Drums being prepared

I did keep two days break as I thought I would - and started doing the less exciting (and more work'like) process of "separating" the machinedrums late yesterday. I prepared 4 songs' drums yesterday and tonight I went through 6 more songs. About half there, and not nearly as tiresome process I actually thought beforehand.

What the separating means, is that I'm going through all my programmed drums, checking also just in case if any finetuning / work is needed for bassdrums, snares or tom rolls. The main thing is the separation; saving the different drum samples as separate wav files with whole song's length. Each song will get 4 separate files; bassdrums, snares, toms and cymbalworks. The important ones are bassdrums, snares and toms. Those will be in the final package certainly and for first ever time they will be mixed separately (instead of one "all drums" mess, a big difference methinks). But the cymbalworks are saved just as a guideline for Timo who will record them all with his real drums. The result should be exciting to hear, and hopefully great, too - half'programmed, half'live drums.

Anyway, with this rate it looks that I'm getting the drums' separation done by weekend.

The working list

Below you can see a list of the new SF songs. The song lengths aren't exact, nor final - since lots of songs have "guitar noise" in the end (some have as long as 10-20 seconds), for possible dark ambient sections / connecting the songs / guitars turning into alien soundscapes. Also; every song has about 5 seconds of silence before it starts for recording purposes - I'd estimate the package is notably under 30 minutes long currently. Perhaps 29 minutes. But the final overall length will grow from that I think - since I'm sure there will be some dark ambient moments here and there depending how creative Timo will get / how the soundscapes will fit the lyrics (too).

Just one fix (and then some)

I listened all the tracks through this morning in the condition they are right now (final guitars, machinery drums) and felt that two tracks had some details in guitars that should be fixed. The songs would benefit from the fixes. So I went and re'recorded some parts for the two songs - and the fixes were exactly what I wanted with pretty much first takes. And I was happy again.

Then I went into checking one song much more closely, probably the craziest song of the package - thinking that it should be as good as it's possible to get it and now that my right arm is in good condition ... I kept listening to the rough mix and compared it to other songs and made a decision. I'll re'record that whole song and probably end up having a tighter, more crazy sounding result. I thought it's no big deal, but in a way I thought wrong. Because it took me closer to 4 hours to get that song into final condition. 4 hours for song that's 1min 40sec long or so. Funny. :) ... it wasn't the manic guitar riffs that caused so much problems and took time, but that song has extreme tempo and numerous sudden riff changes, stops etc - I wanted to get it as perfect as I can with my DIY-skills so ... it just took a bit time.

Anyway, it was definitely worth the sweat. Now that song is definitely better sounding, even more furious than what it was. I can reveal that it's going to be second song on the package, right after opening piece. It's total scifi grind!

Now I'll try to relax for day or two and then re'listen the tunes - if it's all okay to me (I do suppose it is) then I'll start separating the drumfiles for the next stage. Which is quite probably recording the real cymbals, hihats etc - Timo will have two hands full of duty at that point, I think. ;)

Smooth saturday

The good vibes continued today as I recorded the last five songs' final guitars with ease (not bad considering I'm having a slight flu). I also decided that I won't change my mind about the originally 25th song which was meant as a kind of outrosong (slow doom'ish song with brutal grind ending) - it's out for good. The final amount of songs will be 24.

Now I'll have to listen the recordings and see if I'm perfectly happy with the guitars. If not, some fixes if necessary - but the next real stage is to prepare the drums so that I can give them to Timo for recording the real cymbalworks.

Anyway; one stage is now pretty much completed - all guitars are done!

Power vol2

It's hard to start this blog post, in a way. I was like "wow!" yesterday as I had such a great day when it came to recording final guitars for four tracks and digging the results. Well now ... perhaps it's partially thanks to third acupuncture session of my life which happened today, but the fact is that I recorded final guitars for seven tracks today! Seven. It feels unreal. Suddenly the situation is that I have only something like 5-6 songs to be worked at this point. 5 songs for sure, 6th one is bit uncertain.

