Studio Diary

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 6

Day 7

Recording: Bass
Warm-up: “Gemini” by Division

Tim

With an ice storm looming down upon us, I decided now would be a good time to record bass. I used the same weapon I use when I play bass in Division: a 1994 Jackson 5-string concert bass. It’s one of many red guitars I have. The bass lines I played were a mix of those performed by our previous bassist, Aaron, and some of my own concoctions. I’m particularly proud of a section in Part 2 where it gets all proggy. You will know the part.

Recordingwise, everything went rather smoothly. Well, actually, let’s just say I got it all done for the time being. And, look, no ice outside…. Perhaps it was frightened of the sonic destruction taking place at ground level.

Day 8

Recording: Bass & Fretless Bass
Warm-up: “Dracula” by Iced Earth

Tim

It’s time to get down to business. Part III opens with a very slow build with a lot of atmospheric guitars and vocals. It was the perfect place to break out the fretless, which, by the way, is also red. This section of Part III has never really come together on bass until now. With a lot of trial and error and many many takes, we ended up with a pretty solid fretless part for Part III.

Once that was done, I sifted through all the bass parts recorded yesterday and cleaned up anything that needed cleaning up.

Now with the rhythm section out of the way, we can move forward with guitars.

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 5

Day 6

Recording: drums – loose ends for all Parts
Warm-up: “Desert Rain” by Iced Earth

Dave

It is a rare luxury for me to be able to “punch-in” (as we call it in the business), but Tim’s excellent recording setup makes this possible.  Since I come from the conservatory, where we do things 10,000 times until we can do it once perfectly, the punch-in still feels like anathema to my musical training.  Regardless, I have to remember that films are not cut from a single take, and likewise, the greatest albums of our time are not made in one session alone.

Most of the stuff we recorded today was extra stuff.  I had wanted certain sections to be big, not just big, but BIG.

BIG!!!!!

So I made Tim record six different snare drum tracks for a mere 8 measures of metal.  I think the effect was worth his headache.  We also recorded several tracks for the introduction to “A Thousand Lies,” which I feel will make for a nice transition out of the Overture.  I wish I had an entire percussion section at my disposal sometimes…

Tim

It has been over a week since our last recording session. That was plenty of time for all of us to review the drum tracks we had previously recorded. After such intense scrutiny, it was determined that there was some cleaning up to do. Armed with another energy shot for Dave and a Boh for myself, we got down to business. After flying through the edits we wanted to make throughout the CD, I assumed we were finished with the drum tracks. Dave had a different idea.

We multitracked the drums in Part 1. I don’t mean like track 1 = kick, track 2 = snare, etc. I mean tracks 1-8 are drums. Tracks 9-16 are more drums. Tracks 17-24 are more drums! The result is an amazing colossal sound. Dave sounded more powerful than an entire orchestral percussion section. By now, I’m sure there are some naysayers out there going “there is no possible way that sounds good.” When you hear this CD, your head will explode.

Dave again

Wait until Tim sees the percussion I’m going to bring in to record for the Overture.  I don’t actually own tubular bells or timpani, but I know where to find them…

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 4

Day 5

Recording: Drums for Part 2
Warm-up: “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden; “Warriors of Faith” by HammerFall

Tim

The secret to playing fantastic drum tracks isn’t carbonated energy drinks. It’s a certain energy shot. I had one lying around the house and gave it to Dave the second he arrived. Before we had been recording for 90 minutes, two complete takes of the song had been done. “Part 2” is sounding precise, exact, and … that’s right, epic!

After finishing up “Part 2”, we once again turned out attention to “Part 1”. There was one particular section that sounded good already, but had the potential to be better. So, since we were on a roll already, Dave redid the section a few times until we were happy with the changes.

Dave

One of Tim’s favorite bands is Pink Floyd, and as I walked into the Halls today, I was reminded of a certain line from “Comfortably Numb.”  It wasn’t a pinprick, but it was indeed a shot!  My amazing playing surprised even me, and I fear that I have become addicted to yet another delicious substance.

Spencehammer, Sr.’s number one gripe about heavy metal is the constant and indiscriminate use of double-bass parts.  Think Krisiun, but slowed down.  Or Manowar’s “House of Death.”  Or pick your favorite example, there’s literally thousands to choose from.  “Part II,” or whatever its final title will be, is the perfect forum for exciting and dexterous bass drum parts, and for my father’s sake, I tried to play with Tim’s rhythm parts, as well as the main riff in the first verse, while still satisfying my need to dance on the pedals.

