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

Recording Death Becomes Us!

So we have recorded a demo version of Death Becomes Us...We have uploaded it on MySpace have a listen and let us know what you think… Recording the song actually went much faster and smoother than I thought it would…I think that this also gave us the opportunity to work on certain parts etc that we were not entirely happy with…for example Chane has changed his vocal melody in the verses…

Even though I thought I would be nervous while recording my parts I felt completely relaxed and at ease but I did find it strange not playing with the whole band…I think Chwarren was the luckiest in that regard…he got to record his parts with everyone jamming along softly…

It was also cool to be a part of the editing and mixing of the song…it was interesting to see how it was all done…

Anyway…go have a listen now…

Chanya

PURE MOTIVE on YouTube!

We were fortunate enough to have our first gig video recorded!  I have to admit, and I think I speak for the whole band here, I was very impressed with the sound and everything on the video clips…and after watching the video I felt better about the gig…I realized that all the mistakes that we were all so stressed about were not even that obvious…

We decided that we would upload the good videos onto Youtube …one by one…every second day…in the end we had uploaded five videos which were; Death Becomes Us, Moonflow, Reach Out Quickly, Careless and The Fallen…unfortunately the videos for I Know Ledge and Machine Song had people walking in front of the camera most of the song so we decided to leave them out instead of uploading a mainly black video…and of course we had no intention of uploading the videos for the cover versions (Molly’s Lips by Nirvana and Fallen Leaves by Billy Talent)…

We were amazed at how many views the videos were getting at first but that has now slowed right down which is a bit of a disappointment…although it is quite awesome to have a look at the insights on the Pure Motive channel and see that we have had views from the USA, Germany, UAE and more…

We have since uploaded all of the videos on to our myspace profile as well...

Chanya

First Gig - Random Pics

It was during 2003, if memory serves me, that I first set foot on the stage of the Winston. It was late on a Saturday night. DJ Roy (remember him?) was blasting a random heavy metal tune out of the oversized speakers and wildly strumming on his air guitar. Many, many quarts had been consumed by both myself and my friends and we suddenly wondered what it was like to perform live. Navigating over to the stage, we glanced around like a naughty bunch of school children before stepping up onto the platform and into the spotlights. This was it! The DJ pumped the volume and we started jumping around to our favourite System of a Down song. In our minds, we were rock stars, but in reality, no one gave us a second glance.I dont blame them. In hindsight, I realise that we probably looked less like rock stars and more like a bunch of sedated and disorientated walruses.

Little did I know at that point that almost 7 years down the line, I would be performing on that very stage with an awesome band. Finally, this walrus knew what it was like to perform a live gig.
Thanks to Chane, Chanya and Chirley for letting me live the dream.

Keep rockin'

Chwarren out...

Twenty bucks for two bands... what a bargain!

 Instruments - Check!
Set list - Check!
Bottom half of silver mannequin - Check!
Umm... what?

Time to start the rockin'...

We're jammin'...

Our support looked like he needed some support himself!    "You guysh... *hic*... totally rock... *hic*..."

Pure Motive - The First Gig - The Winston Pub - Saturday 21 November 2009

Well…after counting down the weeks, then days and eventually hours, the big day (or night actually) finally arrived! Our first gig! Wow…The hours before we left to go set up seemed to drag on…forever…once we had set up it seemed like only minutes had passed before we were on the stage ready to play…While watching Outbreak play I felt nervous but okay…as soon as they got off the stage I felt completely overwhelmed…but once we were actually on stage ready to play I felt alright…I even managed to glance around the stage and pass a smile to my band mates…Then Chane announced who we were etc…he mentioned something about just wanting to play music and people started cheering…oh my word there were actually people watching us!!!! From then on I have to be honest and say I could not even force myself to look up…

I think we did really well as a whole during the first part of the gig…I think the song, Death Becomes Us, which we had chosen to open with was a good choice as it seemed easy to play and the crowd seemed to really like it…the first thing I heard while the last notes faded out was this dude that walked right up to the stage and shouted “You guys f***ing rock man”…that was really cool…

