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We did the session at my folks place when they were away. We like to record as much as possible simultaneously to retain a decent live sound to our recordings, we're quite an energetic/sloppy live act and we like to try to capture that. The drums are Roland TD-20 (their flagship V-drums processor which sounds fantastic) that John has, he uses it for practise at home and we also use it for recording because to be honest, we get much better sonic results from it than trying to mic his kit. We had some guides down to a click which we used for John to play along to in order to nail his tracks, we were recording the MIDI output of the TD-20 (in case we need to re-run it through the brain at a later date if we don't like the drum sounds we captured) aswell as 8 tracks of drum "mics" within the TD-20. This thing is absurding good sounding and tweakable, it's all there - mic bleed, snare buzz, sympathetic vibrations. When you play it through headphones it sounds like you're playing a really well mic'd kit in a great studio.
This was all done via Gareth's Mackie Onyx Audio Interface/Mixer etc.
Then we recorded the guitars and bass all at the same time.
Bass was DI'd into the Mackie which has two Hi-Z channels.
My guitar was passed to my board and amp (JCM800 2204) via a DI box, and we also record the clean DI'd guitar in case we need to reamp later on. The amp is mic'd by an SM57.
Gareth's guitar is treated similarly into his Marshall TSL601 60W combo, also mic'd by an SM57.
The headphone amp is to the right of the Onyx so we all have nice loud headphone mixes for when we're playing. This all goes into the Laptop obviously in Sonar.
We did a few takes per song until we felt we had good takes that were technically correct and had the right feel.
Gearwise here's some nerdery:
Bass - J
Squier '97 Jazz Bass DI'd
Rhythm Guitars - Gareth
Fender '72 Telecaster Thinline RI -> Marshall TSL601 -> SM57.
Gareth used the Crunch channel on End Of All, and the Clean channel on Shattered Into Pieces
Rhythm Guitars - Mike
End Of All
Fender '66 Jaguar -> Marshall JCM800 2204 -> Marshall 1936 2x12" -> SM57.
I used the high input with the preamp all the way open and the Master around 3 for Crunchy goodness
Shattered Into Pieces
Fender '66 Jaguar -> MBM Saltbreaker -> MBM Blackstone -> MBM Saltshaker -> MBM Small Clone -> EHX Memory Boy -> Marshall JCM800 2204 -> Marshall 1936 2x12" -> SM57.
I used the low gain input with the preamp all the way open and the Master around 5 for a thick clean sound.
This will make more sense when we have finished the songs but:
The Verse is Saltshaker + Memory Boy
The Prechorus is Small Clone + Memory Boy
The Chorus is Saltbreaker
The Blackstone and Memory Boy is used on some post chorus augmentative playing.
Lead Guitar - Mike
End Of All
Fender '08 CP Jaguar -> MBM Saltbooster -> Marshall JCM800 2204 -> Marshall 1936 2x12" -> SM57.
I used the high gain input, with the preamp all the way open and the master at 6. This was loud as shit and feeding back crazy. Saltbooster on 12 o clock. Sounds molten.
Shattered Into Pieces
Fender '08 CP Jaguar -> MBM Saltbooster -> MBM Saltbreaker -> MBM Blackstone -> Marshall JCM800 2204 -> Marshall 1936 2x12" -> SM57
I used the low gain input with the preamp all the way open and the Master around 5 for a thick clean sound, solo starts with the Saltbooster into the Saltbreaker and I add the Blackstone as it really kicks off for more Saturation.
The CP Jag handles leads better as it has hotter pickups, I'm really happy with my guitar sounds (and playing, for once, particularly my rhythm parts) on these tracks. The vocals are all getting done in a week or so with Gareths Rode NT-5 and Valve PreAmp.
