new Black International recordings- UPDATE p2

[stewart]

some new songs hot off the presses, we finished these mixes last night, and i'm already resisting the urge to tweak them again. gah! anyway, i'm happy with them in general, and i even let other people make suggestions and everything, so there.. we haven't had them definitively mastered yet, because i'm not sure what we're doing with them, and there might be things that really annoy me that i discover over the course of this week.

here they be.

guitars used were: '67 coronado II, '64 duo-sonic II and (briefly) a '90s japanese RI tele custom. i actually recorded all the guitars through my hot rod deluxe, which was strange because we had a shitload of big old fender amps kicking about. it just seemed to sound nice that day! that's the first time i've recorded with it, i've always used a fender twin before.

the bass was a USA precision of some sort (i ended up doing the bass parts on these myself, the ones recorded by bass boy sounded a bit awkward and it worked out quicker for me to overdub them).

pedals were: ibanez TS5 tubescreamer, USA big muff, madebymike green muff, fulltone distortion pro, boss DD3, boss CE2.

anyway, have a listen (or not, the choice is yours).

[Noirie.]

Downloading now.

[George]

Nice work! The mix is nice and large. I really liked the drums - fat and refined like Kirsty Allsop.

[stewart]

fat and refined

a bit like our drummer too (don't tell him i said that).

[Mike]

Who knew I would actually like your band? I hate most of the music you claim to like.

The first song is all I've heard so far and it's great. What's the bass dirt? I love the way the new parts arrive and stuff. It's ace.

[stewart]

the bass dirt is just a big muff, but we copied the track and ran that through a sansamp thing, then stuck them back together.

glad you like it, it's not all metal machine music round these parts!

[benecol]

fulltone distortion pro

Sounds interesting - can you tell me a little more about it?

I usually shy away from the whorehouse (imagine if they were my last words...) but this sounds really good, especially great bass and drums onslaught on the first track. But, if I must offer up one criticism (and I'm aware that you're singing this in your original pictish) but surely it should be pronounced RHEToric, rather than rheTORic?

[stewart]

haha, yes, i know. artistic licence. it just wouldn't have sounded right the proper way, damn your eyes (and knowledge of the queen's english).

fulltone distortion pro

Sounds interesting - can you tell me a little more about it?

umm.. it's pretty similar to a white SG, as far as i know.

[benecol]

It can join the great tradition of words mangled to fit songs then, just like all those other ones that I can't seem to remember at the moment...

[stewart]

rhymes with anti-christ.

[endsjustifymeans]

Downloading now.

[Reece]

surely it should be pronounced RHEToric, rather than rheTORic?

i say it the way it is in the song, must be a regional thing.
i thought RHEToric was more of a 'murkian pronunciation.

anyway, i like these alot. top job.

[Bacchus]

surely it should be pronounced RHEToric, rather than rheTORic?

i say it the way it is in the song, must be a regional thing.
i thought RHEToric was more of a 'murkian pronunciation.

anyway, i like these alot. top job.

I think the emphasis usually comes earlier in the word, on the first syllable, but when the noun is made into the adjective "rhetorical" the emphasis comes later in order to give a bit of symmetry. I suspect that putting the emphasis on the middle syllable "rheTORic" is like a result of the way the adjective is pronounced.

[endsjustifymeans]

Really good stuff. Idle worship is especially rad.

[stewart]

thanks for the positive comments, peeps.

i think this batch of material is the first where i've actually been quite happy with my singing and didn't feel the need to bury my voice under layers of distortion and delay.

[benecol]

What distortion do you use to hide your voice under, as a matter of interest?

[stewart]

it would be a pro-tools plugin applied at the mixing stage, probably the same thing that's on the drums. there's a bit of it on the vocals on the first track, but that was mainly to make them sit properly with the rest of the instrumentation. i can find out exactly what it was if you're that interested.

[benecol]

Oh.

[Empires]

happy with my singing and didn't feel the need to bury my voice under layers of distortion and delay.

This definitely shows.

Not that the vocals in your other myspace tracks are bad in any way, I like the vocals on the new stuff better

Good work, sir

[stewart]

cheers!

hoping to get along to your gig on friday, by the way. the only potential spanner in the works would be my girlfriend wanting to go and see harry potter, but i'm working on that....