Blog: Back In The Studio

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Ever since Steve and I started going to the Leicester Comedy Festival it's been a bit of a tradition that I should spend the Saturday over in Derby, recording something at Snug Studio. Last year this didn't happen (as The Vlads had nothing on the go) and it felt WEIRD, so I was very happy to be going back this time.

I rolled up in Derby at about 10:30am, walked across town, and was greeted by Mr R Collins at the studio. It's great going back to Snug as they know me/us and we/I know them, so we can get straight into the usual PROCESS. This time I was doing vocals, so we did what we always do - I went into the booth and had a brief sing along to the track then did two complete vocal takes. Rich spent five minutes "comping" them (i.e. taking the least awful version of each line to make a best full take) which we listened to and then I went back and re-did any lines that still needed sorting out. It's a rather lovely way of doing it, as it means I never have to worry too much about getting a line exactly right (which is handy) and we usually come out with something pretty good.

We had four tracks to sort out this time - We Did It Anyway, Burn It Down And Start Again, Leaping Hare In Broadgate and the JAM that we did when we were last there together. I had some lyrics spare for a song/POEM called Hills And Hollows so I tried those out and they worked Pretty Flipping Well, then Rich did a cunning EDIT of the track and suddenly we had a SONG! Hoorah!

With vocals done I went through and put GUITAR onto each track (using a plectrum for the first time in ages - I'd forgotten I'd be doing this so only had a broken one in my pocket, which HURT to use after a while. ROCK HEROISM) then moved on to KEYBOARDS. Leaping Hare In Broadgate is based on the instrumental Hibbett's Superstore which has a LOVELY pretend organ part, which we replicated by me playing the root notes and then Rich doing STUDIO MAGIC to turn them into chords. It was fab!

The very last thing to do was add a BEEPING noise to Hills And Hollows. I'd heard it MYSTICALLY whilst Rich was doing a quick mix and thought it might work - if nothing else it will make people go "Eh? What's that noise? Is the wachine machine finished?" whenever they hear it.

With this vital piece of ROCK completed we hugged our goodbyes and I headed off back to the train station and to Leicester. All we need to now is get Mrs E Pattison in to do HER remaining vocals and LO! we have pretty much half an album done!

posted 11/2/2015 by MJ Hibbett

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