Howdy,
I thought that it may be a good idea to give an overview of how we're going about recording the record, so here goes....
It starts with the fact that myself, Anna & Cam have written a bunch of tunes together...nothing new there, we've been playing and writing together since 2000. The difference this time around is that we've been writing with a pretty clear goal in mind - i.e. that what we write will constitute our debut record.
See, in the past with Buick 6 & then later with The Toques, songs were always written primarily to be played live...if you came up with a good one then it made into the live set, usurping an older tune. Recording was very much a secondary consideration. We'd go into a studio and record when we wanted something to release, or when somebody else wanted us to record something, whether that be a radio session or something to hawk around labels.
So...this approach is a flip on past endeavours and a new experience for us. At this point in time playing live can wait until there's a finsihed record, and the songs on the record have - in the main - been written as we've been recording. Make any sense?
In the past we'd used 4-track recorders to get demos and ideas down and these had worked fine for us but there were always issues of quality. Thats not to say that I'm unhappy with what is in the 'archive', far from it (in fact we will make them available at some stage as there is some good stuff in there) but I guess we had to make the leap from vintage keyboards, battered old microphones and analogue recording devices and into the world of recording with computers....Beleive me, this was a daunting prospect for a bunch of people who were primarily a live band and generally much more excited by pieces of kit that came with valves, dust and the likelihood of malfunction. The idea that you could have a recording studio in the shape of a home computer took a while to sink in...but it eventually did.
Such as it is, and to the best of my ability, here's the TECH bit....
I got hold of a computer from my dad. It's a pretty good one, so I'm told. It certainly runs fast and was capable of running Logic Audio, which was duly installed by a friend. I borrowed an external soundcard from another friend and purchased fine wine and 20 cigarettes in exchange for him coming to my house and making it all work. Once it did (and it didn't at first, which lead to the purchase of more wine and cigarettes on another occasion) we decided that we needed the best microphone that we could afford....
We ended up with an SE Electronics Gemini, which is a VERY good mike and pictured below. However, the story of the microphone and how it came into our possession warrants a post in itself and I shall leave it to Cam to tell that particular tale. He will hopefully change the names in order to protect the innocent....Incidentally we've been told that we're not allowed to smoke in the same room as it. We're not entirely sure why this is but we're doing as we were told. If anyone can shed light on this then please let us know...
Fully equipped with the recquisite kit we began in June 2005. We wrote, we recorded. We re-wrote, we re-recorded. We had a few rows and on certain days we gave up and went to the pub. However, where we are right now is with the bare bones of a pretty fine LP. There are 15 songs. There are more, but they can wait for the next record.
Bye for now......
