SKY'S BLOG: RECORDING SUMMARY/IN THE STUDIO!!!
Posted January 10, 2008
This new record is gonna be SICK!!! We are very excited about what we just made and wanted to tell our friends a little bit about our latest work. It's got a WHOLE LOT of dynamic with real strings on 12 songs, and grand piano on 9! We recorded it super professionally and it's definitely expected to open our band up to new markets, which is an amazing outcome. We switched instruments around a lot while recording, I got to play drums on 3 songs, and Myk played pretty much all the Acoustic guitars. We also incorporated some crazy awesome instrumentation that we definitely didn't hold back from once we got started :) Myk and I wrote all the songs in Arizona last summer between May and August 07, and started recording it in October. We recorded the drums, grand piano (and some acoustic and electric guitars) at Studio A at Henson Recording Studios. We got to use Paul McCartney's piano!!!! (Booyah) It was in the same room where they recorded 'We Are The World.' Amazing vibes!!!! We did a string session with The Section Quartet at Capitol Records Studios and I'm pretty sure we had goosebumps the whole time. Myk and I did all the arrangements except for the song "12 Years Later" which Eric Gorfain arranged (and did a spectacular job). Talk about an amazing session to be remembered. Those guys (and gals) are amazing musicians. We finished the string session a little early, so we did recorded (a secret track, shhh...) with Nat King Cole's grand piano in the same room. They had microphones from the 40's that we used on pretty much everything we did there. Absolutely mind blowing. We've been recording everything to 2 inch tape, so it's sounding sonically bodacious. Myk and I track a lot together, then go back and layer the other instruments, while experimenting with different combinations of guitars, amps, mics, outboard gear, etc. Nothing went wrong until at the very end, when we were doing vocals (at Sage and Sound Studios) the Telefunken mic that I was using blew a tube and we had to go back and do all the vocals over, but it ended up sounding even better at the end! Everything happens for a reason, right? Thanks Telefunken for the blessing, you old codgers. Jim Wirt (Incubus, Live, Something Corporate) hung out with us out a lot while we were recording, and came up with some great ideas. He played bass on 9 songs for us too!! Jim is such an amazingly melodic bass player that we would've sold the record short not offering him that opportunity to contribute those parts. We mixed with Neal Avron (an amazing person and friend) at Paramount Recording Studios. Max, our engineer (the 22 year old prodigy that Myk and I call our third leg while in production) mixed 7 of the 20 songs that we recorded, at El Dorado Recording Studios (excellent) while Neal mixed the remaining 13. We're thinking the layout of the packaging will include a 15 track full-length, and the first 2500 or 3000 copies will have a Limited Edition Bonus EP with four more-downbeat songs for all to indulge. It's a lot of music, and we can't wait to get it into your hands. We flew to NYC to master our record with Ted Jensen, and he's quite the awesome dude as well. He was telling us stories about how he mastered Hotel California when he was 19, and has been doing it steadily ever since. He even told us stories about hanging out with Dimebag (Pantera) in the same room we were mastering, right before he was killed. As we overlooked the Hudson River, listening to the final stages of the production wrap themselves up, Myk and I gave each other a sweet hi-five, did a doob or twelve, and started to get ready to put a band together and tour our asses off for a steady 12-18 months. HERE WE COME, GET READY FOR US! Sky Nielsen ONNS ohnonotsky@yahoo.com
