All recording and mixing is now complete. There are 11 songs. Here is the listing in no particular order:
To Die in Fall, 433 (Hypothetical Situation), Tabula Rasa, The Silent Acquiescence of Millions, Imitating the Screen, Plasma, Pain (title may change), Passive Resistor, Armslength, The Arctic Ocean and Bitmap.
We are all extremely happy with the way everything turned out. Everyone involved did a great job, especially Malcolm Springer and Charlie Brocco. This wouldn’t have been possible without them involved. We’d also just like to officially thank Walter Schreifels for his help. Although he didn’t work on the actual recording of the music, his involvement made a huge difference. You can all thank him by supporting his new band, Rival Schools.
OK. Right off the bat, let me just say that we still have no pictures to put up on the site. Not having a computer has made something as simple as putting a few photos up on the website way more complicated than it needs to be. But hopefully I’ll have time over the next few days to develop some film and get to a Kinkos so I can scan them in.
As you may have guessed by now, recording is complete (except for a few vocal things) and we are now into the mixing process. We moved over to a different studio called the Groove Room to mix. So far we’ve got three songs mixed: To Die in Fall, Passive Resitor, and Armslength; and we’re working on 433 right now. We’re all really excited about what’s happening and really just can’t wait to put out the album so everyone can hear it.
We’re in the middle of another visit from Scooter that will last until tomorrow. According to Scooter everything sounds “fucking amazing.” Then on Thursday Bonzo (and possibly Scooter again) will be back in town for the last few days of mixing.
Pictures will be up in the next update!
Sorry it’s been so long since the last update. We’ve been recording more drums and I havn’t had a chance to get on the computer until now.
The drums are now complete. Guitar and bass need to be recorded on 3 more songs and vocals on 4 more. After that we have one more song we may record but it’s going to be a different kind of thing so there might not even be any drums or bass on it. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
We plan to start mixing around this time next week. We’ll be moving to a different studio for that.
And as you’ve probably guessed, we still don’t have any pictures to put up. We don’t have a digital camera so we actually have to get film developed and scan the pictures in. But when we do put them up there will be a lot of them, so it’ll be worth the wait. Well, not really. But it’ll be something to look at for a change.
We’re finally getting into the last few days of overdubs and then all the recording will be complete. Mixing will start sometime later this week at another studio called The Groove Room. We currently have 11 songs recorded: Tabula Rasa, 433 (Hypothetical Situation), To Die in Fall, Armslength, Bitmap, The Silent Acquiescence of Millions, Plasma, Pain, Passive Resistor, and Screen (formerly Breathing Cliche). You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Now, I’m no math expert, but that’s only 10 songs,” and you would be right. The 11th song is the infamous “12th (song) floating around” mentioned on both the Roadrunner site and thePRP.com. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
On Sunday we experienced what will most likely be the first of many flat tires over the course of the next year. We’re not really sure how it happened. We just came out to get in the van and the tire was flat. Luckily we were right in front of the studio, so it wasn’t really that bad. It was good practice for when it happens on the side of the road at 4 in the morning and it’s 10 below zero, which I’m sure will happen at some point.
Later this week or early next week we’ll be getting another visit from Scooter and Bonzo. It should be a good time.
Here’s the part of the update where i say that we still don’t have any pictures. But I’m really going to put some up on the next update. I promise.
I’m sure by now you are all aware of yesterday’s tragic events in New York and Washington, DC. Luckily neither us nor any of our family or friends were injured. We would just like to send our sympathy out to any of our fans or their family and friends that may have been affected. If there’s anything we can do to help, please let us know.
As far as recording goes, we have still managed to stay pretty much on schedule and get some work done. Vocals have been recorded for 4 songs: Passive Resistor, To Die in Fall, Plasma, and I believe At Arm’s Length, although I’m not totally sure what the 4th one was. And we have also completed the guitar and bass tracks for Plasma.
Over the weekend we had a visit from our A&R rep and our manager that went pretty well. Everyone seems really excited about what we’re doing, which is always a good thing.
Then on Monday night we witnessed the first appearance of a Sinch song on National TV. It was played during the X-Games on the show “Wrecked” on ESPN. It features skaters and bikers just basically wrecking with heavy music in the background. For some reason the title of our song was listed as “Fire in the Hole” which is incorrect. It is still called, “The Silent Acquiescence of Millions.” The show will probably be replayed over the next month or two, so check the TV listings or ESPN.com to see when it’ll be on again.
Here’s an update on what’s been recorded so far on each song: (along with some updated song titles, which are still tentative I guess, but we’re pretty sure about these, I think.)
433 (Hypothetical Situations) - drums, bass, guitar tracks
Tabula Rasa - drums, bass and guitar tracks
To Die in Fall - drums, bass and guitar tracks
At Arm’s Length (formerly untitled new song) - drums, bass and guitar tracks
Passive Resistor (formerly “Maasinumb”) - drums, bass and guitar tracks
Bitmap - drums and keyboard/drum machine stuff
Plasma - drums
Still no pictures or video clips or any of that type shit. But we’ll have it soon.
