Ruby Frost - Lennon Cover

Ruby Frost and band were over yesterday recording a John Lennon cover. It was quite a different process from all the recording I've done with her so far. In the past we've done almost everything in the computer with software synths, plus maybe some percussion here and there and a bit of electric guitar or bass (and some hammond of course) but this time round we recorded real drums, real synths, even guitars played by real people...

Cam, Haddon and Jimmy (and even Ruby herself) are all really good musicians so the parts are played really well and its got a really nice groove which I think is important for this song. However it doesn't give me as much flexibility with the sounds as I would with programming the parts, so we spent a lot longer thinking about synth sounds etc instead of programming all the parts in and then considering sounds.

We recorded what was probably one of the most obscenely rock and roll guitar parts I have ever recorded. Haddon played power-chords through my big muff and stood leaning back and forth to get just the right amount of feedback to keep the chord sustaining... We tracked it for the whole song but I think I might just use it here and there and maybe quietly in the mix.

Drum sound is pretty huge, I've got a ribbon set up quite far back in the room which I've got limited really hard to almost sound like distortion. But it really helps to have a consistent and central hitter like Jimmy with a really nice sounding drum kit.

Getting Frosty.

Last Thursday and Friday I had a visit from the lovely Ruby Frost who came by to track a couple of songs to maybe be released as singles.

One of the songs "Moonlight" revolved around an organ and by some sort of coincidence keyboard player Haddon was just around the corner in Glen Eden which seemed the perfect opportunity to record some Hammond. It was a joy to hear as good a musician as Haddon put it through its paces.



By the time we discovered that Haddon was just around the corner I'd started to program in the organ and even with my plug in emulation it sounded great, but it turns out you can't beat the real thing. I love the whir of a nice Leslie.


I used 2 x Beta57a's to pick up the horns in stereo and then a blue baby bottle a bit back from the lower portion of the cabinet to pick up the body of the organ, I ended up not using the condenser as I got enough low end from the Beta57's.

Another thing I could probably program in but just isn't the same is Bells. Very important. It turns out Ruby is an incredible bell player. She takes this very seriously.


We recorded some acoustic guitar and I played some electric and bass but the rest was all programmed in with my various synths in protools (except for vocals obviously). All in all a very productive 2 days. I'm just giving the tracks a mix now. FUN!

Ruby Frost

The lovely Ruby Frost came round to record some demos today, it was pretty fun. I haven't really delved in to programming much in the past year or so so last night gave myself a quick refresher on logic and worked out how protools works these days. Oh man I <3 Protools 8 so much. The MIDI edit window is sooo great I didn't end up straying in to logic at all.

We recorded some vocals to a backing track that had been programmed by someone else and then programmed from scratch all the parts for 1 song, some of the parts for another and got Vocals done for both. Pretty productive day.