The song Kathryn’s parts will appear on is currently titled “Here Comes the Radiation”. I only say “currently titled” because as Steve finishes up the lyrics and records vocals, song titles can change at any time. Several have already, and i’m sure we haven’t seen the end of the switcheroos.

The demo track of this song employed some really beautiful and haunting string samples that Steve had cut and processed. They were relatively simple and repetitive, and prior to the cello tracks being laid down, i wrote some parts which i transcribed into my own notation, then recorded about seven layered tracks of Ebowed guitars. I gave these parts to Kathryn to listen to, but being a classically-trained musician, she really needed a proper score to work from for the actual notes, and the phrasing and timing she’d learn by ear. (Having a classically-trained musician in our midst is somewhat new for Organical.)

So i did some research into how i’d go about scoring the parts. Since the original string parts were based on samples, there was no MIDI information to start from. I ended up sitting down at my computer, guitar and notation for my original parts in hand, and i set about transcribing these parts into cello-friendly bass clef using the free demo version of Finale Notepad. As a kid, i never spent much time learning bass clef in any of my music lessons, so it took a bit of re-orienting. After three or four tries, i got the phrasing to sound how i wanted so it would complement all the other parts and carry the melody we wanted. (Finale was able to output a beautiful clean score which i sent to Kathryn in PDF form, and also a MIDI file for reference. Great application!)

I believe this session marked several firsts… The first time i had transcribed anything into basic music notation, Organical’s first guest musician, the first time we’ve recorded real strings, and the first time anyone has worked from sheet music on an Organical record!

We’re nearing completion of the recording of tracks for the record, and will soon be moving on to mixing! We should all be hearing completed tracks hopefully within the next couple of months…

Well, it is now.

As a new song unfolds and becomes a living, breathing entity of sorts, it sometimes whispers in a musician’s ear about what it wants – what it needs – to survive and flourish. Sometimes it’s a tweak to the arrangement, a suspended chord here or there, a change in key or time signature, and sometimes a song just cries out… just begs for a particular sound.

For months now, a song that was being developed under the title “Black Hole” (now called “Atari U.S.A.”) was whispering in my ear that it could really use a dose of rotary speaker from the vintage Cordovox that’s been sitting quietly in the corner of Badvision Studios for some time now. At first i wasn’t sure… i’m usually more of a “chorus” effect kinda guy when it comes to giving a spatial or modulation effect. But something in my instincts told me this might work.

Tonight was my long-awaited opportunity to lay down my tracks for this song. We’re actually recording two versions of it… a normal version and a “quiet” version. I initially thought i might use the rotary speaker on the normal version, but i felt there was maybe too much already going on sonically, and it might make the track too busy.

So i plugged my Agile T-7 Texan (a seven-string Telecaster copy) into my Mesa F-30 which we mic’d up in the Badvision kitchen (Badkitchen?). I plugged straight into the amp… no boost, no effects, nothing. Didn’t even use the amp’s reverb. Just the sound of the amp pumping through a Mesa Thiele 1×12 cab and reverberating off the hardwood floor, the walls, and various large and small appliances. I pushed the gain of the clean channel pretty hard until it was giving a nice thick “purr” with a bit of breakup when i really leaned into the strings. Then i backed off the volume a bit on the guitar. Amazing dynamics from this amp. The tone was just spectacular, and it sits really nicely in the mix against Steve’s guitars.

When it came time to record the quiet version of the song, Ed and i hauled the Cordovox up the stairs into the kitchen and hooked it up to my F-30. We then set about mic’ing it up with a pair of Shures (one on either side) and his trusty Zoom H4 in the middle of the room as a stereo room mic to fill in the middle of the mix.

Now, i’ve played digital Univibe modelers that simulate the sound of a rotary speaker, and it’s an interesting sound that definitely has its uses, but the sound of a pushed tube amp driving the real thing and picked up with stereo microphones is nothing short of jaw-dropping. And the Tele was the perfect guitar for it, too. It has a clarity and punch in the low end, a sweet midrange and bell-like chiming highs that cut through with just a hint of twang. Combine those attributes with the swirling, pulsating rotary speaker, and it’s, well… a tonegasm.

Another song is whispering to me about Ed’s accordion… but that’s another story.

Since we last spoke the band took a bit of a breather after our frantic month of guitar takes and had John finishing off drum parts.   That’s done more or less.   There is one song that he has left to do, JvsM which needs some treatment before John can tackle it, I’m sure there will be some other percussion elements and maybe some backing vocals and other miscellany.

Once we got back we brought the Baldwin amp that Ed and myself found last year up to the kitchen.  The Baldwin was bought by us primarily because it looked cool and was being neglected at our favourite music store Encore Music.   We felt sorry for it and plugged it in and were shocked to hear gorgeous tones emanating from it’s equally gorgeous husk(NOTE to ED – insert Baldwin picture HERE.).    We struck a deal and brought it home.   I had been planning on recording all my clean guitar pars through it, or at least the majority of them.   We got carried away with how good everything was sounding through the Mesa Boogie so we did a bunch of the clean guitar tracks with that setup, but

I saved a couple to do with the Baldwin and in fact, re-did a couple of parts with it.  We setup the AKG C1000 as the close mic and used our Audio-Technica large diaphragm(I forget the model) to capture the sound of the kitchen.   It sounds especially great when someone walks through it on the wooden floor, but that might be just my personal taste talking.   I really made sure to take my time and try different ways of playing on the tracks.   As with everything we are doing on this record, we are basking in the luxury of being on our own time clock, and making sure we are pleased with the results.   John mentioned the other night that the raw drum tracks we have captured are the best of his career, and I feel the same about the guitars.

