gladiators eat fire

It’s the end of vocal recording day 3 on our yet to be named record. We have decided to approach each song with multiple layers of vocals. I have been using mic in hand techniques as well as standing mics. For mic in hand I have been using a Sure Beta 58 or Rode M1. The beta is way clearer. The Rode has a darker muffled tone. For standing mic we have the beta and a PPA LD-2ube sharing the pop filter. We put the mics at about mid torso height. Combining takes of both yields full and mostly clear sounds. I am using my Holy Grail reverb and a Boss dd3 delay, each recording to its own track. We also have the beta going through my PA and speaker. The PA is mic’d with an Ev/Blue Red Cardinal about a foot and a half away from the speaker. A thick floor rug hangs over the speaker and cardinal. The PA is a Yamaha EMX 62m (Powered Mixer). The speaker is a 16” Yamaha standard PA speaker.

We are going to pretty much be at this all week so I’m going home to feed Hannah.  Goodnight for now.  You will hear from me soon. Photos in the future I swear.

-Mark

Hello everybody! So over the past few days I’ve been trekking over to Ken’s barn early in the AM and laying down blistering hot guitar for hours on end.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to use Ken’s Orange Dual Terror as well as my own Marshall, and the combined tone of these two monsters is amazing! Ken also has quite an array of pedals that I got to play with, one of my favorites so far being the Lunar Module, a neat little distortion box that mimics the tone off of one of David Gilmour’s guitar solos. We spent Friday and Saturday blasting away and got some really badass sounds for all the distorted parts on the record.

Monday we tracked all the clean and semi-dirty sections. I was able to borrow a Fender Strat from Grant Kimura of hellocharger for some spots that I think really needed it. Everything we used it on sounding completely amazing, I’ve pretty much been convinced I need to get my own. Ken’s guitar, a Musicman, was also used on a few parts where neither the Strat nor my SG were quite right. It was great getting to play a bunch of different guitars and figuring out what kind of tone really suited one part over another.

Later on I’ll be adding some extra guitar noise and effects over certain areas, which is maybe what I’m most excited for. I’ve only just touched the surface of the HOG you see below.

I can’t wait to have something for you to listen to.

– Brian

Listening to: Portugal. The Man – Censored Colors
Recently viewed: There Will Be Blood

Heyo Everyone!

What a great week!  Joseph here, with a list of some of the tools I used to record our upcoming album.  If some of you out there are wondering how to duplicate the sounds, or replicate the tones; I am here to help! I kept it simple while tracking so there is plenty of creative space[I will mention that later]. My Kit while recording, is as follows:

The Shells: Pacific by Drum Workshop – CX Series (Red Sparkle)

18×24″ Bass Drum[only beater head] w/ REMO Powerstroke Drum Head & No Front Head

14×16″ Floor Tom w/ Evans Onyx 2-ply[Top Head] & REMO Ambassador Clear[Bottom]

6×14″ Snare Drum w/ REMO Emperor X[Top Head] & REMO Snare-Side Head[Bottom]

4×12″ Rack Tom w/ Evans Onyx 2-ply[Top Head] & No Bottom Head

F.Y.I. - I used RemO’s[sound reducing rings] on my Toms to “round” out the sound &
a pillow only slightly touching the Bass head to contol the “ring” of older heads.

The Metal: Assorted Cymbals

Hi-hats – [Top] 18″ Paiste PLAYERS Crash/Ride(demo-ing)

or 18″ Paiste 302 Crash/Ride(tracking)

[Bottom] 18″ Paiste 302 Crash/Ride(demo-ing)

or 17″ Zildjian Medium-Thin Crash(tracking)

Ride      – 20″ Sabian Hand Hammered Medium Ride

Support: Pacific Hardware & Pedals & Throne

I purchased a 900 Series hardware pack that includes … Straight stand, Snare stand, Hi-hat stand, & 600 Series Bass drum pedal. I am also borrowing a throne from my great friend James Erwin[Amazing drummer from HELLOCHARGER & SKA HOUSE alumni], Thank you James for supporting my butt during this process! 

Noise Catchers: Assorted Microphones

… I will post again when I get those notes from the Proff-essor . Thank you for your patience!

We will also be recording over-dubs, percussion, and inverting cymbal sounds and creating beats with the noises we create. This will take place at LITTLE ROOM STUDIO in Queen Anne over the next few weeks. I will do my best to keep you all updated with news from the Beat Department.  Thank you all for your love and support!

Peace&Love,

Joseph Wilkinson

Any questions or inquiries hit me up on our gmail email or our facebook.

Listening to:  MUTE MATH – Reset E.P.

I think it’s safe to say that none of us are morning people. 8 AM is no time to be awake in my book, unless you haven’t gone to bed yet, but alas that was the time Taylor and I began our endeavors on Friday. Ken had been beat mapping our scratch tracks from Monday so Friday we went in to make sure everything was exactly the way we wanted it. I wish I had some photos of the drive over, because the sun over the bridge to Redmond was beautiful! Instead, here are some more photos of our scratch track recording session. There’s always so many cool shots of Joe.

Since Friday, Ken has been putting the last finishing touches on the scratch tracks so they are nice and shiny for Joe to record over tomorrow! Another early ass morning awaits us. Oh, and my computer died Friday night, when I was originally writing this blog, so the video footage will be delayed yet again. My sincerest apologies to anyone actually waiting for that.

God luck and good speed!

– Brian

Listening to: Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamonds

So for those who may have noticed, as soon as we were ready to unveil our new temporary studio blog, we pull a massive fail and crashed our little corner of the internet. Go figure. Anyway, after a few days of troubleshooting and pulling out hair, it’s back up now, and hopefully for good. Here’s what’s up.

On Monday Feb 1st, we destroyed our website and then entered the barn to record scratch track demos. These will be the groundwork to structure the sessions for all the songs. We were excited to be recording with Chris Proff again, and more so to have added Ken Lapworth to the team of awesomeness. 8 hours, a dozen smoke breaks, and 1 Jack In The Box run later, we had our first real listen-able version of the album. We tracked everything live, and even in these rough drafts everything is already beginning to sound incredible. Phase one completed, now we wait while Ken prepares these sessions for us to record our real takes over.

Here are some photos of the process:

We’ll have some video footage of us at the barn ready soon, probably by tomorrow. Right now, we’re about to drop off some promotional samplers around town for our show at the Sunset Tavern on Wednesday. See you soon!

– Brian

Listening to: Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
Reading: Sun Tzu – The Art of War

In a handful of hours we will begin the recording process on our next record, currently untitled. It is the summation of the time spent discovering ourselves and each other since the Keep The Beat Alive EP. We will be heavily documenting this next month and posting regular updates here daily.

Gear is all packed up. I should get some sleep.

-Mark