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Studio Diary Pt. 7

Writer's picture: Lynnette ShelleyLynnette Shelley

This past Wednesday on a very cold and windy day, Scott, Brandon, and myself (Lynnette) drove to Orion Studios in Baltimore again to record some additional parts on our three final songs: "Pearl Grey", "Fever Dream", and "Fool Again". Orion co-owner Joe Tracey and his assistant Tristan engineered for us.


I know I normally write the blog posts, but I got Scott and Brandon to send me their thoughts on the recording process.


From Scott:


That was my first time recording acoustic guitar, a finger picked section intended to open "Fool Again". It's much different than recording electric guitar, not much room for error, and I don't play fingerstyle very often. But I think it works very well for this song. Anyway, with two close mics and a room mic, it ended up sounding great, and we got a good performance. Looking forward to adding keyboards and maybe vocalization on top. Makes me want to write more acoustic guitar parts for the band; I just need to figure out how to add that to the live set...
The rest of my time was spent adding some rhythm guitar parts to a few sections. I brought my amp modeler, instead of the huge pedalboard and amp, since I wasn't trying to recreate sounds from the last session. The FM3 was perfect, really easy to quickly dial in great tones. Maybe I should have used it for the whole album... but no, listening to what was previously recorded, I'm really excited about the results from the "analog" rig. And I tried to mix things up, with plenty of clean-ish guitar, fuzz, overdrive, distortion, modulation effects. It keeps my interest, hopefully the listener's as well.
And finally, we had to solve the puzzle that is Fever Dream, so Brandon could re-record the bass part. It was a team effort, but I think we got it worked out!
-- Scott Weingarten, guitarist, The Red Masque

Below is Scott performing his acoustic guitar intro on "Fever Dream"



Here are Brandon's thoughts on the studio visit:


Upon re-entering the recording studio I realized I was in a Liminal Space, ...crossing the threshold to build on the foundations we had laid down in previous sessions. Putting any apprehension aside, I knew it was time to put both drive and intuition into effect.
At first I took on the Fever Dream, a creation of mine that snaps back and attacks the very soul. For quite some time I did my best to mend the wounds in this very special nightmare. As any imperfections here certainly can send the very fabric of reality spiraling into visceral chaos.
Next was Fool Again, am I fooled again?.. Often this can be case. 
Yet, I soldiered on through the march towards victory and thickened the heavy bass parts in closing sections with clean tracks to accentuate whatever strange meanings can be derived.
Pearl Grey, the sky of my despondency? Perhaps.
A quick fix here, but not sure if it can fix my ennui.
Next will be the daunting task of adding keyboards and effects.
Often I ruminate on the horror that our art and musical compositions are not our creations but we are theirs -- just the playthings to feed them and bring them into being so they hold dominion over life itself.
With great reservations and sincerity,
-- Brandon Lord Ross, Bass Guitar / Keyboards, The Red Masque

Some video of Brandon working on a section of "Fever Dream":





Finally, I had one last backing vocal I wanted to add to the end of "Fool Again", so I went into the isolation booth and ran through a couple of takes before we all headed back on the road.


At this point, we only need to record some synth / keys / organ on the last three songs. I may have a wordless vocal to go over Scott's acoustic guitar into to "Fool Again" but we'll see. Brandon (and maybe me) will go to the studio again shortly. Then the fun of mixing begins!


Some photos from our session are below. Stay tuned for more info on the new album!






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