Luckily for us, Phil is a no-nonsense sort of bloke, a perfectionist who likes to do things properly. Working all hours, he settles for nothing less than the perfect take. As it turned out, everyone was on great form over the three-day session; all that practice we'd put in over the last six months certainly paid off.
We started the first s
ession recording Rowan's drums, a time-consuming process of miking them all up individually, etc. With a blank canvas in front of you, starting from scratch can often be a little daunting, but with a click track in his ear and Tom's pre-production demo for reference, Rowan's job of creating the song's skeleton was made just that bit easier. A little later on that day, when all the drum tracks were in place, the time came for Dave to add his bass parts from the comfort of the control room sofa.
The second day was dedicated to the guitars. Branko and Tom's painstaking care and attention to their sounds paid off in full in the end and listening back to a very long day's work, they felt contented. Tired but satisfied, they left Phil's in different homeward directions, their minds focused on the remaining work ahead.
Wednesday, day three, was largely taken up with Tom's lead vocals which consisted of various overdubs, harmony tracks and other additional parts necessary to achieve the breadth of sound he wanted in the choruses. That evening Tim's keyboards, which consisted mainly of a string part (and a few miscellaneous finishing touches) were added relatively quickly, giving the song a wash of colour. As day three drew to a close, Dave and Tim overlaid their harmony vocals in the middle of the song, and it was suggested that Tim should sing an extra lead/backing vocal to give the chorus an extra lift.
The recording phase officially behind us, we sank into Phil's couch and listened to the song, as yet unmixed, over his studio monitors. At that early stage it already felt that our hard work would come to fruition. We believe credit should be given where it’s due and it must be said Phil is a fabulous producer to work with.So, we hope you like
the new recording! With Ocean in the bag, we feel the way forward is to record again as soon as we can. Nothing is cast in concrete yet but we'll keep you abreast of any new developments. In the meantime, following our recent gig at the Water Rats, we're in the process of booking further gigs for the summer, where we'll be showcasing some fresh new material, so keep an eye on this blog, our Facebook and Myspace pages for further information.Take good care of yourselves and we'll be seeing you soon enough. For now, hope you enjoy the video below of us recording Ocean in the studio.
Cheers!
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