Yo dudes! Just wanted to let all you guys know that we are all finished in the studio! This album is sounding absolutely amazing so far and I can't wait for you guys to get a chance to hear it. Mastering is scheduled for this Sunday, so the album will be all finished this weekend! We're all super excited. Make sure to stay tuned for our studio video edits, which I'm also making. Should be posting the first one soon. Lots of killer footage!
Recording "Carving Desert Canyons" blog:Our studio experience this time was so great! We drove about 26 hours up to NJ in 2 days, which was fine. Not the first time for some long driving! We spent about 17 days up there for all the tracking (living out of a hotel) which technically put us behind schedule since we were suppose to also spend a few days out of that time on mixing. It was worth it though, we got the all the tracking perfect. Our engineer Tom was an awesome dude. Had to be, to be able to hang with the STS dudes you have to be on your toes at all times for sarcasim that at times can be so obscure you'll have no idea what's going on, haha. After day one, establishing that we were indeed not a Christian band, he joined in on the fun. We all wondered why we hadn't heard one cuss word, haha.
Picture: Staring at this for 26 hours got a little boring.
We tracked the entire album at Tom's studio in Hoboken NJ, called Nuthouse Recording. Sweet studio and more gear than I have ever seen compiled in one area.
Picture: First off, this is how metal we are!
First couple of days in the studio we spent all on drums. His good buddy Chris Pierce came in and helped out tuning and micing the drums up perfect, which lead to the rightfully earned name, "Drum Doctor" for our album credits. Tracking for drums went really smoothly, there were a couple of of times where he got mad, as well there were for us all. He trucked through them though, and the drum parts are all solid and sound amazing!
Picture:Drums all mic'ed.
Listening back to drum takes.
We decided to record bass last, so we start tracking guitars next. I figured all you gear heads would like to know what we used on this album, so I'm going to go a little more in depth on the guitar tracking section. Guitars took 7 days, about 11-12 hours each day, which, WOW, got a little overwhelming. Seems like a lot of days, but for the stuff we play, its not. With our music, there are basically 4 guitar parts. You have Travis' rhythm parts, my rhythm parts, and then some of the songs I'm basically playing a lead-ish melody the entire time. So that has to be tracked all separately. Then, the fourth part are all the actual solos, also tracked separately.
Picture: Amps all mic'ed.
Guitars we used on this album: My custom Sherman 8 String (of course), Travis' Ball Family Reserve custom John Petrucci 7 string, Travis' custom tele he made, and a 1954 Gibson acoustic (not sure on the model).
Me and Travis each took turns laying done all the rhythm tracks, bascially until one got tried, we would switch off. Like I said, 12 hours a day! Ridiculous!
We tracked all the distorted rhythm parts with my ENGL Powerball. I played my parts through that head running through my Orange 4x12 cab, and Travis did all his parts through a Bogner 4x12 cab that Tom had in his studio, to change things up a bit. Sounded awesome!
We also have a good amount of clean guitar on the new album. All those parts were tracked through a Mesa Roadster head, running through the Bogner 4x12 cab, which I have to say sounded amazing! Great clean channel. Travis also went back and overdubbed some acoustic guitar for all the clean sections and a few distorted parts, to spice them up a bit. Sounded great. Played all parts on the 1954 Gibson that Tom had in his studio. Sweet guitar!
Last, we recorded all of the lead sections, which I felt like I was tracking the whole cd again, haha. So many leads and solos! We used a Bogner Ecstasy Head with a ZW Overdrive Pedal (haha, which I can't believe sounded good), all running through the Bogner cab.
Started bass last, which was actually a few days before Jordan's 21st birthday! His parents actually stopped in to surprise him with lunch, while in NYC for his cousin's wedding. He ended up not being able to go out since we were behind on schedule, which is all good because I know he is super happy with all his bass parts, as we all are! He wrote some killer stuff that I had no idea about.
Last day we were there we just spent some time listening back through everything to make sure that we didn't forget any parts and going back through all the drum edits, to make sure they were all correct.
Picture: Last day of tracking.
Me and Travis ended up coming back up to NJ/NYC for 4 days of intense mixing with Tom. Which was awesome, because we got to fly instead of drive and to be able to be there for mixing, the worst is having to give someone notes through email.... not only that, but while we were up there mixing the album, the almighty, Guitarworld Magazine had us come in for a photo shoot, interview, and had me and Travis to do a video lesson for their cd rom that comes with every issue. It was an amazing experience. Should be out in the Feb issue, timed with the release of the album, also scheduled for Feb, for all those interested.
Mixing went great, and like I mentioned before... mastering is this weekend. Which will be awesome to have it all done. Its been a long process!
Make sure to stayed tuned for all our updates. We'll be posting a collaboration studio video edit, and then individual instrument studio videos, album artwork, and of course new songs! Exciting stuff!
Feel free to talk about your recording experiences with us as well, you know we like to chat. Would love to hear about the good and the bad.Peace.
-Chris