Here's the first part of our studio blog, dealing with the drum recordings which have been done several weeks ago. Having plowed his drums through many riffs throughout the years, Dirk Verbeuren needs no introduction in the world of extreme metal, but before I zoom in on Dirk's performance and the overall sound of it, I'd like to start out with how he got to be involved in ANATOMY OF I.
Let's rewind a couple of decades here ... as a kid, the turning point in my metal mania was the day my brother came home from school with a tape he got from this new kid in his class called Dirk. The tape in question had "Master of Puppets" (minus a few songs) on side A and "Reign in Blood" on side B, and the rest is history : I was hooked for life !
Over the years, Dirk and I traded tapes and occasionally jammed on cover tunes and original songs while he was busy with SCARVE, and I was busy with my own bands. Two of those original songs actually ended up on the debut ANATOMY OF I record, in a much reworked form. In June 2009, when I was wrapping up writing the songs for ANATOMY OF I's debut release and our drummer wasn't working out, it just made perfect sense to give Dirk a call.
When Dirk first suggested he'd record his parts in his home studio, I must admit I had my doubts. Even though I liked the idea of him having an endless amount of time to try many different things, while not dealing with any studio deadlines and the stress that comes with it, I was afraid the end result would sound too clinical as they'd be recorded on his Roland TD-20 V-drum. Being a "part-time" drummer myself, and having owned a V-drum for about 10 years, I am perfectly aware of how great this instrument is, yet, having used it on recordings in the past, the drums would always end up sounding too much like a drum machine. As I have an extreme dislike for sterile, machine-like drums that seem to be the norm nowadays, I definitely wanted to avoid that.
The first rough tracks he sent me were enough to convince me though; Dirk used a set of samples that he recorded for Toontrack's "the Metal Foundry", which ended up sounding as natural as a real kit : from the accents on the ride/hi-hats to the dynamics in tom and snare rolls, every bit of groove has been captured. We ended up with 31 tracks of drums: a mic on every tom and cymbal, overheads and a whole bunch of ambient mics... the end result will blow your minds !
Performance wise, I just gave Dirk the demos and let him come up with whatever he felt was right, basically just letting him go crazy. These demo songs were basically scratch guitars with programmed drums, giving him a basic idea of what I had in mind. Dirk suggested to speed up a couple of songs (surprisingly some of the faster ones), and went absolutely ballistic, displaying a rarely seen variety of styles ranging from funky grooves and ghost notes to hyperblasts at 320 bpm !!! He basically does it all and at such a high level that he's proved once more to be among the all-time best of the genre.
Alright, it's getting dark in here, so I guess it's time for me to pull my head out of Dirk's ass and lube it up for part 2 of this studio report...
Signing out,
Mike.
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ANATOMY of I / Blog
Studio blog, part 5 : Mix/Mastering
For the mix, we went with engineer extraordinaire Simone Mularoni at Fear studio (Italy), who was recommended to me by my good friend Sym (the Modern Age Slavery/Empyrios). Over the course of the last decade, Simone has recorded/mixed numerous bands, ranging from rock and prog to power metal, deathmetal, etc... he understood the balance that we were aiming for, finding the right compromise between heaviness and subtle dynamics.
We started out with reamping the guitars, trying various setups with a Marshall JCM 2000, Peavey 5150 II, Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier and an EVH 5150 III; The EVH amp with a Mesa boogie cabinet ending up being the winning combination as it offered both a crushing but precise low end for rhythms and a sharp & edgy sound for leads. The bass parts were reamped through an Ampeg head& cabinet, as this offered the closest thing to Steve's actual live sound. You can find pictures of the re-amp settings on our myspace (www.myspace.com/anatomyofi) and facebook(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anatomy-of-I/265050776615) pages.
Drum-wise we didn't have to sound replace anything or add any samples as Dirk's drums sounded big and dynamic; they merely needed some EQing.
Sym would drop by now and then, listening to a handful of parts and giving his opinion before dissappearing, giving us his best Rick Rubin impersonation; an outsider's opinion we could rely on.
After wrapping up the mix, we took a week off to take a step back and listen to it with fresh ears, make some final adjustments before the mastering.
Simo suggested to do the mastering at another studio, but since the communication was so flawless, I didn't want to bother with involving another person into this, electing to let Simo do the master, this time in his own brand new (and yet-to-be-named) studio.
On December the 3rd, I received the final master...and it's CRUSHING !!!
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Studio blog, part 4 : Vocals
We were looking for the right studio to track the vocals and a friend suggested AK's studio. AK is none other than the live sound engineer for bands like Carcass, Napalm Death and Brujeria; an experienced sound engineer who owns a good studio and has experience with all kinds of extreme vocals, what more could I ask for ? We spent an evening importing the session files and setting volumes for playback so that we could start tracking the next morning. After 7 hours of screaming, 500ml of listerine to keep my throat clean and about 8 liters of water, the vocals were done !
Gear wise, we used a custom made vocal pre-amp and my Shure SM7 mic.
Lyrically, there are various themes which I won't go into as I like to leave things open for interpretation.
Next stop : mixing.
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Studio blog, part 3 : Guitars
Just like the bass parts, guitars were recorded at my studio, Gugglebum recording.
For rhythms, I used my Steinberger GM with EMG85 pick-ups, going through a JCM2000 with a Tubescreamer in front of it. This gives me that Mesa kind of sound while having well defined notes and avoiding too much overdrive/distortion. Eventually, we'll probably re-amp the guitars in the mixing stage, but it's essential to have a good tone to track with.
