Ok ok ok ok. I've been b*tched by the band lately about the lack of postings and how the blog is getting stale cos no one comes to a blog to read about what happend 1 month ago... Ok ok ok ok. I know its true. So as a new month resolution, I've decided to quickly complete all the sessions I'm in charge of writing and pass writing duties to syai-da-man (like spiderman)! :) - happy person.
So. Session 2 started with Qader and Wadei. Basically, we were chilling and Nick was having his lunch. Soon, it rained. But look at how happy we were regardless. I think we appreciate that our producer can be as late as us (*hint hint* to everyone in the band). So... yeah. In the end, its perfect timing (just like our songs). This store shown here is just opposite the studio at Dunlop Street. Must say... Wadei tastes pretty wa wa licious. After Wadei-ing, we rushed to the studio in the pouring rain...Songs - News, Astray
Instruments - Syafiq (Electric Guitar for "News" and "Astray"), Kenneth (Electric Guitar for "News")
Recording Session
So, 20 January shall be the day marked by electric guitars. Syafiq and I had the privilege of using almost all the guitars in the studio. I haven't got all the names down yet, but lots of them are Gibson guitars, kindly sponsored to/by Patrick (not the starfish) from musicforgood (check out his site http://www.musicforgood.com/)
So here is the rack of guitars (notice a few are missing. Why? They were being used by us of course!)
For guitars, Syafiq and I plugged into a Fender Bassman. Initially, we were just following Nick's instructions. But i'll elaborate in later posts what I like about the Bassman and include a pic on it (its now one of our many loves...). So what was difficult about recording guitars... (its really hard to remember now that its more than a month ago). Yet, I remember clearly how difficult it was to strum to a metronome beat. Syafiq definitely felt it the most during the recording of Astray. Most guitarists know that strumming is a "feeling" kind of thing which is really hard to control and keep consistent. Keeping it in time, and putting the feelings through into a recording were... to put it kindly, tough. News was a rather straightforward matter and wasn't difficult, but Astray. Woah... when you hear it, you might not realise how many takes it took to make it perfect, but i assure you it took quite a while!
What was special about Astray though, was that we added an additional acoustic guitar track to give it a really great soft rock vibe. So I did ask Fiq to give me details about the rig he uses but... argh. Musicians (this just means, musicians... always late). Moving on. For News, Fiq used a clean guitar w/o effects. For Astray, Fiq used a ProCo Rat and a Boss MetalZone (MT2) for distortion. In addition, Nick had lent Fiq a unnamed distortion pedal owned by a guitarist from March Twelve (OPPS!). Mental. When its out, listen to the interlude to hear how all three pedals sound like. Its crazy (especially when put together).
For me (Kenneth), I use a Boss Super Overdrive (SD-1) for the first verse of News and a Sansamp GT2 for the rest of my distortion. The SD-1 is famous for giving a nice warm buttery tone which is vintage. I highly recommend it to any guitarist. For beginners, its budget price (S$60 second hand is possible) makes it a must buy. For experienced guitarists, I heard that everyone returns to the tone of a SD-1 after trying all the highend stuff. I must say the pedal has its uses. GT2 is extremely well known in the Singapore guitarist community. I won't say much more about it (cos so much has been said on forums like soft.com) except that it retails at about S$330 first hand and S$180 (dropping) second hand. Check out luthermusic for great second hand deals (http://www.luthermusic.com/).
For me, I like the GT2 for its versatility and its edge. Its probably not as powerful as higher end distortions like MXR though... but MXR is much pricier and perhaps the premium is not really worth the improvement in sound (which is really still up to judgement and preference).
Ok. Enough about the technical stuff. I'm boring all casual music listeners. So what happened? Well, we kinda completed tracking (which means recording the raw tracks) for both songs, leaving Rahmat to fill the songs up with the vocals. Now you know who has the easiest job eh? ;)
End
So... I am kind of sleepy (after work, though its only 10.30pm) so i'll keep this short. One thing which is really important for guitarists is to learn to strum with a metronome. We actually re-recorded the acoustic rhythm part for Astray in future sessions again (no fault of Fiq, its really hard). Well.. maybe there are others who are just more talented than us... Anyway, I would like to talk more about amps (why the Bassman, why???), but I'll really leave it for a later post where I'll post some pics. I hope I remember!
PS: We met Syai's friend Hanafi at Sarpinos for pizza to discuss a video, we're shooting in NTU tomorrow (will say more soon)!
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