The Broadcast Debut Recording Session

Candids from one of the days

noreply@blogger.com (Craig) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:03:00 +0000

Our friend Rodrigo De Medeiros stopped by to take some pictures for us on one of the studio days:

- Craig

Happy Birthday, Aaron

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:18:00 +0000

It's now officially Aaron's birthday. In honor of this blessed day, Katy made him special cookies with his initials on them. And they tasted way better than they looked.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Brown.

Fin

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:10:00 +0000

Day four complete, and we walk away from Fastback Studios with 12 great songs. We still have a lot of work to get them to where we want them, but the studio part is done - and that feels pretty good.

Thanks again to FBS - Bryce, Jason and Mark. Great studio and great people.

And of course thanks to Mr Jon Auer - he has been a great help and a true visionary for this project.

Time for bed...

Dustin

Finished. For Now...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:59:00 +0000

We're officially done with our four day recording adventure. We're really excited about what we accomplished so far, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of Jon, Jason, Bryce, and Mark. We also wouldn't be able to pull this off without the support of our friends and families. Thanks to everyone.

Over the next month or two or three, we'll be adding and subtracting, tweaking and smoothing, mixing and mastering. Hopefully we'll have new music to share by springtime.

The Mighty B3

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:22:00 +0000

We're finishing the session by adding some Hammond B3 to a number of tracks. For those of you who aren't familiar with the B3, think of a mighty church organ. It's an amazing sound, and it's giving us a big charge as we wrap things up.

Almost there...

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:22:00 +0000

7:23pm...last day. We are all pretty tired. Today we recorded Hot House (i think this turned out really good) and also 2 "extra" songs - "dilittante" and "scared of airplanes" (just making corrections and placing final touches now). I'm happy that we got through everything we wanted to - a total of 12 songs. I hope, that when this is all over, the album is an accurate reflection of all the hard work that we have put into it.

Will be posting new photos soon.

~Dustin

Eleven Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:31:00 +0000

About an hour ago we got all the tracks down that we wanted. We're all very happy about that, and we hope you are too. Now we're recording a song tentatively titled Dilettante. It's one of those songs that has been with us for a long time and has morphed a number of times. It's sounding pretty good. More later.

I am not a Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:33:00 +0000

I am getting looks to do this from the rest of the band. I am not a blogger.

The studio is going well. A lot of sitting around and then playing for an hour and then sitting around. But it will all be worth it in the end. Things are sounding amazing and we are getting the most out of the studio. The guys here are great and I (Craig is reading over my shoulder. Great!) would suggest this studio to anyone who wants to record in the Seattle area. Full service.
Other than that my body fuel tank is running on empty with average of eleven hour days past 2 days and only eating around 7 at night with some beers. I hope to sleep in tomorrow!

Can't wait for you all to hear what we have been working on.

Cheers
-Aaron

p.s I have been listening to:
Superdrag - in the valley of Dying stars
Bon Iver - ?
David Bazan - Live from the Grey Eagle.

More of what Dan said...

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:31:00 +0000

Day three of four is complete and we walk away with 9 songs. I am pretty excited that we have been able to maintain the schedule that we have - "thanks Uncle Jon." No but seriously, kudos to J.A. for keeping us on schedule. Although I have been completely relaxed and confident about our "songs to days in the studio" ratio, I know others have been pacing with anxiety over the seemingly slow process.

Tomorrow, we will finish with "Hot House" (working title -we wrote this on a scorching day last summer at my house), and take a whack at a couple of "works in progress" songs. Hopefully, all will go as well as the previous days.

A big shout out to everyone at Fastback Studios - Bryce, Jason, and Mark...truly a great group of skilled and entertaining individuals to work with. Thanks again.

Special thanks to the crew for dinner tonight - it was excellent. And a pre-emptive "Happy Birthday" to our beat keeper AB!

Talk more tomorrow!

