Destroying It Yourself - album recording diary (of sorts)

So I've finally set to work getting my first proper album up together...its working title is "Destroy It Yourself" as those are literally the only words that my brain doesn't immediately reject when I think about naming the beast...plus it's quite apt for the way I do things; recording, engineering, producing (ish), it all on my own.

I've tried doing recording blogs before, but whereas bands in studios tend to have lots of interesting things and adventures to write about the studio/city/country they're in, or can have one member writing/editing and uploading video whilst the others work hard...it's kinda difficult to do that when you are sat in your home studio* doing endless takes, on the fly mixing, and hoping that your fingernail doesn't completely disintegrate / 9 month old kitten doesn't spack out and ruin all the guitar takes by meowing outside my door / computer doesn't fall in half and lose everything..........that's more or less the beginning and end of my adventures.

Oh and the occasional stroppy "THIS ALL SOUNDS LIKE FUCKING SHIT" impulse that makes you want to burn down the entire neighbourhood just so that you can have a valid excuse for not recording anymore & not letting anyone hear what you have done so far.

But a few technical issues, broken strings, and the gradually disappearing right index fingernail aside I think things are going pretty well - I have 8 songs (out of about 15...11 of which will end up on the album) guitar-ready, and waiting for my voice to feel like it's ready to roar, as opposed to the croaking it seems to be fond of at the moment.

I did have to rerecord everything I'd done at one point mind.......not due to stroppiness, but because I changed my miking technique from L-R stereo miking, to near/far (wherever you are) which sounded an absolute fuckload better. As well as the mics, there's also a DI going from my guitar pickup, which is adding a nice (ie: nasty) edge to it as well. Couple that with the fact that each song has two guitar takes, with the far mic and DI hard panned left and right for each take, and the near mic panned to 50%, and it's sounding pretty ace when turned up loud at the moment.

It doesn't sound quite as good turned down quiet...but then again who wants to listen to music quietly? Especially my sort of stuff.


So yeah, that's probably all there is to say from the last 3 weeks of work (and one week of sickness, bleurgh). If you want more up to date stuff then I'm hashtagging my tweets with #destroyityourself before/during/after each recording session, so you can see what I'm thinking there.


Looking forward to sharing this when it's all done.




*read: spare bedroom.