Mixing the EP Mixing the EP

Hi Witches fans - Martin here

Dave is complaining that he always has to write the blog - so I'm having a go.


Recording an album is a funny old game.

You spend hours in the rehearsal studio writing songs and everyone has their own bit which they've written and you finally go into a recording studio to record it and finally everyone gets to hear what you do properly.

Why now? Well - when you rehearsse you have a drummer in the room with you - so everything is really loud and while you get the overall sound and feel - nothing is really clear.

In a recording studio it's - well - different.

You start by all standing in the room with headphones on - and you play the song - much as you would in rehearsal. Then everyone complains that they can't hear anything properly because you all have headphones on - and everyone wants to hear something different. This is acheived by having a headphone mixer - so each person has their own individual mix of how they want to hear the song - so for example the bass player will want to hear lots of drums and bass and a bit of vocal so they know where the changes come - but the guitarist (me) will want to hear just the drums and guitar and a bit of bass and a bit of vocal and definately the keyboards - so you all have to adjust everything.

And finally you press the record button and you're off.

Then you get this thing called Red Light Fever - which is when people suddenly realise that this is it - and you are putting something down for the whole world to hear (or your mates - depending on how good and popular you are) and panic sets in - and the first few takes of a song are always rubbish - because people need to relax a bit.

But finally you get there.

But actually you're not there at all - because all you really wanted to record was the drums - everyone else is plugged straight in so there are no loud amplifiers in the room to interfere with the drum recordings. Once you get the drums down - you then start recording each instrument individually.

And at this point - you get to hear what everyone else is actually playing - because what the engineer hears is again different from what the band hears - and he has solo'd your part and is listening to it under a microscope so to speak (can you listen under a microsope?) - and so is everyone else who is not playing - and you find out that what is being played on one instrument doesn't neccesarily tie in with what someone else is playing - and you have to change it. Sometimes this can be a bit of a political exercise because people can be a bit presious about stuff - and sometimes it's easy.

It also means you finally get to hear properly what is being sung - which can sometimes cause great hilarity - I remember one occasion back in the days when I used to think I could actually sing and fronted a band when i got to the end of the vocal take and there was a long silence - and then a voice came out in my headphones saying - "er - could we maybe take a look at the lyrics Martin - there seems to be a few concerned faces here".

I always imagine that happening in the studio when "Gay Bar" was recorded ....

So there is potentially a lot of compromising - although I reckon that the less you have to compromise because you're all reading from the same hymn sheet - the better the song is - and the better the band is.

Finally - after all that - everyone has played - and everyone has sung - and you have brought in additional people to play stuff to make it sound even better (or worse) by adding flutes and cellos and saws and bagpipes and stuff - and you end up with loads and loads of music - and you then have to mix it - to get all the levels right - and make sure everyone is happy.

In the old days of tape - you had maybe 24 channels to play with - which meant that you played your instrument once because you couldn't do 16 guitar takes - there just wasn't the room - but now in the digital age you can do 16 guitar takes and keep them all and then pick the best bits - which is great unless you're the one who is deciding what the best bit is.

And finally when that is decided - and everyone is happy - well - you're done.

But it takes forever to get it just right. Back in the days when we'd load all the gear in the van and head out to the middle of nowhere to a studio and record everything live in a day and come away with a finished mix having handed over our bouncy cheque it was all so much easier - but it was also so much worse - I have real problems listening to some of that stuff now.

So anyway - at the moment - we are in the middle of deciding what stays and what goes and whether we really wanted to put that bagpipe on the song anyway (I can say this safely because there is no bagpipe on anything - more by luck than judgement though - the bagpipe player had a blowout in his bag and couldn't play).

But on the bright side - 3 of the songs are pretty close to being finished - and the other two have some minor decisions to be made - but - hopefully by the end of the weekend everything will be in the can as we still like to say (along with "We're rolling" which is a lie because that refers to the tape spools going round and round - and there isn't a tape machine in sight in the studio - it's all on computer - but saying "we're commiting to disk" just doesn't sound as Rock).

And while all this is going on we are fitting in Gigs (Clapham was great - thanks everyone for coming along - Witney on Saturday night if you can make it) - interviews (we did a radio interview last week and Jo couldn't make it - but Rich's better half stood in - which was great since she has a broad American accent and said stuff like "I'm just here to rawk"! which had us all in fits of laughter) - photos - rehearsals.

And then we have to decide what goes on the release for the end of the month ... oh blimey.

But it will all be done by the time we turn up at The Cellar on the 31st. And I'll be the one with the grey hair - because I have to try and co-ordinate all of this - keep everyone happy and produce something which will make us world famous.

That was a long blog wasn't it.

I don't think Dave will be asking me again.

Cheers
Martin