Strings & Things.

Spent all night in the studio with max this eve. He sat there writing lyrics and I tried to sort a few 'extra' parts out, like a cello, organ, trombone and harp (sounds like an odd thing to have on a pop-punk record - sounds cool though).

I don't think people appreciate how hard it is to write a decent string part. Admittedly, we've been using samples, but as well as picking the right sample, the right notes (often extending the chords already in the song into cool complex chords) at the right time, you've also got to make sure that every note is just the right volume so you create wonderfully dynamic sounding passages which can be used to enhance the character of a section.

If you have no idea what i'm talking about, if it survives until release, i'm dead chuffed with the cello part before the 1st and 2nd chorus in the "woah" song. its very pretty.

maund.

P.s. bet you can't wait 'til you've heard the 20 minute shaker solo planned for one of the songs, its amazing ;o)

"ok, 4 bars and you're in on the off beat...ready?"

It's late Sunday night - had a whole day off from the studio (although I did spend a little while checking out the unmixed songs on different stereos to give me an idea of how they sounded outside of the studio).

We've done the basic guitar parts for 6 songs, with just a little extra work to do tomorrow morning - then Dan is off on his Christmas holidays in France for a week. We did 8am-5.30pm every day this week and it was worth it to get so much done.

While he's away, I'll be finishing all the lyrics (yeah, yeah, late I know) and working on some of the extra stuff that will be added (extra stuff apart from the guitars, bass, drums and vocals). Take a listen to your favourite pop records and listen out for tambourines, shakers, scrapers, samples, triangles, pianos - they are everywhere and we'll be using as many as we can.

I will post again tomorrow and go into a little details about what we're doing with the guitars, every time we work in the studio we learn so much stuff it really keeps it interesting...well...if you're into that kind of thing. Everyone we have invited to the studio to hang out gets incredibly bored very, very fast. If you can't see why the 15th take was almost as good as that "really good 3rd take, the one with the little cool bit in it"...then don't bother coming.

Max x

chorus, chorus, chorus

Few days off from recording over the weekend as Dan had to get back to his dayjob, it's tough fitting all this rock'n'roll stuff around a real life you know...

Friday consisted of testing out exactly how we're gonna record the guitars. Very different from previous CD's (well, still with microphones and amps). Instead of having a constant guitar sound running through each song and then just adding extra bits (we've had to do this in the past to save time). This time every part has something different about it, whether it's a different amp, different guitar, different mic's, whatever. No guitar will be running through eveything...even if some of them will sound similar (we only have a limited number of guitars and amps!!!)

We've drawn up little maps of the guitar parts we wanna record, which is making it easier to know what the hell is going on in each section. I'll take a photo and post it up sometime this week.

Long days in the studio ahead of us this week - all day wed, thurs and fri...and i mean all day. Burnout, here we come....we're too young to need sleep anyway. We are about 50% of the way through the 7/8 song and it already sounds awesome, better than anything we've produced...i think the fact i haven't put my out-of-tune vocals over it yet is the main reason for this.

Max x

let the guitars commence

Max and I spent this evening re-stringing the guitars and sorting out the "dead area" for the cabs to live in. Generally getting ready to start recording gitars tomorrow. That also included max scrubbing the mould off the walls..honestly. Max took some photos so maybe he will post them up.

We are going to take a different approach to the way we have worked before and do each song one at a time, bass parts and guitar parts, as much as possible. We are also going to use lots more guitar sounds and generally play around a bit more. Should be good fun.

Max is going to continue using his ampeg svt and his fender bass setup. I'm going to use my mesa head and marshall cab, along with maunders Orange head and cab setup (thanks maunder) with 3 guitars, my custom olp (with bare knuckle 'War Pig' pickup), and my squier (yes squier) tele (with Seymour Duncan 'Invader' pickup) and stock squier strat (signed by biffy clyro).

I'm pretty sure Kev is gonna take the next few months pretty easy...maybe he will drop bye just to check in every now and again.

wish us luck.

dp

This one goes out to all the girls with see-thru high heels...

Well folks, its over, its finally over...

Instead of me now going home from the studio with bleeding ears from Kev's skin drum battery, I can now look forward to the wonders of listening to Max & Dan's guitar and bassistry. Its progress anyway!

A small step for man, a huge step for *insert album title here*.

Catch you krazy kids later.

Maund.