Tag Archives: recording

Lymbago, final round (Day 7)

cons_monitorOk, sorry for the late post, but I wasn’t there at the beginning of the week.

Basically, we completed everything. Yeah really. Just on time :-) Celltool was our target of choice for the morning and from the afternoon, we worked on HJ and Salami.

bowo HJ was difficult to complete because of the bow. We have tried to find the same ambiance as recorded at Arras, that was clearly not easy.

mehdi_poseSalami was easier than expected and Mehdi managed to find a solo in a reasonable amount of time. Anyway, we still have a few things to record, but that’s really bonus. We have the essential. Mission complete ! :D

What I can say is that was a really great experience. Very intense but I think we were all happy to live it, that was just fucking great. Also, we’re all happy with the result, which is just awesome.

To try to sum up this crazy week, here are a few numbers of what happened, in random order :

  • 19+ Pizzas
  • 37,2 Gb of music (!!)
  • 1 dead hard drive
  • Litters of shit soda
  • Around 15 tracks per song
  • Litters of coffee
  • 7 days
  • Around 100 hours of work (!!!)
  • 1 BBQ
  • A few beerspizza
  • 7 Songs
  • 10+ Pasta boxes
  • 50+ Cables
  • 1 unusable bass
  • 1 unusable amp
  • 13 Microphones
  • 9 Guests

Of course, we now have another BIG work to complete : the mix. People are used to say this formula : “One day of recording equals to two days of mix”. Considering that we spent about 15 hours a day, we therefore have around 30 hours of mix per song. So… we have 7 songs, 7*30, result : 210 hours of mix. *GGG*. So, you now understand why the album can’t be out in a few days. We really still have a lot of work.

I’ll try to update this blog as soon as we make some progress on the mix, so keep an eye on it ! :-)

Rock’n’roll !

PS: For the specialists, the Tubefire8 and Ardour worked very well and I’ll use them for sure during the next session !

Lymbago is just awesome (Day 6)

Saturday, week end. No rest, no mercy !

We’re all late this time, but we reached the studio as fast as we could. We opened this day with a beautiful riff coming from the acoustic guitar. Beautiful & intoxicating tunes spread into the studio and put it into an atmosphere of melancholy and seriousness. Nobody was talking. mehdi_acc_blubThis acoustic guitar was played by Mehdi and this was of course the Nouvo riff…

This day was smooth. Maybe the smoothest we had. Nouvo was recorded and finished at 5:39PM, then followed Ttta at 8:50PM. Louis & Mehdi did a good job. So at this moment, we had 4 songs completed, just awesome. So awesome that we made you a preview of the end of Ttta ! Beware, this is total preview, the sound is very raw, expect a much better one on the album.

We also had the visit of Diego’s brother and some of his friends. They brought their energy with them (even if they have missed Mister Moreno at the “Cabaret Vert”, hehe), so that was great  :-). Btw, look at our new diet (see picture), isn’t that so delightful ? kawabull

Once these two songs were recorded, we started Salami and HJ. Louis made his part on Salami and Mehdi on HJ. The goal was to complete the fast parts on these songs, even if we had to stay very late, so that we can complete the hardest ones the next (and last) day.

We indeed did that and started recording Mehdi’s guitar on HJ at 1:29AM… and finished around 3AM.

state2At least, only one hard song remains (Celltool) and 2 hard parts : the bow on HJ and the big solo on Salami.

See you next day with a happy end I hope ! :-)

Lymbago and the (dying) Lady of the Lake (Day 5)

Alarm, Shower, Shoes, Car, Road, Studio. Standard.

brunetti As planned, we took the Brunetti to the studio. We tried it and it revealed to be perfect for the sound we were looking for. I don’t need to precise how relieved we felt. Good point !

