Studio journal
posted on 25 Nov 2004 under category News
I’ve been at it for a couple of weeks now, too busy to log it all, but now that I’m at a relative stopping point I can fill in the gaps.
While waiting on the Death Beast vocals to get done and back from the vocal engineer for me to mix, I’ve begun working on two Rampage projects - a web single and Crimson Frost. The websingle was Aerik’s idea - two old songs re-recorded so he can do vocals on. Sort of reclaiming the past without shitting on the one or two crazy people out there who for some reason still prefer my vox to his (weirdos….). Anyway, we did two from THIS END UP - “Rampage” and “Ticket to Hell”. The new sounds and better drum programs (and since I lost my old tendency to overcompress everything) make these tracks sound amazing. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long to hear Aerik’s take on them vocally.
Then, Crimson Frost. This EP will basically be in two parts - four songs that were done with Toby on live session drums (the first Rampage release to feature a live drummer) and two covers that will be done the traditional way. Well, I’m still working on the latter two songs, but the four live-drum songs have been in the work queue for two weeks now, recording in bits and pieces at late late nights (kinda like now… zzzzzzzzz). Bass was finished two days ago, the last instrument, and I just now finally got the mixing finished and sent to the vocal guys to finish off.
The ‘vocal guys’, by the way, are Aerik (of course) and Andrew from Agnosis doing the engineering and mixing - the same team as on Displeasures. Hopefully nobody’s computer will die this time around. They’ll supposedly be doing vocals for all of the aforementioned songs sometime over this Thanksgiving break.
And that’s about it. I have some time to breathe and tweak the drum programs before recording the last two songs, “Saints in Hell” and “Life Eternal”. You’ll all have to wait for the release to hear anything off Crimson Frost (well, I might post one teaser track… if you beg nicely :) ), but the websingle will hit webpages and share networks just as fast as we can get it turned around.
Now enjoy your Thanksgiving, and remember - EAT THROUGH THE PAIN!
Needless to say, those two covers never got done. I may have the drum programs somewhere, and may give them a crack some time, but perhaps they should just be left alone. Eh, I’ll figure it out.
More interesting is that this is the first direct reference to a time when I was actively working on things. Now I want to go back and see if I have any other digital artifacts of the time - original takes, saved test mixes, etc.