The band are going into Metway studio on Friday for a whole week of recording with trusty engineer Matthew Twaites. I'm rather excited by the prospect so I've decided to start a new blog, working on the perhaps vain assumption that I'll make some sort of studio diary of the week!
We've been rehearsing a lot since finding our latest recruit, drummer James Crump. We had already been doing some exploratory recording in the summer at Metway and were very greatful to get to work with Toby May (Clearklake) on drums for those sessions. Since Crump's been aboard though the songs have really started to come into their own, so the plan is to do what I have always wanted to do for recording sessions - play it live!
The live approach has obvious potential pitfalls - you have to get it absolutely right as, especially if all your insturments and amplifiers are in the room together, as there will be 'spill' from one mic to the next. For example two overhead mics on the drum kit are bound to pick up traces of the guitars and bass so when you mix the finished track you can't completely re-write and re-record any of the instruments as they will still have bled through onto the other tracks. We can minimise this with 'baffle' (sound absorbent materials) but there will inevitably be traces - so here's hoping we can all nail the tracks at the same time!
Having said that we will be doing vocals and probably a fair few keyboard overdubs when we go to finish these recording in France in the new year. More on that as it happens.
For those as fond of lists as me here is a list of the songs we have rehearsed ready for Friday:
1. Strong Enough
2. Fragile Creatures
3. The Chemicals
4. Stowaways
5. End Of The World (For Two)
6. This Strange Dance
7. Dear Michael
8. She Makes Me Nervous
9. Into The Night
10. Drink The Cup
Fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly, for me and Aaron have started working on the follow up already (after getting the hang of co-writing with Strong Enough) - roll on Friday!
Adam
