Those of you not currently experiencing the aftermath of a prefrontal lobotomy will have been eagerly looking forward to hearing our demos on the site. If you are post-prefrontal, you can’t look forward to anything, it must be weird. Our hearts go out to you.
Anyway, here are some preliminary mixdowns to start with and while you enjoy (we hope) the recordings, we can sit back as a band and take stock of what we’ve learned. Mostly, that recording is difficult. It takes bloody hours to get set up so that you think that things are going to sound ok, even longer to produce a session that you think is going to be fairly error-free and then, when you finally listen to it played back, you hate it.
Well, two sessions of recording drums, the purchase of some lavish digital recording equipment and many loans of equipment (Trevor, Kevin, we thank you) later, we turned one of our lounges (guess who? Which one of the band is currently a bachelor?) into a recording studio/Tardis and embarked upon recording guitar and vocal tracks. And re-recording them. Again. And again.
If you’re not good mates when you start recording, it can be the end of your band. Fortunately, we’ve mostly enjoyed the process, helped in no small part by Roo seeing fit to supply each session with a reasonable percentage of the Rioja region’s output.
We rely a lot on Roo’s energy in the band and recording has been no exception; he’s been brilliant at not letting us settle for second best and cajoling us to re-record tracks when we’ve been tired and have had enough.
Digital recording and mixing has been a learning process for us all, it’s odd trying to do things with a mouse. I’m still not at home without a bank of faders in front of me. We’ve got a way to go with that side of things and I think that there’s room for improvement with the mixes, so keep an eye on the page for new, improved versions. Converting file types has been interesting, too, some of these recordings have undergone more translation than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Anyhow, we’re ready to cautiously release the preliminary mix downs and we’re looking forward to hearing what you think. Enjoy.