But we didn’t record this morning, we preferred to dedicate it to a rehearsal in order to finish all the remaining issues of the songs. Since there’s a lake just behind the studio, this was obviously the best place to go and get inspired. After a few hours, Louis, Mehdi & Diego came back with everything wrapped up.

lake

Around 12AM, we calibrated again all the amps to be sure we were safe for the rest of the recordings. Then, we jumped to the recording. Louis and Mehdi managed to record successfully Stomach and we added some parts to get a richer sound. I don’t tell you more, you’ll discover it with the album :D. Around 8PM, Stomach was done.

louis_gratteThen started a nightmare. We started to have many xruns during the recording. Xruns are basically desynchronization with the soundcard that makes the sound crack. After a few minutes, I realized that the disk was full. Ok. Shit. Let’s move some stuff to the backup device. What ??? The backup is just dead. Yeah, the hard disk decided to stop displaying its contents and we couldn’t write anything nor read on it. The bright side of the story is that I always make two backups. So, yes, we had another drive with to save us :D. We therefore lost one hour replicating the hard drive (we have more than 30Gb of data at the moment) to another, to be safe again.dead_hdd But ok, we could go on with the recordings.

We finished Blub around midnight and we added a bit of acoustic guitar, which, I have to say, make some parts of the song really better !

back_roadAnd then, as every night, we came back home… knowing that only two days remain to complete that. Waho !

Lymbago, from dawn till dusk (Day 4)

Fuck. I’m late. It’s more and more difficult to wake up on time for us, we’re accumulating the effects of many missing hours of sleep (we do about 15hours of studio per day…). Hopefully, the spirit here keeps us motivated and we’re doing everything we can to succeed.

We have three guests today : Laurine, Chloé & Elvina ! Cheers :-)

diDo you remember our DI box problem yesterday ? We were very lucky. I was near the Gambetta metro, waiting for Laurine and I met a friend who works at the Euroguitar shop. He could sell me a DI before the shop opens. Yeah !

The morning was dedicated to finish the bass. We planned to finish around 3PM and… we finished at 6PM. Hum. Anyway, Diego managed to record everything even if some songs (especially HJ) was, as expected, an obstacle course for him.

It was time for Louis to start recording. He did Stomach fast and we were happy with the sound. To save a bit of time, I then decided to record both guitars to finish the songs one by one.

orange_ampWe therefore moved the Orange amp of Mehdi to the big room so that he could get a better sound. After a few minutes of micro placement, we indeed managed to get a great sound. Louis was jealous. Yeah really :D. That’s right, Mehdi’s sound was much better. So, we moved his amp to the big room too. The problem is his sound was still the same… I therefore fired the jamin500visual scope and we found the problem : his sound was, again, very low in the mediums. After spending minutes (hours?) of tweaking his GT-6 pedalboard and his amp, we couldn’t get the sound we wanted.

We therefore decided to give up and bring my Brunetti amp the next day and use it instead of Louis’ amp.

At this point, we couldn’t do anything better, so we came back home knowing that the following day was going to be very busy.

Lymbago, gogo bass ! (Day 3)

And… another new day. Wednesday was… kind of a dark day for us. After our daily 50 minutes of road and some chocolates, we calibrated the bass and configured Louis & Mehdi gears so that they can play along with Diego.
Even if we managed to find a good sound for the bass, we encountered a big problem : the old bass of Diego gave a weird sound and his new one added strange ones : result we had no bass to record.

diego_bass

We therefore fired up our GSM & instant messaging software to borrow a bass. We contacted at least 6 guys and some shops and eventually found a good bass ! While Diego & Bertrand were out to get the bass, we started calibrating Louis’ amp.

louis_calib

At least we tried. First, the room where Louis is recording is so small that we had a (too) strong natural reverberation. Second, the micro for the guitar we have is a mid quality product, so we have to make sure to use it as its best. We managed to get a decent sound thanks to JR (the bassist of my band) who helped us by listening to the takes through the Internet. Still, the sound was a bit low in the medium, which is not good at all. JR therefore told us to make a direct recording of the guitar so that we can tweak the result during the mix. Err, but the problem is that we don’t have a DI box to record the guitar without going through the amp : damned.

gui_console18:51. Back to the bass, we calibrated it, got a good sound and started recording. Diego successfully recorded Stomach, Ttta and finished on Nouvo. It was 0:35. Time to go back home, totally tired…

Lymbago, Day 2

This one will be short since we’re really short on time to stick to the planning and I can’t find a single minute to write the daily reports. But, anyway, if we speed up a bit, we’re still on time !

cymbals

So, Tuesday, we started recording the missing double-kick parts to reinject them in Ttta & Salami. The trick worked well. Then, followed Nouvo recording. Mehdi helped Bertrand by supporting him with an acoustic guitar.

