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August 29, 2005

Studio Journal

So this is the deal. We still don’t have a record deal but we are forging ahead regardless. We are very close and have the companies picked (they may surprise you) but the nagging little details still have to be ironed out. But we aint gonna let that stop us now are we? WE ARE RECORDING STARTING THIS WEEK! AND NOONE CAN STOP US! BLAH.

Josh: so today we actually tracked drum parts to a couple o songs. the first one was 10 and counting, which i think matt chose because he doesn’t play on half of it and just got to lay back and chill

as you can see him here in the backyard of our studio and practice space in Elkton, Maryland.

So lets see....recording. Most of us prefer the live aspect of being in a band, but recording is a big part of boy sets fire. Recording can be divided into several different aspects, and every band is different, but this is how we do it.

1. pre-production- when a band gets together and slowly goes over every song, gets tempos, listens to the producer, changes arrangements and basically tightens the song in every aspect.

chad is seen here discussing one of our many arrangement decisions and important policies. now on this record we have chosen to produce it ourselves since we are using this record as a way of taking our identity back from those that used it for evil. (what? are you talking about?)
2. getting drums sounds- this is where you and the engineer work together trying different drum sound and different mics in an attempt to get the perfect drum sound.

3. tracking everyone else. we do guitars first, then bass, then vocals, then cool overdubs.

4. mixing. turn the good stuff up, turn the bad stuff down . duh

5. mastering. make everything big and awesome sounding. then we give the final product to our record labels.

For drums we went to studio 4 in Conshohoken, PA where we met Phil who owns the studio, our second Noah and various studio peeps like Laura, who made us delicious vegan cookies.

Robert loves getting drum sounds. We cant get him out of the control room.

This is Enoch. I was horribly disappointed when I met him and he wasn’t the first Amish engineer. But he still seems like a good dude and matt had him flown from LA especially to do his drum tracks. They are discussing the beauty of the paradiddles., the flam, the flim, and the crash cymbal.

You know how the BSF roll. This was 11 in the morning.

So what the hell was I talking about? oh yeah someone just told me that i am not in any pictures so here i am writing in my new g4:

Here are some more pictures of studio four and all that.

this guy was gonna produce the album, but figured he would be much happier being a blacksmith in Colonial Williamsburg.

Matt likes to relax and play Beethoven’s 5th, but in the more chipper d flat.

his is the board we are using to record the drum tracks. we will be here until the eighteenth. by the way phil nicolo was the the driving force in the butcher brothers. and now i pass the mic to...

Robert: let’s face it...there are numerous myths and stories about the weird studio dungeons all over this planet...cocaine mountains burying the board and hookers jumping around the control room while tracking or the like...but most of it is tedious (you should have seen how i wrote this word before josh helped me...after all: i am german!) listening back to the same 4 seconds of a cymbal pattern in D minor. so it’s not always necessarly a blast, but actually playing along with matt today is fun, cause it means i can practice my rotten bass parts, adoring josh while playing and giving him fresh looks and just watching matt torture himself when shit goes wrong (which it doesn’t often, since mr K is a mean clean killing machine). i can’t even tell you how excited i am we’re finally doing this record, after waiting for over a year...other than that everyone’s good i think, less hungover than me today and excited as well......the owner of the studio phil is actually a really sweet man, unafraid to entertain his newfound little german friend (me) with stories from recording basically everyone from bon jovi to the butthole surfers...everyone’s really nice here in penseltuckey and even though i hate leaving the shore this makes it way more bearable...i love nice people like phil and noah and “knocker”, who (like josh mentioned) came all the way from babylon...i mean LA to insult matt when making a mistake...oh yeah and matt’s choice for a click is a cowbell, giving the songs a somewhat country and western feeling (and yes, we enjoy both types of music)...now it’s time for some vegetable lo mein and a vegan roll and then back to work or hanging out with my best friend (my G4) and his dog (i pod) where i just discovered a band called south that i like (put on there by rob avery, a man known for his divine taste in music...).

this is phil and matt dancing and celebrating his life.

Josh: these are our assistants. they are awesome. their names are ian, laura, and noah. neither noah nor enoch are amish. truly disappointing. laura made the rad vegan cookies.

