Studio Report day five : Mixing and Mastering

The mixing and mastering session tends to be the most draining despite consisting mostly of sitting down all day and listening to things. It is incredible mentally tiring.

Spending roughly 2 hours on each and listening to each therefore somewhere in the region of 20 times. Applying different levels of compression, listening again, correcting a spike, listening again, raising the level of the bass a minute amount, listening again .. and on it goes.

However, the best part is when we do the final load out of the gear and emerge into the night clutching the master disk.

We are really pleased with the results - everything has moved on since 'Bubblegum & Machine Guns'; the songwriting, the playing and the production.

Now the really nasty process of suddenly noticing the mistakes and knowing its too late ;-)

Thanks again to Mark at Sound Station for keeping the quality up, we'll be back for number four soon!


Also - we finally decided on the album title - it will be known as 'Ordinary Day' and the track listing is thus:

1. Dog Star
2. My Wicket Other Self
3. Don't Let Go
4. Ordinary Day
5. The Trouble with Johnny
6. Long Way Home
7. Rip It Up

Monty Dogg Records will now be pressed into action to sort out the CD production run and all the distro wrangling, but you should be able to buy direct from us within a month or so. In the meantime however, we'll release some tracks onto MySpace for you all to have a listen to.

Studio Report day four : Vocals Day

We started the day with Paddy laying down a guest solo on 'Ordinary Day' and while we had him,'Dog Star'. Nice one!

Then it was on to the vocals. Everything went fairly smoothly - lots of time for multiple takes and choosing the best parts.

Mark has been fiddling with the mix as we go along and so we are starting to get a real feel for how its all going to turn out - and its sounds like the effort is going to be worth while.

Nev and I played with sticking a bit of keyboard on the break in 'Don't let Go' - as a punk rock band we strictly speaking aren't qualified for such endeavors but I think we'll get away with it.

So tomorrow is final mix and mastering day - grueling but ultimately rewarding.

Studio Report day three : Guitar Day

So after two full days of work in the studio, today was finally my turn to lay down some final guitar tracks.

It was quite painful in places but I got there in the end and after improvising some second parts and doubling up tracks its sounding pretty full.
However, try as I might, I just could not get the lead break in 'Ordinary Day' to work - mainly due to my lack of talent as a lead guitarist - and this is where Paddy's absence is really felt. I can play the stuff OK live but I just don't have the finger precision required to tackle some of the lead parts when recording for posterity. Fortunately I had my lifelines left so I chose to 'Phone a friend' and after a brief conversation and an emailing of an MP3 of the track, Paddy has made time to come into the studio tomorrow and lay down a guest solo. Good man!

Even with the duff solo its really starting to come together with "my Wicked Other Self' sounding particularly good.

So apart from Paddy's quick solo work all the guitars are finished. Tomorrow is vocal day, by the end of which we will start to get a real idea as to how everything is going to sound.

Studio Report day two : Bass Day

Today actually started with Lee and Studio Mark hunting down errant kick drums and and ironing out the last few fluffs in the drum tracks. by mid-day Nev was set up and we spent an hour getting the bass sound right - and its sounding pretty beefy!

Nev got through his parts without too much trouble - once again it was actually the simpler songs that seems to cause most problems, but nothing Nev couldn't handle with great aplomb.

By 5:00 we were ready to set up my guitar rig and sort out the sound. After taking time out for Mark to sort out the intonation on my guitar (How many studios even spot the intonation problem, let alone fix it?) which has taken a beating over the years I put down a rhythm guitar track for Dog Star - thus we are no officially ahead of schedule.

So, a bank holiday break tomorrow to rest up a little and its back into the studio on Tuesday for Guitar day proper.

Studio Report day one : Drum Day

We arrived at our favorite studio and 10am and lugged in our gear.
Lee set to work immediately setting up his kit and by 11:30 all the mics were in place and sound checked. Lee's new kit sounds pretty awesome!

Drum day is always difficult - unlike the rest of the instruments there is far less option for punching in and out with the drums and so we were aiming for near perfect takes with just the odd bit of post production tweaking - and Lee delivered.

By 6:30 we have usable drum tracks down for all seven songs. Not that Nev and I got off lightly, there are some pretty complex arrangements and so we were on guide track duty, laying down basic takes at the same time as Lee, but from the less high volume comfort of the control room.

Mark the studio owner and engineer was on form as usual picking up little mistakes which we probably would have missed and making sure everything was perfect before we moved on to another song. Thats of the reasons we like recording here so much - Mark won't let us get away with sloppy work - even at the end of a session we everyone is knackered.

As per usual it was the simple song which took most time to get right, with the complexity of 'Long way home' being rendered with relative ease.

So, good work today Lee. Up tomorrow is Nev to lay down the bass tracks and me to do a bit of guitar if we get that far!

Studio bound

Last night we had our final practice and pre-production session before we head into the studio on Saturday to record the new album.
It's all sounding pretty good - there are a few wrinkles both nothing we can't iron out in the studio.
I've just been doing a final polish on the lyrics, and I'm pretty happy with them.
So, the tracks we will be recording are:

1. Dogstar
2. My Wicked Other Self
3. Ordinary Day
4. Don't let go
5. The trouble with Johnny
6. Rip it Up
7. Long Way Home

We still have no title for the album, ideas for the artwork or indeed a final decision of the running order - but these things are all secondary to the job in hand!

Support for the Damned

Thanks to Ed from Rhombus (Diamond Geeza) introducing us to the promoter, Grinn are proud to announce that they will be supporting The Damned at their Gig in Holmfirth Picturedrome on Aug 9th.

We are so excited about this - Not only is the Picturedrome a great venue (I played there when Smurphs supported the one and only Half Man Half Biscuit and have attended gigs there by NMA, Levellers, Hanoi Rocks any many more), but the Damned are one of my all time favourite bands who I've had the pleasure to have seen live on many occasions; 2 of the most memorable being when Liquidhead supported them at the Irish Centre in Leeds a few years back and the other being when they headlined the Cafe Nurf tent at Glastonbury in, er 2003 (I think) and packed out the tent and surrounding field.

If you get your tickets from us there will be no booking fee and we get a slice of the action.
Also we anticipate that the new album will be ready by this gig!

email (tickets @ grinnuk.com) if you want to come along - the ticktes are around 15 quid.

Whoring our talents

Last week Paddy and I spent one of the most fun evenings of studio work I've ever engaged in. We were both asked to come and provide some backing vocals for the forthcoming album from the mighty Rhombus.It really was a hoot - Ed (Rhombus lead singer, bassist and leader) is one of the funniest guys I know and his wit carries into his song writing - so imagine the scene as Paddy and I tried to remain serious while singing lines containing such lyrical gems as "shove it up sideways".
The recording was fun, but so also was the accompanying 'photo shoot'.

The new Rhombus album, entitled 'Remembrance Day' will be released on 5th June (or 05/06/07 if you prefer) on Model's Own records with worldwide distribution from Resurrection Records.
Pre-order is available now from the Rhombus web site.

I for one am looking forward to it!

Selby Gig Review

NOW - That's more like it.

Great day.

We played OK, a few fluffs and forgotten chords but hey - when you are playing to a bunch of people determined to have a good time, its amazing how little the mistakes seem to matter. I love playing out in the Sunshine!


[Ian and Lee enjoying Slash Vegas]

Velvet Star - Awesome - we really, really enjoyed these guys - buy their EP and go see them - NOW!

Slash Vegas - Viva! - Can't wait to hear the results of their recording session. Make a point of seeing these guys live too!


[Slash Vegas - in the dark]

I'll write a little more detail soon!