Day um eight I think... losing count - The vocals begin...

Hey all,

Just a quick one cos just got back from dinner with all the guys and Paul and Ingrid Righini, who were kind enough to take us out. Thanks you two, you rock as always! Heading out to a 21st now now so here goes:

Started the day by doing rough mixes on the last three tracks from our first session back in Sept/Oct for "Born in a Restaurant", "Those Three Words" and "Goodbye Hawaii". I realised my bass sound on "Born" was totally bogus so retracked it and luckily I managed to get it first take with one note fix up. Recording through an amp as opposed to D.I. is about 1000000 times better in terms of getting the bottom end and feel in the track so comfort = a good take! They're all sounding really cool and it was good to here the recordings after tracking them so long ago! Now it's down to Gordo to put his little stamp on them with some mixing magic, as well as the vocals which still need to be recorded.

Much of the morning and early afternoon was spent on "Save" with Gordon recording a lot of synths. He's a banging synth player! He used a lot of digital synths from his laptop and played them in on one of the studios small 2 octave (I think) synths. The song is sounding huge and probably one of the front runners for an early single. Scal then tracked the vocals including the synth hook. One of Gordon's strengths is vocals - getting really cool sounds through (sometimes) unconventional ways as well as working on making everything the vocalist sings sound 100% clear so you can make out every word. And wow, the vocals are sounding amazing! Gordo soundbite of the day #1 - after Scal did a take he asked Gordo how it sounded and he was like "I think it kicks shit... and that's a good thing!"

We also managed to squeeze in the vocal for "Look out" which is probably my favourite of Scal's singing on the album. Lyric-wise as well as delivery it's a thing of beauty and he put in an awesome performance, nailing it in 2 takes. Again, Gordon made sure the articulation was 100% there (soundbite #2 - "Wow that sounds like the English Language now" and #3 after Scal used some slang in the lyrics (I think South Africa specific) - It's not the normal use of the language but it's what he said") as well as making sure the whole vocal was the same volume the whole way through. Sometimes Scal moves a bit while he's singing cos he gets into it so the distance between him and the mic changes so he goes a tiiiiny bit softer and louder. So Gordo also worked on that. The way he recorded the vocals was set up two mics in front of Scal, one going straight into the pre-amp with a touch of warmth and distortion and the other mic coming out of Juki's Marshall guitar amp to give a more overdriven sound. The blend of the two, wow! All I can say.

So vocals will be the focus of the rest of the sessions methinks and will be cool to here them tie each song together. Jem took some pictures today but didn't manage to get them from him so will have to put em up 2moz.

Till then...

K