RPM Challenge day 11

Today marks the last weekday to get stuff demoed.  This week was marked with lots and lots of phone calls about potential jobs with friends and colleagues lining up for future dates, which is great and distracting at the same time!  Business is business however, and today we wrapped up Curing the Cure's final vocal takes.  This song is finally tracked.

Steven (left) and I (right) getting a good look

We had a lot of fun fooling around between and even during tracking the vocals!  Troy danced, Steven cracked jokes a lot of laughter kept the night moving quickly.

Troy getting his groove on

First things first, Setting up the mics and pulling up the track and reviewing what was needed on the final takes.  Steven was ready to go right away.

After just a couple takes of the main track we had a take we liked and reviewed the sound for the "corrupted" vocal overdubs.  I used plugins on the vocal track to test out a deeper voice manipulation effect that erred on creepy phone call status.

Troy getting a kick out of the voice manipulation effect

We goofed around for a bit while I dialed in a good setting on the effect, and got back to work on tracking the overdubs.

Just a few takes later we played more with the voice manipulation effect and reviewed the progress on the track so I could make mental notes on where to take it in editing and arrangement.  Since most of the song is done virtually aside from the industrial noises I sampled from found objects which were then processed, I'll go back over the track and start adding in various other elements to make the song sound fuller.

Discussing the final takes

After that, we took a break to go eat and Troy went to pick out some music from a retail store as research for another song we still have to write: the electronica song.

Steven's last look

We are still unsure of what we want to do for this one so afterward we wanted to go to the studio to get inspired.  However, with time constraints we ended up coming back to my place and just listening to bands like Celldweller to get inspired by the fusion of metal / techno / and industrial.

Troy at it again, dancing to Celldweller!

We really couldn't come up with ideas quickly enough, and he had to go for the night.  We discussed the songs we had left to do, and I decided to tackle the Fight song later in the evening.

The metal gods are not pleased...

I quickly got set up to record guitars and start demoing the Fight song.  Finding a good sound was hard because I didn't quite have any ideas solid in my head,  I played around for a bit to find the sound I liked and Troy commented it sounded very Metallica-inspired.  Thanks!

Schecter Hellraiser C-7 goodness

After a few ideas trolling through my fingers and out my amp, a few setting changes, and a good while, Troy finally decided to leave for the night, and I got on with tracking what I had.

I tracked the guitars and laid down a quick beat and then even laid down bass.  Most of the song was demoed, it still needs some more arrangement work but the core of the idea is there finally!

Tomorrow we are going to be super busy in the studio tracking all that we can!  Stay tuned for more!