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Losertown Home The New CD |
Anomie Train - Studio LogSeptember 24, 2002The mastered CD came back from Seattle Disc Mastering last week and the guys are very, very pleased! The replication order will go out tomorrow! Woo hoo! So this looks like this wraps things up for the Studio Log--look for updated information on the front page under the soon to be created "Current News". September 2, 2002Well, a decision has finally been made on where to get the CD mastered--the band has decided on Seattle Disc Mastering. The guys spend Labor Day weekend going over the mixes one last time and the mixes will be sent out this week, so the guys are inching ever closer to getting the CD out. The decision was made on the strength of the mastering job done on the Riffbrokers CD, which, by the way, is an awesome CD! August 25, 2002After reflecting on the matter some more, the band decided to check out some more mastering houses before making a final decision. After all, that is the prudent thing to do. So it's looking more and more like an October release. In the meantime, they have been toying with some ideas on the CD artwork. Steven has been coming up with song titles for the next release, including Happy Ending. August 11, 2002The band sent one of their tracks to The Digital Sunspot to demo their mastering services. Confirmation was received last Friday, so the mastered track should come back in about a week. If it's good work, the whole CD will be sent. Although there is concern not to rush things, the guys also feel a need to wrap everything up--mastering and replication--sometime in September. Everyone wants to concentrate on watching the new Fall TV season. July 30, 2002Despite having a grounds crew noisily working outside of the building all day, the guys have wrapped up most of their recording. You Smell Like Mexican Food and My Key Buddy both were finished this afternoon. Steven the singer and Steven the guitarist both managed to use all of their guitars--Kramer Focus ($69 Strat copy), Santana SE, Fender Squier Strat, Bradley 331 (Les Paul copy), Jay Turser JT34, and Washburn D11 acoustic. Steven the drummer is still protesting the use of the lyric "It's now or never" in Don't Wait Too Long, but Steven the singer has no plans to replace the cliche. The guys are still trying to come up with a new song to round out the CD. They want to end it with a real rocker because the songs on the CD turned out to be quieter than originally planned. Perhaps it's because everyone's getting older. The big question is, do they get it mastered elsewhere? They are looking at The Digital Sunspot. The issue is whether professional mastering is worth it when the product is the output from people with such limited abilities. Steven the bass player thinks they can get away with doing it themselves. July 27, 2002It's been pretty hectic around the studio with the guys working on It's Not Hard and Don't Wait Too Long. They also revisited yet again The Swimmer, Justine, and Say Goodbye. Don't Wait Too Long took the entire Saturday because all the tracks had to be redone since the original demo file somehow got trashed! Vocals for The Swimmer had to be redone because Steven was affected by early morning alergies when he first laid down the track. There are two more tracks to go, plus the guys want to record a new song since they have decided to dump Just Give Up and Quit. July 24, 2002The guys got in late to the studio today and everyone was in a cranky mood. They quickly tidied up some mixing issues on previous tracks before this argument ensued. Then they all went out to see Reign of Fire, which everyone felt was a good summer movie! When they came back they decided that Justine wasn't finished after all and added some background vocals. * Note: Steven came to me and asked, "Why the hell do you keep referring to us as boys?!" so all references to that and in the future will now be "the guys". July 23, 2002The guys started work on If I Was Your Chair, a rather stupid song. They were begining to wonder if they should just drop this track, but Steven the bass player came up with a new nifty bass line for it, so they decided to keep it. Steven had all kinds of problems with fret buzz on his Yamaha RBX260 bass, and he was thinking maybe it was because his fingers were getting tired. So instead of recording it through the POD, they recorded it through an amp, and everyone was pleased with the sound of it. Anyway, all the guys sing on this one! They took another movie break today and saw The Road to Perdition, which everyone thought was okay. Afterwards they went to McDonalds and talked about the possibility of sending the CD out to be mastered. But the guys are pretty cheap, and they always have to fight their natural tendency to do things half-assed, so who knows? July 22, 2002Well, the guys began mixing/re-recording tracks for their CD in earnest today now that they've got two weeks of free time. Everyone coordinated their vacation time just for this. They arrived in the studio at 9:00 am sharp and worked on Say Goodbye and Justine. They decided to take a break at 2:30 pm so they could catch K-19: The Widowmaker. Steven the singer/guitarist thought it was pretty good whereas Steven the bass player and Steven the drummer thought it was okay. Steven the lead guitarist likes all movies, so he was happy, especially since the guys agreed with him to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken afterwards for some Crispy Chicken Strips. Tomorrow they are planning to work on the other acoustic numbers on the CD, If I Was Your Chair and The Swimmer. They are seriously considering dropping Just Give Up and Quit as all four of them feel that that is the weakest song. The CD is a lot quieter than anticipated, and the guys feel they should write a real rocker for it. July 14, 2002
The Jay Turser JT-34 seems to be being used as the main rhythm guitar on the tracks. Steven has been switching back and forth on lead with the Santana SE and Jay Turser. Steven also finally got his Hafler M5 studio monitors--it took two weeks from the time he ordered them from Musician's Friend, but hey, they finally arrived! July 7, 2002
Last night, Steven the bass player in his usual surly mood showed up to lay down a bass track for My Porcelain Friend. He kept messing up, so they decided to loop it. Again Steven used the Turser for the lead part, but this time he used the Santana SE for the rhythm track. The vocals should be recorded again now that the foam is up.
July 4, 2002Since the guys were together celebrating the July 4th holiday, they decided to do some preliminary work on Fallen Trees, the first track off the upcoming Six Feet Under CD. This was a track that was written and recorded a while ago, and upon listening to the previous demo track to see if any part of it was useable, they decided to start all over.
You can listen (4 meg mp3 file) to Fallen Trees and see if it truly was a waste of time. |
The guys have gone ahead and started re-recording and mixing tracks in anticipation of working full time on it during the last two weeks of July. Among the songs that they did were As Good As It Gets and London Girl. After being so in love with the POD settings he created last week, Steven decided that he hated them after all and junked them. So he decided to just tweak the built in ones on the POD as he needs them, all the while trying to remember to write down the settings.
Steven went down to the local Guitar Center today and picked up a bunch of 2' x 4' sheets of Auralex foam for his studio. The room has a nasty echo and the foam has definitely helped in cutting that down.
The track turned out much differently than the original demo track. There were some arguments over the sound of the new track. Steven the bass player wants the new track to go on the CD because it was his bass part that influenced the new sound. The other Stevens aren't so sure.
Steven the drummer didn't have his drum kit, so he quickly put together some drum loops. In his haste he forgot to change the loop for the chorus. Steven objected to having to sit out on the recording, so Steven the lead guitarist let him borrow his Jay Turser JT34 and have a go at it. Steven got pretty excited and decided to really rip it up. Steven created two custom POD settings--one based on a Line 6 amp for the rhythm track and one based on a Vox amp for the lead. Unfortunately, all the guys were pretty soused, so most of the tracks were worthless. Steven the founder/guitarist/singer kept yelling into the microphone at random intervals and missing his mark--not unlike his usual performance.
Also, the acoustics were pretty bad as Steven is in the middle of remodeling his studio. Looks like they'll have another go at it for real at the end of the month. In the meantime, the guys thought about recording a patriotic tune. Steven suggested the title You Can't Hide From Us You Stinky Terrorists Because We Can Smell Your Stanky Body Odor All The Way Across The Ocean but everybody decided to eat instead.