Ed was a little under the weather on Sunday so rather then continue with bass we stuck with the Baldwin, and with Darren’s help twiddling knobs on my effects board, we got a great solo for “Pixel Dust” a song a struggled with a couple of weeks ago.

The rest of the week we hope to finish up most of the remaining bass tracks.

Now that we have most of the bed tracks down I have been taking copies of all the files home and started to work through the sequencing.   Some of the timing may have to change to match the live drums, and some of the keyboard/synth and sample stuff may change either to eliminate elements that don’t make sense now with the real instruments or to add stuff that compliments what we have recorded.   This is an iterative process that will probably continue throughout the recording and well into mixing.

I’m also starting to feel the pressure to get all the lyrics completed.  We expect to start tracking vocals in the next few weeks and I honestly don’t believe I have one completed lyric to do.   I tend to agonize over the lyrics way more then the music.  For instance on “The Elementals”, the song “Burden of Gravity” went through about 30 drafts of lyrics, while the music came together in about 3 revisions.  Last night I spent a couple of hours getting a couple of songs closer to readiness.   “Black Hole”, which is now called “Atari, USA” is probably gone from about 40% complete to 60% while “Bugs in the Mainframe".” has gone from about 60% to about 75%.

The good thing about Darren posting is that you get all sorts of useful technical information and tidbits.   Even if I tried to do that I would just get model names and numbers wrong.  Everyone would be searching Google for an Eyebanaz AXE10232 to see if it comes in different shades of purple

Plus I don’t really remember what we did last month anyway.  It was all just a blur of guitars and trying to plug all my pedals in at the same time.

Everything is sounding spectacular so far, and last session we got John back behind the drum kit again to finish off the rest of the stuff that we have left to track drums for, which isn’t very much.    He was under instructions this week to go back and listen to see if there is anything he wants to touch up.    We spent a couple of hours tracking a bunch of different loops and patterns that we are going to use in “long_lat” we also redid the drum track for “black hole” because we lost one of the overheads for the initial session.   We think it sounds better now anyway.

So I see us spending the next couple of weeks to finishing drums and maybe even bass, then we’ll go back to guitars for a little bit.  

These were usually 4-6 hour sessions, and we cranked through a LOT of material. I did a quick count off the whiteboard the other night when we wrapped up, and i think i counted 13 tracks that have finished (or almost finished) guitars on them. We have a few more tracks we need to record drums and bass for, and then we move on to vocals and various acoustic and textural overdubs. We’re trying to keep those to a minimum, to try and retain as much of the “live” band feel as we can.

Overall, we’re extremely happy with our productivity over the month of March, despite having to re-learn songs (some of which we haven’t played in months) and in some cases, completely re-writing parts or eliminating parts altogether as we examined the material under the scrutiny of the studio environment.

Once we got into the flow of things, we were moving swiftly and methodically through the songs, with Steve and i trading off guitar duties. Our rigs are so different and so complimentary that even running through the same speakers and mics, the voices of each of our guitars comes through really clearly in the rough mix.

Not surprisingly, my Dean Evo Special 7 has been my weapon of choice through most of the recordings. The Seymour Duncan Custom 7 in the bridge (which i’ve modified with an Alnico 8 magnet) has given the guitar incredible density and growl without getting nasty. It’s punchy and percussive, with a nice “weight” to it.

The big surprise for me was how much i ended using my latest acquisition, a seven-string Telecaster-type guitar (an Agile T-7 Texan) on a lot of the cleaner and semi-distorted parts. I’ve never been a fan of Telecaster-type guitars before, but for some reason, the sound is exactly what some of these new songs needed. My 8-string Agile Intrepid has been used on a couple of tracks thus far as well.

darren's Agile T-7 Texan

The other surprise for me was that my trusty Music Man Petrucci 7 hasn’t been tracked at all. I plugged it in one night to record a part and it just didn’t deliver the goods. It’s a spectacular instrument, but it just doesn’t have the balls of the big Dean, so we haven’t found a place for it yet.

Steve’s been using his Tokai ES-335 copy quite a bit, and i’m happy to see (and hear) his wonderful Italia Mondial back in the mix. It had a couple of issues that made it unplayable for quite some time, so i took it back to my workshop one weekend and spent a couple of hours tearing it down, addressing the issues and rebuilding it. (Yeah, i’m the band’s guitar tech, too.) The Tokai and Italia are really great-sounding guitars. Steve’s Jagmaster also came out on a couple of tracks, as well as his Ibanez AX7520 7-string. On one or two takes, Steve also used my Dean if the Ibanez wasn’t quite cutting it. But it still sounds like Steve.

That’s all for now… we’re taking a bit of a break this week as Steve’s travelling on business. We’re picking up again on Sunday to hopefully get some drum tracks recorded for a couple of the outstanding tracks.

I think we’re still hoping to deliver this album in “spring 2009″… thank goodness spring lasts until June!