Epifex - The Story oF us

Showing posts with label Recording. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recording. Show all posts

After a long hiatus of recording and being away at two different colleges, JP and Fus decided to try to put a cover band to play at the local bars.  Living with Matt Rier, JP and Matt were able to jam freely for a year before actually putting their talent to work.

After posting an ad in Craigslist seeking a lead singer, the band met Steve Waldron.  Turns out he lived right down the street and was able to fill the slot for vocals and provide the use of proper recording equipment.

Each track was recorded live in Matt's room in Statesboro, GA.  The room was tiny in comparison to what we had in there; full drum set, PA system, googles of cords, microphones, stands and not to mention all of Matt's personal belongings like his bed, dresser, nightstand, and such.  It became our recording sweatshop for 3 days when we finally were able to record.

We ran everything into our Behringer PMP 4000; Lead vocals, guitar, bass, and drums that were mic'd with only 3 microphones.  We regret that we did not take the time to properly mic the drums, so anyone interested in recording take note of that.  The Behringer recording output went into Steve's 8 input multi-track recorder.  For the first time, we were able to finally record everything at the same time onto different tracks.  We split the mixer headphone output into 4 separate headphones and luckily I had just bought a pair of wireless headphones so Matt was free to move behind the wheel of this drums.

Unfortunately, since we recorded everything live, Steve's lead vocal microphone was able to pick up Matt's drums in almost every recording.  This can be heard when the drums volume will suddenly increase or decrease throughout the song, like in Rock and Roll.  We tried to isolate the two but it was too difficult.  When it came time to EQ the tracks, balancing the actual EQ'd drums with the ones heard in the background of Steve's vocals became a challenge and a huge recording flaw.

Besides that one flaw, these tracks mark a new era in how far we came in learning how to record and produce music on our own.  The fact that we recorded all these live in Matt's tiny room and got this type of sound is a feat unto itself.  Aside from a 1 or 2 redone tracks redone for guitar and bass, what you hear is essentially how we sounded live.  And we only played one show to an audience of maybe 30 people after learning over 25 covers, months of practicing, and 3 days of recording another chapter in our musical endeavor.

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This album contains our most juvenile, and nothing short of dedicated, attempts at recording music.  We started out on a little tape track recorder, but eventually were able to use a proper mixer.

Each song started with recording the song played by Fus and JP with Jacob, our drummer, only playing along as a 4 count metronome.  Once a solid backing track was recorded, then we would mic the drum kit and record the drums while he listened to just the guitar, bass and metronom.  The solution to almost all mistakes was to rerecord the drums, so it was essential we got a good solid take.  We were able to modify some drums and mix and match tracks using audacity, but this was the main method used for the most part.

The bass or guitar was recorded next, with the order of who records fist being dependent on which part was easier to play without the other track for the song. Going in through our tiny little mixer and out into the computer using Logic was the best method we found.  Unfortunately, it was not a very powerful mixer and we were not able to run out of an amp.  This resulted in the bass not being as bassy and the guitar lacking the "punch" on certain songs.

When coming up with a song, we would just jam about and piece together what we thought sounded good.  There was really no structure to our song writing. If it sounded good with the last part, then it would fit.  Later songs like Jamfest, Reasons, and Space and Time were recorded with actual ideas in mind, but our main method was basically just to jam songs out.  Jonathan would freestyle along as we played to give him ideas for his lyrics and vocals.  Vocals were recorded in the same manner as guitar and bass, only after everything else was complete.

This was all done in Jacob's room with the little equipment we had.  Easily not the best sounding tracks but I feel to know what we did to record these and understand that we never even played a single show under this band, gives these songs more meaning.  Our goal was for people to enjoy our music, which we never got around to actually doing except for the tedious process of recording these songs.
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