after nine months we've really only put in about three weeks actual work time. We went in and listened to the finished guitar tracks in January, and that was the last time I was in the studio until today.

Charles finally finished up the lead vocals a week ago, and Saturday morning he and Clay went back and added in their feedback parts, which had to be done separately because they weren't using normal amplifiers but a special processor and a mini-amp.

I went in today and re-tracked the bass for one song, because I thought it wanted to be played on a fretless bass for that 'upright' sound. I bought a cheap fretless a couple of months ago and have been working on that one song ever since. It took about an hour, and then I had to do a simple part for the intro and exit to the song.

Now all the instruments are done. Saturday morning we all go in to start on harmony vocals.