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 3

Day 4

Recording: Drums for “Part 1”
Warm-up: “Asgard” by Therion, “Journey Through the Dark” by Blind Guardian

Dave

“A Thousand Lies” [Part 1] is proof positive that I need to get back on the bike.  My legs are not up to the challenge presented by the Hierarchy and the massive stairs leading to the Sanctuary.  That’s what everyone should imagine when listening to this song: each bass drum hit is one more stair up to the top of the Temple.

I owe a debt to Herr Jörg Michael from various bands, but specifically for his time with Running Wild.  The transition from the A-section to the B-section of this tune is “inspired” by his introductory fill to a certain song on the album Black Hand Inn.  It’s about a mystical man who’s licensed by the Crown to plunder Spanish ships.  I love the fill that he lays down on that tune, and now its cousin graces our own album.

Tim

After a good slumber and a soul-crushing half-day at work, we have returned to the Halls of Glory to lay down Part 1 once and for all. Things are coming much more easily today. After a mere hour, we had burst through the 9 minute mark of the song, the point at which we stopped yesterday.

We recorded until both Dave and the recording software were exhausted. We came away with a solid drum track that is sure to crush every poser in a thousand-mile radius. (For our non-US fans, this is about a 1600km-radius zone of poserslaughter.)

It’s becoming clear that each “part” of this album presents a unique drumming challenge. Part 3 has a lot of drum fills, as it is the climax of the album. There must be a lot of creativity and passion on Dave’s part to finish off the album, which is tricky to capture in the studio. Part 1 has a lot of precision involved over long periods of time since the song is so fast, intense, and let’s not forget epic. As such, it is nearly impossible to get one perfect take of the song, especially when that song is 13 minutes long. “Part 2”, in Dave’s words, requires “dexterity” throughout, which is challenging in its own right. Nonetheless, our next session could possibly be the last one for drum tracking.

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 2

Day 2

Recording: Drums for “Part 3”
Warm-up: “Dark Saga” by Iced Earth

Tim

What better place to start than the end? We have extra time planned for today, so we wanted to spend it crafting the finale to the album. “Part 3” has a lot of room for drum fills and other epic awesomeness on Dave’s part.

Dave

I am an improvisatory drummer.  I really don’t like playing the same thing twice, and if you come to Burning Shadows shows and pay attention to me, watch ME, dammit!, you’ll discover that I rarely play the same fill in a given song from show to show.  This has a way of biting one in the ass during a studio session.  The end of “Part III” is very spacious, and I felt like it was the ideal setting for me to toss in a couple of solos.  Hopefully everyone will be astounded by my playing, but I feel like some of the spontaneity that is lost by having to compose fills compromised the passion.  Ah, well.  There’s always the live shows to make up for it!

The beginning of this track is in fact one of my favorite moments on the album.  I just focused on getting good tones out of my ride cymbal and snare drum.  The rim click is something I’m particularly proud of.  I even used new sticks for this!

Day 3

Recording: Drums for “Part 1”
Warm-up: “Valhalla” by Blind Guardian

Tim

Snow is falling. It only feels right to be recording black metal this evening. Instead, we are channeling the evil in the winter air to feel the oppression of the Hierarchy. So we find ourselves at the beginning of our tale.

It took Dave quite a few takes to build up the head of steam necessary to pound out an appropriate take for the beginning of the album. Perhaps it is due to the fact that he worked the graveyard shift last night. (Sadly, we have yet to be able to all quit our day jobs; perhaps that will change with the release of this album!) Eventually, Dave’s playing came to the point where within the first few seconds of the start of the track, you could swear a warhammer (or Spencehammer in this case) has just smashed your face in. In a power metal way, not a death metal way.

Unfortunately, however, things just would not gel. Instead of tracking, attention was switched to mixing the drums for “Part 3”, which is much less exciting than tracking, I must admit.

Dave

Blind Guardian has a song called “And Then There Was Silence.”  It’s a great one.  You should go listen to it.  The last line of the song pretty much sums up my feelings about today.

Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary Part 1

We have officially begun recording for our next full length album. As we previously announced, the next album will be simply a trilogy. An album-length trilogy, that is. For the time being, the songs are referred to as “Part 1”, “Part 2”, and “Part 3”. Fear not, though. All will be revealed in due course. And now, we would like to present the first installment of the Gather, Darkness! Studio Diary:

Day 0

Dave

The ritual of disassembling, cleaning, and re-heading my drums is one that I undertake every so often; whenever Burning Shadows records, I do this to make sure that we have the optimal, cleanest sounding drums to work with.  This year, it took way longer than usual, because I’ve added 3 drums to my set.  Not all of those are going to show up on the album, given that for consistency reasons we’re only recording with one bass drum, but I figure that if I’m going to one drum, I might as well do them all.  We set up in the Halls of Glory, which was a real treat for me because I actually can walk all the way around my drums this time, rather than having to crawl underneath my snare drum to get behind the kit.

When I recorded Into the Primordial in 2006, I was a) underage and b) trapped in a corner.  Literally.  We recorded at RexRiot studios, and while RexRiot did a great job engineering the drums, the “drum room” was more of a torture chamber than anything else.  The drums barely fit inside this little cinderblock closet, and we were recording with only a few mics.  Now, for the inaugural drum recording in the Halls of Glory, we have mic’d every tom, including Tom Davy, so you’ll actually be able to hear my tom fills.  The fills I play on Tom will only be released on the special, limited edition gatefold, which includes a bonus 2 DVD video version of the album, and is only available by mail order from Japan.  Or Rockville.

Also we have a beer fridge now.

Day 1

Recording: Drums for a cover song

Dave

We’re recording a cover of [redacted] for your listening pleasure.  Originally, we were planning this for the B-side of a 7” single in which we would perform an original and a cover tune.  Scotty, if you’re reading this, we still want to!  The drummer who performed the live version of this track is a big inspiration to me; I think you might hear a little bit of Mr. So and So in my performance of this album’s tracks.  And now, having successfully proven that I can still play drums after two years in the Desert of No Drums, we’re all set to begin the gross undertaking that is our first concept album.

Tim

Since this album marks the first time we are in full control from start to finish of everything, I suggested we go ahead and record a cover before tracking the album, just to make sure we still know what we are doing. This recording session is also the first time I have tracked drums, as well as the first time I’ve fired up my recording interface to its full potential. The cover ensured we weren’t getting in over our heads, as well as to shake out the cobwebs before getting into the real album. What song did we do? I’m afraid I can’t tell you until it’s time to unleash it upon you!

Into the Primordial Studio Diary Part 11

What exactly happened with the album after we had finished recording still remains unclear. A certain studio engineer had ceased contact with us for quite a while. We were able to eventually track him down in the winter. We requested a sample of the album, which he claimed was “almost done.” He gave us an mp3 of “Into the Primordial.” Without going into detail, it was very clear to us that we needed to take the album to work on it ourselves. After another couple of months without contact, we were eventually able to get our tracks to work on at our new studio, which we have dubbed The Halls of Glory.

In late May 2007, work began anew on the album. I weeded through what was already done and decided what needed to be fixed. (For instance, somehow one of the guitars *coughGreg’scough* was very slightly out of tune with the rest of the instruments. Also, any mention of “Sarnath” being too slow has been laid to rest.) June was spent adding additional guitars to the mix and rerecording all the clean and acoustic guitars. The bass was also in need of a makeover. By the time July came around, we were ready to retrack every vocal on the album. We had planned on bringing back our original singer, Brian, to do the vocals on this album, but apparently, he and our former studio engineer are on the same cell phone plan. Greg once again stepped up. As a result of retracking Greg’s original vocals, we have a far better vocal performance on the album, as well as vastly more choir-type choruses and background vocals than were originally there.

The recording process in The Halls of Glory was somewhat uneventful. No cameras were involved, unfortunately. Dave and I spent many nights contemplating over chalices of ale over the minutiae that goes into an album. Dave performed keyboards, which we hadn’t had a chance to do at the previous studio. “Wings Over Asgård” has mighty choirs and horn sections now. The additional clean guitar tracks were done somewhat quickly. I did them while no one else was here and during the calmest morning of the week so that I could be as focused as possible. Later that day, a thunderstorm rolled in. I dropped what I had been doing so I could record its epic thunderclaps. That’s right. Thor himself has been included on the album. Greg laid down his additional rhythm guitar tracks with very little ado. Aaron, still somewhat new to the band, recorded the songs he knew. In the interests of time, I went ahead and played bass on the two tracks he didn’t. Some of Matt’s original fills were retained. Then came the vocal tracks. We tried several things to get the best sound out of Greg this time around. First he stood in front of the mic as if he had just slain a Persian, like in 300. Then he tried singing while holding a guitar of steel. But then we had figured it out. Greg sang nearly all the vocals with one foot up, as if standing on the prow of a Viking ship, and holding a sword. No joke.

