Great North Album - Guitar tracking.

More Great North guitar today. More geeking out with pedals and amps and guitars and cello bows...

Album is getting to a point where I think its close to being all tracked and ready for mixing. Just piano left to track on some songs, exciting.

Glass Owls Day 3

Day three of Glass Owls EP tracking, Tomas showed up first thing this morning with some rather impressive bandages (due to a small incident whilst longboarding at considerable speeds)(apparently) Fortunately he only had one song left on guitar! We almost finished all the guitar parts today, (we had an idea for one more just as they were leaving) and we finished vocals on a couple of tracks.

Tomorrows plan: finish vocals for 4 remaining songs, record some clarinet, handclaps tambourine and shaker.


I love spending days geeking out on guitars.

Glass Owls day 2

Glass Owls again today, we got drums bass and acoustic tracked on the remaining 3 songs and then started some electric guitar tracking. It gets pretty hot in studios generally when they don't have air conditioning, it was SO HOT today in my room with the doors and windows closed and up to 5 of us in one room with doors and windows closed playing drums etc... So we made sure to take lots of breaks and managed not to die. Chris Tom and I went to feed the Chickens, they are lots of fun.

Pretty pleased with how everything is going, I'm looking forward to hopefully finishing electric guitar tomorrow and starting on some vocals.

Glass Owls

Glass owls EP tracking stats day one,

Number of drums and bass tracks recorded = 3 songs
Total number of photos taken=3 (yeah slack I know)
Number of cups of Tea enjoyed by Anthony=1
Number of cupcakes consumed=7
Number of Sparrows fed=approx 18
Number of baby Sparrows Tomas held=1
Number of Ducks fed=0
Number of Crabs sighted=approx 1000
Number of Scoops of post recording Ice Cream in Dave and Anthony's cones=2 each
Number of Scoops of post recording Ice Cream in Tomas's cone =3

Glass Owls came out to my place to start work on their EP today, we're doing drums and bass live with some acoustic live and an electric guide and then everything else on top. After recording Tomas Anthony and I headed out for some food and found some sparrows who very much enjoyed eating the cones from our ice creams then visited French Bay where we found so many crabs! Tomorrow looks set to be another fun day recording.

(I think after I took this I must've adjusted the snare bottom mic I just worried and took a look over at it but its fine now, not that I should be too worried I don't think I'll be using that mic in the mix, or the toms for that matter) (also yes a bass clarinet case is replacing the missing right leg to stabilise the kick!)

Artisan Guns: Second EP

Sorry in advance for lots of photos but this post spans a week!



A little over a year ago Artisan Guns came round for a long weekend to track their first EP Bird and Bone, we did it mostly live in my bedroom and bathroom, the EP was released a few months ago with distribution through EMI and a great video for their single "Autumn" things are really starting to pick up for the band.

I spent almost every moment of the last week with the band recording their second EP in a private studio in town which came with the luxury of nicer tuned rooms, Protools HD, some more mics, more pres, seperate rooms and its considerably closer for the Howick boys than Oratia! Its located in a block of offices and thus we had to record loud stuff (such as drums and guitars) from after 5pm, so we ended up getting in to the studio around 2 or 3 tuning and setting up and recording through till 4am most nights. Fortunately we our good friend Rose's lovely family let us sleep at their house over the week while they were away.

Over the 5 evenings we managed to track 6 songs completely I've had a listen through at home now and am really happy with the result so far. I'm going to be mixing from here so hopefully should be done in a few weeks.

We opted for quite a stripped back mic up of the kit, using only the overhead, room, kick and floor mics for most songs. We had my Kiwi set up in the hall for a couple of songs that warranted a bigger drum sound and we stuck up the TLM170 as a second room mic for the few songs that needed a wider drum sound. I like keeping things pretty minimal but its good to have some backups like the snare and rack tom mics even if I don't end up using them.

