Where things are so far...

So much for taking the week off. Chappy and I both had the evening yesterday off from our various asundry other responsibilities, so I walked down to his house to listen to the mixes that we have so far and so we could bounce some ideas off each other. Things are sounding pretty good so far, and we're pretty excited about the way things are going. The one exception would be the vocal takes I've done, but I won't get into all of that right now. They're only dummy takes anyway. That said, Chappy and I did decide that we must need some kind of new mic pre-amp or something to do the vocals better. (It couldn't possibly be the vocalist's shortcomings, could it?)

I thought I might take this time to give an update of where we are in the recording process, what we've done, what I've used, etc. Especially in light of my Tech talk post about Nels Cline's stuff. This is The Silent Screen's blog. If we're talking stuff, let's talk about The Silent Screen's stuff. I'll fill you in on what I've been using on which tracks, and I also invite Scot and Chappy to discuss their stuff. I'll try to supplement all of this talk of stuff with some pictures later.

So what have we been recording? The first track we've started recording is a song called "The One That Got Away", which is available to listen to and download on our Myspace profile. I recorded the guitar part as a loop into my Boomerang, using my brother Jason's Yamaha acoustic with the pickup's output going into my rig and then into the recorder. The pedals that I used were my Electro Harmonix Small Clone chorus, my Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal set to the "Flerb" (flanged reverb) setting, and my Boss DD-5 delay pedal set to repeating straight eighth notes. After getting the loop layered the way I wanted it to, I recorded it both forward and backward into my Yamaha AW4416. After that Chappy and Scot played their tracks live at the same time. Chappy played djembe and Scot played his fretless bass. I then recorded some vocals. I would still like to layer in some more harmonies in the vocal tracks, and an electric guitar part and maybe some E-Bow or reverse parts.

The second track we've started recording is a song called "Scream". It's a pretty loud rock song, but with a chorus in 11/8. It's one of my favorites of ours to play. Anyway, for the more "rock" songs we've decided to record at Chappy's house playing all of our parts live, then doing the overdubs in my studio. I usually use Franken-tele on this song, but just before we started recording our first take the battery died. I took that opportunity to use a different guitar (I'm a little lazy about changing the battery in that guitar- the battery is housed under the pickguard). So I played my Parker Nite-Fly on it. The only pedal that I used was my EQ pedal, set to boost the mids the same way that the active pre-amp on Franken-tele does. I then ran it into both channels of my Peavey amp (Normal and Bright), and set the amp's EQ to mostly flat, but with the treble cranked to get some of the bite of Franken-tele. I've done a dummy vocal on this one, but no real vocal takes. I also need to work on some kind of a lead or another guitar part or something. What we have sounds very full with just the one guitar part, bass part, and drum part. But I have trouble leaving things like this well enough alone. We'll see what ends up getting added.

The third track we've started recording is a song called "Live Out Love". I changed batteries, so I was able to use Franken-tele on this one. It is another one with the basic tracks recorded live. I only used the EQ pedal again on this one, this time set basically as a total boost to overdrive the front end of the amp. I also used the Peavey on this one, basically set to "loud" (it's not really a formal setting, but it's very useful). The dummy vocal I have provided for this one may be the worst I have ever done. It's atrocious, but I'm OK with that. The instruments sound fantastic. This is another song where I have in mind some serious guitar overdubs, but it may not really need them. The sound is huge. We're also getting the best drums sounds that I've ever gotten. Chappy can probably explain how better than I can. I'm not sure I understand exactly what we're doing, it's just working.

The fourth song we've begun recording is one of Scot's, called "Feed My Tragedy". It is based on a bass loop that Scot has recorded into his Boss Loop Station. The one thing I'll say for the Boss over my Boomerang is that you can save loops on it. It may not be as easy to construct them live, but you don't lose what you've got when you unplug it. I'm not sure how many banks it has to save loops into, but it is far more than the zero that I have on the Boomerang. To record the loop onto the Yamaha we simply played it through Scot's amp and miked the cabinet and also fed a direct line to the board. I have no complaints about the way it sounds.

We have yet to record anything but the loop for "Feed My Tragedy". When we resume recording next week we'll overdub Scot's vocal and other bass part, Chappy's drums, and then my sonic madness. I will be playing either the Nite-Fly or Franken-tele with an E-Bow and a lot of delay. I will probably end up using the Boomerang as well as some other effects. I'll use either my Jekyll and Hyde pedal or my Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi pedal in a few places to make things really hairy. I've got a lot of ideas for my parts, and since I'm going on last I have a lot of freedom to work and not have to worry about it not working with the other parts later. The other parts will already be there. I get the rest of the sonic spectrum to myself. That's one of the great things about being the guitarist for a trio. You get lots of room to operate.

The other song we're going to try to get started next week is an older one of mine called "The Potter's Tree". All parts, even the guitar lead, will be going on live for this one. The song is basically two minutes of song followed by group improvisation. I'm anxious to see how that will work out recorded. I will most likely end up using all of the pedals in my pedalboard for this one. It usually shifts gears a fair amount. The main part for the duration of the "song" uses Franken-tele with some Univibe, chorus, flerb, and delay. The only thing that is set about what I'm doing in the improv section is that I always start with an E-Bow lead that uses just the EQ as a mid boost and my delay pedal. After that anything goes. I have been known to end up using four different overdrives on this one, either individually or all together for one big sonic mess. We'll just see how that turns out.

I'll keep you posted.

Tom