Aces and Trains!

Wow, where to begin...  The last couple weeks concluded the production phase of the McClure sessions:  an upcoming EP project Troy and I are just now starting post production on.

Just finished drum setup

Chris Gettin' down on some drum-tracking.

Drums, drums, drums.

I captured as much as I could of the sessions and plan on building a new video update for our studio channel by the time the mixes are done so keep an eye out for a brand-spankin' new video soon!

Left: Chris McClure, Center: Troy Reed

During these past couple weeks I've also had to wipe my main workstation clean and reinstall windows Fresh, as I just acquired Pro Tools to add to my studio DAW list.

Pro Tools 9+10, so awesome!  and yes, my shirt does say "Talk nerdy to me"

I have QUITE a bit of stuff to reinstall and I'm just barely finishing up all that, but while I have I managed to restring both my guitars, major issues with my BC Rich as usual (I highly dislike Floyd Rose Tremolo bridges).  If that isn't enough, this week alone has been very busy as I help Nick with pre-production for a commercial shoot this coming Monday and Tuesday for ACE train!

On Wednesday we arrived at the Ace station in Lathrop at about 6:30 am to shoot some pre-viz shots and plan out everything for the production.

It was a super tight schedule to figure out how to shoot arrival and departure shots, so we hurried onboard.  The rest of the day was the "hurry up and wait" as it usually is for production trying to get the timing just right for shots and then waiting patiently in between.

Thanks to Troy's T2i I was able to get plenty of test footage as well as these wonderful stills.  These just underwent some SUPER quick post correction for visual reference.

I'm hoping these are good enough to help Nick establish some groundwork for his D.P. Yuki to have a solid, all-encompassing reference for production.  All in all there's easily 2 gigs of photos and over 12 gigs of temp footage.  I believe on production days Yuki will be shooting with a Red Scarlett and I'll be helping with data management as best I can.  I'll try to keep posting more frequently as the days get busier!

As always, I enjoy any and all feedback!  Please feel free to leave comments of your thoughts on the subjects, opinions, suggestions, even flaming rants!

RPM Challenge Day 12

The big day arrives to track at the studio, we have the whole day to ourselves, and the whole day is reserved just for tracking the Indie song Troy finished writing earlier in the week.  We arrived at the studio early enough to get a good start on the day's progress.

Going in we could tell something was looming overhead, we'd made a lot of progress without any real issues, as if we were having too much good luck on our progress thus far.  We quickly tracked the electric guitars to the demo track we had done earlier. 

Troy took a few runs through tracking and we experimented with the ideas for the sound we wanted to achieve.  Double tracking with two different guitars and pushing different sounds through and playing with panning ideas for editing and mixing later were critical notes we established early on in the day to stay consistent with the "vision". 

After guitars we moved to drums.  While we discussed what setup we wanted, I mentioned I've been wanting to experiment with a unique mic selection for overheads in mid/side for this track that might sound really cool. 

We went out to set up our mics and get the drums together.  I started setting up overheads and Troy brought out the rest.

In addition to the overhead selection we tried out a wide setup for room mics, and 3 mics on the kick to go for a really fat and thumpy sound.

 

We got all the mics set up and were underway until the point where we had to get levels and settings dialed into the preamps.  The first sign of trouble was that our overheads weren't getting any signal at first.

Our very first problem started manifesting with our patching as we'd been moving a lot of stuff around in the patch bays trying to get the order of things we wanted.  The next issue that came up was running clean enough power to the tube condenser mic I wanted to use on the overheads.

Due to our unique location's design we had to run a large extension cable into the drum booth to get power to the power amp for the microphone.  Even with the extension plugged into power conditioners it still caused too much noise in the line to use. 

 

We dropped the mid/side idea and ended up with just a single overhead mic, and it sounded beautiful all on it's own!  The room mics ended up playing more of a role in the mix.

Then something more serious came up.  Our whole morning seemed shot as we had to deal with the issue of one of our mic pre's misbehaving.  While Troy's had this particular preamp for almost a year we have never really had to use it until now, and that's where the trouble began.

