Rince and Repeat
January 8, 2008
Let me preface the following by saying that in this band we all love each other and would never wish harm on one another in any sort of tangible way. Yet - when the time comes to set tempos for our songs... all bets are off
It starts when Jason turns on the metronome... a cube of plastic that ticks incessantly like Satan taping his finger nail on a chalkboard made of screaming cats. And of course, in order to hear the ticks (read: cat screams), we need to turn the stupid thing up to 11 because thats the only volume at which Ian plays (he is a gorilla after all).
Usually we can where some sort high-range-canceling ear gadgetry... but we like to keep the passage ways open when we're recording to make sure we don't miss anything important.
Once we've all wiped away the brains dripping from our ears, and accepted the fact that we'll all be deaf by time we're old enough to run for president, we turn our attention toward the task at hand: arguing about how fast our songs are supposed to be.
We never argue more in this band then when we try to figure out timings for new songs. That is to say, Ian wants the tempo one way, I want it another, Jason wants to switch tempos for the bridge, and Edilson wants them to stay the same. Rivera is a pacifist when it comes to timing fights so he usually just sits in the corner with arms folded.
Even being a musician, I can just barely tell the difference between 172 beats per minute, and 174 beats per minute. So you can imagine how fun it is to try playing a song at 170(which is fast), 172(which is still fast), 174(fast again), and 176(finally a little bit faster) and pick which one I like the best.
Its kind of like going to store and picking the best smelling tube of tooth paste.
... try it ... i dare you ...
Eventually, one of us will pick up on some subconscious cue (read: guess randomly) and proclaim that 172(which is still fast) is the best choice. From there it can go one of two ways:
1) we all agree because we are tired of playing the song.
2) mud wrestling.
Because Edilson was an all-state wrestling champion in high school*, he usually pins us quickly**. After we clean the studio to prevent the mud from damaging out gear - we move on to the next song - "rince and repeat".
And thats how we start the recording process. I'll see if I can get some mud wrestling pics up later this week.
~Ray
*this isn't even remotely true
**not as awkward as it sounds.
It starts when Jason turns on the metronome... a cube of plastic that ticks incessantly like Satan taping his finger nail on a chalkboard made of screaming cats. And of course, in order to hear the ticks (read: cat screams), we need to turn the stupid thing up to 11 because thats the only volume at which Ian plays (he is a gorilla after all).
Usually we can where some sort high-range-canceling ear gadgetry... but we like to keep the passage ways open when we're recording to make sure we don't miss anything important.
Once we've all wiped away the brains dripping from our ears, and accepted the fact that we'll all be deaf by time we're old enough to run for president, we turn our attention toward the task at hand: arguing about how fast our songs are supposed to be.
We never argue more in this band then when we try to figure out timings for new songs. That is to say, Ian wants the tempo one way, I want it another, Jason wants to switch tempos for the bridge, and Edilson wants them to stay the same. Rivera is a pacifist when it comes to timing fights so he usually just sits in the corner with arms folded.
Even being a musician, I can just barely tell the difference between 172 beats per minute, and 174 beats per minute. So you can imagine how fun it is to try playing a song at 170(which is fast), 172(which is still fast), 174(fast again), and 176(finally a little bit faster) and pick which one I like the best.
Its kind of like going to store and picking the best smelling tube of tooth paste.
... try it ... i dare you ...
Eventually, one of us will pick up on some subconscious cue (read: guess randomly) and proclaim that 172(which is still fast) is the best choice. From there it can go one of two ways:
1) we all agree because we are tired of playing the song.
2) mud wrestling.
Because Edilson was an all-state wrestling champion in high school*, he usually pins us quickly**. After we clean the studio to prevent the mud from damaging out gear - we move on to the next song - "rince and repeat".
And thats how we start the recording process. I'll see if I can get some mud wrestling pics up later this week.
~Ray
*this isn't even remotely true
**not as awkward as it sounds.
posted by ray at
2:13 PM
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