The Manhattan Trio: Recording 3 New Songs
On May 1st, Merlin re-entered the dragon to record three more songs for The Manhattan Project (the codename of our next album). This time, Deathsong, Murder at Babylon and the new A Game of Domino During The Cointelpro were in line. The location was the same as where we recorded Write Riot Right a mere month earlier; Harry’s Gym Recordingstudios with Bjarne. We upped the ante and decided to spend 4 days there this time. 4 days well spent.
Day 1: Murderdrums
After a parade in our honour in town, Mags and his flu took to the drum set. Mags had just put a fever behind him the day before, but that could only be noticed in his closer-to-death-by-the-minute presence, and certainly not his drumming. Both Deathsong and Murder at Babylon got a boost and we could already sense that these songs were about to see a slight change in personality for the better. Raw energy with a little drop of poison. A few hours into the proceedings we already had all the drum tracks in place. And Magnus was thankfully still alive. Quite possibly the best drum tracks ever to include a wire and a bottle of seltzer.
Day 2: Horror Groove
On the second day, we continued laying the bricks by starting to record the bass. To get a warm sound, as well as a bass with a distinct personality, we ran Carl through two amps; our newly purchased Fender Twin Reverb Custom 15″ amp, named “Masterman” for bottom, and an Ampeg amp for tone. Which is the opposite rig that most bands would use, but it gave us the feel we were looking for. We also put up a wall between the amps and a pinch of gain on there to provide the bass with a voice of its own. By 4pm, we had everything on bass recorded and could actually start on guitars. Deathsong was the first in line, and we nearly finished that song. The rest had to wait till day 3.
Day 3: Six Deadly Strings
With the guitars well underway, we commenced the six string sessions on the third day, with Martin and I; Shah, throwing the guitar duties back and forth. Martin’s rig was a Double Dragon setup (running the guitar through two amps) with an Orange Tiny Terror + Orange cab and a Fender Super Chorus amp, and I played through Masterman; our new Fender Twin Reverb amp. This created two very contrasting sound, with the Double Dragon rig providing the punch and Masterman providing and accentuating the tone. This time around, we also used a Deucetone Rat Pedal for an extra kick and the Radio Havana (see a previous blog entry for details) for a more shady experience. The goal was to give each song a different texture, and I think we achieved that.
On the 3rd day I also recorded a little Wurlitzer track on Deathsong, Carl and Mags recorded some fletless bass action on Murder at Babylon and we started the vocals.
Day 4: Vocal Schizophrenia
The last day mainly consisted of wrapping up the vocals and seeing it all fall into place. With a certain master plan, we set out on a musical vocal journey which consisted of depressed gnomes, a scarecrow, a talking stomach, whispers in reverse and a herd of sheep in falsetto-induced euphoria. In addition to that, there were tambourines, grand pianos and some other percussion, all made to sound like they were being played from the bottom of the sea. Or nothing like it. You be the judge.
We plan to mix the three songs at end of May, so you’ll have to wait until then to hear the fruits of our loom. Until then, you can check out some of the millions of video clips we recorded during our endeavours, resting peacefully on our YouTube account, or check out our Twitter account for all the updates we made during the 4 days, plus more updates in the future. See you on the dark side.
Recording Vocals on WRR
Here’s a vocal take we ended up using.
The Tripwire Guitar and The Little Box of Wonders
Like previously mentioneded, the guitars on this song were really fun to record. Our main purpose was to make sure that everything had its own presence and distinct sound, so the overdub guitars would have to stand out from the rest in a big way. Instead of opting out for our amazing Tiny-Terror/Orange cab setup, which we would normally use to dub the tracks, I went for a near-clean Britisheque guitar, using my Gibson Les Paul and the Fender SUPER Reverb amp (which we also paired with our Orange setup on the Double Dragon rig) with just a little hint of gain. That guitar was essentially clean though, which was a total breath of fresh air because I am used to playing with nearly full-on distortion on most songs. From there on it was smooth sailing, you can really feel the guitar coming in and there is a real distinction between Martin’s guitar track and mine. Even on the main riff (at the beginning of the song) you can tell the difference, plus mine is panned pretty heavily for extra effect. I didn’t get to use my radio-filter FX (really just a guitar phaser pedal with the settings all fucked up), which is my favourite guitar sound in the whole world, but I’ll keep that in my back pocket for a later time.
