Ozma recording blogs - 1999-2001: Difference between revisions

10.12.99.0129    

today, monday 10.11.99, was the first day at the studio. ryen and i arrived around 5:20 p.m. from ucla, and drums and amps were already set up by pat and jose, who had arrived an hour earlier. we waited for pat, who was out getting 3 eight-track ADAT tapes for the 24-track mixer to record to. bruce formatted the tapes (a 40 minute process); pat had locked his keys in his truck, and so called aaa. ryen and jose went to pick up drinks while pat waited for the assistance and bruce reformatted the ADAT tapes. once ready, pat, jose and i warmed up on battlescars and then laid drum/bass/rhythm guitar tracks simultaneously for: the ups and downs, if i only had a heart, rocks, shootingstars, and baseball. ryen made comments and helped decide which takes to keep while making a meticulous minute-by-minute account of exactly what was being recorded. we did rhythm section takes until 10:30, and from then until 12:15 jose doubled his heavy guitar tracks and we worked on clean-channel guitars and bass fixes for baseball. we packed up and discussed the possibility of a cardboard sleeve for our CDs instead of a jewel case and liner booklet. ryen and i drove back to ucla. approx. 8 hrs. studio time.

10.13.99.0135    

day 2 is finished. ryen and i arrived at 6:40, pat was already at the studio. pat and i recorded the drum and bass tracks for the song with the commuter music melody (still unnamed) and apple trees. we were preparing the keyboard/synth drum part at the beginning of natalie portman when jose arrived (around 9:20). we had some problems with the keyboard tuning - i knew the part in the key of A, which is how we play it on guitar... except we tune our guitars a half step flat, so the song actually sounds in A flat. i couldn't tune the keyboard down the entire whole step, so i took a minute to relearn the keyboard part in the key of A flat and then recorded it. then jose and pat and i played the rhythm tracks for that song, and afterwards for battlescars. battlescars wasn't sounding good, so we laid in a metronome click track and had us all play to that so we'd be on the same page as far as tempo. it worked pretty well... and at the very least, the entire song will sound professional, since it stays at the same speed throughout. bruce and i had a little chat about elvis costello, which turned into a chat about what was happening in music from 1975-1978. bruce picked on me for being an 18-year-old elvis costello fan; he's 37. jose talked about his tennis midterm, and bruce told us two stories about how he was beaten in the semifinals of a summer camp tennis tournament by a 13-year-old girl when he was 7 and about how his wife, who he has nicknamed "forrest gump," is an exceptional tennis player. she often beats him 20 games in a row before she concedes a match so he will let her get some sleep.

10.15.99.0057    

 

the 3rd studio day went particularly well. we arrived knowing we had to get relatively quick drum takes of apple trees, in search of 1988 (we had to put in a scrap metronome and acoustic guitar intro), and last dance (the transition into this song also required a scrap metronome track). apple trees was a breeze; 1988 took a little swindling since the tempo is so furious, and last dance was comparatively easy; they were all done within 2 hours after we arrived at 4:30pm. we listened to several tracks to make sure we were confident about the drum tracks, since this would be the last day to possibly redo any of pat's parts. we decided they were all quality, and i went to work on finding the glitches in my live bass tracks and redoing this or punching in where need be. we realized while listening that the entire commuter music and apple trees live bass tracks were acceptable to the utmost. fixing all the bass took until about 9:00pm. jose manned the donkey and we went through the same process for every distorted guitar track he had played live. we fixed the glitches, which were relatively minimal (he is known in some circles as coolhand felix), redoing tracks where necessary. each track was also doubled to provide for extra rock power. damien and peter showed up to keep us laughing, and we were all especially impressed with jose's guitar work on battlescars (the feedback he coaxed out of his marshall jcm 900 was particularly titillating) and in search of 1988. with doubled jose tracks in and all the bass parts fixed, the songs really started to sound like they have always sounded in our heads. we quit for the day at around 11:30. approx. 7 hrs. total studio time, making a cumulative total of 19 hours over 3 days.

 

ryen and i arrived around 4:35 on the 4th day of studio time; pat and jose were already there, and star got there not long after us. we began with jose getting his clean-channel guitars in at ever spot he had left spaces for them... there were small appearances of clean channel parts on almost every song, including commuter music, if i only had a heart, in search of 1988, and last dance. that took until around 6:30, at which time we switched setups to ryen's peavey amp and telecaster 50's reissue, got a good sound (which took a while - we had to work to get his tone to sound separate from the bass, and we had to run him through a noise gate to cut out a 60hz electronic ground loop hum that was occuring at a very low frequency), and started laying his rhythm tracks in on every song. it took longer than jose's tracks did, since a lot of jose's parts were live. battlescars especially took awhile; we ended up using about 3 different guitar tones and bringing in jose's donkey (a new american made stratocaster). there was a lot of comedy going on about the sports on the muted television... bruce and jose were both rooting for the mets (against the braves in the nl playoffs), but jose wanted to watch the hockey game (l.a./calgary) so bruce had to constantly ask him to switch back to channel 4. we recorded ryen's tracks for the song "baseball" while watching the playoffs... including a hilarious shot for the blooper reels in which a bunch of fans (about 25 of them) sitting on the first base line tried to lean over the flimsy barrier to catch a foul ground ball, and in the process wound up collapsing the barrier and falling face first into the warning track dirt. NBC ran the clip about 15 times... until we quit at about 11:45. approx. 7 hrs. total studio time, making a cumulative total of 26 hours over 4 days.

