I couldn’t have looked more silly if my legs were wiggling about in the air.
“Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa… Ok, found it… what note is that?”
Silence greets my question. I pull my head out of the bass drum and look at Alex, who meets my gaze with the business end of his camera phone. So you recorded that, ya bastard, I think to myself. I walk over to a guitar and hum the note to myself, looking for its match on the fretboard. E flat. The bass drum resonates in E flat. To get the biggest, most booming sound I can, that’s what the new drum skins arrayed on the floor around Mez will have to be tuned to.
Alex can’t really believe it’s taking so long to tune the drums, but man is it worth it. Eventually even Mez gets bored and goes home early for a “3 course meal”, smug look on his face as he leaves me and a practically weeping Earl to finish fine tuning the drums, ready for the first new album recording session tomorrow morning. Who needs instrument techs? Eventually the drums are tuned and in place. Up go the microphones – I’m trying a new drum miking technique, aply named “the recorderman method”. It’s supposed to get a tight and punchy drumkit sound. Will it survive my idiocy? We’ll see about that. I grapple with a tape measure and enlist spare hands to hold lengths of rope for me while I place the mics. With that sorted, Alex’s bass tone takes all of 5 minutes to set, fine tune and test. We perform a little victory dance, and leave for the night to go and get a Tesco pasta meal. One course, of course. More gruel, sir?
Friday night comes and goes. Saturday morning is cold but fresh.
We’re not your typical rock band, a fact the empty streets around our studio complex probably didn’t appreciate as we pulled up before the doors even opened, early on Saturday morning. The complex owner arrived and let us in. Safely in the warm, Mez and Alex make hot drinks. I opt for a tasty red cylinder of sugar (coke) and a little red square of sugar and wafer. KitKat – Can’t Record Without One (still waiting for my endorsement money Nestle!). It’s cold in our studio, and while the electric radiator does its job Mez warms up with some paradiddles, and Alex uses the time wisely to berate friends and loved ones. Sickened by his cruel duplicity, I call the session to order. Time to do something worth doing.
I pressed record.
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