Three Of Us

Three of us riding nowhere.

Out of focus

Did you notice that our recording and mixing engineer Clint is often a little out of focus on our photos? He's all soft and blurry.

It's not the lenses - I've checked them. He might have eaten something strange. Maybe that Fondue was too much of a good thing for his Kiwi stomach? We will never know.

Thank you Woody Allen :-)!

Today is Jonas' birthday!

Our youngest band member is getting older too ;-). Let's send him a message!

Working late

Working hours: 10am to around midnight.

In the booth

This is my favourite place in the studio. It's cozy in the vocal/amp/drum booth.

In the can

This is my personal monitor mix as I am recording the grand piano.

Amp Gate

Bass player defending his choice of amp for the session.

When Bene brought this "postage stamp sized" bass amp instead of a real bass amp, Greg wasn't easily convinced.

The amp sounded, well, tiny, and made funny noises :-).

We still ended up using it for parts of a song. This is definitely the smallest bass amp we ever used on any of our recordings.

Bass

Let's add some real bass to the tracks.

Control Room Guitars

It's always fun to crank up guitar and bass amps in the studio. While the amp is fully miked in the live room, we play the instruments in the control room when overdubbing. Sometimes at more reasonable levels.  

Drum Room

Part of the reason why bands still need proper recording studios is the need for good sounding rooms.

The balloon thing over Muso's head is actually a mic that has roughly the size and form of a head and ears. It simulates the way the drummer is hearing his drum set - give or take the effect the haircut has on the sound.

The red lamp in the back is just a red lamp. It's not working though.

Pedalboard

This is Jonas' pedalboard. Record producers enjoy messing with it when setting up a sound.  

However, these stomp boxes already entered the studio a bit dizzy and disoriented.

Patchbay

This is called a patchbay (or jackfield, or some other name). Every recording studio has one. It's the studio's analog version of Touch ID. I like the green stripes. 

Studio Dog

I’m not a dog person. I grew up with cats. That may be why dogs generally don’t seem too fond of me.  

Not this one though. This dog likes to hang around with dog-eared musicians. He's a welcome diversion from the pressures of our record production.

What else is there to photograph? You can take pictures of gear, your mates, instruments and more gear. And leftovers. Dog likes those too.

Online mixing

It has been an exciting couple of days. We've mixed two new songs.

While the band and I were back home, engineer Clint Murphy was mixing the songs @Modern World Studios in the UK, with directions from producer Greg Haver. Greg had already flown back to Auckland, but was with us via FaceTime, Message and Mail. He's 12 hours ahead of us, and it felt like he was checking in from the future - which can't be too in bad in pop music!

As we went along, Clint sent over mixes and different sound ideas for synths and other bits and pieces of info. We gave feedback and exchanged ideas. The band too had already received pre-mixes.
















What a fun process it was! I got to listen to the songs in my living room while they were being mixed.

New songs almost always sound fantastic in the studio, because of the supreme listening environment. And you can play them real loud, which always gives you a kick.

Later back home you sometimes feel a mix is sounding stale in comparison to how it sounded in the studio. And it does - but so does all other music! It's because the average home stereo sucks in comparison to the million dollar equipment and acoustics in the studio.

So it was great to attend a mixing session from home for a change. 

In the studio