In the next song, I Know Ledge, another really cool thing happened…Shane is supposed to sing the first verse twice but missed the first time…when he started singing the next time round the same dude in the crowd started singing along as though he had heard the song a hundred times before! That was a really awesome feeling…many thanks to you random dude…

The crowd really seemed to enjoy our rendition of The Vaselines/Nirvana song Molly’s Lips! I could hear other voices singing “kiss kiss Molly’s lips” louder than I could hear Shane! Wow…I managed to glance up a bit on this one and saw some people rocking out…

Still feeling quite happy with how the songs were turning out…

In our next song, Machine Song, at first I had my doubts because in the intro Chane seemed to have forgotten exactly how it went but only for a few short moments before he went into the proper riff and Chirley and I joined in…This is also one of my favourites…I wish I was not as nervous as I was so that I could have at least nodded my head or tapped my foot a bit!

Moonflow is one of our oldest songs so we all nailed that one brilliantly, well I think so anyway…

At the beginning of Reach Out Quickly, Shane looked at me with a completely blank expression…then I positioned my hand for the intro and he followed…he later told me he could not remember how the song started! The rest of the song went really well considering this is our most recent song and we have only been working on it for about 4 or 5 practices and for only a few minutes each time…following in Shane’s footsteps at the beginning of the song, I could not remember how it ended and did not play my final chord…bummer!

Up until this point I think we did really well for our first gig…then we tuned our guitars down…during the down tune for some reason I could not get my 6th string in tune…and even after I eventually thought I did…Raymond came and told me it was still slightly out…Chane fixed it for me…luckily…

This was the moment I was dreading the most…our version of Fallen Leaves by Billy Talent…Chirley had begged us not to play this song! I was dreading it because of the intro riff which I play…sometimes if I get over excited I play it way too fast and then end up feeling so lost with it that I really mess it up…I was also dreading the solo part as I had not yet worked on the solo with Shane as we were meant to do a dual solo…at the last practice before the gig we had decided that this time Shane would play the solo by himself and I would play along with the bass…so that was still very new to me…I felt very comfortable when I started the intro…when Shane started singing I could hear his voice was straining…and then I started noticing other mistakes…We should’ve listened to Shirley and held out on this one a little longer…but I think the end result was not too bad…

In the beginning of Careless Shane just suddenly stopped playing his part of the intro…I hit a bit of panic and nearly stopped myself but somehow I managed to continue…Shane’s voice seemed to be okay again during this song…

Oh my word! The Fallen…our final and most difficult song! I completely messed up the intro! And then just stumbled my way through the rest of the song…I really screwed that one up…and it sucks because I had put a lot of work into it before hand! And to top it off I only realised towards the end of this song that I had not put my tone settings back to normal after changing them for Fallen Leaves!

I think overall the gig went well…Warren really performed the best out of the four of us! And he seemed so calm and focused the whole way through…Well done Chwarren!! I am really proud of you!

Just to echo Shane’s words…Thanks to Russell from The Winston Pub for arranging the gig…Thank you to Raymond for the sound…Thanks to Outbreak…Thank you to everyone that was there supporting us…Especially the random singing along dude…But most of all thank you to Chane, Chirley and Chwarren! You guys are the best band mates and friends ever! Well done…



Chanya

Pure Motive

Pure Motive - The First Gig - The Winston Pub - Saturday 21 November 2009

At about quarter past ten last night the four of us were ready. I announced something to the effect of: "We are Pure Motive. This is our first gig and we just want to play music!" We took one last preparatory look at one another before launching into the unknown. Warren broke the silence with his four quarter note drumstick clicks and then we all charged into the intro to Death Becomes Us. Our first ever live gig was finally underway.

Death Becomes Us

Our first live song went really well. I felt comfortable and I felt at ease hitting the high notes of a song that I normally feel quite challenged with. I think it was a great choice for an opener. The crowd seemed to warm to us immediately and were extremely supportive with a warm cheer rising in the room as we played the dying notes of the song.

