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!

Studio update part 2

SA-DA-KO IN THE STUDIO -UPDATE

Things are moving nicely in the studio at the moment and we are pretty much finished on tracking the entire thing so we can now move towards mixing the damn thing.

It seems to be taking forever and we can’t wait to start showing off some of the new tracks.

The good news is we seemed to have upped our game tremendously from a writing point of view and there’s moments of pure brutality intertwined with dark moments of tranquillity, I’m getting all fuking emo now but anyway heres a vlog update of what we’ve been up to this week

Metal Album reviews

Rock on Promo review of our sick ass e.p.

Aw hell yeah, hows it goin Sa-Da-Ko peoples?!
We are busy as hell this week, sortin more T.Shirts, makin sure the Cougar is roadworthy, fitting actual seats in the back with actual seatbelts, and ensuring the set is enough to flatten a few buildings!! And what's this all in aid of I hear you ask... well, I'm glad you enquired as to the nature of our industriousness... We are takin the "I see them" tour down south for a couple of dates, This Friday (26th) we are delivering a sucker punch to "the pig in Paradise" in Hastings, following it up with a roundhouse kick to the face on Sunday (28th) at "the Gaff" in Islington.



So as you can imagine, we are all lookin foreward to taking the Sa-Da-Ko slobber knocker down to a new audience, and also as very hard workers in the music world ourselves, its allways good to get a bit of recognition for your efforts, and this came in the form of a lovely little review of our album, Zer01, from the team at Rock on Promo, reviewed by Roz Edwards... So, how can you get to this website and read it??? Well we have put the review in its entirety just below, but, as ever click on this badboy link, and tell em Sa-Da-Ko sent ya, and check out their other offerings cos its dead good and what not!!! :)

When you think about the heavyweights of the local music scene, they don’t come much heavier than Sa-Da-Ko, and their debut album Zer01 is definitely a hard hitter. It doesn’t take long to notice a definite Slipknot influence, but as long as you draw the line between influence and imitation that’s no bad thing, and Sa-Da-Ko certainly have enough of their own style to pull it off. Not to mention some seriously talented musicians.

The album is well produced, successfully loading as much overdrive onto the guitars as possible without sacrificing all clarity of sound. Sadly the vocals haven’t fared quite so well: it’s not often you find a singer sounding better on stage than in the studio, and although the overall effect still works, the vocals might have been better left raw.

There’s definitely something satisfying about Sa-Da-Ko’s music, especially Red, a murderous anthem that never fails to get a pit going even in the smallest bar. With an opening lyric like “You never looked better than when you were lying in a gutter in a pool of blood,” you can either run screaming or go ahead and scream along, basking in the horror. At Rock On Promotions we think the latter is always the better option. Sticking with horror, Zer01 then descends into the twisted remnants of what might once have been a lullaby. Smother is a fitting follow-up to Red: if the aftermath of a brutal murder was ever expressed in sound, this is it.

Ju-On is another heavyweight with a catchy chorus, followed by Echo Relocation, which slows things down a touch to create a real sense of torment. Li features one of the most addictive riffs of the entire album, and Name Your God is a powerful closer. There really isn’t a bad song on the album, and if anything the biggest downside is that, at just over 30 minutes, it’s all over too soon.

- Roz Edwards

Anyhoooo, check the site out, and if any of you stinky buggers are about London way, pop in an come and see us Fri or Sun...

one love Sa-Da-Koers

Recording Metal Tips and Tricks

Recording your own material is hard, not because of the techniques or work involved but because of how critical you become of your own work.

When we recorded “zer01” I remember we spend one evening discussing EQ’s and moving one fader up and down by millimetres over the space of about 6 hours during a mix down.

Now that the albums all done and it looks like we’ll have it available all over the top download sites in the coming months, we’ve started to discuss the possibility of a second album and it means I get to look over my old recording notes, reference material and start prepping, while doing so I stumbled across some great resources and thought I would publish it on the blog. It’s easy to forget the recording process and the creative side of being in a band while promoting and treating it like a business so rather than doing one of our band marketing hints & tips blog I thought I would start to give some serious hints and tips about the recording side of things.

For our first one here are some hints and tips from a couple of my recording heroes explaining how they do things.

You can also check out some of our own recorded material on the Sa-da-ko myspace or by checking out our Sa-da-ko Reverbnation Tune pack here, let us know what you thing and we not share some of your own production tips on the blogs comments bit.