Troy called one of our friends at our local Guitar Center where he bought the preamp from, and tried to see what we could do on it, while we tested it out. We even took it out of the patch bay and tried running direct. 

After a 25 minute call we ended up closing up shop for a side trip to Guitar Center, with the broken down pre

After a bit of waiting around and discussing options on what could be done, we got rid of the defunct mic preamp and walked out with a lovely new one from Universal Audio.  Troy says he's been wanting this one for years, and now he has it. 

We got back to the studio quick and plugged and patched in the new preamp to get back to tracking.

With the new preamp up and running and everything set up and ready to track we resumed the drum track.  Troy went on a few takes for the drums being as they were a simple enough beat to keep in time with and not a whole lot of fill work for the style. 

We tracked through the drums with a few hiccups in recording.  We still ended up with a great take and amazing sounding drums even unmixed.  Up next to finish off the track: Bass.

Troy decided to go back and clean up some of the guitars so we dialed in a sound on the amp and the preamp to sound warm and toasty! 

With so much stress from losing time and taking care of random issues throughout the day, we stopped production and decided to resume tomorrow.

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!

RPM Challenge Day 4

Troy and I worked pretty hard today serparately, mostly getting our two songs down.  I spent a majority of the time working with Steven on demoing vocals for Curing The Cure.  We experimented with some effects for octavting and other effects on the vocal overdubs to get a unique sound.  I then spent time mixing it a bit to get ideas for the mixing process later on.  The song needs a bit of work in the arrangement department, but that can come later.  I wanted to focus more on getting the essence of the track down and exploring some of the nuances in the harmonies I liked.

Troy worked on getting ideas down for the Pop Punk song and got quite a good idea down!  We sat around and chatted about different musical ideas and techniques for the song, and then tried out a simpler recording technique to demo with and despite me not having a standard tuned guitar, used a cheap backup Flying V and ended up sounding pretty good to us both!  We then laid down bass to the track and I tested out a mix and already have editing and mixing ideas in mind for the track.

Plenty of funny stuff and good times here at the project studio, the Video blog project is getting stressful as we often are just shooting ourselves until we can get some help, though the help we get is much appreciated!  As for the project progress, we're making good time, and I can't wait to get to the progressive metal song!  Tomorrow is tracking day.

RPM Challenge Day 2

Day 2 officially came to it's end and it couldn't have come soon enough.  Demoing 2 songs and getting more ideas solidified for the album design. 

While most of today was getting stuff on paper, and "demo" status in Sonar here at my project facility (or as I like to call it, Home) we did have a few other side projects that came up and things that we won't show until the video blog!  The video blog should start getting pretty interesting, hopefully should make for some decent entertainment!

So, as far as the project goes; just a bit of info now as far as the soundtrack goes: with Steven interested in doing lyrics, and his heavy augmentation of the story for the "film" the soundtrack is based on going through some serious drafting and plot work.  Way to go Steven.  While he goes off on a tangent with the story and works on developing things as detailed as the characters involved, and miniature plots within, we've gotten the basis for the inspiration we need to create the songs.  We've started picking out the order and sequence for roughly where the songs should lay in the soundtrack, and just what inspirational soundtracks should help us hone in on the various interlude sounds. 

There's also been various discussions on recording techniques we want to hit on.  Without giving away too much (don't worry we'll do that in the video blog), we discussed doing a song in mono, using recording techniques that pay homage to the Beatles era, all the way to experimenting with some Mid-side drum recording, experimental layering techniques with electric guitar, mixing philosophies... the list goes on.

Fun times, busy times, all times.  It's only going to get busier as we head into production, 2 songs in demo and thought out, 8 more to go, lyrics after, and a very compact schedule.  Be sure to check our facebook updates for some quick recaps and photos of our work throughout the month.  Also, if you want to jump into discussion on the RPM project, be sure to head over to our discussion page on facebook and leave your feedback!

Crunch Time

So, want to know what I've been cooking up lately?  Check out my youtube channel and stay tuned because during the month of February we're going to be posting up daily video blogs tracking the progress of the latest studio project I've been working on!

Check out the announcement below


Check back here daily as well as I will be posting our notes and progress updates on here with the videos included!