MAIK KUNATH'S STUDIO DIARY

STUDIO DIARY

Recording of the bass lines for The Burned Up upcoming EP.

30.10.2010.

On arrival at TomKaz Studios in Peterborough we got all the equipment in to the recording room and had a coffee before we started setting up the gear.....

Tommo and Karin made us feel welcome, which is always the case when we meet.....

We started recording after a quick (and painless) soundcheck. ....

For the initial recording session I used my Peavey Millenium 4 string downtuned to D.

The first track we recorded was the intro to Scavenger Rising, not a simple bass line but easy enough as a warm up. In the intro I more or less copy what Kayla & Roman do on the guitar and apply riffs to it rather than just single notes on the bass.

The next track was Blood Like Fire. a fun song to play with lots of groove and a few surprises. All in all a cracking song for recording and playing. ....

After listening to both tracks during a short break we discovered that the bass sound was not really what I was looking for. Easy solution to the problem... different bass HAHAHA! As always I brought along a second bass. This time I unleashed the new Spector Legend 5 Custom with active EMGs!!! A quick downtuning to D... and off we went again.....

Same as before, the intro for Scavenger and then Blood Like Fire... half an hour later JOB DONE!!!

The next track we started to record was Headnailer. Straight forward, no Bullshit. 10 minutes later JOB DONE!....

What followed was a short break including coffee (which keeps me going most of the time apart from when it’s not!) and a smoke... bloody hell, shouldn’t have done that as my fingers turned to ice... not good when you’re recording bass lines!!!....

Help was at hand in the form of another cup of coffee to keep me going and my fingers warm!!!....

Two more tracks to go and job I thought... not that quick my friend!!!

.. ..

Scavenger and Cleanse are not a walk in the park. 100% technical thrash metal!

Scavenger was up first... The intro to this track is the easiest part of the whole song!!! Open D... and that’s where the real hard work started. 

My brothers Boris, Kalya & Roman gave me a free hand in what I wanted to do with the bass lines and that’s what I did... nothing easy in Scavenger... Some multi sting sweeping, fast bass lines and a few power chords thrown in for good measure! In this track I doubled some of the guitar riffs but not all as this is too predictable. Nearly 45 minutes later Basic track sorted!!!....

Next and final track to record was Cleanse. Starts of nice and easy but then Kayla & Roman unleash a monster of a riff!!! Fuck me, this is AWESOME! 

Straight in the track and thrashing it out... maybe not!!! Some very technical parts in this song and the timing needed to be spot on, so no easy way out!!!

During Romans solom part I doubled the last few runs but after having listened back to these parts I decided not to double them up (again to predictable!). So I stuck to the basic notation which I believe works a treat there.....

All basic tracks done in just about 4 hours.....

Next stop revisit to the studio, listening and maybe re-working some parts!

2 Weeks later

Once again, coffee on arrival and setting up the equipment. Easy part done!!!

First we listened to the tracks and discovered that there are some clicking noises in the background which we couldn’t eliminate. Not good news at all!

After having located all the parts that needed redoing we decided to start recording once again. No big deal at all.....

Still we couldn’t eliminate the clicking noise during this session so we went with Plan B

.. ..

Re-recording the whole lot! Tommo, Karin, Mandy and myself worted out all the little technical issues and I ended up having my own home studio. Sound quality is excellent and the cost to do this was very reasonable, the main thing is that I can now record at any time I want to.......

So, here we go again.......

Setting up was easy... Tommo was on hand for the initial set up und he was also available on the phone... Big thanks Bro!!!....

.. ..

This time I used my Peavey Cirrus 4 for the recordings. 

Downtune to D... Done!

Intro to Scavenger... Done!

Blood Like Fire... Done!

Headnailer... Done!

Scavenger... Done!

Cleanse... Done!

Let’s get this Beast ready to be unleashed.

Hails,

.. ..

Maik

P.S. A very biog thank you to Boris, Kayla & Roman for giving me this opportunity and for the friendship... You guys ROCK!!!