My first recording experience

I went to Norwich, a couple days back with my band, Crossedwind, to record our original compositions.  We've been exchanging on the net about ideas and backing tracks on our songs.  We made use of our celphones, recording our raw materials... pretty rough record but we managed  Then, I keep doing the backing tracks so that my bandmates can rehearse the song whilst Im away because I live here in Southampton.  To cut the story short, we almost managed to practise and finalised our songs virtually.

We have four songs to record, so I arrived in Norwich last May 22 at around 6 pm, went straight to Earth Studio to rehearse.  It was like an overnight practise and then due for recording the following day.  We struggled a little bit, because backing tracks was far from doing the real thing with my bandmates.  There were changes made from intro, on how the adlib would sound, up to how we'll do the ending of the songs and so forth.  Even after our rehearsal, it seems we still have not agreed on what to do exactly.  So, the following morning, I woke up early and started rehearsing by myself.

Midday Tito Ray and Tita Raquel asked me to dine with them in Baby Buddha.  While tita Raquel and I was coming out of the carpark, Axel arrived and we stopped and asked her to join us.  The food was great in Baby Buddha.  Came back to the house at around 2-ish in the afternoon.  I was too sleepy, probably because of the food.  Then, my cousin Ralph came, mind you he's a nice little fellow.  While I was half asleep, he put a tattoo sticker on my arm and guess what? It's an Angry Birds tattoo.  Im going to record with my bandmates and I got this brand new Angry Birds' tattoo.  Well, it became my lucky charm during the recording, thanks little Ralph.

Al picked me up around 5ish and we headed to Ashwood Recording Studio.  We arrived early because it was quite near my Uncle's place and there was someone before us doing a recording inside so we had to wait a little while in the carpark.  It is a very nice studio.  So, when it was our time, we came in and met up with the Sound Engineer, Mr. Sotox we call him.

The studio has got a lot to offer and to think it's half empty or maybe Im wrong it's half full.  There's this Grand Piano inside... a lovely grand piano where I got the chance to play with while they are starting to assemble the drumkit.  Then, I helped with tuning the drums and the sound engineer was busy with the microphones and all.  It took more than an hour to setup, starting from rearranging the place, to setting up the drums, the mics, etc, etc.  Then, finally we are ready.  Drums was done and that being the most important of all or shall I say critical amongst other instruments.  After all was set, they called Ron, our bass player.  Sotox, took a DI box and that's where Ron was plugged in.  He gave Ron a pair of headset as well as Al on the drums.  Then, he asked if Ron got a tuner to make sure that the bass was tuned properly.  Ron replied that he tune's his bass by ear.  But, the sound engineer said that it will be handy if we can use a tuner.  So I took my Digitech RP55 cause it has a built-in tuner and tuned the bass.  Then, they started jamming and recorded a quick drum and bass groove.  It was perfect.  By the way, Ron's bass is Ibanez and Al's drumkit is Tama.

I took my gears out, my black Lyon by Washburn electric guitar and my Digitech RP55 multieffects pedal with my improvised wah pedal using an M-Audio keyboards expression pedal.  Tuned my guitar and Mike came as well to tune his sunburst Fender strat.  Mike did not even took his Line6 HD500 because he plugged his Fender strat directly to Marshall JCM900, whilst I chose the Fender amp coz Im a big fan of Fender amps.  May be because of my sound, tone and my kind of music.  We jammed a little bit.  Then Doc Clement came in to setup his keyboards which is a Roland Juno Stage.  Doc was directly plugged in to the mixer and he was with Lide and Beth in the control room alongside with Ashley, our producer/manager/technical director.  After we finished with the track, the vocals and backing vocals were done last.  And that's it, that's a wrap.

Initially we booked for 4 hours to do 4 songs but we exceeded.  So instead of just 6 to 10 pm, we finished midnight.  It was all worth it and we had fun.  Not bad for first timers.  Mixing was scheduled at our next convenient day depending on the studio's availability.  We are looking forward for the finished product although hearing it from the control booth's monitor speakers, we are really very pleased.  It seems there's magic in Ashwood Recording Studio.  Thanks guys!  Don't forget to support our band, Crossedwind as well as our songs when it's out on iTunes and other digital distribution stores online.  Next step will be music video.  Here's a teaser for you guys, cheers!