The Blog of Bright White Light's Recording adventures

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This blog was never really supposed to be read by people, but oh well.

Day 1

19/2/08

08:05 am

We're in the car. It's bares. On Newbury road, heading through to wherever and going to Worcester where the sauce was invented. There is four of us in the back seat. Not cool man, not cool. But atleast we don't have to spend like £65.20 on a ticket and tings.

    We haven't seen any cool birds yet sadly (apart from Mrs maguire braaaap).

We also have Sweeney Todd on Iain's mac which is wizard, but we haven't watched all of it. We have a severe suffering of a lack of ginger nut biscuits. But we'll get some soon I'm sure.

We also saw Birdslip ridge, it was he most beautiful thing of the morning.

Day 1

19/2/08

(The whole day at the studio)

It's Henry writing now and we have just arrived in the studio and we are getting used to how sweet it is! We met our technician, Jim Turner, who's a nice guy and seems to know alot of what goes down.

We have basically just set up the drums and we are getting them sounding beefy and nice for all the songs. Its a sparkly Mapex Saturn kit and apparently it belongs to a Taiwanese death metal drummer. Its time for some practise runs of Learn a lesson and sound checks and what not. Everything sounds good so far. Whilst this was happening Ben and Jim are sorting out the bass cab which is an Ampeg SVT-4 pro, it sounds like nuggets of dreams in audio form.

So now its time to begin the hectic task of recording the songs. First it is "Learn a Lesson", this song is not a good one to start on for drums, as it is very fast and has a lot of sections, this meant, there were many 'a failed try at tracking this song. It all got pretty sweaty and anger-inducing, but it was done, and it sounds pretty good. Next was "Powaqqatsi", this song was a nice song to record with drums as it only took about 3 attempts, although this also needed a few sections redoing.

Then we had lunch, this involved a five minute walk, a subway and good times.

Back at the studio, we started work on "Snap! Crackle! Pop!", this song took a few goes but altogether wasn't too challenging for the drums. The bass was fine too, as always.

After this song, we started work on our new song "Drowning at Dinner Parties", this needed a bit of polishing before we started recording. It was altogether very nice, but took many attempts to complete for Henry and Ben. It has now Metamorphosized into a beautiful butterfly. Well, what a tiring day for Henry and Ben. At about 6 o'clock, we had a bit of time to spare so we started work on tomorrows guitar sessions, sorting out guitar cabs and whatnot. It turns out that we will be using some sort of Marshall head, and also a Fender "Bassman", they both sound amazing and We are psyched for tomorrow!

We went to go and check into our travel lodge, this involved a long walk to a random shopping mall thing and asking a lot of people where it is. It turned out it was above a Pizza Express, which will put us in good stead for easy meals out in the future. On the way to our hotel Ben got served and we got some beers, so we were set for the night. Henry, Iain, George and Nick didn't leave the hotel all night and just drank some sweet bevouir and had a good old time.

Henry, Iain and George went back to their room and had a merry-made until about 2:00 and then woke up at 4 due to Iain's snoring, and didn't get back to sleep, so we had 2 hours sleep. Fun! All the while; Jack, Ben and Phil snuck out for some cheeky "adventures of the mind".

Henry and Iain stayed up from 4:00 a.m till the morning listening to smooth Parisian Jazz and scared George. Fun!

This concludes our Blog cast day. (bow), (curtsey)...

Adeiu

Day 2

20/2/08

18:18 P.M

Ben here;

Hello travellers,

We have just completed all of the guitar parts for all of the 4 songs we will be recording. That consists of "Learn A Lesson", "Powaqqatsi", "Snap, Crackle Pop" and "Drowning at dinner parties". They all sound fucking sweet! Walls of sound blanketing our ears with gracious sweet melodies. There are many layers in all in the songs which fill out the sound and make it sound fucking quality.

We're just finishing up with "Drowning at Dinner parties", it sounds very good, and we are pleased with the quality as it is a new addition to our repertoire.

Hi by the way it's jack typing now, hows it going? I just finished my guitar parts for the day, which sounded really wicked, so full and hard hitting it's fucking wicked.  As I'm typing this I'm tripping to the keyboard sounds which are being produced by george, while jim works his magic! I'm so happy with these recordings it's unreal. Today has been even more fun than yesterday, might i add that i also love delay pedals, if you're out soon buy the BOSS dd-3 an excellent choice in all your ambient needs. Henry the special needs boy is play psp next to me, he is kicking iraqi ass. We are venturing out to nandos later for a meal, it will be a hoot. Goodbye.

DAY 3

21/2/08

17:55 PM

We just recorded Gang vocals for Learn a Lesson and Snap Crackle pop, It sounds so sweet its unbelievable. We recorded it in a more echoic and resonant room with one mic inside a big arc of 6 people, Iain, Ben, Jack, Phil, Nick and me (Henry). We shouted the shit out ourselves and now we have all gone for a rest before Jack and Ben start work on Drowning at the dinner table. Me, Ben and Jack did some sweet harmonies at the end of snap crackle pop they sound ultra sweet.

That is all.

Remember, "our minds work like clocks"

Day 4

22/2/08

PM

It's Henry writing now…

There was a slight feeling of sadness today. As soon as we'd settled into the environment, we've been ripped away from it. We were all sad to go, but we know we will be back…

Me and Iain got ready really slowly by accident and ended up being an hour an a half late. This was induced also by the long ass stop at "Skill Toys", a wonderful little shop on the top floor of some deggy shopping precinct which sells everything fun ever. I'll repeat that for advertisements sake, it is called "Skill Toys" you can find it on www.ukskilltoys.com, basically the man's business is going bust so its quite to be honest. Nice chap.

We got to the studio and George was back from kickboxing, but this time he was a black belt heavier, so guys, don't mess with the G. Ron Peploe had paid a visit too to see what is guanin'.

Today was the day of mixing and mastering, an important day in creating the quality we want.

The night before this happened though, Iain, Jack, Ben, Phil, Nick and I bought 8 pizzas, 8 portions of chips, 8 cans of coke, a bottle of Pepsi and a box of chicken wings for £30. This was the first of two major bargains, the second being a 35 quid yoyo sold for 12 quid to Iain. Wizard! As he would state it.

Eventually the songs started to sound better and better. There were effects being put on vocals, drums and guitars alike, and everybody was ultra anxious to get a quality finish on the songs. Meanwhile though, many guitar hero feuds were being fought and many a' "wheeto" and mars bar were a' munched.

Next the mastering occurred. By this stage all of the people in the studio were sick to death of the same 18 minutes of audio being played through the monitors for 96 hours.

To drown this feeling, we just played more guitar hero.

Eventually it was time to go, and for the last time, Jim turned off the power mid shred on GH, Ben moaned about tidying up and all the rest lazed about trying to get away with not doing it with him. Good times.

Well, this blog is drawing to a close kids, but remember, all things come to a close.

So for a final time we must bid you adieu.

But prepare for video blogs, photos and eventually, songs.

See you soon.

Bright White Light.