10.18.99.0349    

 

10.19.99.0239    

the 6th studio began smoothly at around 5:30pm. ryen, my pal zach and i arrived first, followed quickly by jose and pat. the door was locked. we waited for bruce. when he arrived, we took a while getting ryen's solo guitar tone and then laid his and jose's lead tracks in on several songs. jose started with ups and downs. bruce came up with the suggestion for him to play the lead line an octave higher than he usually does (he normally doubles ryen), which added a pretty nice high end to the already gargantuan wall of sound we were trying to achieve at the end of the song. jose then played the same line 2 octaves lower, with an effects loop adding the same line 2 full octaves below that. all of that really fattened up the sound. ryen then proceeded to track if i only had a heart, baseball, shootingstars, and rocks (on which he played a rock-glory solo reminiscent of slash's golden days with guns n' roses). then bruce's power amp for his mixer blew a fuse and we had to call it for the day, at about 9pm. about 4 hours of studio time, totaling 34 hours over 6 days.

10.27.99.0259    

8th studio day started at 4pm. we listened to natalie portman and i doubled the background track jose had alread laid in. ryen put in his guitar track, including a good take of his solo. he then tracked the 2nd half of the battlescars solo; since it was not really a set melody going into this recording session, ryen basically improvised things and we all gave input until it was to our liking. i went through and did a couple nylon-string acoustic guitar tracks. there's an extended arrangement of the commuter music melodies at the beginning of in search of 1988 (pat played a very good creaky door - when i was playing the crap track on acoustic guitar just so we could get the rhythm tracks done correctly, jose opened the door to take a picture right before the band hits the E chord... it got erased, but we liked it so much that we re-did it with a mic on the door). the other acoustic part is over some of last dance. ryen then began his first vocal work, on the ups and downs. it was tough work, since this was his first shot at singing, but eventually we got a good track and laid in the b.g. vocals. we called it at 11:50. about 8 hours of studio time, totaling 47 hours over 8 days.

10.28.99.0304    

our 9th studio day started a little before 7:00pm. ryen and i arrived and chilled with bruce for a few minutes. we then listened to the vocals on the ups and downs from the previous night for ozma brand quality assurance. we went immediately to work on lead vocals for if i only had a heart, at which point jose and pat arrived. that took about an hour; we proceeded to shootingstars, which took an hour and a half. i then went in for the backgrounds on those two songs, which took some time. we ran through leads on baseball and got almost the entire song, but some of the high notes eluded us after a tough day of stress to the cords. we called it at 12:20 - about 5.5 hours of studio time, totaling 53.5 hours over 9 days.

10.29.99.1713    

our 10th studio day started a little after 4:00pm. we did lead vocals for apple trees, baseball, and we attempted to do commuter music. pat made i then went in and sang a couple sections of commuter music, the leads for rocks, and the backgrounds for apple trees. to end the day, ryen, jose, and i all went in the quiet room to shout out the choruses of "rocks" while bruce stayed in the control room and made us quadruple-track our screams so it sounds like there's a whole lotta people singing. we called it at 12:00 - about 5.5 hours of studio time, totaling 61.5 hours over 10 days.

11.4.99.0446    

our 11th studio day began a little before 7:30. ryen and i warmed up and went straight to the vocals on commuter music. ryen was able to lay down a very nice track for commuter music relatively quickly, so i went in and sang all my parts, a couple harmonies, and that was it for that track. a notable funny - while recording vocals for commuter music, bruce went on strike, insisting to know the meaning of one our lyrics. he wrote "Bruce ON STRIKE!!!" in sharpie on a piece of paper and taped it to a pencil and walked around the room shouting demonstration chants. we sat him down and explained enough to appease him. the rest of our time, until about 11:40, was spent on our vocals for in search of 1988, which was finished by the time we called it a day. approximately 4 hours of studio time, totaling 65.5 hours over 11 days.

11.5.99.0114    

our 12th studio day (and last actual recording session) began a little before 5:00. i went straight in to do the leads on last dance, which went relatively smoothly, and ryen followed with his octave doublings and harmonies, which was also relatively painless. quite fun, infact. the 3rd verse was actually a discarded verse that we had planned not to use, but at the last minute we had a change of heart, and decided that it was quality enough to leave it in. many of the harmonies on this track (and even a few words) were decided at the last minute by ryen and i with bruce's advice. near the end of our work on that song, jose and lisa showed up to join the party. once last dance was finished, bruce and i went to the market for food while the others listened to older tracks and taped them for the car ride home. we ate for an hour and watched "whose line is it anyway?" which was hilarious to the utmost. battlescars lyrics came next, and again, much of this song was improvised - we went in not knowing exactly what sound we wanted to go for. hopefully it'll sound okay when it's all mixed. the verses are very soft and serene, and the choruses are purposefully as gritty and honest as possible. recording these two songs was one of my favorite studio experiences yet. bruce is a master of punching in and out of vocal tracks to assemble the best possible performance, and he knows all the studio tricks for when a note's just not coming out correctly, etc... it was a pleasure recording with him, and i think the band would agree with me on this one. anyway, it's all over now. we'll mix and master later in the month and we should have our first batch duplicated with full art by christmastime (what appears above is the tentative cover of the album - image design and photography by andrew bargeron and steven rynders of gimetzco, layout by gimetzco & daniel brummel w/ozma). approximately 6 hours of studio time, totaling 71.5 hours over 12 days.