Vocal Mic Shoot-out, from left to right; TLM170, Blue Kiwi, TLM103 and Shure KSM353
We went for the TLM 170 on Matts Vocals and then my Blue Kiwi on Reubens

My Princeton+Ac15HH, Dave Dobbyns Les Paul, My Gretsch, Jonos um creation and my Tele

Beatiful Gibson reissue, wish I had taken a picture but we ended up tracking a very expensive beautiful GIbson J200 with an SM57 through a cheapish valve pre for an old grimy sound

we recorded the intro Guitar on "Brand New Game" through this tiny practise amp, it sounds perfect!

recordingrecordingrecordingrecordingrecording

More Great North vocals yesterday, we now have vocals for the first six songs. Hooray!



Next week: Artisan Funs.

Great Northing.

Recently I have had the pleasure of beginning work on Great Norths album, we currently have 6 songs with Drums Bass and acoustic guitar tracked (along with some guide keys and a few other things here and there) we should be doing some more drums bass etc in the next couple of weeks.

This past week Hayden and Strahan came for a visit each to put down some vocals and electric guitar respectively. We tracked vocals live with one of the songs called "I Feel Alive" and I think its turned out really great Strahan and I sat down today and worked through his guitar part on it and its really coming together, I cant wait to get a real acoustic piano in there instead of the keyboard that's currently on.


I really enjoy messing around with a bunch of guitars and amps trying to find "that tone" but Strahan has recently made some adjustments to his rig. Hes gone from skateboard pedalboard(s) to a pedal train with some nice new toys and from whatever amp we could borrow to a beautiful new Fender Bassman, which sounds great. No messing about just plug in and play.

I'd be upset if it didn't sound so good.

Great North Album

I was very happy to start work on Great Norths album this weekend, Hayden popped over a few weeks ago and we made a quick recording of him singing through the songs with an acoustic guitar, they're really good. I am quite excited to get on and hear them fully formed!

This weekend we tracked drums, bass, acoustic guitar, guide keys for 6 of the proposed 9 songs and on one of the slower numbers "I Feel Alive" Hayden pulled a touching vocal take out of the bag which was tracked live with the rest of the band!

We're going for a much more natural sound this time around, no click tracks, less mics (despite the amount I put out I think I will probably only go for one or two on the drums). We're going to be re-tracking the piano parts on a real acoustic piano (thank goodness! I hate fake piano). We're even going to be attempting tracking another of the quieter songs all live in my lounge with the piano we have in there and everyone in the same room (except maybe Strahan, hes a noisy boy!)

I can't wait! Will keep you informed as to how its all going in the new year

Pink Pound Experience back!

Pink Pound Experience came back last Tuesday for another song, should be done and on their myspace soon. We got stuck for a synth bass part, the synth lines were sounding too busy, I ended up suggesting real bass through a big muff which we used and then synth over the instrumental. Was a pretty fun day of experimenting though and I'm happy with how its sounding now.

Dinosaur Club Tracking

This weekend I had Dinosaur Club round to record, we're working towards a 5 track EP. Tracking went really well we got drums bass guitar keys percussion done for all 5 tracks and started vocals on 3 of them. A really productive weekend!

I even managed to squeeze in time to take some photos!






Dave and Thomas are heading back here this Saturday to finish them off.

Inbetween whiles I have been preocupying myself mixing the 10 Clap Clap Riot demos and Just finished tracking vocals for Grace Lawry's song this afternoon. Busy is good, could always be busier though!

Clap Clap Finished!

We finished tracking everything last night for all 10 of Clap Clap Riots demos, its been quite an intense past few days but fortunately the band are all very competent musicians and we didn't have to spend too long on takes etc.

Yesterday we spent the day tracking vocals, eating muffins and adding some extra claps and clicks etc! Lisa Crawley even popped her head in to track some vocals on "Yoko Ono"

Hopefully soon you'll be able to hear the results (when I am done mixing!)

Turns out the only photo we got of lisa was this one with her pretending to sing... (she doesn't really sing with her eyes closed and arm in the air) (much)

Clap Clap Recording

Yesterday Dave and Steve came back to fix up guitar parts and we managed to start some vocals too for the 10 Demos that Clap Clap Riot are currently recording. In between tracking we managed to fit in some rides on our lawn mower and tractor, they had a race around our packing shed. A good time was had by all and we still managed to be incredibly productive, hooray!

here are some photos of the tomfoolery!

Steve was working hard.

We realised that we all have fender student guitars from the same era!

Lunch!