Studio Diary – 04/19/08

“The State That We’re In”

Finished the majority of the bass lines in the verses & choruses.  (Both synth and bass gtr). There is now several tons of synth performances to sift through and determine what to use and what to cut.

“Within Your Eyes”

Music tracks have been updated and somewhat re-constructed.

“Hollow, In Vain” [working title]

New track in the works.  In the writing stage of pen, paper, a drumloop and piano. Seems to be taking on a theme about egocentric, vain, shallow and  plastic empty “shells”.  We’ll see how it goes.

 

studio diary 4-11-08

At the end of May, mend are scheduled for a week long trek to Sun Valley where we will be hard at work in a studio there.  We’re getting our “homework” done to make our time there as productive as possible.  We’re basically getting our “demo” versions of songs lined up so we can make them as album worthy as we can.

Kind of a slow week due to school, work, and life in general, so nothing worth documenting here this week!

Looking forward to working on our black & white concept. But first things first.

Here’s to another another week…

::toasting a beer to all of our friends::

-From camp mend

photos posted

Added some photos to the visuals page.

studio diary 4/5/08

“the state that we’re in”

Spent some time working on the chorus, specifically the bass and guitar tracks.  Was shooting for a Peter Hook sound on the bass.  Plugging straignt into the board made it sound too pretty….like phil collins (aaahhhh!)  Then the effects made it sound too thin.  Mic’ing it up and running it through guitar rig made it sound much better.

Recorded a couple dozen takes and will come back to it later with fresh ears.  I’m learning that dwelling on a particular part for too long will not only make you insane, waste time, hard disk space, and fatigue your ears, but suck all of the life and inspiration you initially started out with.  Best to go with your first instincts, make the best possible recording to make mixing easier, and move on.

Besides, you can always go back and remix multiple versions later!

Once the bass & guitar tracks are done (the “bed” of the chorus) it will be time to break out the synths.  Will probably be some minimal modular synth patches tweaked to hell.

basic vocal melody is written but the lyrics need work.  It’s mostly sung in gibberish to be translated into actual words later! 

When completed we’ll post all of the final tracks on mend-remix.com for anyone to download and remix. 

 

Digital Distribution

We’ve setup accounts and uploaded “In Spite Of It All” to the following online retailers:

Amazon

iTunes

Napster

MusicNet

Rhapsody

eMusic

nimbit

Word is, that it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple months  before our accounts are available, but they should be up and running by the time the new “CD” is mastered and ready for release.

studio log – March 29th

recording updates.

“Left Behind”
Music is complete, just vocals left to record. Performed this one live for the first time in January.

“Liquid [Beta Mix]“
Drum tracks & bass tracks finished.

“Unfulfilled”
New mix, new arrangment completed. All that’s left are vocals. Considering this has been a staple in our live show the past 2 years it should be a quick recording effort.

“the state that we’re in”

Completed drum programming for a new song, working title: “the state that we’re in”. THe tempo had to be doubled to achieve certain rhythmic effects, so it’s at a mind boggling tempo of 252 BPM.

The loops were created with the Waldorf Attack Drum module. The waldorf attack is an older plug-in but one of the best sounding replications of the old Roland TR series analog drum machines. And most importantly it’s easy to use.

So the bulk of the drum loops were programmed in Ableton with the Waldorf Attack. A combination of stock sounds and samples from the mini-moog (the hardware version). The bulk of the processing went through a chain of outboard gear. It’s too easy in the digital world to make music with your eyes and not your ears!  High hats were done in reason so that the gate times could be tweaked in real time.

Now that the core of the loops are done they’ll still be chopped and tweaked in ableton for the final production.
On to the rest of the song.

Free MP3’s available

A handful of free downloads from “In Spite Of It All” are now available under the CD01 page.  Includes some outakes and unreleased tracks.

undergoing construction

 welcome to the new mend web site.
It is currently under construction, but check back for new updates.
The site should be fully operational by March 31st.

For further info, email us at info at info@mend-music.com

Also check out www.mend-remix.com, our new interactive remix community site.