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Following our bewilderment at the resounding success of our Clocks cover, we decided we should calm down. Then we did this.
Never mind the fact that it took us nearly a year.
All parts tracked on a Dell XPS L502x, equipped with a PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL and FL Studio 10.
Guitars were tracked with an Epiphone Les Paul Standard. Completely stock, filed down the frets and the headstock had completely snapped off at one point; now held on by epoxy. :D Ernie Ball Regular Slinkies.
Guitar processing is Native Instruments' Guitar Rig 4 Pro. JMP and Plexi models were used, and run through Poulin LeCab 2, which loaded RedWirez' Marshall 1960A cab impulses. The Neumann KT84 mic was used a lot. The rhythm and lead parts ran through Waves' Kramer Master Tape for an analog and colorful sound.
Bass was tracked using a several-years-old Squier MB-5. All stock, pretty sure only the neck pickup worked at the time. Ernie Ball Regular Slinkies.
Bass processing was fun. I used Native Instruments' Guitar Rig 4 Pro again, but only the Pro Co Rat stomp model before running the track through a Fender Rumble 100. The preamp out then went back into Guitar Rig, where I used a special combination of cab settings designed to make a deep but distinctly colored sound. To aid that, I used Kramer Master Tape to fatten up the low end.
Drums are all Superior Drummer 2.0 and the stock Avatar kit. Some processing was done inside SD2.0, and bleeds are all enabled. Outside of that is FL Studio's stock compressor set for transient content, and iZotope's triode-modeled tube exciter module. On the ambient mics, I used a high pass and slammed Kramer Master Tape for a bigger room sound. Then it's onto some compression and limiting on the drums buss, and another Kramer Master Tape. That compresses the whole kit the way tape does, and gives it a meaty edge in the character of tubes and tape combined. Big cymbals, big toms. Love it.
Synth is Native Instruments' Mikro Prism, set to the preset "Lonely Molecules." No tweaks. Beautiful pad right out of the box. And it was free. Thinking about getting Prism though.
Piano was played by yours truly, no sequencing this time. Minor edits to certain notes, but otherwise it's just me playing my M-Audio Keystation 49e right into Pianoteq.
Vocals were once again recorded in Reid's garage/bedroom. Or is it bedroom/garage? Reid, as usual, sings lead, and I sing background. Same setup on both tracks, minus the echo on my tracks.
We used a Shure Beta 57A, iZotope Ozone 5, FL Studio's Reeverb 2, and Guitar Rig 4's Roland RE-120 tape echo module. Manual correction was done in Celemony Melodyne, but I assure you, we didn't auto-tune anything. Not with Auto-Tune, and not with Melodyne's "Correct Pitch" macro. All that we did was by hand alone.
Although we pretty much didn't touch the cover for a good four months, I worked painstakingly on the mix once in a while, working hard for a bit then putting it down again, until it reached this point.
This is in fact the final mix! No more updates, I'm pretty happy with how it sounds.
Go find the "SD2.0 ... Test" sounds on my profile to see what the drums used to sound like.
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