Goodnight,
Dustin

Nine Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:18:00 +0000

So, at the end of three days we have the basics for nine songs. We recorded a song titled Presence of the Queen earlier in the day (that I forgot to mention in my previous post), and we were able to get Lake done this evening. It was a push to get done, and without Jon keeping us on schedule, we probably would have gone home to sleep. Bryce was a champ in the control room and stayed with us late. A big hat tip to the guys at Fastback Studios. We've really enjoyed out time there so far, and they've all been extremely gracious and great to work with.

Fastback has an amazing collection of mics, and we've got many of them on the drums. Aaron is happy.

More Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:55:00 +0000

We're most of the way through the day, and we've got two new tracks to show for it. We fired up the amps today, and are working on some of our louder tracks. It'll be interesting to see how they mesh with our mellower songs on the album. We got the basic tracks and edits for a song called Lights on the Street, and are currently going over our four or five takes we have for Apart on the Carpet. Lights on the Street is a bit of a rocker, and Apart on the Carpet makes me nod my head in time and sing along.

Jon and Jason worked about two hours get the right sound out of two amps for me today. We put two mics on my Ampeg Reverberocket, and two mics on Craig's Matchless plugged into a Hiwatt cab. I think it turned out great.

We hope to get a few takes of another song, Lake, before we head home tonight. Thanks to the tasty enchiladas Lisa and Katy brought for the whole crew, we might have the fuel to make it happen. We were hoping to get one or two more, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Five Songs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:08:00 +0000

We've had a productive day. It wrapped up around 11:30 with some edits to a song called Snowball 2 (another working title). It's called Snowball "2" because Aaron already had a song titled Snowball for his other band Ed Wang. We wouldn't want to poach titles from our drummers "other" band, would we? Certainly not.

We now have the bare bones tracks for five songs. I think we all feel a bit relieved that we were able to pick up the pace while getting the results we were looking for. The progress today didn't come all easy. As easy going as we all are, things can get tense and frustrations can grow when takes don't go as planned. If any fist fights break out, they'll be fully documented with photos and high-quality audio. And yesterday, when Dustin was changing strings back to an old set (the new ones were too bright), a tuning peg on his bass fell apart. It's now being held in place by a capo. Also, the studio's Rhodes piano was having technical difficulties which generated a number of retakes. The Rhodes sounds fantastic when working properly, so it was worth the extra effort.

Seattle saw the first snow of the season tonight. I generally love snow, but it makes driving home an ordeal when you're exhausted. We've worked through most of our mellow tracks, so tomorrow will be a day to turn up the amps a bit, and strap a guitar on Craig. Aaron is going to wear his Warrant t-shirt.

Day 2: Basics status

noreply@blogger.com (Craig) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:53:00 +0000

The day is flying by. It's currently 8p and we are about to track our 3rd song of the day. We tweaked Martha at the beginning of the day, got Alaska down quickly, as well finished 10.28. We are about to start Fading Forces (working title). We have also been using the studio Rhodes stage piano for some magic flavor on these songs.

- Craig

Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dustin) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:21:00 +0000

Day 2 has officially begun. We are making minor changes to the tracks we laid down yesterday - should finish that soon - then we will start tracking new stuff. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We will post new pics as soon as we can...

Dustin

Day 1: It's all about the drums

noreply@blogger.com (Craig) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 06:38:00 +0000

We are still at the studio. We've spent the majority of the day setting up the drums and setting up mics for the drums. Since 10p, we've been tracking Martha to see how everything sounds. We're all pretty happy after a long day.

Here are some pics from the day of drums:

Good night everyone!
Craig

The Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Craig) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:42:00 +0000

The Plan:

The Broadcast Debut is heading to Fastback Studios from 12/12 - 12/15 to record our first full length record. Jon Auer, who produced our five song EP, will also be producing this record. Our gear has been set up and we have been working on a lot of new material. I'm excited to see what sounds we get at this new studio. Rumor has it that the mic closet is insane.

When there is down time, each of us will be blogging about the experience and how things are going. Feel free to leave us comments or words of encouragement during our studio time. We are excited about it and want to share the experience with you as well.

- Craig