J.J. Flash is no longer going by that name. He's just Rob Joeckel now and he's still the best man I've found for the job. Here we see him, sweltering in the heat of his newly unfinished studio. It has a way to go, but enough to make a masterpiece. It was hot that summer day and there was no a/c, but we stuck it out.
We laid allot of vocals that day. More than I thought I would... it gave it somewhat of a Gregorian chant feel in the end.
Yes...those are dots on my Fantom S. I've stated here before that I don't know how to play, so those colored dots are my "idiot dot" system where I literally play by numbers and color codes. Here is another shot of some of the equipment used that day.
So the song, "Consecrate, anthem of the athame" is about 85%-90% done. It needs a few more things and about one more visit. If I looked at it in terms of days, we've only spent 8 days in the studio. Another two and that means that the new average for a song start to finish is 10 days.
What we did:
Laid new vocal tracks.
Rerecorded the intro.
Added some fillers.
Added harmony and surreal backing vocals.
Mixed down once.
Stayed up til 3am mixing.
What's left?
1) Add/find missing vocal tracks in the backing vocals. Try and fill up the choral parts.
2) Add bassline.
3) Add lead guitar.
4) Jink around the monologue timing and I think there's a verse that's slightly off time.
5) Mix, remix, shake and serve over ice.
There. One more trip and this ones put to bed. Now this song is not as fast as "Darkside" so don't expect it to be a mover. This one is somewhat of a surreal ethereal smooth groove. It's got more of a funk drive with a heartbeat base beat. Is it as good as "Darkside"? It's different. Darker, slower, sexier. Now I DID learn something this time around. "Song buildup". Rob taught me that you don't blow your wad as soon as the song starts. You go for a slow buildup before launching all your ear candy. He's great because he helps me steer away from the "cheese" factor. I also felt more at ease to really blow my pipes. In prior tracking, I think I felt intimidated and afraid to let loose. At some point in time I had to back off the mic by 4 feet, that's how hard I was letting go. So much more control now that I felt comfortable with my vocals. Although, for the sake of sounding too much like Christina Aguilera, he instructed me to simplify the vocal work. All in all it was a very tiring time, but we did good work. I can't wait to schedule for the final time to finish this one. Now I get started on figuring out what to record next... Darkside or an undisclosed new song. I have this one song haunting my head that's got an ethereal flair, but a pretty kicking tempo. Soon I'll figure out where I'll be posting the streams for public review.
Posted by Darkstar at August 8, 2006 10:27 AM | TrackBack