Tripwire Recording Blog: 12/01/2005

Towndog

I think I am allowed to announce this now... I hope so - well Coda Records can remove it if they want! But here it is.

Towndog: The Essential

Recorded in our very own Lagoon Studios.
Kelly Palmer on Guitar, Bass and Vocals2, and James Nimmo on Drums and Vocals1.

TRIPWIRE T's

Tripwire T-Shirts ..... Coming Soon,

X-MAS

Merry X-mas From The Drummer -Tyski- Have A Good One \m/ ROCKON \m/

Tripwire Site + New Promo Vid

I have yet again changed the face of the Tripwire Website..

The guys down at Coda Records have suprised me yet again, with a promotional video to promote the Tripwire e.p. There is a link to this vid on http://tripwire.net.nz, So check it out! There is a sneak preview of the new version of Steak And Kidney pie featuring as the soundtrack to the Video, which sounds mint.

Laters.

Promo Video

The kind folks down at Coda Records have been busy assembling footage from todays recording session and have already released a video for us! So check it out

Please select your quality preference:
Dialup (760KB)
Broadband (1.20MB) (recommended)

Day 6: Hopefully this is the last mother!

That title isn't really true, because it was the last mother, no hopeful about it. But a few people will hopefully get a chuckle out of it if they have heard one of Tripwire's earlier recordings. For other people who have no idea what I'm talking about - just drop it - don't even bother.

I think today was probably the most productive day we have had really - we were in there around 9, Kelly had slept in and woke up with a headache and feeling sick - but that possibly worked to our advantage, because by 1:03pm, Guitar and Bass tracks had been recorded for 5 songs, AND we had taken time out for a lunch break in there somewhere too! Good work Kel! Tyler came in too which was awesome give us some company, and helped us pack down.

So we had to carry everything back to the music room, was tiring.
It was sad... shutting the doors to Lagoon Studio for well... not quite the last time - but very close to it. Felt like the last time.

We took a backup of the recording computer, which is being stored offsite, and a backup of that is also being stored in Non Volatile Storage in a secret location. So if our two primary sites get bombed at the same time - it is nearly certain that our third copy will be in safe hands.

Kelly will now begin the long and painful process of mixdown - so hopefully he might post occasionally and keep us updated with what he is up to and how it is sounding.

Greets

His other pants are leather

Last of the drumkit

Stressy Stessinson

DI Dison again - just a cool pic

Songlist - crossed out means drum tracks done, two ticks means guitar and bass done. We forgot to tick off Let It Be.

Jay-amous mounting the monitors back on the wall

Meet the family: Marshy Marshall - which was solely used for our distortion, because its speaker doesn't work properly. So the guitar went in the front, out of the rear line out, into DI Dison, out of DI Dison into the bass amp, where it was picked up by Condensy Condensen, and the Inst Mic, and also DI Dison - so each Guitar and Bass line we had 3 channels for.

Channel list - we didn't have any masking tape to write the channel names on the mixer, so resorted to DOP (Dirty Old Paper)

Meet the family: Bassy Bassamp (Donated to the school by Tripwire - well - they paid for half of it and the school paid the rest. With our rockshop voucher from the rockquest)

Headphone Amp

Meet the family: Snakey Snakeson - played a vital role in recording. Couldn't have done it without you Snakey.

Meet the family: Tyski Tyskinson. No - Just Tyski. Also known as Tyler Rodden, Master Rodden, or Mr Rodden - or Duckbreath - just a few of the names he has been called over the period of recording. (Dont forget to pronounce period like Pico)

Meet the family: Wingy Wingnut (Look - I know its not a wingnut but ssshh)

Meet the family: D.I. Dison

Meet the family: Condensy Condensen

Making a mega mic stand - which we found was great for drum vocals

Oi! Oi! Oi!

A popped $2 shop stress ball, which found its way onto James' head, and many other objects throughout the day. Was great stress releif.

Kel on the drums... waiting for me to set up the next tracks on one of the songs, whilst I was taking photos of him.