Who cares about the quantity really, but I'm very satisfied, extremely happy with how the guitars came out. Not just technically but I added lots of little twists here and there, playing was smooth for my style I'd say ... and that one track I mentioned yesterday, thinking it will be changed dramatically - that's what happened. A song that was almost happy-sounding blaster now sounds like twisted, weird grind piece. And in case if you couldn't guess, it came out like that very naturally. The only part of that song that didn't get changed is first few seconds of it, as the opening riff still sounds quite close how it used to be.

Anyway, I couldn't be happier with how this package is going. I felt really good while recording the guitars and I think this package is also going to be true definition of "scifi grind" ... that's the vibe I'm getting personally at this point. "a Lossidian threnody" did start the space trip and I liked it a lot (and still do, of course) but this will be like jump to hyperspace. ;)

Power

Wow. Talk about having a great, energetic day for guitar recording!

I recorded final guitars for four songs today. While recording I made once again some finetunings here and there. One song didn't change at all, while two songs got some nice improvements and one song got fully reworked opening section (I felt that would happen before recording already, the change came out nice and naturally). I already know that there's at least one short blaster ahead which will get lots of changes ... perhaps that's ahead already tomorrow, if this good mood for recording continues.

Very happy with how I got the songs' guitars recorded today.

Healin' hands

After two acupuncture sessions and few weeks rest my right hand has been recovering in a great way (acupuncture being the biggest reason for quick recovery, I recommend). So good, that today I picked up guitar first time since the last recording happened ... and already recorded final guitars for two songs. Just listened the latest recording and am really happy with how the guitars sound. Rough and smooth (enough).

PS: Also got a pic taken while I was recording the first song earlier today, just for this blog.

Unexpected

I was intending to continue this week, recording the guitars. Very much so.

Well, it turned out that my right arm didn't get pissed off because of guitar playing - nope, not at all. Instead it's work related problem dating back to last summer. So, I was forced to be away from dayjob this whole week, having a physiotherapy session on friday. Playing guitar totally out of guestion as well. Planning to get some acupuncture sessions in coming days / weeks so that this nasty hand problem would be cured for good.

So instead of playing guitar currently, it's more like watching them guitars being played by others.

Session with pain

Waking up today I was surprised; my picking hand, especially around thumb / wrist was so sore. And it still is. Gave some ice / cold treatment to it and took a painkiller - wouldn't had guessed yesterday's recording sessions would result into such pain! Weird. Perhaps it tells something about the material. Or then it tells something about the lack of my playing skills. Hah!

Well, what better way to kill the pain than ... continue recording? Yes. Before I took painkiller and had some cold treatment, I went and warmed up, jammed and then recorded final guitars for one song. Turned out very good - and I couldn't feel the pain while recording, either.

Gotta give the hand some rest now. Hoping to continue during next week though.

Good vibes

I recorded the final guitars for two more songs during today. One during afternoon, one during the eve. And how do I feel about the recordings? I feel great! Things went so good, both the actual recording and that how I've been "finetuning" the riffs during the recording.

Remember that I mentioned in past that I have a feeling that the songs will be reshaped a bit during the final recording of guitars? Well, that's what has been happening and it has been happening very naturally, through jamming and feelings of the music.

First song I recorded didn't really get huge changes, but I had few neat ideas for certain spots, getting more punch to the riffs (pinch harmonics and stuff). Second song has more changes, some nice twin guitar action and lots of small additions and the result is very nice.

Probably not continuing the recording tonight anymore, but tomorrow - certainly.

Onwards (the greedy compressor)

Finally continued recording tonight, with recording the likely guitars for song#2. While the recording over 1 month ago was quite an easy job, this song was really on the limits of my personal guitar playing skills. I first kept jamming the riffs and playing them over and over again, but ... well, it's grindy material slightly said. ;)

I made one decision though. Instead of seeking and trying more and more guitarsounds, I'm sticking with the one I mentioned late December - the one I recorded the first songs' final guitars as well.