In all, I feel we owe the fans an apology for the continued delays in releasing this album. We have finally now, in late July, arrived at a point where there is little more we can do to make the album more amazing without greatly increasing our budget (which we have already exceeded).

I’m sure you are wondering what we might have been doing in the time we had no album and no shows. Aside from bringing our new bassist, Aaron El-Zeftawy, up to speed, we have completed about 5 of the 9 songs for the follow up album. Provided this first album sells well, we will have a much bigger budget for the next one and the result will be as epic as the songs themselves. For now, the epicness of our songs tends to exceed our means. Worry not, brothers and sisters of steel, for I assure you this album is still face-meltingly glorious, and when the next one comes out, you will barely have recovered!

What remains to be done before we unleash this beast involves the least amount of work from us so far. We are having the album professionally mastered, for I haven’t the skill or software necessary. The art will be drawn up by our Viking Artist of Steel, Andraes Johansson. Then we will have the CD manufactured once we have the art and the master. We have chosen a very specific place to have this done. One final detail is left completely up to us: the title. We will announce it once we declare a title worthy of the honor. The packaging, the art, and the CD will not disappoint! Hail and kill, brothers and sisters of metal!

Into the Primordial Studio Diary Part 10

This day we journeyed far and wide to once again return to our sonic dungeon and lay down one of the final pieces of tracking: vocals of steel. Greg had beat me there by an hour thereabouts, for I had a mighty journey, whereas he had a brief sojourn to the studio. By the time I arrived, “Haunter of the Dark” and “Into The Primordial” had vocals emblazoned upon them. The next step was to forge out “Second Son.” This took quite a while because of the intense vocals and unending harmony required. With this song under our belts, we fled the studio to put some Super Chicken right beside it. Returning in victory, it was time to begin “Supernatural Warfare.” No matter how familiar you may be with this song, there await you some surprises on the CD. It was mighty. We forged ahead to pound out “Sarnath,” and it sounds more evil than it ever did before. “Warsong” was laid out in no time, and we then called it a night of steel. Victory was ours.

Into the Primordial Studio Diary Part 9

(By Matt Ibach)

Recording the bass tracks took about 3 1/2 hours (yeah, that’s all). After hauling numerous amps down into the studio, we decided that the bass sounded best when recorded direct. I used my brand new red Jackson bass with the tone set to the neck pickup. I quickly thrashed out “Supernatural Warfare,” having to go back and do a few punch-ins due to the strange timbre of the metronome distracting me. All went well until I had to bang out the mid section in “Sarnath.” You know, that riff. It took me probably 50 takes. Part of the problem was that the tempo of the song had been slowed down significantly (for an amazingly heavy result) without my knowledge. I think it works, but I wasn’t used to playing it like that. I finally put down something acceptable, and we went back and overdubbed some fills into “Supernatural Warfare.” Then we were done. This concludes my part of the studio diary segment. (Props to Greg for sitting there the whole time.)

Dave often killed time by making chain mail.

Into the Primordial Studio Diary Part 8

Following a 2-day break, I returned to hammer out guitar. Commencing at around 10:30, the rhythm parts were done in about 3 hours with nary an obstacle to speak of. By about 2:30 the soloing was underway. Once again the first two or three were finished surprisingly quickly. “Second Son” posed a few setbacks which were ultimately overcome. After a few more delays in “Supernatural Warfare” and “Evenfall” were overcome, guitar parts were complete by about 6:30. Whilst wielding my mighty axe of war, my conscience weighed heavy knowing that these glorious anthems would require more aural majesty than one could plunder a thousand villages with. Heeding the call of true metal, I unleashed a few additional harmonies. Not one poseur was spared. Once the rubble died down, I emerged from smoke and breathed a sigh of relief. Victory was ours once more!