Day 35: Put The Pedal to the Metal(works)

We left for Metalworks Studio in Mississauga today at around 10am. I think it was sort of what I expected, but not totally. They had the whole reception desk thing going on, but with a rockstar looking guy instead of a gal, along with gold and platinum records on the walls. There wasn’t many people that I recognized though… mainly Nelly Futardo, NSYNC, Tina Turner, and Christina Aguilera. Basically a bunch of washed up nobodies. Rob got excited about an album by a band called the Northern Pikes.
The control room was pretty cool. There was a soundboard that’s almost as wide as the room and a couch that’s even wider. Rob and Matt were already there with Tim because they went over early to set the drums up along with a drum tech Darryl (who plays in a sweet band named Hewit – www.myspace.com/hewit). They tuned the drums and plugged in Chris and his radical bass. Alex and Dede showed up with some a couple pizza’s, which we devoured in the lounge area before hitting the first tune. It sounded pretty choice from the sound room. It’s also great to just sit on a big comfy couch with a laptop and watch those boys do all the hard work (for today).
Recording the bass and drums basically goes like this: play the tune, while listening to the scratch guitar and vocal tracks, all the way through once. Then play it one more time. Then 6 more times after that. Then we’ll go back and punch in certain drum fills or bass licks that may be a bit more complicated. And if you’re recording with Tim, then chances are he’ll find a wonderful new bass tone after recording 6 songs, and you’ll have to go back and record them all over again. That was Chris’ experience. I didn’t get to see this part but I’m sure he was very happy about it and probably played it even better the second time.
The Metalworks session ended around 8pm. We then came back to the Hive and listened to what was recorded, and see if anything needed to be recorded differently. I think it’s safe to say that Tim was pretty excited about the drum sounds we got. He even said something along the lines of “these are the best drum sounds I’ve ever recorded.” That was very good to hear. After watching Tim listen to the drums for another couple of hours we eventually took off. I got off at the subway station where I caught a subway to D Mac’s place since he would be driving me to the airport in the morning for my flight home. We went for some food, got my bags from Marjori’s, listened to some tunes, and chatted on the balcony for a while until we figured we might as well stay up all night since it was already 5am. I got some good morning pictures before we left for the airport at around 6:30am - then it was off to the Nish!
Hallelujah!

Jordan