The month of August begins with all drum and bass tracks and half of Tony's rhythm guitar tracks completed for Hexlust's first album. There were a couple casualties along the way, the most obvious being "Sodomy and Lust." Though it was decided beforehand that we would lay down both our Sodom covers as bonus tracks or possible compilation material, I was so focused on rehearsing our originals that I put absolutely zero practice into "S&L". The result was a take so sloppy that we decided to just scrap the song entirely. Interestingly, it wasn't so horrible that Tarzan couldn't lay down a bass track.
Not long after this photo was taken, we also lost "Agent Orange" to accidental deletion. Not that I care too much, it was just an extra cover, nothing worth dragging my whole kit all the way back up to Temple (thank the gods). My only heartache comes from the fact that I put so many takes into "Agent Orange," the most for any song in these sessions, which admittedly is due to my own lack of preparedness for these covers, but still! Just about all of my fourth and final recording session was devoted to laying down both of those covers, and the fact that they're gone for good makes that whole day feel like so much dead effort. Thankfully I still had time to do a re-take of "FBF," as I wasn't satisfied with what I had laid down during my first session.
I was there for the recording of a few of Tarzan's bass tracks: smooth, fluid, and with an awesome tone! Walter set it up to where Tarzan's effects pedal/pre-amp thingy (I don't know things good...) was plugged directly into the computer, and also had a microphone positioned in front of his amp. The pedal result was like miking a bass drum's batter head, with a very "attack-based" sound, more high-end, where you could actually hear his fingers plucking the strings; the amp sound brought out the qualities of miking the resonant head, pure low-end "boom." By combining the two sources into one result, we got a bass sound that was sharp, yet punchy, able to be heard through the guitars while still providing the deep bulk for their frequencies.
Due to work schedules and Tarzan moving to San Antonio, nobody has been able to shoot footage of Tony as he lays down his guitar parts, so I'll try to get in there with him sometime soon to capture some of the action. While I'm at it I'll probably have Walter demonstrate Tarzan's bass sound, with the two parts separated and then together, which hopefully translates to the camera well. Speaking of which, I should have Tony post his footage of Tarzan's sessions to Facebook so I can slap it on this blog.
