Cosmic Seam Is Tracked

Our first song is completed and no more is to be recorded for it.  It is ready for editing and mixing.  We spent the last session adding a few sprinkles of guitar notes here and there.

Of possible interest to the audio geeks - we borrowed a technique from Mutt Lang and Brian May.  You see some of us have been on a Def Leppard Hysteria kick for the last month and we've been watching a lot of the behind the scenes action of how that classic album was recorded.

One little nugget we came across was recording little guitar noodles. Mutt Lang made them track each  note  separately. The result of this time consuming process was that no note would be cut off or muted if it was on the same string.  Each note would have the same sustain.

I had a little 3 note run we wanted to record with this technique.  To make it official - Mike dug out an original Rockman X100 guitar amp simulator - the same one they used for the recording of the guitars in Hysteria.

To take a it a step further - we did it twice.We ping ponged the notes so each note is either left channeled or right channeled (ala Brian May).

Once that was completed - there was one 'space note' we needed to end the track with.  Ken was up to pluck harmonics on both low and high 'E' strings.  One set of notes.  Pretty easy right?  Unless you were up against a practical joke that would make it near impossible to get it right.

You see - we had a separate track up in the mix that made some guitar noise shortly after the spot where Ken had to hit his mark.  Every take - he thought he screwed up.  I figure this went on for about 8 tries before he caught on.

Let's just call it studio initiating.

Oh yeah - I snuck into the studio early in the week to lay down the bass tracks.  It didn't take Ken long to figure this out upon playback.  He was crushed - but as always - a good sport about it.   I think he's earned his lumps and is now fully and completely a studio musician.

Prep work for the next tune has already begun and Mike hopes to have the drums tracked for next week's session.