Inside The Belly Of The Whale: Session 9

I Hope You Like Our New Direction

The remaining tracks on the record are being laid down in a slightly different fashion. For these tunes, I'm less concerned about keeping a perfect tempo throughout the song, and less concerned with layering tones of instruments (though always reserve the right to do so if the song begs for it). We're writing these tunes with the intent to track the principle rhythm parts live as a band. We're slightly limited by space and by available inputs, so Cranfill mans the desk while we track. He then overdubs his parts as needed.

This batch of songs are all simpler than the first half as well. The difference between them isn't night and day, but there is a distinctive simplicity that is appealing and attractive... much in the same way that the many ebs and flows of Leviathan are attractive. These tunes are:

Whiskey Drinking Woman

Off The Wall

Buffalo

Rock and Roll (This is What It Takes)

As I Lay In The Red Earth

A Brief Aside

There may be others, but at this point, that's where the record feels like it will end. There are other pieces on the fringes of this record that may wind up on an EP in the future, or may make the core of the next record. Mel has a beautifully haunting song called Love Unfinished. This one may actually make the record, and serve a similar thematic role as "Dissemination Part 1" from Marionette. There are also several pieces that I've worked up and have demoed for the band, but we simply haven't had the time spent of them yet. We may choose to include them in the sessions, but it's more likely that they get more time after we finish tracking this record. All that to say, we're in a rather prolific time as a band, and it's a wonderful time to writing new music in Rochester, a town that is rip for revival! [end of aside]

And... Back To Our Story

The first of these tunes we cut was Whiskey Drinking Woman. This tune was originally very different. Tyler did a clever rewrite to it, giving it a little bit of a swagger to it and channeling a bit of Black Crowes, some early Zeppelin and some alt-country. I put together the bridge which is heavily Crowes influenced. For those looking for musical quotes, you will find the Mel makes a reference to an old Theophilus song within the keys feature. I'll leave to you, gentle reader, to find said quote. The rhythm tracks (guitar, bass and drums) were all cut live. If memory serves me, the take that will make the record is around take 6 or 7. It didn't require more than 2 hours to find the pocket. We then overdubbed the remaining instruments during the following session. The guitar tracks on this tune are all done with my Budda Superdrive 30 through a 1x12 cabinet loaded with a Peavey 'Greenback' clone. The short lead adds a new germanium fuzz I found called a Sybil by Retroman. It's big and wooly and awesome. Interesting note on the snare drum sound: I wanted a slightly choked, early 70's tone from the snare. Scott swapped out his babinga snare for a Pacific snare with all-wood suspended rims. We then turned it lower than the previous snare for less of a 'crack'... but it still needed some deadening. The solution: drape half of a t-shirt over the batter head. The resulting sound is a little spitty and muffled... exactly what I was shooting for.

We followed that tune with Off The Wall. This is one of Mel's tunes, and practically wrote itself in one rehearsal. We did some polishing to it, but the core of the song as Mel presented it was solid enough that we just added our personal flavors. The outro was a Hendrixy jam that we added to it, and may lead to a song of its own one day, but is a fun out for the song. Again, the rhythm instruments (drums, bass, electric guitar and keys) were all cut live with very few 'fixes'. We required a few more takes on this one, oddly enough. In the end, we did about 10 or so, then started goofing around. That goofy take didn't lead to anything of quality, but loosened everyone up and we had a good laugh. The take immediately following it is the keeper take and will make the record. Again, acoustic guitar are overdubbed. Cranfill used a mid-90's Guild to track the two acoustic parts. The first is his main chording, the second is voiced higher and appears on the choruses. This will help the song have a three dimensional aspect, contracting during the verses and widening on the choruses.

Next on the docket will be either Buffalo, a tune I penned somewhat tongue-in-cheek that has a lovely smack to it, or Rock And Roll, Tyler's ironic take on what it takes to be a rock-and-roller. Both are really fun tunes, and we hope you will enjoy!

Inside The Belly Of The Whale: Session 8

Returning Home

Recently, the band reconvened at The Whale to begin tracking the second half of our next record. The plan was to spend the past few months penning out the rest of the tracks while I had other bands producing at The Whale, and we'd return with a fresh batch of songs to round out the sophomore effort. For the most part, this is where we're at.

We finished instrumental tracking on the first six tunes in the fall:

Leviathan

Long Dark Night

Three Over Four

You Won't Rule The World

Some Things You Never Wash Away

The Contented Tune *

The tone of these 6 tunes is polished and precise, with all the production of late Zeppelin and Queen. With those tracks, I really want the sound to be expansive,... even on Three Over Four, which has a very intimate feel. On that track, I occasionally have two or three layers of acoustic guitars to give it a full, rich quality. Each of these tunes was tracked to a click and each was tracked in pieces... starting with scratch tracks, then adding the instruments like legos to form the finished sound. This is the approach we took on Marionette almost entirely.

