In The Studio

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

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.

Standing alongside me

[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.

[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.

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.

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.


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.

[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'

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

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by JU_88

very impressive mate, I like 'Church Shoes'

Thanks. That one gets a lot of requests. My favorite version so far is this one:

[vienna]

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

[Sailor Steve]

.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by vienna

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

Thjey wrote it....somebody copied it

[frau kaleun]

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





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

[Sailor Steve]

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.

[vienna]

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!...

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

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

That's bassist!