I Know Ledge

I looked down at the set list and saw what song was up. I was still trying to remember how the song started when I looked at Tanya's fretted fingers ready to go. Tanya picked the opening notes and again we all crunched into the opening riff chords. In the heat of the moment I forgot to start singing the first verse so the song ended up with an extra long instrumental bit and a disappointed vocalist. I never let the second verse section pass me by and then we nailed the chorus home. During the next verse this dude in the front starts singing along with me and I could clearly hear him singing the repeated You said yourself's along with me despite the fact that this was the first time we had ever played this song live! It was a cool moment.

Molly's Lips

This is our warm up song during band practices. We always used to begin this song with some clicks from Chwarren but we recently decided to start off with me strumming the two chords frantically (similar to how I had done during a recent practice) because it just seemed right. The simple repetitive style of the song still allowed for subtle rhythm guitar variations and vocalisations and we all seemed pretty relaxed at this stage so the song really went well and The Winston Pub seemed to approve.

Machine Song

One of my favourite Pure Motive songs - it's one of our newest songs too. Warren's staggered drum beats during the verses really make my mind's ear smile. I began the solo in A Major and then switched to F# minor blues midway through for a bit of fun.

Moonflow

I have always liked the way Warren's drums kick in at the start of Moonflow and this night was no exception. We thundered away through the main riff and toward the end of the song I could feel my voice was straining.

Reach Out Quickly

For the life of me I could not remember how to start the intro for ROQ! It took me about tens seconds of deep soul searching to remember the Em riff was it. The rest of the song was awesome - we were still quite comfortable - this is our newest song and the chorus melody was given a major overhaul last week. My guitar cable came loose during the outro and so the sound of my guitar was gating strangely - thank goodness it was right at the end. Tanya forgot her snazzy jazzy chord at the end.

Fallen Leaves

We had decided upon this cover tune by each coming up with a list of thirteen songs and then democratically voting for an outcome. Fallen Leaves (Billy Talent) and Hurt (Nine Inch Nails) were tied for first place. We let Soma, our Siamese kitten, choose the song by letting him choose between a red sweet or a green sweet; he chose green which was for Fallen Leaves. We had to tune to dropped D before this song. I think I really managed to screw this song up pretty good - well lots of it anyway. Tanya's intro was spot on and I got ready to sing - my voice felt dull and I couldn't reach the higher notes in the opening line - it was like an instant blow to the head and my chords went right out the window. Shirley was not amped on playing this song at all tonight and had even requested that we skip it - maybe that would have been a good idea! At least Tanya and Warren enjoyed it. (Note to self: Will need to work on this one a bit more...)

As a curious side note; before the bands began to play last night, Sepultura's Born Stubborn blasted out of the speakers and of all the Sepultura songs that could have been played by Raymond, the d.j., little did he know that he had chosen to play a song that had made it onto our list of possible covers.

Careless

This is the first song we worked on as a band. I seemed to be really struggling with intros tonight and in this one I stopped playing halfway through the intro thinking that it was time to start the verse. I sheepishly strummed some chords till the actual start of the verse arrived on cue thanks to the rest of the band. Thank goodness there are no real high bits to sing in Careless so the singing was OK. Maybe I was overexcited at the start of the concert and used up all my voiciness.

The Fallen

This is our most complex piece of music. Tanya had been working on her intro solo part a lot in the days leading up to this moment and it went horribly wrong for her - but we all knew this bit would be the most difficult to pull off and we waited for her to piece it together and then we were all back on track for the remainder of the song. The heavy building riffs near the end of the song felt like quite an appropriate end to our first live event.

I am really stoked about how our first gig went and am so happy that a place like The Winston Pub is right here in our city of Durban. Thank you to all those who listened to us and cheered us on - it really makes a huge difference. Thank you to Russell for arranging our gig and responding to our request to play at The Winston Pub in such a swift and positive manner. Hopefully, over time, Pure Motive will build up a bigger following and we can bring more people to this cool venue. Thank you to Raymond for doing such a good job with the sound and the lack of equipment (i.e. only one little guitar amp and a bass amp) at our disposal. Thank you too to Outbreak, all the way from Port Shepstone, who performed on the stage before us.

Chane

Pure Motive