We got up an going 6.30 in the morning on saturday. A time that's not very helpfull for the success of the weekend... Arriving at 9.30, with a car full of tired rock-personel, we got Aki to work. Drum recordings started after the set was up at around eleven. Sami had bought a third tom tom to finish off the Kumu set, so we didn't need the extra hassle we had already done in Turku with the additional tom's, due to yours truly not checking on the needed number of tom's...
Anyhow, Aki was up and running, and as he got behind the set, things seemed to move as smoothly as ever. The man can play, no doubt about that. Retreat had gone through some changes, with some rhythm tricks added and some leads cut. The number sounded great and was done in an instant. The second song of the weekend was ElPez that proved out to be a harder one to get through. Most of the stuff was hammered through as we visited a local liquer store, to get some Zwack, but also some problems had emerged, as A seemed to get stuck on one of the drum parts. He was playing it ok most of the time, but it seemed to slip just a little out of hand. After a while, the decision to play it in as a seperate part, while the click just runs to his ear, was made, and the man nailed it in a couple of takes.With the drums done, we moved on to the bass parts. ElPez to start with, proved to be a big one to get right. We started at 3 p.m. when Samu, our man behind the desk left and left me in charge, and then finished at 6 p.m. after three hours of struggling, with still some stuff to re-do on Sunday. A lot of hard parts to play, and a lot of wasted time do to my technical incapabilities and maybe some lack of recording experience. Recording and playing to a click is something I know from past, concerning myself, that needs to be really practised at home. When you've got to play in an excact tempo with no flaws, practising at the training place with the whole band just isn't enough, as most of the errors are muffled by the rest of the band. A metronome at home by yourself is a brutal way to hear how everything sounds, and I'd encourage playing like that to everyone who's ever going to be in a recording band...
Saturday was a wrap, and we enjoyed the normal brews and a new drink called Banana Zwack. Something Peb invented and titled the album instantly with naturally. Only the Zwack-engraving is missing from the banana-cup at this point, as it was added in the later hours of the evening.Sunday morning Samu came up at around nine, and more bass was due. We did some demo-vocals in a hurry, just to get the song structures right and then bashed on with Retreat. Peb tacked along with the guitar, but I'm still not sure if that was the right way to go. Maybe a better demo guitar was in order, as the old ones that we used with the drums we're kind of a mess, due to an experiment with a fuzz-pedal.
Altough the original idea was to get some real guitarwork done so we wouldn't have to use time in it later one, but as we later concentrated only on P's guitars they went in much more fluently, when there was just him playing, and almost nothing of the guitars played simultaniously with C were used. Might have been something to do with him getting the fingers strecthed out too though. Retreat went in pretty smooth, altough again when anything needs to be changed in the compositional part Chuck isn't at his best. The man's got his mind set on a pattern to play, and introducing new stuff doesn't always sink in easy, atleast with three other guys blabbering away on the couch. Note to myself: Bring the guys in in pairs from now on.Samu checked out at noon, and we still did some guitars after that. P is an exceptional player even hung over, as it really doesn't take him that many takes to get something right. Altough this time we might have to do some of the stuff over, because stuff might have slipped by too easy. I kind of trusted the guys, when they said it was okay, and I think they might just have though the same about me, that I silently approved if I didn't ask for another take. We'll check the stuff out next time and do over what was left half-assed.
Tero rammed in some guitar work in a really busy schedual, and there might not have been much usefull there for the future. But as all his work was done in under an hour, so not much was expected, with all of our ears already a mash and a little bit of a fire under my tail to get to Turku for my radio spectacle.
The next date is set in two weeks, so hopefully will get to plug the leaks, patch in the rest of the guitars and then do the vocals and maybe even some extra curriculars too, with two new songs done in the end. An exhausting weekend, but hopefully the bases were laid down proper, so the concentration can move on to the gtr and voc stuff from here.
