After a couple months of delays, we got back to finishing up the first EP for orange is in, entitled “Snacks.” Yesterday represented the final day of recording, thankfully.
Recording Snacks has been an interesting experience. Just like the EP for Slapshifter, demo-lition, it was all recorded in my guitar player’s studio. And, like Slapshifter, Chris did a great job engineering.
The main difference for me was the involvement. With Slapshifter, I was primarily a bass player. I played some acoustic guitar and sung a little background vocals, but that was really it for the recording process. Even though I tried to help Chris with the mix, he was mostly on his own.
With Snacks, I’ve been much more involved even turning knobs in certain situations – particularly when Chris is recording guitar parts. As much as I enjoy the studio, I’m glad this is nearing a close. I learned alot about the process and it will certainly help me improve next time out.
We did my background vocals and I replaced an acoustic track on one song. I also recorded tambourine and we finished off Chris’ guitar parts – really just a pair of solos.
We go to mix on Saturday, which should be interesting. We also will master it with Chris since it is only an EP/demo. No reason to spend a ton of time, which is something I learned about the process – don’t waste time.
Having seen what a drawn out process can do both for organizing a project and for the morale of the players, I realize now that getting in, being efficient and getting done is really important. When orange is in does a full-length CD (probably next spring), I’m not going to allow it to go more than 6 weeks from the first punch of the REC button to the completed product returns from the duplication service.
Truth is, with planning and pre-production, it doesn’t need to take long. In reality, if none of us worked, we could probably knock the whole thing out in a couple weeks. But, six weeks is a good span. It leaves time to listen to mixes and make decisions about what works and what doesn’t without taking weeks and weeks for that process.
Now, with mixdown on Saturday, I’ve been going through discs I want to use for comparison purposes. I’ve found this to be extremely helpful in getting good quality recordings. So far, I think it will be a combination of probably 4 or 5 records:
Danny Wilde/The Rembrandts – Spin This
Really well-produced recording even though it was released about six years ago.
Duncan Sheik – Daylight
Different from us, but the production value is terrific and it has great drum sounds.
The Finn Brothers – Everyone is Here
Not quite as rockin’ but very similar to what we are doing. Great record by the way.
Fountains of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers
I don’t really care for the song, Stacey’s Mom, but this is a great band with a really great production value.
From what I’ve heard of Snacks just during the recording process, I’m really happy with it. There are some great moments on there and some even better performances.
Our release party is next Friday, October 29 at Rudyard’s and should be fun. We are actually giving the CD’s away at the show. We thought that would be better given that they are just EP’s and it would help bring people out to the show.
Once this is done, it will be on to finish Peter’s CD.