lead up to the AWAKENINGS release. pt 3: What processes did you go through to record the album?

Whats happening Filthbitches? Hope your all doing well! Since our last blog, the tour has kicked off nicely, with our newest member Alex on bass guitar, firmly in the thick of it with his Sa-Da-Ko baptism of metal on full tilt with 4 gigs in a week- he's defo one of the family now and we are more than happy to have him!! Look out for a quick blog from him on wednesday, where he talks about his experiences joining us dick heads on the road! We are all looking forward to smashing more and more venues in the near future, so keep ya eyes peeled for when we are near you!

Gonna outline the processes we went through this time round, in part cock shitting 3 of how the titty fucking christ on a bike we wrote such a fanny tingling nipple popping ball sack emptying bastard of an awesome album.... or, in other words, some techy shit about gear we used etc; hope you enjoy!

Awakenings was created first as a concept, with practices revolving around writing songs, gathering riffs, beats, vocal hooks, breakdowns etc. This took a good few months all together, before we felt we had enough quality tracks to put on an album. The album was recorded at the home of Sa-Da-Ko "AkU studios" on a Mac running Pro Tools 7.4 with a fuck off massive mixing desk- so you know it must be good! 

Gregzilla was first up, recording drums using a set of AKG drum mics and 2 overhead condensers on a custom Pearl kit, comprising of kick drum, vinnie paul signature series snare, floor tom, 3 rack mounted toms and more cymbals than you could shake a stick at, which he did incidentally, and he hit them too- which was a good start for a drummer lemme tell you! anyway, I digress... The drums were multi mixed using a mixture of live and triggered sounds to keep the kit sounding clear and natural. We opted for a tighter capture on the overheads compared to other records to create a claustrophobic feel and to accentuate that feeling of having the band right there in your face! The full 12 tracks were finished up in true Gregzilla superhuman smash style  over one weekend!!

Simo and Jay were next up on guitar duty, with Simo opting for a Peavy 6505 head with a cab his dad used to own which he loves for clarity and a dirty as fook bottom end. For recording, a mixture of his live sound, an Ibanez custom with EMG85s into a BOSS GT8 multifx for distortion and other bits crossed with a separate sound taken from a Digidesign 11 rack unit. Jay used a Marshall JCM900 head through the same cab, but with his Schecter Omen with passive pickups into a GT3 for distortion and fx, and doubled it up using the same Digidesign 11 rack unit. The cabs were all miked up using a Shure SM57 and all quadruple tracked using the different set ups for a wider sonic feel. Quickly, I just wanna give a big shout out to Jay Dean who has sadly decided to call it a day with us after this album due to work and family commitments, he  remains a great friend to the band and what a face melting legacy he left writing some big ass riffs for this album- cheers man!!















Bass wise, an Ibanez running straight into an Ashdown Superfly head was used. The signal was split using D.I. and a cab miked up using a D1100 kick drum mic. Once the signal hits pro tools, The D.I. signal was distorted using Sans Amp which brings out the highs while the kick mic handles the high pressure and captures the lows. Overall it took about 2 weeks to get all the guitars and bass down.

Jim went sick on the vocals using a handheld SM58 while Simo was on clean vox duty in the control room using a standing SE2000a condenser mic with pop shield taking about a week in total to record all vocals.

After all that was recorded, and between Simo and Greg many a long hour sat in the studio cutting down audio clips, it was ready to be sent off to be mixed and mastered by Legendary UK metal producer, Dave Chang. Dave took about 3 weeks in total passing tracks back an forth with us to create a polished album that we are proud to say is ours. Everything sits in its own space sonically, and sounds so big its unreal! Big thanks to him, he did a great fucking job!!!

So thats it- Awakenings... sorted, hope you enjoyed reading it- not long to wait now till the album is upon you filth lickers.... not long!

Stay classy!

lead up to the AWAKENINGS release. pt 2: What's with the name; what you all about?

Hello again! we are back with another exciting installment of Sa-Da-Ko motherfuckin facts for ya!

As we explained in the first post, on the lead up to our first full length album release we are doing a little series of blogs for you to get into our mindset, and hopefully understand us a bit better, know why we do what we do, what drives us etc, 1. to (hopefully) get you excited about the release, and 2. so when it comes out you gotta bit of background to it, and appreciate it a bit more...