Once the guitars were done (in record time), we could focus on filling the song with the perfect atmosphere and I have to say Harry’s Gym was the perfect place for that. Along with having an array of amazingly majestic instruments lying around, including the fantastic August Föster Grand, there was a little box full of wonderful and fun instruments to test out. I tried all of them and one that really stood out for me with regard to this song was the xylophone, it had the perfect spy feel to it. The lurking overtones of the dark street corner. The distant sound of danger and curiosity. So I played a few simple tones that you can hear augmenting the bridge towards the end of the song (where WRITE RIOT RIGHT goes from playing the main theme/riff to 4 notes over a drum solo). I think it added to the feeling we were trying to capture. Actually, over the years we’ve really wanted to introduce these little interesting elements to the songs, and it was really cool to finally have a song that had enough room for it. You’ll hear more of this in our songs in the times to come, especially our new member the Theremin. We also overdubbed the chorus with a Korg MS-10 for the added sound of desperation, and we’ll write more about that shortly.
Agathon - The deadly sounds from the theremin
We are proud to introduce Agathon Clara Babylon, our new friend, the Theremin.
Agathon was smuggled by sea and air from the United States of America by our regular deliveryboy codenamed “Brian from Philadelphia”.
It is something desperate, complainting, hurtful and beautiful about the sound from Agathon - the theremin. Thats why we love it and have made it a regular member of MERLIN.
I think we have introduced Agathon properly in WRITE RIOT RIGHT!
You may hear it in the verses and in the Chorus of this song.
Discovering the Two Amp Rig.
This time around, we looked for guitar sounds that really had their own unique personalities. That’s why we experimented with different rigs and used ideas from our rehearsals to see if they worked in the studio. One time, only Magnus and I were at the rehearsal, and since Carl and Shah weren’t there, I wanted to try to reproduce their presence using multiple amps. So we used the bypass on the tuner, directed the signal through a pitch shifter (shifted way down) and hooked the resulting signal to a 2nd amp. I like to discover. We use this rig on WRITE RIOT RIGHT!
The Double Dragon guitars
Recording the guitars was very fun this time. I put up a two amp rig for WRITE RIOT RIGHT to get the right amount of power this song needs.
I recorded with my Mustard yellow Epiphone SG. (”The Molester” as I called it this weekend)
I split the signals into my ORANGE TINY TERROR rig for the rythm sound, and my FENDER AMP PITCHED POWER RIG on the chorus. (Consisting of a pitched down super shifter and a fuzzbox wired to the Fender twin reverb amp)
I split it through my tuner.
FX
I use BOSS Super pitch shifter and Digital delay on W.R.R. (It´s my standard FX setup)
The Orange TIny Terror amp gives a high quality distortion, but I also have a RAT Deuce tone for my additional Overdrive/Distortion needs.
“A punch in the Phase”
On the bridge you may hear a sneaking fast guitar lurking from behind, and that was a special moment in the song, while the lights were dimmed and we had the right Spy-mood in the studio and I just jammed through the song with the Phaser on. This was the result of having the Phaser FX on.
I used a rough distortion while Shah used a rather clean guitar to give the perfect balance in the song. Shah used his dear Gibson for his guitar tracks (Actually, right now you can win an exact copy of this guitar over here at Dagbladet).
We’re the scary ones, we’re the daring ones
Here are the lyrics for the new song:
Set a tripwire, spitfire, send them in
To the deadliest sounds from the Theremin
Know what you’re going for
Write Riot Right!
