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!