At this moment, we therefore had 5,5 tracks recorded (see picture)

While finishing the drums, Louis, Diego & Mehdi decided to wrap up Celltool, which lacked some riffs. They went out and rehearsed.

rehearse_out

Thanks to David, we could make a break and enjoy a good BBQ, just awesome :D
Louis also greated us with a nice pan flute concerto ! That was such a success, we decided to replace all the guitars by it. Yes, I’m serious.

The afternoon was dedicated to complete once for all the drums. HJ was the next target, and not an easy one. The support tracks couldn’t even be used since the software they use (Guitar Pro) didn’t managed to handle the rhythm switches, resulting in glitches in the audio file. We therefore recorded it live with Mehdi on the guitars as backtrack for Bertrand. Diego also rehearsed since this song is hell for him !

record_state

The last one was Celltool. This one was a nightmare ; nothing more, nothing less. We felt the pressure getting a bit more on our nerves every minute that passed. The guitarists decided to change some structures and other (not-so) details in it, so Bertrand had to find new parts in live. It’s useless to say that Bertrand ended by looking at Mehdi a bit like an enraged dog would have :D

bertrand_finishedAnyway, this day was succesfully completed, with all the drums done and an exhausted, but happy drummer !

Lymbago recording, Day One

Bertrand at the drums
Bertrand at the drums

Just back from this first day of studio. Well, I have to say, things seem to go pretty well for now :-)

8:00AM: the bell rings, Louis is here with the van, we load all the gear and we’re ready to go. Mehdi was kind enough to bring the breakfast –even if it was dated. 50 minutes later, we’re there, joining Diego, Bertrand & Tania.

They were here, waiting for us, like dogs ready to bite. Diego, using his ol’ litt’l Colt, blew the barrier’s padlock with style so we could break into the studio… piece of cake. TRUE STORY. Hum, I’m digressing.

The morning was in fact dedicated to install the amps, guitars and other stuff in the studio. The first step was to hook all the cables according to the cabling scheme and see how it goes. During this preparation step, I took an express course on the available hardware (such as this Tascam TM-D8000) and we could hear the first sound a few minutes later. Great !

As the good practices outline, I’ve decided to record all the drum tracks in a row. The reason is simple : placing and calibrating the microphones on a drumset is just as hard as hell. This is why we spent about 2-3 hours trying to get a decent sound from the drums. Hopefully, it was smoother than expected (no big phase problems, etc) and we could jump to the recording step faster. We were basically ready to rock, awesome !

We started recording Stomach since it’s pretty straightforward for Bertrand and we could focus on fixing the remaining details on the console side. After a few takes, all was wrapped. Then, followed Blub which ended to be easier than expected : legen, wait for it, dary !

While Bertrand and I were focusing on recording the drums, Louis, Diego & Mehdi were trying to write the incomplete songs and finish the last minute modifications. They grabbed three acoustic guitars, went outside to play and managed to sort that out. Almost (:D). In fact, some of the songs still need more work since they have undergone heavy changes during the last days. You’ll know who to thanks for that (hint: this guy is bearded, hehe).

Then we tried to record HJ, but it was merely a disaster due to the lack of sound tablatures. We gave up after a few tries and decided to postpone it to the following day. Therefore, this was Salami‘s turn. The recording went smooth, even if Bertrand had some difficulties with the fast double-kick parts. Even if it was not perfect (still, quite good), we ended this day by recording Ttta. Not an easy one, and trust me, it was quite a tiring day for Bertrand, which started to feel the fatigue in his legs and arms. After a few unsuccessful takes, we decided to record it without the blasts (and record them later on). This way, we could have a safe base and complete it the next day. That revealed to be very successful !

So, to sum up, we now have a calibrated system to record all the drums and the already recorded songs are : Stomach, Blub, Salami* & Ttta* — (* = kicks missing).

Let’s see how it goes tomorrow but, as I said earlier, we’re on tracks I think. For now, it’s time to go to bed since we’re leaving at 7:30AM !

PS: I’ll update this post tomorrow with photos from Louis.