Sadly Seeing The Tripwires Sun Set

The Day Has Come To Pass On A Memeory, The Day Has Come To Step Aside, As We (Tripwire) Put The Last Together We Become Not One No More We Devide

It's over

All drum, bass and gat tracks haave been completed, and are now awaiting mixdown. So over the Christmas break while everyone else is enjoying the sun and whatnot Kel will be hard at work, mixing down a draft instrument mix for us so early next year we can cruise in and do vocals. Now, its time to pack up :(

Wow we are on a roll! We have already done Evil Of You, Rage against the Wheelbarow, Blue and Gold, and Heartsick, leaving just Let It Be.

Evil Of You

Siiiick, have just finished recording Evil of You (Drum, Bass, and Guitar tracks anyway) which leaves us with Guitar and bass to do for "Rage Against The Wheelbarrow", "Blue & Gold", "Let It Be", and "Heartsick" today, and then pack everything up. Then we will return early next year to record the vocal tracks after a draft intrumental mixdown by Mr K D Palmer.

Click on the picture to watch the video of Chair Racing (591KB .wmv)
No chairs were harmed in the making of this feature presentation

Day 5: Bass and Guitar Tracks

8:32am I arrive on the school grounds. A quick inspection reveals (I feel like I have used those words in a previous blog.... not sure) that the school is inpenetrable. Front doors locked and the usual entrance gated up. So I walk around the outside of the school to the caretaker hangout, where I stand around for the next 5 minutes trying to find the caretaker.
8:44am The caretaker walks past, I interrupt him, ask if he can open up the lagoon for us. He says a contractor is coming in 10 minutes he just needs to sort him out, but after that he will.
9:04am Recieved SMS from Kelly Palmer reading "Lol k ill b there soon"
9:10am Recieved SMS from Kelly Palmer reading "Are u in? Let me in". I walk around the building whilst shouting Greets, and find Kelly waiting at the other entrance. We walk back around to wait in the courtyard for the caretaker.
9:20am Caretaker unlocks for us. Thanks!

And thats when times start to get faint, unmemorable, and fuzzy. So I will continue without respect to chronology.
So we mucked around some, but got pretty much straight into recording bass and guitar for something. As you may have guessed by the pictures, we didn't get that much done today - but it's extremely hard to be motivated at the moment. Kel has a huge job - playing bass, 3-4 guitar tracks, and then having to go home at some stage and mix and master it all for us! Good work Kel. So we did some songs, had some great chair races, got some food, got some more food, recorded some more, then got kicked out at about 3:30, because the caretaker was going home and needed to lock up.
So tomorrow morning we have to record 4 bass and gat trakcs, and pack everything up. :(

An unexpected guest (Ben Roper) and a lovely bit of lens flare

Play that trump

MYSELF

In The Lagoon Today Recording "Myself" Bass And Guitars.. sounding good. Accept Ive Been Peeing And Pooing All Over The Lagoon N Im A Peice Of Cardboard And Beeped Up Alot Of Dumming.Lol. N Kels Fiunding It Hard To Play Along And Finding It Very Frustrateing .. I Wish We Coulda Had More Time To Get The Drum Tracks Right. They Are Thee Only Thing Thats Bad So Far. "F'ing Tyler Rodden". Kellys The Man. Mean Jimmy Jack Tomkins Is The Man. N Will Keep You Posted Better Then I Have Done. I Just Wanna Make Shure Ya Know Thats If Its Bad. Its My Fault :) ROCKON \m/

Spot the fully fledged driver.. sorry what a lame comment. Dont you just hate it when you can't think of anything to say?

Its a trumpet duet...

Welcome to Lagoon Studios

Kel reassembling the chair he used as a tripod to photograph our chair races (coming soon)

A little cheeky birdie that was messing up the garden, while I was waiting for half an hour to get into the lagoon thismorning.

Totally unrelated, but this was my secret santa gift from the work dinner haha! And no I didn't call the number.

Also totally unrelated, but I like my bacon leaping out of its payn. Remind me to post an audio clip.

Greets

Mixing down a draft of the Sausage Song

Replacing a snapped stringy

Steak and Kidney Pie screenshot

Cubase SX

A tip for anyone using Cubase SX - when trying to Mixdown, ensure the bar between the Left & Right Selectors is BLUE not RED! We were trying for some time to export some audio, but kept getting an error "An error has occured!". After considering exporting each track individually to audition to mixdown, a quick search on the world wide web revealed that we had the left and right selectors inverted! : Now I really feel like idiot pants.

Day 4: Bass/Gat Tracks

Off to an early start today - I arrived here at 8:30 and proceeded to wind up Snakey Snakeson, and de-mic more of the kit and clean up ready for guitar/bass tracks. Kel turned up at like 9 then we decided we should have a go at covering Clowndog - Council Building. So we set up all the mics again lol, and then had a go at playing it, and neither of us could drum it very well so we gave up.
Then reconfigured all the mics and whatnot back for doing the bass track for Steak and Kidney Pie. Did that a couple of times, now we are just tuning up and changing strings for the guitar track for it.

If anyone is looking for a good free tuning program... check out "AP Tuner 3" (screenshot below - I didnt realise that doing a print screen captured

I'd like to thank Mixy Mixinson for kindly streaming all of our 8-10 tracks straight to our Cubase workstation, via a firewire card graciously borrowed from the school.
Also Mr Snakey Snakeson has played the vital role of a) having a cool name, and b) routing modulated audio signals from its head - to its tail where she plugs into Mixy.

Our gear consists of:

Phonic Helixboard 18 (Firewire Mixer)
30M snake with many a send and return
Behringer Headphones Amp
Philips Wireless FM Headphones
7 cheap unbranded microphones
1 SM57 Inst Mic
"The Big Mic" some fancy pants Behringer Condensor Mic
An AMD64 3000+ system running Windows XP and Cubase (supplied with mixer)
Dual 17" Dell Monitors (borrowed from Karoro Learning)
School Guitar, Ashley's Bass, School Trumpet and Xylophone
An assortion of headphones
Behringer Studio Monitors

The Tripwire E.P will be realeased by 'Coda Records'.

Day 3: Towndog

Today it was just me and Kel down at the lagoon, from about 2:30 - 5:30. In that time we just worked on The Sausage Song, which we got all done (not mastered of course) but it is sounding pretty good without fancy FX.
We may be back down there tomorrow, not quite sure yet. Still a lot to do... guitar and bass and vocal tracks for each song.
Also moved Snakey Snakeson so it wasn't slithering out along the corridor. So now the doors can be shut and locked at night so our gear feels a little more secure. Should be about finished with the drumkit now - we were borrowing mic's off it today as we recorded the bass to "The Sausage Song" with 3 trakcs (1 DI, 1 SM57, and the condensor). Then recorded the vox in stereo.
I tried to do a draft mixdown for you guys as a sample but it wasn't working. Hopefully it will work at some stage!

Towndog

We are just about to record the vocal tracks of "The Sausage Song" by Clowndog which we are covering, have done the bass and gat and drums for it. Not sounding tooo bad.
Anyway - back to work.

Drum Tracks

Haha we have 4.27GB worth of drum tracks from yesterday. A little more than I expected. I'm just at the studio now making sure our gear is still mint. We arn't doing any recording thismorning, I am just listening to Clowndog and considering moving Snakey Snakeson now that we have finished with the drum tracks.

Also, if anyone wants to go to King Kong on Saturday (assuming it is on then sometime, I will have to look) but I am wondering about getting a group together to go then. So contact me/comment on here if you want to go.

Day 2: Drum Tracks

Today was a fairly successful day really! We knocked off.. about 10 drum tracks I think?
The pressure was on a little as Tyler is off to Dunedin tommorrow for a few days - so wanted to get the drums done before he left. And we did, so that's awesome. The cleaners kicked us out around 6pm though.