So first up, the name. We for some reason, have a LOT of trouble with our name. Other bands get it wrong, fans of the genre get it wrong, venues get it wrong, promoters, reviewers, you name it... all get it wrong. Its not like we picked a really obtuse hard to pronounce name either, and its split up for you too- could we make it any easier... sheeesh!!! lolz!! Back when Sa-Da-Ko was a home studio project, Simo decided upon the name using The Ring as inspiration. The Ring is a 1998 Japanese horror film by Hideo Nakata. There was an American remake more recently  but that was balls, Sa-Da-Ko fact there bitches, anyway, the film centres around a cursed videotape, which brings death to all who watch it. A great psychic called Shizuko Yamamura commits suicide, passing her abilities to her daughter, Sadako Yamamura, who psionically made the videotape- and the assumption is that Sadako is dead and it was her vengeful spirit that killed the teenagers. Go watch the film if you wanna know more Filthlickers! Exploring the origin of the name, brings another interesting fact to light, Sadako is a Japanese name used for females. The same name can be written with a variety of Kanji, and the meanings of the name differ accordingly. So basically it means different things to different people, something which we try to do as a band, steering away from traditional "metal" names and deciding on something with a variety of meanings- meaning you decide what you want us to be to you!!

So now you see, thats the name taken care of, were not a number puzzle or any other combination of 6 letters, heres a list of some we have genuinely been called, either on the net, posters and programmes, and the worst being a Tshirt, although annoying, it has become a bit of a running joke between us and our fans, leading us to jokingly refer to ourselves as "Skidadle" lets hope this clears up the confusion, and people stop being fucktards ;)

"So-Da-Ko  So-Do-Ko  So-Du-Ko  Sk-Da-Ko  Sa-Do-Ko  Sa-Da-Ku  Su-Da-Ko  Sa-Do-Ka"

You get the picture...

So thats the name, what's in a name hey... Its the music that does the talking surely? In the Awakenings album, we cover a lot of different elements, which we naturally do as a band. We all have different tastes of music, and try and fit elements of all we like into our songs. Obviously a common love of metal as a whole binds us together, but all the different sub-genres too, and different styles. So musically you've got elements of Classic metal, Hardcore, Djent, Thrash, Math, Death, Nu etc, which is probably one of the reasons we do peoples head in, cos we try an stick a bit of everything we like in there! Vocally we cover subjects from apocalyptic visions, political frustrations, Folklore and cultural mythos, to my own misanthropic views of the world and other such dark subject matter- tackled from an almost hip hop style of rhythm at times. But essentially we are about the groove- getting your head bangin an the pit erupting is what we essentially set out to achieve. We make music that, we hope, makes you wanna go sick; that empowers you and makes you feel good! Music that puts a big fucking smile on your face, makes you raise ya glass in satisfaction, then turn to your mate next to you, put ya screw face on and nod appreciatively...

You can take it as deep as you want to do- If you wanna learn every riff, beat and lyric, finding the true meaning of the songs- cool thats awesome, you gotta dig deeper for that shit, but if you are just a casual listener thats cool too. We aren't about  writing songs so complicated, extreme or so impenetrable that no one knows what to do when we hit the stage, nor are we basic and boring, we just do what we came to do, and we have fun- That seems to be missing from the scene in general at times. Sometimes people lose sight of why they got into metal in the first place, and are so bogged down with tryin to label things and deem them "metal" enough for appreciation- So shut up, stop being a judgemental prick, crack open a beer an listen to some metal, LOUD!!

Right, I'm off to eat bacon, and perhaps an egg, cos I'm edgy like that.... Be back in a couple weeks where we will look at the actual album closer, and the processes we went through to develop it.

Check out the website for where to catch us live- back on it BIG TIME, we got loads of gigs comin up over the next few months, so I expect to see some familiar faces there yo!!

Take it sleazy filthlickers- catch ya soon!

Music Video Release

Just a quick note to say thank you for everyone involved in making the video and everyone who attended and threw down on the day.

Here it is...................Limit of resolution taken from the forthcoming album “Awakenings” 25/5/13

Sa-da-kO, Collibus, Oceanis, Bloodyard, This is Turin

Not too long until we are back bobbing about in venues, in the meantime Deathwave entrainment have released this poster for the upcoming show in April.

https://www.facebook.com/events/419025061510324/?fref=ts

The event will be held a the pool saloon on the 20th April, to find out more or join the facebook event please click on the event poster above.

Laters