Thanks for taking a listen everyone. I honestly don't know how to respond well to compliments. I've always kind of been that way. But it does feel good to work hard at something and have such good musicians enjoy what they hear. So I do feel all of your compliments and appreciate them very much.
You know, when I first met up with this group, I could tell it was going to be unique to say the least. But I honestly didn't know where we would find ourselves. I don't have that kind of vision really. We all just kept working through adverse situations. Our earlier shows were hit or miss. Some were great, some were awful. But this band has a way of shrugging off the bad and working on our faults. I think I posted a long time ago how when people in the band would make mistakes, we would just laugh at it and move on. It was a very strange thing for me. Hard-Core bands will just get rid of people for it. But one thing I'm proud of with this band is that these recordings are the result of sticking together, really working through our problems, hitting the pavement hard, and trying to make the songs the best they can be.
I think our next goal is going to be to really work on these songs now that the recordings are done, and try to make sure we're consistent every single night. It's not an easy thing with 7-members. But I think we are very close to being there.
***Now some tech talk for JW. The rhythm tracks for Recession were done by Ryan. I think he used my Hamer for the skanks. The "ding-ding-ding" sounds were done with my Squier Stagemaster and a DOD FX75C Flanger. The delay in it was a plug-in that the producer pulled up on his computer.
The solo is done with the same guitar going through my Biyang Metal End distortion pedal. In fact, all of the solos on the album are done with that pedal. I really like it despite nay-sayers who say it's cheap. You get a broad range of sounds with the eq settings. I tried to switch it up on every song where I do a solo. It can go from dirty and nasty, to grungy, to cleaner, midrangy, trebly extreme metal.. I honestly can't think of anything it can't do. Now maybe it could be built with better parts, but the possibilities with it have always amazed me. Every guitar track recorded is going through this setup:
And we were able to chose different vibes from those differences as well.
The harmonies you hear in Recession were manually done. In fact all of the solos are doubled tracks. So what you think you might be hearing as one track, is actually two, separately done, and panned right and left. So in the harmony, it's actually four separately recorded tracks panned in a fan shape (if that makes any sense). If you notice, the very last note of the lower harmony isn't at a 5th, or 7th (whatever the harmony is, I'm horrible, I can't read music) but it's actually an octave lower on that very last note. It wasn't processed, or added in during editing. I just played it like that live.
If you listen to Recession and Hold Me In Your Arms. Same guitar, Digitech X-Series delay, no flanger in the rhythm candy. You hear more of the actual pickup in it. The pickups in my Stagemaster are SD Trembuckers PA-TB1 in the bridge, PA-TB3 in the neck. They really are my favorite humbuckers of all time. I highly recommend them to anyone with Ibanez or Jackson, Charvel, type guitars that like to have clarity in the cleans, and a good punch when distorted. Better sounding than a DiMarzio Super Dist, if you ask me. They can do every kind of music you can think of. Not the same sound in LPs though. You tend to lose top end. But if you listen to those DINGING sounds they're very full and just great sounding.
Ok, that's probably too much information. I don't wanna talk your ear off. There are so many different things I did on this album, and for different reasons, I would have to write a book.
By the way, that's IZ singing Hold Me In Your Arms. My voice isn't nearly as good. I sing Jah Souljah and another song that isn't online right now called Sky Down. But wait til you hear the solo tone for that song!! I hit something REALLY cool for that one. I'll save that tech talk for later.