June 15th

Josh: so yesterday we tracked the drums to requiem, 10 and counting, falling out theme, and nostalgic for guillotines. the drums sound huge, not processed just really aggresive and kinda pissed of sounding. and you dont wanna piss off a drum set. the get really angry. Today we need to track four songs, we basically have to track four songs a day in order to stay within our schedule and we are totally feeling like just laying down or going to an Irish pub and sipping Guiness, talking about life and politics. But i guess we gotta record

Robert: i was stoked today, since i could come in later, which i like...a)because i'm lazy and b)because i could run down the street to the beach with my girlfriend and have a nice forenoon...so when i came to the studio here in (blank...fill in unspeakable name somewhere near phith-adelphia) we went right back into recording matt some more...it's funny with us, after each done song, when matt went into the control room the rest of us went in the (always) exact same directions:nathan to his phone, me and josh to our computers and chad to the toilet to smoke...open books really.

so that's where me and josh sit right now...it's raining outside, the sportsbar downstairs is getting crowded and we daydream and check our mail and design our new website,etc
overall not an overwhelmingly exciting day...dear diary, i'm tired and dread the morning when i have to get up early for my motorcycle driving test. oh yeah before i forget it...check out new or recent records from oasis, the exit and ryan adams, they make life a better place.

july 17th

it is raining again. last night matt “finished” final communique, social register fanclub, deja coup, and with cold eyes. i say “finished” because when we got back to the studio matt had to redo final communique because of a patch bay issue. sigh....what can you do?
then he had to do it again once it was once transferred from tape to protools and it was discovered that another problem had occurred. oh well, noone’s fault and I think Matt really enjoys tracking the same song over and over.

By the way i am reading the sixth Harry Potter and so there fore i am not gonna write much if at all in this today. and i am sleepy. Oh the power went out for hours today. Matt is starting to feel cursed. I could have told him that.

july 18th

last day of recording. matt is extremely excited. we have to track walk astray, a far cry, and the alterernate version of still waiting that we were playing in europe on the last couple of tours. Then comping (which means you take the best parts of various tracks and put them together and form the awesome track you hear on the record.) oh yeah it is as fun as it sound!

the sheep watches. it always watches.

Robert: last day playing along with matt to make him suck less ; )...seriously though: matt came through like a champ, even though god is against him in many ways. the studio power went out yesterday, cables got turned around to (instead of transfering pleasant drumsounds) become fierce daggers of background-noise in numerous occasions on our beloved tape machine...god may have his reasons, but only matt and him know the real reasons for it.
josh was pretty much MIA yesterday due to the release of the new Harry Potter book...we all played with our fingers (it's up to you to decide with what we actually played then...)in our ears, afraid to death he could give away (in a rush of excitment) who dies this very volume...
what else?oh, today our beloved friend joey comes to town to watch the red sox play in the bar downstairs, helping nathan to nurse his hangover with some adult beverages...i discovered my love for weerd science (josh from coheed’s rap project)and the leather couch i'm sitting on right now...so this is where you'll find me.
peace.

chad and nathan relaxing between takes.

what’s up people...matt here. so i finished my last tracks today and now get to look forward to choppin’ ‘em up a bit and making all my fuck ups sound a little better in the computer...actually i made myself, with the help of my bro enoch, get the most solid and tight tracks i could so as to not loose any of the really good ambient and live room sounds we got for the record. i also wanted to go for just a big, fat, bitchin’ drum sound for this album but also make it sound like the listener was standing right in front of my kit. i’m a huge fan of the natural, live sound and feel and i think we did a really good job capturing that for the album. had some technical problems as you may have read about that kinda bummed me out, but fortunately i could escape the roadblocks and disappear down stairs to the local pub for a few liquid therapy sessions. so, yeah, i’m stoked and think this shit will be pretty dope...that’s the goal anyhow. all the guys were cool and was good to have them playing along with me too instead of me just tracking to a click as i’ve done in the past (plus it gets their chops up and prepped to lay some killer riffage down next week!). my dog is pissed at me though since i’ve had to tie here up outside all day for the last 5 days...she freaks when i get home. now its off to sitting on my ass\ for the rest of the summer listening to the guys record millions of guitar tracks and hiring a singer to come in and do nathan’s vocal parts...that’s really not nathan you’ve heard in the past. its this crazy computer program we have that let’s you create any vocal sound possible...nutty shit. peace out.