On Tuesday night we went to see the Rival Schools and Burning Airlines show. We hung out with Walter and the rest of the band after the show. It was cool to see Walter while we’re in the middle of recording. He definitely helped us a lot and I don’t think the album would be going the way it is (which is good) without his help.
Hopefully, we’ll get some of this film developed within the next few days so you can see the studio and all the other stupid shit we decided to take pictures of.
More guitar and bass tracks have been recorded. 433, Tabula Rasa, Die in Fall and the untitled new song all have guitar tracks down and they all sound really, really good. At least I think so.
Last night we took a much-needed break from watching Madden 2002 on the Playstation 2 and saw the movie “Ghost World.” I thought it was pretty good, and it featured a cameo appearance by David Cross from Mr. Show. I actually had to sneak into the movie, which is weird considering that I’m 24 years old. I forgot my wallet and they won’t sell you a ticket without ID down here, so Jamie had to get back in line and buy another one for me. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous.
Tomorrow we plan on going back to tracking drums. I’m not even sure what song we’re gonna do next. But we’ll be doing that tomorrow and Tuesday and then we’ll probably go back to overdubs and maybe even some vocals.
On Tuesday night we’ll be out of the studio for a bit to see the Rival Schools / Burning Airlines show. If this tour hasn’t come through your area yet, find out when it is and go. You won’t be disappointed.
Then later this week, we’ll be getting a visit from our A&R rep at Roadrunner, Paul Conroy, and our manager extraordinaire, Scott Marceron… so, I’m sure something interesting will happen for us to tell you about.
Ok… since our last update, we have gotten a lot done.
We recorded the drum tracks for 5 songs: 433, Tabula Rasa, Die in Fall, Plasma and an untitled new song. We have a few of those (untitled songs) so this could eventually get a little confusing. But I think we’re OK for now.
All the basic guitar tracks are complete for 433 and Die in Fall. Bass tracks are done on 433 and Die in Fall is being recorded right now.
By the end of this week we should have all the basic tracks done on those first 5 songs and we’ll be recording more drums.
This is the first time we’ve recorded like this, but it seems to be working really well. Everyone does their thing for a few days and then they get a break, so no one gets burned out recording 10 songs in a row or whatever.
I have to say, so far everything sounds amazing. Malcolm (the producer) has brought in a lot of really cool ideas for our songs. Not so much with new parts or melodies or anything, but more just with arrangement ideas. I think everything is coming together really well.
I don’t want to bore you with every little detail of what goes on in the studio, but if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Click here to email us your questions.
Aside from the recording there hasn’t been too much else going on. We’ve been playing a lot of SSX Snowboarding on the PlayStation2 and watching the Nashville public access channel. Apparently, you don’t really have to know what you’re doing or have a specific idea for a show to get a show on this channel.
We still don’t have any pictures to put up, but we will soon. And hopefully we can get a video clip or two up as well.
I know you may not believe this, but we are actually in Nashville, TN recording our Roadrunner debut.
We left Philly on Friday afternoon and got into Nashville late Saturday night. According to the Roadrunner site we flew here but I don’t seem to remember any airplanes. It wasn’t a bad drive at all, though. Much better than the last time we came down here.
The place where we’re staying is a pretty nice two bedroom apartment, which is better than the hotel rooms we’re ususally stuck in. We’ll have some pictures of our place and the studio once we got some film developed.
In the 4 days we’ve been here we’ve already tracked drums, bass and guitar for one song, “433.” The original plan was for us to do all the pre-production first before we record anything. Instead, we’re gonna go back and forth, so right when we get the song arranged where we want it, we’ll record the basic tracks, so we can get the best performances.
So, that’s pretty much it so far. Right now Jamie, Mike, Malcolm and some other people are at the Eagles-Titans game. It just happened that our team was playing the Nashville team and they got some free tickets, so they decided to go. It gave me a chance to update the site so I guess that’s good.
We don’t have our own computer at this point, so I don’t know if we’ll be updating every day, but we’ll try to do it as often as we can. If anyone has a nice laptop they want to send down to us, feel free. We’ll give you credit in the album and everyone will think you’re cool.
OK. We know this is getting a little ridiculous. We’ve been talking about getting into the studio since back in April and still nothing has happened yet. Well, in a little over 2 weeks (August 15th) we will actually be on our way to Nashville, TN to start recording our album.
If you’re wondering what’s been taking so long, here’s the deal: As you may have heard, Roadrunner Records has merged with Island/Def Jam. This all started happening about a week before we were originally supposed to leave, and as a result everything got put on hold. Now that that’s all taken care of, things should go a lot smoother. It probably won’t really affect anything other than the fact that it will now say “Roadrunner/Universal” on the back of our album, instead of just “Roadrunner”.
Just to review real quick, we spent some time back in April and May doing pre-production with Walter Schriefels (Rival Schools/Quicksand). That went really well, and we ended up with 13 songs that we were ready to record. Then, things got delayed, and in the meantime we’ve written 3 new songs. Now, I’m no math scientist, but I’d say that’s about 16 songs.
If all goes according to plan, we will be in Tennessee on August 16th. At that point, this section will finally start to get updated regularly.
We’ll try to post something at least once a day. It may be an update on what we recorded that day, or it may be totally unrelated. But it will be something, and you will read it.
