To-Mera recording blog

Julie’s last day of vocals. nearly finished!

tomeraband — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:40:02 +0000

Julie’s now putting the finishing touches to her vocal recording. Tomorrow will be the last day and will be used to go over what we’ve done and to double (and triple!) check to make sure everything is right before it’s taken away for mixing.

In the meantime, here’s a few pics of Julie doing her thing:

I’ll tryand take more pics tomorrow

Lee

day ?? – Keys are done, vocals have started!

tomeraband — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:45:58 +0000

We’ve had no update for a few days now, and I’ve lost track of what day we’re on now. Sorry about that!

But Hugo came down and did a couple of days of keys and Julie is on day 3 of the vocals. It’s all coming together amazingly well!

Hugo was a bit camera shy unfortunately, but I did manage to get a snap of him eating a biscuit

Brett is never as shy…

More tomorrow!

Lee

day 14 – the bass is done!

tomeraband — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:14:05 +0000

Well, officially Saturday and today were days off, but today I had to drag Brett back in to finish off. He was very disappointed at having to leave his cherished “Allo Allo” DVDs behind at the house, but it had to be done

Anyway, I managed to finish the bass parts and here’s a couple of pictures to prove it:

There’s no videos obviously. Who’d be crazy enough to want to listen to the bass on it’s own??!!

Tomorrow Hugo will let rip with some keyboard insanity and I’ll be keeping you posted of the progress right here.

Until then…

Lee

day 9. The guitars are done!!

tomeraband — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:09:46 +0000

I didn’t manage to get anything from the session yesterday, but I thought I’d save it since I knew that Hugh was coming in to do his sax stuff today which was always going to be fun. His part is for the song “Asylum”, and the middle section has a groove based instrument trade-off section, where the guitars, keys and drums all get a few bars to improvise. Since Hugh joined us for the last London show and let rip on his soprano sax we figured it’d be great to get him to do some stuff on the album too. Note that the original video was shot on my digital camera at a 90 degree angle, and rotating it has caused it to look a bit squashed

Tom’s part is from the song “The Lie” which turns into a keys / guitar duel on one of the mid sections. Hugo will be playing a harmony at the same speed over the top of this bit, and the end effect should be awesome.

So now all the guitars are done and dusted, Brett will spend tomorrow re-amping the guitars though some better cabs and checking over what’s already been done to make sure it’s all in order and nothing has been missed. Saturday is a day off and then the bass starts on Sunday.

day 7 video madness :)

tomeraband — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:29:26 +0000

Tom started on the “heavy” stuff today, and I managed to get a couple of clips before the battery ran out on the camera (silly me..).

Both parts are from the song “Mirage”.

Enjoy!

More tomorrow!

Lee

Day 6 piccies!

tomeraband — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:16:55 +0000

As promised, here’s a few pics. All the clean and acoustic guitars are now done.

More tomorrow when the heaviness begins

Day 6 – The guitars have started!

tomeraband — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:56:02 +0000

Well, it’s day 5 in real terms since yesterday was a day off, but to avoid confusion…

Tom and Brett are busily ensconced in the recording room, and started on the acoustic guitars this morning. I have no idea how far they gone and what they’re up to, but I’ll be popping down there later to take a few piccies.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of pics from yesterday’s day off. It was lovely weather (maybe us Brits will be getting a summer after all?) so Tom, Julie and Brett went punting in Oxford, and I went to Reading festival and got drunk and sunburned

laters

Lee

Day 4 and we’ve finished the drums :)

tomeraband — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:53:11 +0000

Well, Paul has worked miracles and we’ve managed to shave a whole day off of the schedule so far. Amazing work, especially considering the complexity of what he’s had to play. I was hoping to be able to post a snippet of video that was taken earlier when Paul was pounding through the 11/16 drum solo in “Glory of a New Day”, but the sound came out all weird unfortunately

Julie took these “action” pictures though, so enjoy!

We have a day off tomorrow, and then we’ll be starting on the guitars on Sunday. Stay tuned

Lee

Day 3 begins – so far, so good!

tomeraband — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:46:59 +0000

We’re already well ahead of schedule, with the drum recording for four songs completed in the first two days. So far we’ve done “The Lie”, “A Sorrow to Kill”, “Asylum” and “Inside the Hourglass”.

Today Paul starts on what is arguably the trickiest songs on the album, “Temptation”. It’s the first song to be almost entirely written by Hugo. He’s not really familiar with a vast majority of metal stuff and therefore he’s managed to write a song that is still defiantly metal without it sounding like any other band I can think of. It’s genuinely original (and very strange in places too, hehe).

Anyway, I’m glad I’m not in Paul’s shoes (or army boots!) today, as the rhythm parts in certain sections are a total bastard! Still, I’m sure he’ll tackle it like he does most other things and make it look deceptively easy as usual :)

Lee

A few pics from the first day

tomeraband — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:38:08 +0000

Well, it seems that Paul has almost finished recording the first song “The Lie” and all is well on schedule.

Here’s a few pics: