Studio Diary - 2006

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Monday, February 6th, 2006
Half Zaftig at The Central

Yeah, Half Zaftig played at the Central! It was fun and stuff. Sorry I never got around to writing anything about this gig...I think it was the first HZ gig with just the trio of Yogi, Pete and me, and we were there at the invitation of our #1 fan Hodgy for his special birthday bash show. This would have been the first time I used my double amp rig, with dedicated distortion. I'm sure I was too loud but it sounded killer onstage. No idea whether it came across properly to the audience, but whatever! A bit much to haul for a gig at the Central, but I was too excited to try our the setup at a show. I think the soundguy took my DI off the Demeter (clean) preamp, and mic'd my 2x10 distortion cab, mixing the two channels.

We were all a little bit nervous, this being our first time on stage in a long while, and for me it was my first live gig for several months. We all had our share of screwups, but these things are all forgotten pretty quickly. We premiered several new songs that have never been played live, these will be on the new album being worked on. We had a great time helping Hodgy celebrate his birthday. Homewrecker also played, as well as Hodgy's band Buttafuko. Hodgy came onstage with us to play a cover of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl. He played a shreddy solo at the end of the tune. It was great fun!

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
Lyranthe at Studio Seven

Seattle progressive metal band asked me to play a gig with them, their bass player had quit the band. I agreed, and I had about a month to learn the tunes and rehearse with the band.

There was a huge crowd to see the headliner, Sonata Arctica. This meant lots of people jammed up to the stage who'd positioned themselves a couple hours earlier as soon as the doors opened.

We played right before Sonata, which meant we had the whole crowd either watching in rapt attention or else they were bored out of their skulls, it was hard to tell which. Because all of Sonata's gear was backlined, we didn't have a lot of room to set up, which is typical and was expected. Still, enough room for me to rock out crammed between keyboards and drums.

There was some confusion about bass rigs. Apparently the sound man assumed I was going to share the same bass rig that the first two bands had shared, and he was upset at me for "not telling him" I was using my own rig, as if it was my fault. No one said a thing to me about sharing any gear, and none of the other musicians shared any gear other than those two bassists. I don't even know anyone in the other two bands. Anyway, it got sorted out and we crammed onstage and got ready to play. The soundman threw a mic in front of my cab, no DI. We were all pretty amped up at having such a nice crowd. And a little nervous...all the material being performed was completely new, never played live and in fact some of it was not even finished being written.

Our first song starts with a big low B from my Carvin LB75 through my 2000 watt rig. YEAH! It sounded killer. Then, after about 10 seconds, my rig got quiet and then cuts out. I looked back at it and one of the amp lights on my power amp was off which told me it had shut down. Then I noticed most of the stage lights were off and it didn't seem like a coincidence...in fact the name of the song is Darkness so it was fitting.

My power amp is actually two mono amps, with separate power switches, which I run in bridge mode. One of them had shut down while the other was still on, and all I could think was that it went into protect mode for some reason, maybe the house power couldn't handle it. I or something might have tripped a circuit breaker. I hit the power switch on that side, waited what seemed like an eternity but was really only a few seconds, felt around the back and made sure the speaker cable was securely in the jack, and flipped it back on. A few seconds later it lit up and my sound faded back on. I was back in by the time the verse began. which is about 45 seconds into the song. The amp stayed on the rest of the set, like a good little amp should. Whew.

Now is when I realize how cold my hands were, no matter that I'd spent the last 20 minutes stretching and trying to get my hands warmed up. The club was FREEZING to the point where my toes were cold, and that means the bass was cold, so no matter how warm my hands got, they wouldn't stay warm til the bass warmed up. And that wasn't until after some time under the lights on stage. Then I was friggin hot as heck.

Anyway, my hands were not ready to play the song we were playing, which contains a lot of fast 16th notes and tricky little runs all throughout that I have to nail with the whole band in unison. And I'll bet the tempo was too fast too. Well, that sucked, but I figured it would get better. Meanwhile, I'm looking at all these kids at my feet who are just looking across the way at Peter, the singer. He sounds like a cross between Geoff Tate and James LaBrie. Pretty good in other words, if you are into that sorta thing. I couldn't really make any real contact with the audience, so I looked everywhere else. I spotted my husband up in the balcony watching the show with Ms. Charlie Drown. They were digging it, so that was nice to see. Still, I'm wondering if the kids getting a blast of my rig in their faces are noticing my crappy playing.

On to the next songs...I clammed a few things but it wasn't too bad. Everybody in the band clammed up a storm at one time or another but there were no train wrecks, so that was good. We didn't play too badly overall, and it turns out people really dug us. We rocked things pretty good and I got lots of nice compliments. Maybe it was the leather pants I was wearing?

So, overall a great and exciting night in spite of the problems. We got a good reaction and I met some real nice folks who enjoyed the show. Sonata Arctica was pretty good too.

I will be doing at least one more gig with Lyranthe, and this will be opening for Spock's Beard in May at the same venue. I can't even tell you how excited I am about that...they are one of my favorite bands ever.

Back to the studio with Half Zaftig!

February 12, 2006

Day 10 of HZ album project - some backups

Yogi spent the whole weekend in the studio working on guitar stuff. Pete and I showed up on Sunday for a couple hours to stand around a mic and sing some group backups for Inscrutable You. These came out quite nicely, and now I can say I've sung with Charlie Drown!

That's it, short and sweet!

February 18, 2006

Day 11 of HZ album project - drums and bass!

At last, more drum tracks to be recorded! And this time, we are tracking the bass and rhythm guitar at the same time. Yes folks, it is possible for musicians to play in a room together and record the results. And have them be acceptable.

Last night we all showed up at Darin's with all our gear and set up with the intention of everybody playing as a group. The plan was to get, at the very least, drums and bass for 2 songs and also one other cover song that is just fun to play. We also rented a Fender Rhodes from a friend (keyboardist/producer David Loy) for Pete to play the piano part on Inscrutable You.

Set up was going great until we got to the bass rig (Demeter VTBP201s into a Stewart power amp, bridged into a Bergantino HT322 cab). Kept getting a nasty hum whenever plugging in the DI, suggesting a ground loop problem. After trying many different solutions, what ended up working was plugging my rig into the same outlet the gear in the control room was plugged into. Hum gone. I guess you get that kinda thing in an "amateur studio with a simpleton for an engineer". Just kidding, Darin! By the time that all got figured out it was very late and we went home without any sound test like we were hoping for.

Today, Pete and I picked up the Rhodes from David and brought it to the studio. But the first order of the day was to get in there and start making noise like a band. Our testing song was Cinnamon Girl, the Neil Young song. We played it onstage at our gig a couple weeks ago, with special guest Hodgy lending a hand on guitar. It's such a cool tune that we thought it would be fun to throw it down. And so we did, while Darin made tweaks to the monitor mixes and everything else. We got a good enough take of that song, playing it a couple times. Who knows where that will end up. I used my Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass, tuned to Db-Ab-Db-Gb.

Then it was on to a new new song, called Fair Use. This is a poppy little tune, with some Rush like chords and rocking. There are some nice stop-time figures we all play together and were able to get pretty tight. Once we got a mostly good take we patched up a few drum bits, then took a break for dinner.

Upon returning, I patched up some things in the bass track, some bits got fixed all Pro-Tools style, and some I went and re-played while Darin punched in all old-school style.

By the time that was all done, it was getting a bit late, so we discussed either calling it a night or taking a crack at the Rhodes part. I thought we should at least set up the piano, and everyone agreed. So Pete and Darin got that all set up. This particular model Rhodes is the kind that has a big built in speaker cab that the piano sits on top of. David had rebuilt the cab, which apparently was in pretty sad shape when he bought the thing many years ago. At one time he was gigging extensively with this rig and by the battle scars, it has obviously seen some serious action. Darin put two ribbon mics on the cab, one for each speaker. It runs in stereo for that trippy vibrato thing that Rhodes' do.

When they got it all fired up and Pete played a few chords on it, we all sort of swooned at how great it sounded. There's just nothing like a real Rhodes. Since we were all excited now, without anyone even saying anything we just went ahead and started tracking the part. Pete got comfy and played great. Yogi was very happy with the results, it really seemed to fulfill his hopes for the track. Which is coming along very nicely, in fact.

THEN it was late and we called it a night, very satisfied with the work accomplished that day.

February 19, 2006

Day 12 of HZ album project - more drums and bass

When Pete and I showed up in the morning, Darin was listening to the tracks for Fair Use. We thought it sounded pretty darn cool…and when Yogi showed up we talked him into keeping the guitar tracks he'd laid down the day before with us live. He wasn't that jazzed about the tone on it, but either we convinced him or he changed his mind!

So the first thing to do was for him to make a few fixes on the track and double some sections while he still had the amp dialed in with that tone. This went smoothly and everyone was happy with how it sounded.

Next up is a new song called Mold On My Soles. I switched to my Fender 5 string Jazz and Yogi got set up with a Vibro-King and dialed in a cool tremolo sound. We ran through it a couple times, then decided it would be helpful if Yogi did a guide vocal. It did indeed help, because I play a few things along with the vocal that I might forget to do if it wasn't there for me to reference. The song is still too new for me to have a perfectly established part, so there's still some spontaneity in it.

We nailed the first half of the song within the first couple takes I think, then punched at the solo section and played from there to the end. Had to do that a few times, then had a take that Pete liked. Then I fixed up some parts of the bass track. On the solo section of this I play a Tony Levin-inspired figure that is kind of tricky because it involves sliding chords and double stops around. So I had to redo most of that section, but was able to get it within a few tries.

Next, Yogi wanted to try some percussion effects, and he worked with Pete on those. Then it was time for dinner, and we headed over to our regular haunt, the Red Robin.

With full bellies and cups of coffee in hand, it was time for Yogi to fix up his guitar track while he had the amp dialed in for this song. There are lots of really weird chords in this tune, so, some time was spent getting them all to come out right. By the time that was finished, it was time to call it a night and a weekend. We packed up the gear and headed on out leaving Darin alone with his kitties.

This weekend was certainly productive! We got drums, bass and rhythm guitar for three whole songs! Plus the Rhodes part on Inscrutable You. Next weekend Yogi will continue to work on stuff, which I'm sure you will be excited to read about over on his studio diary.

(Well I done forgot all about this crazy diary thing. Time does fly! I guess I should mention a few things about the last few sessions, even though it's now September and I've missed my diary entries for a few sessions now.)

March 4, 2006

HZ album project

Ok, it's pointless to log how many days worked on the album, since I'm not present for all the work being done. Namely, Yogi's guitars and vocals. So I'm dropping the whole "day _ of album project" thing. Hope you don't mind.

Vocal sessions can be fun but they are really not my favorite thing to do. I am not that comfortable as a singer and I am not "trained in the arts". So there are times when Yogi asks me to sing something in a certain way and I just don't have the skills to do it. Or what he wants just doesn't come out of me naturally and I have no idea how to make it come out. And then at some point the farting starts and we double over in laughter for several minutes and have to stop to compose ourselves. This is the most fun thing about vocal sessions.

Anyway, on March 4 some vocals got recorded. I'm writing this in September so I don't remember all the specifics…but I did a few parts by myself for Numbered Days and SublimeinAl. Then we switched to some group parts where Pete, Yogi and I gathered 'round the mic and belted it out together. This was for the song 10 Print which at the time didn't have a keeper drum track yet. Some wacky stuff on that song…wait 'til you hear it! The other thing we did was the bridge vocals for Cinnamon Girl, which is just me and Yogi yelling together.

March 11, 2006

HZ album project

We recorded bass and drums for the song 10 Print today. I don't remember a whole lot about this session, except that it took me some time to get the groove right for the verses. Even now, hearing a rough mix, I'm not sure if I completely nailed all of it. It's a tricky little thing, that groove. Quirky with lots upbeats and such, and not much going on in the drums so I kind of have to carry it myself. There are also some tricky lines where I double the guitar, leading into the second chorus that took some punching to get right. Same goes for the heavy solo section where Pete does some crazy drum fills. It came out very cool though.

July 14/15/16, 2006

HZ album project

We recorded bass and drums for two more songs, namely the Van Halen cover "In A Simple Rhyme" and an original called "Dusty Demonatrix". We did the usual Friday night set up to get drum sounds as well as bass and guitar. Oh yes, while loading gear out of the rehearsal space my Bergantino 2x10 cab took a tumble off the loading dock. It was all Pete's fault for putting it on that stupid homemade dolly that resides in the hallway at the rehearsal space. You know, the one with no brakes on the wheels and it rolls wherever it wants. Such as off the loading dock when unattended for a moment. No harm was done, except to my paranoid mind all the way to the studio, concerned the drivers had torn themselves from the baskets and my cab was toast. Not to worry, it was fine. Those Bergantinos can take a beating AND 2000 watts of headroom. Actually there was one small issue with it while getting bass tones, where it was farting out, but it cleared up when I backed off the bass boost on my Sadowsky preamp/DI.

My set up was as such: Fender Jazz V plugged into a Sansamp DI which went straight to the control room. Not sure which preamp Darin ran it through it there but it sounded sweet. Using the parallel out from the DI I ran into the rig: Sadowsky preamp/DI, Demeter VTBP201s tube preamp, Stewart 1.6 power amp to the Bergantino 2x10 cab parked in the little iso booth. I believe the mic Darin used was an AKG "Egg on a stick" but I'm not positive on that.

Next morning we ran through the Van Halen tune several times til Pete was happy enough with a take that he could keep and patch up. Yogi played live with us, and kept all of his takes in which he played the solo. He later comped them together for a single guitar track that goes through the whole song. For fun, he made a rough mix of it with all five guitar tracks on. When it gets to the solo, with 5 going at once it's pretty funny to hear.

After Pete fixed a few things, I fixed a few things in my track. I forget what, but little fills here and there and anywhere the groove wasn't happening or the odd finger slip occurred. Oh whoops, did you guys think I actually played well?

Next was "Dusty Demonatrix", a rather nasty ugly song. It requires tuning my low B string down to A. Maybe that's what was making my cab fart out…we did a few takes of this as usual, til Pete had one he could keep while fixing a few things. The thing that most concerned him about this one is the ending where he goes off playing all kinds of crazy double bass stuff. I think he actually finished that up on Sunday after a good night's sleep. Apparently playing many takes of crazy double bass stuff wears him out. Go figure!

When he was all set, I went in to do my entire track over. I have been playing this tune in rehearsal with my fingers, but that was problematic due to the low tuning and the need to have a really consistent attack. So I opted to play it with a pick for a much cleaner attack that was much easier to control. I also brought along my Roscoe LG-3005 5 string just in case, because it has the greatest B string ever, but using a pick on the Fender worked out fine.

I had been playing some live shows with a metal band (Charlie Drown) for a couple months before this, so playing super aggressive and mean wasn't a big stretch for me. This attitude was absolutely required for this song. Once I got my track down, we started getting creative.

Near the beginning of the song there is a part which we call the "vomit". It's just that…a vomiting of sound. Darin had the idea of having me play something on his acoustic bass guitar. We tuned the low string (normally an E) down to an A. It was all gross and floppy. Darin mic'd it up and I played the "vomit" part on that, double tracked. It was somehow perfect. I also played some stuff you might hear on the ending section.

The next thing we did was have me and Pete both playing the vomit on some drums. They did something wacky like put a kick drum up on some chairs and Pete used some sticks with socks wrapped around the ends like mallets to play the part. I played, with my limited drumming ability, on one of Pete's low toms. And finally, we all (including Darin) gathered around a mic and did some vocal vomiting. I'm not sure exactly how this will all be mixed, but isn't that what vomit is anyway? We were all quite pleased with this strange combination of sounds.

August 31, 2006

I came in on a Wednesday evening to do some vocal bits that Yogi needed just me for. Little bit parts for Mold On My Soles", "Dusty Demonatrix", "Sublimeinal", and "Fair Use." Not much to say, but we got all the little parts Yogi wanted to get done done.

September 9/10, 2006

Half Zaftig album project

At last, I'm back to the present. Or the recent past! We did our last "weekend band session" for this album! Pete played his last drum track. The plan this weekend was to record basics for the last song, "Handbasket", then get some backup vocals done with all three of us.

Did a Friday night set up and got drums, bass and guitar sounds. I had the exact same setup as last time, running a DI straight off my Fender Geddy Lee Jazz bass (tuned down to D-flat, A-flat, D-flat, G-flat), then a parallel out to my Sadowsky preamp/Demeter tube preamp and Bergantino 2x10 mic'd with the AKG Egg On A Stick. We did one run-through of the song, then headed home.

Saturday we arrived at noon and got started. Pete and Darin worked with one particular drum that was "dead sounding" and bugged them. I also requested to take another bass track off my Sansamp Bass Driver DI for some grit. We may or may not end up using it. I definitely will want some gnarly distortion on this tune, for which we'll probably use a plug-in.

Once all that was sorted, we played through the song once, I think, just to warm up. Then we did one take, after which we went in to listen and Pete deemed it suitable for patching up. ONE TAKE! I think that's a first for Pete. Of course then he spent the next hour and a half fixing up a few bits, but still.

Then it was my turn. I kept a large portion of the track I did on that take, but replaced all the choruses that just weren't coming out strongly enough. I used a pick for this song. It's a hard rocking, simple, plodding riff-tastic song. I love it. We'd jammed on the verse and chorus riffs way back when I first started playing bass in the band, and I'm so excited that Yogi was able to turn it into a song so we could record it and get it out there. I think people are really going to like it.

During the bridge section, which is a little bit Zeppelin-ish, there is a build-up part that has been murky as far as what I was going to play. I thought of some ideas for it, but I also wanted to leave some of it to spontaneity in the studio. Uh, that didn't really happen, so Yogi helped me come up with something specific to play. Since what we came up with was a totally new and weird part I had to practice it a bit to be able to remember it enough to play it. This means having Darin loop the part and let it play while he goes to pee or grab a drink or otherwise step out for a while. I got it, though…ok, so I had to punch in a couple notes where I hit a chord in the middle of it. You can't tell though. When you hear it you will think I am the most awesome bassist ever. Oh, and I happen to know Tony Levin does this punching-in thing too. So there.

Finally I got all that done and signed off on it. Yogi ran off to grab some Submarine Sandwiches for everybody and we took a little eating break. Next up was some group vocals. We had another couple hours to get some stuff done.

Can I just say something? Ok, thanks. Singing three part harmonies with three people in a room together, being recorded all at once, is flippin' hard. There, I said it.

So we attempted to sing the three part harmonies on the chorus of "Handbasket" for the next two hours or so. By the end of it I think we maybe got the first chorus before moving on to the bridge, which we actually did get done. It was a little depressing. We did rehearse the vocal parts, and knew exactly what we were supposed to be singing. But the execution is another thing. And for some reason, Yogi writes these really weird parts over weird chords that are a real bee-yotch to sing as a group. And then once we started in with the farting, it was all over. For some reason bodily function noises are so much funnier with a live mic in the room, and headphones to pick up every nuance. Oh, and the burping too, since a certain someone had been drinking a carbonated beverage from the local Submarine Sandwich Shoppe. Gawd, I don't think I've ever heard more burping in one sitting than on that day.

We came back the next day hoping to do more of this fun stuff. After more struggling to all sing in tune together, we ended up tracking everybody separately. That seemed to get results but it was still pretty slow going. And poor Darin then had a gajillion more tracks to deal with and keep "track" of. What we got done, and it was less than we were hoping to get done, sounded fantastic. And don't worry, there won't be any burping or farting on the album. Vomiting, yes.

Pete and I had to leave for a rehearsal, but Yogi continued with the work and played some tracks using my Taylor acoustic.

I still need to play bass on one and a half more songs, then all the bass will be done for all the songs we have so far. There are still some vocals I need to do, but the bulk of the work is on Yogi to finish lead vocals and guitars. We're getting there though!

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Other links you might enjoy (will open in a new browser window):

Half Zaftig website
Yogi's website
Pete's website
Darin Di Pietro's website

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