Our first goal was to find a firewire card - to allow us to actually record. Thankfully, we stumbled across Ms Dupres while contemplating bowling down Mr Rowlands' door to get to the computer with it in. So we sweet-talked Ms Dupres into sweet talking Glenys to open his office so we could get the computer with the card in. And it worked! So plugged in the card and we were in like Flin. I just hope he understands and noone gets in trouble for it..

After a bit of mucking around with Cubase (we had never used the mixer before to record multitrack as it is just brand new) we worked out how to enable tracks for recording, and did some testing - wow - beautiful quality sound! (Apart from the actual mics being used, the venue, and the kit) It is interesting though because the drumkit definantly sounds better in the graphics room than it did in the music room. So that was another advantage for moving everything.

And that was it really, we recorded the tracks, I think 4 takes was the most for any one song. Unfortunately we didn't get time to record any Clowndog covers, but still might these sessions. Really want to cover some of their songs - and just for those songs call ourselves "Towndog", and send them into the podcast Spanky (clowndog's singer) runs "The Sound".

Until next time, rock on!

My Favourite Colour

My Favourite Colour is blue... but I say red because otherwise people think I'm depressed. And I'm not. So thats why I sometimes choose red over blue. It doesn't mean im angry though.

Tyski And James "Jack-Be-Nim The Caplital Letter Type A Guy Jimmy Jack John" Nimmo Chillin In The Lagoon

Console

Snakey McSnakeson

Chillin'

The list slowly getting crossed off

Refreshing on some of the lyrics - even though its not vocal day, just so I could sing along with the bois

Whatever Mayn

Band Camp

James trying to remember how to drum

Jack trying to fit inside a bin

Fooligan

Master Rodden inside the art room bin

Kel probably tuning after breaking a string

View out control room window

Mixy Mixinson

Lovely dual monitor setup

Cubase something

Double kick captured badly

Kel and Tyski getting in some last minute practice

Studio rearranged again

The kit thismorning, with fantastic dampening properties

Dont know what all that's about. But this is a lovely photo from 10:56am, soon after locating the firewire card, so nice and relaxed.

End of Day 1

So Tripwire rolled up to the music room at 10ish, and set out for a good old practice, after not having practiced for months. Just was designed to make sure we all knew the basic structure of the songs etc, as we will wing it when we hit the studio.
Lunchtime came, so it was off to Do-duck-in for an assortion of knots and pizza. We continued for a while before deciding what exactly we were going to use for our studio.
We decided on using the graphics room for our studio, and the sound "studio" as the control room - because conveniently it has a window looking into the graphics room. Unfortunately though, no cable ducts exist. So, it was a case of running the snake out the door of the graphics room, up the corridor, and into the control room via the computer room. A tight fit but just made it. However it did mean we have to leave 3 doors open that would definantly be nice closed.

So the snake was run, then was onto miking the kit. We only have one mic that is really appropriate for a drumkit, put that straight onto the snare. Using a condenser mic on the kick (simply because it sounded better than a vocal mic) and an assortion of cheap brandless microphones for the rest - with a total of 8 mics. Got them all running through the mixer... Ouch what a big job it will be to get it sounding good. But thankfully we can do 8 mic tracks straight to the computer, so no need for mixdowns yet. Also, the settings on the desk don't at all effect the signal put through to the computer, so we can have a totally independant mix on the desk for monitors etc.

Then there was the big issue... we needed a firewire card - and needed it now. There was one in a computer that is usually in that room, but the computer was missing, and found it was locked away in Mr Rowlands' office, because it is broken, while he is away on holiday in Australia. So I popped down to work to grab a firewire card from there- but unfortunately it was a useless Canopus EZDV card which only allows video capture through it. So will try and track down a firewire card, or if the worst comes to the worst, use a useless Celeron laptop that I had borrowed from work.

So we mucked around rearranging and setting up and practicing a little. And that was the end of day 1.