melange demo available

orite, you can now download the entire melange demo from www.mp3.com.au/melange/.. i know their only 128Kbps quality, if you REALLY want them in higher quality, email me.

Now.. i was going to put this up for a while.. but here it is anyway.. the semi-detailed recording diarys of me..

This is done over the weekend we recorded.. to continue click more..

Day 1
Drums + Bass are recorded this day…
Pustulio:
Daev and I do this in 2 takes, i think the sound is great. What becomes aparant througout these tracks is Matt’s dislike of my piccollo snare-drum.
Semi-Permeable Membrane:
Couple of takes, Going for that Crisp hi-hat sound. Daev and I got our tracks down pretty quick.
Coombe:
This track was hard, in the end multiple takes (on my behalf, atleast Daev was very encouraging) had to be performed. (I was sore by the end)
2nd Hand Blues:
Quite a simple and dirty sound on my ride-cymbal + Snare-drum (Which was this Soprano Snare i borrowed off Matt, which he tells me is only the 1000th ever made)
By this time, Daev and I have finished all our tracks….
By this time we’re rushing, and BJ wants some output before he has to go off to work. He does 3 separate guitar tracks and
2 vocal takes. (which he still believes to be off)
BJ goes to work, and Daev and I sit with Matt until 7.40 mixing 2nd Hand Blues. By this time Matt’s gotten the snare sounding warm, the bass-drum sounding phat. Daev ends out redoing another bass track at the end.
Matt then fattens up the guitar tracks Byron did. Was very exciting to hear this great thick wall of guitar sound come from something we’d put together!

Day 2
BJ and I at Matt’s at about 10am.
Byron lays 3/4’s of the guitar tracks for Pustulio (+ some more ambient tracks)
Coombe:
2 guitar tracks for the intro..
(Most of the 2nd day, the guitar tracks were done with an SM57 microphone on the cone of the marshall valvestate amplifier, a Vox compressor mic fairly close to the amp, a drum overhead mic also fairly close, and another drum overhead mic in the room. The Marshal was in the pool room with 10 leads squeezed under the doors)
Mid-way during the day the guitar started playing up like at the Mojo’s show. We tried a different Epiphone guitar (Jakes from Grandcentral). That didn’t work so it must be the Amp. (we all decide to let it sleep for a while and go get lunch)
Pustulio Vocals:
Byron did 3 tracks including this cool whispering track! Byron also did his “Whoops” :)
2nd Hand Blues Backup/Harmony:
The mic during this vocal take was said to be “Not Putting Out” .. it must’ve been some sort of recording-guy lingo.. :P
Coombe Guitar:
The Marshal amp’s had time to cool off, and so byron is re-doing the end of the track he was doing earlier. It ends up the guitar wasn’t tuned anyway so bj has to re-do them.
During all this, Daev’s Fiddling with an Ibanez Guitar (once again, another of jakes from Grandcentral)
In the end bj ends out re-recording all of the guitar track minus intro.
Bj asks if it “sounds weak?” and what’s funny is, in the end Coombe ends out being one of the weaker tracks on the demo.. hrms.
Bj tries Jakes Epiphone (same as Daevids’s minus the Humbucker pick-ups:) ) Great sounding tracks!
Semi-Permeable Membrane Guitars:
Back to BJ’s (daev’s ;P)Epiphone guiar, combined with Owen’s (a friend of ours) Fender Twin Reverb amplifier.
For the heavier parts of semi-perm bj uses one of the Grandcentral boy’s Curtis Pedal (don’t really know what this means.. but i noted it down anyway).
Daev re-does the light guitar intro.
BJ starts singing..
At this time I have to go to work but from what i gather, they ended up finishing the rest of the tracks!

Over the next week and a half, Matt From Grandcentral does all the mixing for us.. then hands us the final copy and vroom.. we’re happy!! (yay)

Drum-settings (these won’t interest anyone cept myself.. these are just for recording sakes):
Pustulio
Zildjian Custom Dark K 14″ Hi-Hats
Ayotte 14″ Picc snare-drum
PremierXPK 10″,14″ Toms and 22*18″ Bass-Drum (Matt’s stuff)
16″ Sabian Crash Cymbal
10″ Paiste 802 Splash Cymbal
Zildjian Custom Med 22″ K Ride Cymbal (Matts)
17″ Sabian Pro Crash Symbol
18″ Sabian HHX Crash Symbol (Matts)
3A Vicfirth Sticks

Semi-Permeable Membrane
Same as above but with 14″ Paiste Hi-Hats instead of the Zildjian.

Coombe
Same as pustulio

2nd Hand Blues
20″ Sabian Pro Sonix Ride Cymbal
14″x6 Soprano Snare-Drum

Posted by Christian 21 March 2003

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