haven't heard our EP?? check it out here >>> Spitfire Bullets EP
But i know some of you are interested in how it was recorded
It was recorded on 19th March Tuesday night back in 2013 down at the bunker in Sunderland.
The beginning, quotes prices and chaos
Going back a few months before the recording i was emailing lots of recording studios for price quotes on a simple 4 track EP but they kept giving me sky high prices even as a whole band couldn't afford, a lot of these recording studios couldn't understand that all we wanted was a simple low price recording of drums, guitar, bass and vocals, nothing fancy just punk rock music stripped down to the bare bones.
The answer
Eventually after a lot of searching stressing out and about to give in and pay for a sky high price the answer was pretty much in front of us. The place we have rehearsals at (The Bunker) also has their own little recording studio, after enquiring about it and after a few emails back and forth we got a price quote
Full Day Recording - £100
Half Day Recording - £50
Recording options
Live Recording (takes less time and therefore is
cheaper than Multi-track Recording. Only an 8 track recording and therefore not
as clean as a multi-track recording. Good for demos and EPs. Recording
Estimate: 1 day)
Multi-track Recording (takes longer and therefore
is more expensive than Live Recording. Infinite number of tracks to record and
therefore a more polished recording than live recording. Recording Estimate: 2
- 3 days)
With this offer in mind and we had a very low budget of £100 we took the half day £50 live recording as we were told the multi track recording would take longer and would cost more, we only had limited time to get the recording in so it took place from 6pm till 9pm
The Recording session
we recorded the whole EP in the bunker in the big room (i can't remember the room number but those who go there will know which room i mean) it was a simple set up in the room both guitar and bass amps were set up at the back with the guitar amp mic'd up with a nice fuzzy overdriven sound coming out and the bass with its treble sound was also mic'd up. The drums were set up at the side with a sound proof wall to stop any sound bleed coming from the amps on to the drum's mics. I used my old Marshall Valvestate with my FX pedal board and my Vintage SG for the recording and our old bass player used his Marshall bass state amp with line 6 multi FX pedal board and his Rickenbacker copy bass, John used the bunkers Ludwig drum kit and his Sabian cymbals all mic'd up. i guess i could say we were feeling fairly confident in doing the recording we just treated the session like the usual rehearsal no messing about just plug in pick which song to do first and go for it. for the full live recording we used a guide vocal recording from myself, recording each of the four songs 3 or 4 times before choosing the ones that sounded the best (the ones that sounded the best were the ones where i wasn't saying fuck and shit down the mic every time i forgot a lyric). this took about a hour and a half to get the tracks down and listen back to them to see which was the best.
after the tracks were chosen the vocals were re-recorded adding two backing vocals for the choruses.
In total the whole recording was finished by 9:00pm it was to be mixed and finalised on saturday where i picked up the master CD.
The Mixing
The mixing of the track was simple, i did a quick read up on how old 70's punk bands had their music mixed because i wanted that 1970's old punk sound captured. Now with it being a live recording having used 6 tracks deleting out the original guide vocals, there was a small bit of bleed on the guitar and bass tracks but hardly noticeable, so the rhythm and lead guitar track was set up front & in your face to the right and the (stranglers influenced bass sound) bass set just behind so it pokes through the guitar sound the bass was set to the left, with drums set at the back but loud enough to hear the thundering beat and set in the middle with the vocals also mixed in the middle along with the two backing vocals set in the middle also.
its amazing how much work went into recording a simple 4 track EP nothing fancy just drums, guitar, bass, vocals and backing vocals all mixed left right and center for £50 and we were gonna pay a even higher price for a overly produce EP. A simple and stripped down recording sounds better and thats art to me!
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