07/19/05 newark,DE

dear diary...so we started getting things ready here at our friend nick's studio (clay creek recordings here in sunny DE)...(www.claycreekstudio.com)
it's hot and humid and that made carrying our equipment twice the fun. for me anyways, i love carrying stuff...leftover from my time as a roadie. kind of a free work out...
here's a pic of me in europe looking like the living (or headbanging) dead(see below)...
so apart from putting everything where it belongs and having collin come out and film some for the new website and just for the heck of it, we are getting the drum tracks edited today and then start layering guitars and bass on top, once we find sounds we like...something like that.
thank you all by the way for checking in on us on the new website...you're the best!!!
yours truly,
robert

JULY 20- day three at clay creek studios. we are stoked to be working with nick rotundo again. nick is a fixture here in newark, he has been recording our projects for over a decade as well playing in some of newark’s best bands railhed and walleye (on a side note they are playing a reunion show in february at rex’s in west chester.) nick recorded the day the sun went out, helped with after the eulogy, all our demos and splits, this crying, this screaming..... we are excited to be once again working with nick and believe his relaxed demeanor and brutal energy will be perfect for us.
so the drum editing is done and we are now really doing guitars. Here is where recording gets fun fun fun (seriously fun, i may sound sarcastic but i am not!). Right now chad is working on the final communique, the song we were playing out during our last european tours. here are some pictures.

the rakus and nathan being weird.

matt working hard.

so we signed to equal vision records. equal vision will be releasing our records in north america and burning heart will be releasing our records in europe and other terrortories. so this is exciting news for everyone.

Last night chad and I recorded tracks until two-thirty in the morning. We were exhausted but it is worth it. I am looking forward to tomorrow because it is 6/8 day! The day we play the 6/8 songs on the record, of which there are two, the misery index and nostalgic for guillotine.

august 11

four more songs to go, from a guitarist perspective. this week has flown by in excitement, especially compared to the other weeks we have been stuck in the studio. guitars guitars guitars. so much fun! basically how it works is i play something. then i play it again until it is right. this record we have been going with what feels good as opposed to what is “correct” if you know what i mean.

dear diary,

today we are actually starting getting ready to do bass, which i'm naturally really excited about...i spend the 2 hour drive from asbury park to newark,DE listening to "Attaining The Supreme" by Shelter, probably one of my favourite records ever...and it has awesome bass parts on it. Just like the last Propaghandi record. That's the kind of stuff i really used to get into the realm of playing bass, when i started (which is a little over 2 years ago)...

i brought incense and my two fender basses are all set up and ready to go...i hope.

i also finished the linernotes for the upcoming re-issue of "The Day The Sun Went Out"...i was honored i got asked by the other guys and it was fun diving into these moments when i first encountered BSF...

so keep your fingers crossed for me and stay tuned.

love,

robert

August 19, 2005
robert has been killing on the bass. almost done. as of right now he has a mere two songs to go. deja coup and requiem. really it has been emberrasing how fast this guy has been at his tracks, the whole time laughing at us for the simplicity of the music and discussing how when he was in my hero died today they wrote very complex intense music that people will never understand because it is so over their heads. peasants.

nick doing something.

this was on my camera. joey has no memory of this event. of course joey has no memory.

matt looking at art.

august 22, 2205: guitars and bass nearly done. got a vocal sound which is pretty exciting, will even start tracking vocals soon which is pretty awesome. this is my personal favorite time when i am done and can just hang out and listen and relax. awesome. vocal are always kinda sacred here in boysetsfire world. we light candles and hang tapestries and try to make the vocal room a special place.

guten tag!

done with my bass parts and it went really well and was tons of fun...i think alltogether it took 3 days including finding a good sound and then tracking which is not so bad...i like to do stuff energetic and on high-speed. other than that we are moving in an awesome direction with this record it seems...the sound is vibrant and seems to be exciting instead of overproduced...i can't wait for this thing to hit the streets and tour on it.

some good things are lining up on the bsf horizon...too early to talk about it yet, but all good options and plans for further touring. my world is alright today : )

so back to my mos bio and some vegan food...

piece.

robert

Posted by joshbsf at 03:54 PM | Comments (4)