7th Recording Session - 6 Febraury 2008, Wednesday (2.00pm – 3.30pm)

Chinese New Year Eve. Little India. Not exactly two things you put together. It happened. For one and a half hours, Syai and I spent time recording the lead guitar tracks for Fortify at Dunlop Street on Chinese New Year Eve, 6 February 2008.

Songs – Fortify
Instruments Recorded – Guitar (Kenneth)

Recording Process
What was really funny about this session was that it began with the idea to begin recording at 12.30pm. Nick messaged us that he would be late, arriving at about 1.00pm. Soon, Syai and I realised we'll be even later... to reach at 2pm. What's up with musicians and being late? Actually maybe its not a musician thing... its sometimes just a Singaporean thing isn't it??? Haha... ok. Back to what happened (which isn't much).

This session was relatively simple. But I'll talk about the Fender Bassman. Here it is right on top of the Laney Head and Cabinet.

For many of our songs, such as Astray, Today and Fortify, I wanted a bright sparkly tone for the guitars. This sound is very apparently in the lead guitar intro riff in Astray, the ending of Today and the verse of Fortify. This is what the Fender Bassman gives. A sparkle and glee to a guitar tone (probably very familiar to people who listen to atmospheric music like Sigur Ros). I haven't heard an amp which does the same yet. Amazing. Listen to believe. If you're a guitarist who wants that sound in your music, I would encourage you to head down to the musicforgood Studios and listen to the Fender Bassman (including what Nick adds to it). Its a tone which is hard to obtain anywhere else.

Anyway, recording wrapped up quickly. Oh. And we wished Nick, Wei Wei and Patrick a happy Chinese New Year :)

End

I think... from this session there was one special thing we learnt from Nick. Its that with layers, you can choose to eccentuate certain melodies or try to create a more dissonant ending to certain parts of the song so that it does not merely resolve in a listener's mind (ergh... I know this sentence is difficult to understand but that's the best way to put it). For Fortify, my overlays were pretty odd notes. When the CD does come out, listen to the ending and you'll hear certain notes played in a second layer to emphasis certain parts of the lead melody. It felt really different and I was glad that Nick made me do it (it was odd/difficult to play like that). One thing to takeaway? Choose a good producer which knows this stuff :)