The Contented Tune was left half done at the end of the fall sessions. Tyler was still wrestling the bass line down, and the keys remained scratch. We chose to start with this song when we returned to The Whale. The Contented Tune has changed slightly in the last few months as we've adapted the piece for live shows. On the recording, I have layers as many as 5 guitar parts at one time. I am a man of many talents, but playing all 5 parts at once is beyond even my extraordinary reach. In addition, Tyler and Scott have honed the groove down to its essence and allowed the song to really breath. All that being said, we elected to keep the work we did in the fall for the recording and add to that, as opposed to starting from scratch on it. Using preamps by ART and an Electro Harmonix fuzz box, Tyler tracked the bass part in 2 takes... one to practice, one for history. I will give you a taste of The Contented Tune when we have finished tracking the keys.

For now, peace to you all.

Mike.

Where The Hell I've Been...

The Belly of The Whale has consumed me over the last four months. Three records in four months... and all three aren't mine. Here's some tasty cuts:

Froth: www.myspace.com/frothband

Froth was looking for a CCR - esque record with a very live feel. Once they got a taste of what an overdub can do, that plan changed a little. Still, most of the rhythm section is live. These are finished mixes of:

Alter Ego

Shuffle

Tommy Hawkins

Tommy's a crazy-man. He did a demo with me a few years ago before Tom left for Nashville and his rock-and-roll dreams. Since then, he's been all over the country and taken much more to writing. He brought in two fantastic musicians from Toronto to cut the drums and bass... and in 12 hours, these rhythm sections were complete. Here's a daily from one of those sessions:

Just As You Are

Teagan and The Tweeds: www.teaganandthetweeds.com

Violet Mary and Teagan have grown rather close over the last year. We've become tight gig partners, and thus they took their demo to me. The Austin Demo was recorded in a weekend in preparation for their trip to South By Southwest on March 17. Here are two cuts from the finished mix:

He Gotta Go

Sweet Lovin'

So... that's where the hell I've been these last few months :)

Pedal swapping

Gone is the Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret. It was an impulse buy as I had a fair amount of money left over from my amp sale, so i thought I would give it a go. It's not a bad pedal at all, but it didn't love my Budda. I use the Budda at 75% of my gigs, so my board needs to love that amp most. The DLS was very friendly with my DRRI, but not any more friendly than my Barber Direct Drive on low gain settings. And my Direct Drive handles fuzzes and treble boosts just as well, so the Barber stays and the Dirty Little Secret left.

In her place, I picked up a Tonefreak Severe. This pedal is intended to be the gainiest thing on the board, and would serve all those big-rock needs. I spent about two hours with it this afternoon through the DRRI and it's just BALLS! No getting around it, flat out rock and roll. For the most part, I ran the gain at about noon, and there's plenty of gain on tap. It can take you from ZZ Top to Alice In Chains without much issue, and that's with vintage output pickups. Three styles of clipping (symmetrical, asymmetrical, and diode lift), plus a bright switch. The bright switch actually changes the frequency that the tone knob interacts with... an extra level of awesome.

Check it out at: www.tonefreak.com

Been A Long Time (waiting on posts)

Greetings All,

I realize you've been pining away looking for updates from the studio. And for my lack of posts, I am truly sorry. We have taken a few months to finish writing the remainder of the record and will return to The Whale in January to finish tracking.

In other news, I've updated my pedalboard with a couple new pieces. First, a BYOC Tri-boost. I built the Tri-boost from a kit from the fine people at "Build Your Own Clone". It's three classic boosts in one pedal: A Germanium Treble-Boost in the Beano-Boost direction, a Linear Boost ala an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 and a Clean Boost in the vane of a Zvex SHO. Second, a rather standard Line 6 DL-4 which is handling all my time-based effecting. And lastly, a new Catalinbread D.L.S.. This pedal is freakin' awesome, and will service all my gain-stage needs when using any other amp than my Budda, and will serve as a mid-gain tone between the clean and drive channels.

I had a bunch of people on The Gear Page asking for some clips of the DLS and the Budda so, I took a stab at making a youtube video. Keep in mind, I was half asleep so my playing is, well, just that. Here ya go:

Inside The Belly Of The Whale: Session 7

Some Things You Never Wash Away

Most of this record has been quite effortless. Many of the tracks are single takes on the drums and bass... most of the guitar tracking just flowed off the neck. Some Things we've been wrestling with a bit. You've read in previous posts about the rewriting of the tune. We landed on an arrangement we really liked and decided this would be the next track we'd lay down.

All tracking for this record starts with laying down a click. I decided to lay down a 1/16th note click as the head riff tends to get away from a little. The more subdivisions one has in the click, the easier it is to hold to it. Once deciding on the click, we programmed it into the computer and let it roll for about 8 minutes. As I was laying down the click, I was noodling and chatting with the band Only after laying down the scratches did I realize that the mics were live and bussed to the same output as the click... so the click track was blended with my non-diatonic bends and such. At that point, we needed to start over.

Within an hour, we'd recreated the guide tracks and moved into tracking the drums and bass. Tyler and Scott worked their magic as they are known to do! Within a few takes, they'd created a groove. Scott added some new fills that really spiced up the track (see the turnaround into the third verse) and Tyler accented his outro groove with some excellent ghost notes.

