I'm going to finally let you know how the rest of the recording went. I managed to write blogs for the first two day because I was just sat in the back of the control room while Sean and Paul recorded their parts. Once I actually got around to recording on the third day I didn't stop till it was over! The tracks are online now so you can hear the finished results.
Recording the guitar was an interesting process. I've only got a cheap valve-state Marshall amp which does the job but heavy distortion always sounds fucking boring to me on record. I wanted something interesting, not just a wall of noise. We ended up hiring a vintage 15 watt amp. It only had one sound but it was something I couldn't have gotten with my amp. Listen to the main riff on 'Helicopter Parents' to hear what I'm on about. We also wired the guitar through the mini moog again for the bridge section on 'No Place Like Home' for the fuzzy build-up sound.
We loved the vintage guitar amp so much that we ended up doing loads with it. We wanted all the synth parts to have some more life to them so we blasted them all through it into a stone room and recorded that. We even threw the drum and bass parts through it as well and put them under the clean recordings for a good vibe.
Vocals are vocals to be fair. All I know is it knackers me out recording them and we spent a good two days getting them right; but not too right. One of the main things we wanted to do when we recorded this time was to try and get the same sound on record that we have live.
We mixed down London at Moloko studios for 3 and a half days. Paul and I went down to put our input in but this is the first time when we've been involved in the production process that I've felt I could really trust our producer. We really thought hard about all the sounds and parts to decide what was really needed and what just got in the way. In the end the songs sound great, not too cluttered and everything there is there for a reason.
Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Andy xo