We’re the scary ones, we’re the daring ones
Write Riot Right!
Say hello to my little friend Agathon
Oh oh oh oh oh
We’re the scary ones, we’re the daring ones
We’re the people watching over screaming write riot right!
No escape-plan for killing the messenger
Be like us put a hand near the antenna
Know what you’re going for!
Write Riot Right!
We’re the scary ones, we’re the daring ones
Write Riot Right!
…Or else you’ll be mutilated by the ghost of Clara Rockmore
Oh oh oh oh oh
We’re the scary ones, we’re the daring ones
We’re the people watching over screaming write riot right!
Recording the bass for Write Riot Right
Originally I had planned and was really keen on using a standard Ampeg bass rig on this song. The last couple of months I have been using a Ampeg combo when practising, and I really thought the energy in the ampeg would fit this song very well. So my plan was to use a classic Ampeg SVT head and test that out with some different kinds of cabinets that I could find in the studio (Harrys Gym has a lot of instruments and gear to play around with and to use for trying out different kinds of sounds and settings). But when things were ready for starting recording the bass, just after setting the drums live together with the lead guitar, we found out that we really wanted to try out the same equipment on the bass as were used by the first guitar. This was the amazing Tiny Terror amp from Orange together with a 4×12 Orange Cabinet. My Fender Jazz sounded really cool and fresh on this little guitar amp and we wanted to try this out on the song. After playing along with the song with this bass sound for a while I felt that I needed a bit more bottom in the sound, the little guitar amp didnt deliever much of that. Then our sound guy dug out from the pile of cabinets an old and completely filthy and dirty Marshall cabinet (This cabinet was actually originally owned by the band Entombed). With this cab we got the right low-end sound. To be able add more bottom, add effects and to blend in a different sound on the bass in the mix, I always also record a separate track directly from a DI-box. In the bridge part of the song I wanted to add a signature on the bass. Here I used a single Bass Chorus pedal, actually from Behringer, to get the right spy feeling in the tones on this part.
To sum things up:
-Amp: Orange Tiny Terror
-Cabinet: Marshall 4X12
-Mic: Shure SM57
-DI: Ampeg SVT Tube DI
-Effects: Bass Chorus pedal from Behringer
Write Riot Right! Drums
I started recording with my beloved drumkit Spike (for the uneducated reader, that is my drum set which I acquired with the money I made off my fifteenyearsjubilee). We started at 12 o’ clock in the afternoon and I tried to record the drums alone at first.. We soon heard that the metronome that felt natural for me was way to fast and we tried for the better part of an hour to find a proper metronome for our song.. After some mongering with these elements of our recordingsession we decided to track the drums and the the rhythm guitar simultaneously to capture the original energy of the song (which only contained guitar and drums to start with). We used a number of cool mics on the drums including a pot (like the ones you boil stuff in) on the bassdrum and an odd kind of mic placed near the floor on the left side of the bassdrum that worked as some kind of distortionmic. I was also told to place the drums off centre and to face them towards the corner where the door was located to make the natural tone in my drums to cooperate with the frequencies in the room.. As far as playing this particular song goes I tried to draw inspiration and ideas from jazzy stuff and the kind of drums you would expect from old bigbandsessions and the likes, and this is where the intro came from, as well as the chattering and applauding troughout the song (I consider these drumtracks allthou they are not drums at all. They still interact with what im playing and if viewed artistically has the same effect as percussives backing the drums)
Write Riot Right!
Etter den katastrofale avslutningen på vår forrige innspillingsrunde (se under), har vi omsider bestemt oss for å forsøke igjen. Merlin er derfor denne helgen i Harry’s Gym studio og spiller inn en ny låt, hvis navn er å finne i overskriften av dette innlegget. Vi kommer med fortløpende oppdatering på fremskrittet, samt bilder og videoklipp og litt sånn. Følg med.