But, here's the part that gets me all hot and bothered. Punching drum tracks is extremely hard to do. One has at least 11 live mics live, all of which need to be picking up any number of cymbals and drum hits at the same time as the take one is punching into. Doing so is very difficult, both as an engineer and as a drummer. I'm proud to say we successfully did it in three places :)!!! My ego's still huge around it. Normally, Scott's tracks are a complete take. That keep take is commonly take 4 or 5. This time out, Scott his a killer take... all of which was inspired save about 8 bars. A few punches later, and the take is clean and clear.

"Where are the cool studio pictures?", you ask. I'll have pictures posted in the next entry, along with an updated photos of the all-knowing white board.

For this tune, I won't post an MP3 until the guitar tracks are down... then we'll play "spot the punches".

Mike's New Ride and The Shakedown

Mike's New Ride

The last five years or so I've gone through amps like underwear; wear them until you get a

stain, and then throw them away. I was a Mesa-Boogie guy until then, and played a rack full of gear that, for the most part, had great tones. The issue was that it required a manual and several hours of time to lower the treble if the venue was bright. I moved from midi and presets to a one channel amp, throwing the pendulum to the exact opposite side, as is my way. From there, I had a custom amp built for me... again, sounded great. This time, the amp required unusual amounts of service. It was a Jaguar. You look at it funny and it would blow a fuse or, worse yet, a set of power tubes. The custom amp hit the auction blocks and I went back to presets for a brief period.

In the meantime, I picked up this great little philly from Toronto called a Traynor Bassmaster. Traynor is the Peavey of Canada,... amps for the working man. The Bassmaster was their impression of the Fender Bassman, with a bunch of Marshall Superlead added. Many people look at these guys as the 'poor-man's plexi'. I found one in the back of the local Guitar Center and snagged it. It's got a some issues, so it's can't be my only amp, but the sound is there.

The Traynor, with her faux alligator-skin tolex head box, is currently at Voodoo Amps in Ithaca. Trace Davis is working his magic, taking the amp from someone's project amp to a fire-breathing monster. Initially, I brought the amp in to have it overhauled. I knew that the amp had been someone's pet project, and the turret board was a mess. But, the amp is hand wired, and thus is easy to retrofit... again, why people love these amps. I brought it to Trace and said, "Allmans to Van Halen, that's what I'm looking for". It's a tall order, but generically, it's the scope of an old 1969 Marshall, from clean to completel

y gained out. Voodoo Amps has a reputation for being both excellent with their workmanship and personable with their customer service... so a non-expert vocabulary is welcomed and translated with ease.

I received the head back a few weeks ago, and the tonal improvement was noticeable immediately. The amp had a spectrum now, both in eq and in gain. The more I played the amp, though, the more i noticed a fuzzy artifact behind each note. The amp also didn't respond well to any gain setting below ten. Now, i know, what self-respecting rock player is going to set their plexi below "molten death" overdrive... maybe me. Thus, the Traynor returns to Ithaca for fine-tuning and tweaking.

Here's the dilemma: It's my only gig-able amp. In 15 years of gigging, this is the only time I've been with one gig-worthy amp. I began the search for a new rig about three months ago. Research lead me to Egnater Amps and Budda Amps. The Egnater in question is a new imported deal called the Renegade. She's a 65 watt, 2 channel head designed in the states, built in China. Many cool features on the amp, smooth look, and great tone. The Budda Superdrive is a 30 watt amp and simple: 2 channels, shared eq.... very similar to the Traynor in layout. They both achieve tones I'm looking for, each with their own flavor and nuance... but each residing in the modded Marshall camp.

The timing was right... conditions were perfect... and The Budda Superdrive 30 won the day! She's one her way to me now with a matching 2x12 cab. The hope is that she will make her debut at The Lovin' Cup on Sept 12th! I'm thrilled.

(sidenote: say what you will about the purple, but I think it's hot! the knobs may need to be replaced with a more attractive "chicken head" variety, but i'd keep the pointy ones for resale, should i need them.)

The Sunday Night Shakedown

Late on sunday, I drove a copy of Marionette and a poster

for the fall shows down to The Sunday Night Shakedown on 98.9 - The Buzz. Frank DeBlase, the show's host and producer, is an avid local music fan and editor of the Arts & Music section of City Magazine. My plan was to simply drop off the poster and disc, ask them to mention the gig and play a tune (if i'm lucky). This was not to be. Frank saw me trying to get the front door of the studio open (it was locked), and invited me in. We had a brief conversation in the lobby and then he disappeared in the studio for a quick on-air piece. When he returned, he said "You wanna do an on-air. We'll chat about the show and play a tune". When someone asks you "do you want to be on the radio to promote your gigs, be interviewed and play a tune"... you say yes! So, we had a blast... chatted up the shows some and played Black Stones. The record has been added to the Shakedown's library, so call in on Sunday evenings and request some Violet Mary!!!