I've recorded two different parts : one is more picking/riff oriented, the other one consists of chord progressions and harmonies of the afore mentioned part. These chord progressions are at times doubled with a guitar-synth that I recorded with my good old Roland GR-1 guitar synthesizer, which will be the parts I'll be playing live; the more riff oriented section will be played by the 2nd guitarist. Yes ... we've had talks with several interested parties, and we've found that essential 4th member !!! Once the record is finished, we'll release an official statement on the guitarist's identity...
Lead-wise, I used a selection of Gibson, Ibanez and Steinberger guitars, depending on what kind of sound the solos needed. Some leads have that single coil sound, courtesy of EMG85 pick-ups, others have a thicker sound from DiMarzio Evolution and Gibson humbuckers.
I won't go into too many details concerning playing styles, etc... I'll let the music do the talking.
Next blog, we'll be giving you more info on the vocal tracking.
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Studio blog, part 2 : Bass
After wrapping up the drums, it was up to Steve Di Giorgio to step upto the plate to record his parts.
Here's what Steve had to say:
Working hard in Den Haag!!! Recording the bass for the AOI Substratum album. I think I brought the California weather with me. It was a glorious 3 days near the sea, although the only beach time I logged was at 2:30 in the morning! (Hey, we were busy...!) And it rained (no surprise for Holland, I know)...but the whole time I was there it only rained for about 15 minutes (there ya go, that's rare for Holland!). Mikey told me that out of the possible 3 weeks of warm sunny weather they are allowed to experience per year, I was there for 1 of them. So we plugged in the Thor Bass into the Line 6 Bass POD (the same exact one I use at home) and got one of the best tones I have pulled out of this bass in the studio thus far! I was pausing from the recordings every so often and just playing random tones all over the neck amazed and pleased at the nice cutting and full tone it was producing. And honestly, I forgot to confirm it with Mike, but I think we spent like just a handful of minutes on getting the tone. Sometimes guys want to spend an hour, two hours...more...just dialing in a sound to work with. Not this time! I came right out of the case ready to rape and pillage. Well, actually it didn't. I had to change over out of the Trident mode back into regular 5 string mode, but then it sparkled faithfully.
We put in some long hours each day, I hate/love these sessions where I have never heard the songs before starting. What I mean by that is, obviously without being familiar with the songs, most of the time is actually learning the riffs, parts and arrangements then trying to conjure an instant chemistry with the drummer and lock in. It progresses slowly moving forward in small increments. But also one really special thing about this style of not knowing what to play beforehand is rewarding when bass lines and counter melodies are improvised on the spot and when that magic one hits just right, man, it’s so much better than something prewritten. So with this kind of find the way in the dark until the end, we made some killer bass moments that support the guitar melodies and compliment the awesome drum insanity. We really didn't spare the creative "what-if's?". Still the guitars to record, solos, and vocals. So it will be some months until it’s ready for release. But I’m sure as soon as something is close to being done there will be samples posted on the band’s MySpace page. Check back in often.
SDG Finished!
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Studio blog, part 1 : Drums
Here's the first part of our studio blog, dealing with the drum recordings which have been done several weeks ago. Having plowed his drums through many riffs throughout the years, Dirk Verbeuren needs no introduction in the world of extreme metal, but before I zoom in on Dirk's performance and the overall sound of it, I'd like to start out with how he got to be involved in ANATOMY OF I.
Let's rewind a couple of decades here ... as a kid, the turning point in my metal mania was the day my brother came home from school with a tape he got from this new kid in his class called Dirk. The tape in question had "Master of Puppets" (minus a few songs) on side A and "Reign in Blood" on side B, and the rest is history : I was hooked for life ! Over the years, Dirk and I traded tapes and occasionally jammed on cover tunes and original songs while he was busy with SCARVE, and I was busy with my own bands. Two of those original songs actually ended up on the debut ANATOMY OF I record, in a much reworked form. In June 2009, when I was wrapping up writing the songs for ANATOMY OF I's debut release and our drummer wasn't working out, it just made perfect sense to give Dirk a call.
When Dirk first suggested he'd record his parts in his home studio, I must admit I had my doubts. Even though I liked the idea of him having an endless amount of time to try many different things, while not dealing with any studio deadlines and the stress that comes with it, I was afraid the end result would sound too clinical as they'd be recorded on his Roland TD-20 V-drum. Being a "part-time" drummer myself, and having owned a V-drum for about 10 years, I am perfectly aware of how great this instrument is, yet, having used it on recordings in the past, the drums would always end up sounding too much like a drum machine. As I have an extreme dislike for sterile, machine-like drums that seem to be the norm nowadays, I definitely wanted to avoid that. The first rough tracks he sent me were enough to convince me though; Dirk used a set of samples that he recorded for Toontrack's "the Metal Foundry", which ended up sounding as natural as a real kit : from the accents on the ride/hi-hats to the dynamics in tom and snare rolls, every bit of groove has been captured. We ended up with 31 tracks of drums: a mic on every tom and cymbal, overheads and a whole bunch of ambient mics... the end result will blow your minds !
Performance wise, I just gave Dirk the demos and let him come up with whatever he felt was right, basically just letting him go crazy. These demo songs were basically scratch guitars with programmed drums, giving him a basic idea of what I had in mind. Dirk suggested to speed up a couple of songs (surprisingly some of the faster ones), and went absolutely ballistic, displaying a rarely seen variety of styles ranging from funky grooves and ghost notes to hyperblasts at 320 bpm !!! He basically does it all and at such a high level that he's proved once more to be among the all-time best of the genre.
Alright, it's getting dark in here, so I guess it's time for me to pull my head out of Dirk's ass and lube it up for part 2 of this studio report...
Signing out, Mike.
Reply