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 | | | | Nov30Written by:Rob Solberg
Friday, November 30, 2001 6:00 PM The GuitarsThe main guitar riff was played on a 1969 Les Paul through a Marshall Valvestate ½ stack. However, in order to get an extra level of overdrive it went through a Roland GP-100 before it got to the Marshall. This guitar was doubled mic'd in an 9'x6' iso booth with an SM58 on the cabinet and an E-200 in the room about 7' away.
The big dirty 7th chords on the outro of the song were tripled to really make them huge in the stereo spectrum.
To add a new and complimentary layer to the chorus a clean guitar was added here (and on the bridge). This was a Carvin DC-135 played through an Ampeg Superjet combo amp and using a Sovtek Small Stone (phaser) stomp box. One SM58 right up on the grille.
The third guitar plays a triplet figure on the choruses. It's really just one big distorted chord strummed and I played the volume knob so it would sort of "swell" rhythmically. It seemed to really give the chorus some impact when it first comes in. Also recorded with one SM58 right up on the grille of the Marshall.
Another guitar enters at the bridge doing some dry, percussive eighth-note harmonics. This is through the clean channel of the Marshall but cranked so it clips. One SM58 right up on the grille of the Marshall.
The last guitar enters on the final chorus and it introduces a new part to the song - a circular melody that floats underneath the chorus vocals. It's the Carvin / Ampeg / Small Stone line-up once again…with one SM58 right up on the grille. KeysA Gigapiano was added doubling the bass guitar line on the verses. It was sequenced and then looped so it would sound more mechanical. And it was EQ'd with some biting mid-range so it wouldn't clash with the bass guitar. On the choruses it switches to a beautiful, almost classical sounding figure on a nice clean Gigapiano patch to add some depth and interest to the arrangement.
We had the song pretty much done but it still seemed to need something to help it all blend together. After experimenting around we found this creepy, mechanical, ambient pad sound on the Alesis QSR. It was perfect. It comes in low for the intro and then we play it almost two octaves higher on the choruses.
To add some percussive, tonal interest, a marimba was added to a few parts of the song using Gigasampler and the Advanced Orchestra library.
On the bridge I wanted to add another distorted guitar but I wanted it give it a twist. I tried a bunch of combinations but nothing was working so I decided to just skip the part. Then, once everything else was recorded, I was listening back and I got an idea. I hooked up my Kurzweil SP76 keyboard through my Marshall stack and it was perfect! Big, nasty snarly - but not quite a guitar tone. This was the very final track recorded on this tune. VocalsThe vocals were recorded through a Neumann U67 which was powered by an API mic-pre with a Tube Tech compressor inserted. They went from there directly into the trusty Swissonic AD24 convertor.
The verse vocals took a while to nail because Debra knew just how she wanted them to sound. I actually had to dial in some phaser and distortion on her voice as she sang so she could sort of "play-off" that effect. The FX were not printed with the voice, but just used for her monitoring purposes.
The chorus vocal arrangements were made by Debra on the spot and they are amazing. She would just say "let me try this" and "let me try something else" and we recorded a few different options. She needed to figure out how to make it all work on the recording so it would sound like it did in her head. But once she worked out the parts she was able to nail them on the first take.
At the outro of the song we were trying some different bluesy scat stuff - ad libs. On one particular pass she tried something that she thought was pretty cheesy and it made her laugh. But instead of stopping playback and starting over I just let it roll. She looked at me and I just smiled. She eventually said "I know you're recording me right now…aren't you?" Then she laughed and started just doing some goofy stuff that turned into some total belting bluesy scats. At the very end she laughs again and says, "I just had to get my soul out". I played it back right away and the track had some distortion on it and it just sounded too cool and off-the-cuff to re-do. So we just left it as is; talking, laughing and all. Somehow it works.
All the vocals were performed and arranged by Debra Soule. The verses are single vocals, the choruses doubled. Then there are those intricately arranged backing harmonies on the choruses. Altogether 13 tracks were used for vocals.
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