Demo Recording Sessions – Death Becomes Us (2009)

Over the past few weeks we have been busy recording the first of our demo songs. We decided to begin with Chwarren’s drum tracks and to add a more natural feel to the songs we opted to record these parts without a click track. This has helped make the tracks sound more vibrant – more like a live recording. During the first evening we found that two of our three microphones were faulty so we were left with only one Shure SM57 to rely on. Our solution was quite simple. We hooked up a pair of PS2 SingStar microphones directly into one of the PC’s USB ports. We have been using these to record rough versions of our songs during practises too – they work surprisingly well if the recording volume is set really low. We stuck one near the snare and one in the freshly cut kick-hole of the drum kit. We turned down our guitar and bass amps to a volume that Chwarren could only just barely hear and then we played along with him live as we recorded his drum tracks. The PC we have been using to record is an old AMD Athlon XP 1600+ 1.40 GHz with 512 MB of RAM. The raw drum tracks were recorded using freely available Audacity software. The SingStar mics did a real good job and the resulting drum sound was surprisingly well balanced and natural. We recorded two song’s worth of drum tracks per practise over the course of a couple weeks. Chwarren’s preferred method was to have the entire drum track to a song recorded in one take – this worked out quite well considering the fact that we were using no click tracks. We did each song over again and again until Chwarren was happy. He then decided which was his best version and this became the drum track that the rest of the song was built upon. Chwarren’s chosen drum track was then saved as a stereo wave file and then imported into Cakewalk Home Studio XL 2004. The stereo track was then split into two mono tracks so that the snare and kick parts could be edited separately. All recording and editing from this point on was done in Cakewalk.


It was then my turn. The trusty SM57 was placed just to the side of the centre of the guitar amplifier’s speaker cone. The microphone was fed through a micro mixer to boost the volume and then straight into the line-in on the PC’s onboard soundcard. We then recorded my parts as I played along while listening to Chwarren’s beats blasting through the headphones. This process was repeated over and over until I was happy with all the parts and then we edited the best bits together into a single guitar track.

Chanya then played her parts while listening to both Chwarren’s and my parts. We recorded her through the SM57, the micro mixer and the same amplifier. Once Chanya was happy with all her parts we edited them into another single guitar track.

I then listened to the combined drum and guitar tracks in the headphones and sang through a piece of stocking stretched over a loop of coat hanger wire into the SM57 until my voice was hoarse. We then pieced together all the best sounding parts and saved them as a single vocal track.

Chirley then played along while listening to all of our tracks in the headphones. The SM57 was positioned slightly off the bass amplifier speaker cone’s centre. Once she was happy we edited all of her best parts into a single bass track.

While editing the early version of Death Becomes Us (now referred to as the 2009 version) we made the drums sound bigger by adding a clone of the snare drum track and panning it to the one side with a bit of reverb. We then added another clone to the opposite side with no effects. The third snare drum track was positioned in the centre together with the kick drum track with some high frequency boost added (twice over). The bass track needed a touch of high frequency boosting and some compression. All that was added to the guitar tracks was a bit of compression and then these were panned 95% left and right. The vocals needed a high frequency boost and some compression. Once the volumes were sorted out the tracks were mixed down to a single stereo track. Lastly, a bit of tape simulation (medium saturation) was added, then the volume was normalised and the track was exported to wave file format.

Since uploading Death Becomes Us (2009) we have been tweaking the mix and are hoping to have the new version ready shortly along with all the rest of the songs we have been recording.



Current Pure Motive Equipment:

Chane plays an Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus-Top (Heritage Cherry Sunburst) fitted with DiMarzio PAF pickups through a Boss DS-1 into a Behringer AC108 Vintager 15-Watt Vintage Guitar Amp with Vacuum Tube.

Chane sings through a Shure SM57.

Chanya plays an Epiphone Les Paul Junior (Satin Black) with P-90 pickup through a Boss DS-1. During practice Chanya plugs into the same Behringer amplifier that Chane uses.

Chirley uses a Phil Pro bass guitar (Fireburst) into a Laney HCM65B Hard Core Max 65-Watt Bass Amplifier.

Chwarren uses a standard five-piece Century drum kit (blue) with Century skins on all the drums apart from a missing bottom skin on the high tom and Remo Pinstripe skins on the snare. The cymbal collection consists of some decent Sabian hihats, an old Century crash (warped to death and currently mounted on an old microphone stand) and a new Century ride (thanks Jason).

 
 
Chane
Pure Motive