The Sick Are Not Healing recording notes

[Christopher Jon]

Yeah, just the kind of thread I'd create, eh?


Let me start with some basics:

I'm working at 48/24.

The HEDD is my AD and DA.

I'm tracking through my Mono GAMA preamp, and the REDDI and Nice DI's.

All softsynths are getting run though the DI's or pre. Not that I'm using much software these days. Some Reaktor, M-Tron, a touch of Lounge Lizard Session, and some piano samples in Kontakt. That's about it.

Guitars get the crazy pedal chains, often being split into two parallel chains and run into the REDDI and GAMA DI ins.

Synths pretty much go through the REDDI if they're mono and the Nice DI if they're stereo. For the most part this album is Evolver and Juno-6 with a little taste of SidStation, Virus, DX200, Blacet Modular and MiniMoog here and there. I had to return the MiniMoog. I want to try to use both the SidStation and modular a little more on these last two songs.

I haven't recorded any vocals yet, but I have a chunk of lyric writing done. I need to get a good vocoder patch going on the Virus or Nord MicroModular. I'm going to need it for a couple songs.

I have six guests that I can think of coming in to record parts. Mostly guitar it seems, but other stuff as well. More on that later.

I'm cruising along. I have 8 of 10 songs basically written and mostly recorded. I know how I want to build the last two songs, it's just a matter of doing it. Of course, that's the hard part.

[LucidPriest]

it is true; juno 6 can do anything.

Currently is the only synth I have hooked up, and i don't really feel the need for anything else.

Any particular reason you're not working at 96/24? just curious

[Christopher Jon]

it is true; juno 6 can do anything.

Currently is the only synth I have hooked up, and i don't really feel the need for anything else.

The Juno is awesome. I might even be using it more than the Evolver. It's my oldest synth, and I use it the most. And it's so simple, I don't get why it's so awesome, but it is.

Any particular reason you're not working at 96/24? just curious

Because I'd like to be able to record more than 3 tracks of audio on my Dual 867 MHz G4!

48 has been working out great - when I get a brand spanking new Quad G5/Macintel/whatever I'll think about tracking at 88 or 96.

[LucidPriest]

Because I'd like to be able to record more than 3 tracks of audio on my Dual 867 MHz G4!

Ah, makes sense.

it's so simple, I don't get why it's so awesome, but it is.

It's called not being suckily defiled by the need for presets and computers. It's just a straight up no bullshit synth that sounds badass no matter what you do... seriously try to make some pretty bells... all you get are badass bells... would be annoying if it weren't so badass

[Christopher Jon]

it's so simple, I don't get why it's so awesome, but it is.

It's called not being suckily defiled by the need for presets and computers. It's just a straight up no bullshit synth that sounds badass no matter what you do... seriously try to make some pretty bells... all you get are badass bells... would be annoying if it weren't so badass

Thing is there are plenty of other patchless, MIDIless synths out there, and none of them have caught my fancy like the Juno-6. I had a MiniMoog here for months, and while it was thick and pretty awesome, it didn't inspire me like the J-6 does. I dunno.

[Christopher Jon]

I should add that there's a track on this album that's the MiniMoog played live through the Midfi GlitchComputer. It's nasty sounding. There are lots of live synths - Mini, Juno, Evolver, modular - processed and recorded as played. Or an Evolver or modular sequence, or Juno arpeggiation recorded w/o synching to MIDI clock or something, where I have to discover the tempo after the fact. Then you end up with a track that's 73.4 bpm or something. And of course it might drift a little, so you're writing in tempo changes to make it all line up. I love that.

I think the album has this gritty kinda raw nasty thing happening that I really like. Lots of noise, dirt, buzz, hum, sounds that you'd normally want to edit out to keep the recording more polished. But this time I'm saying "fuck that, bring the noise". Yeah.

[LucidPriest]

I've noticed this among industrial musicians today, they seem to be ditching their vile midi ways in favor of the raw "i played this on a keyboard" method of recording songs. Especially over the past two years, i.e. KMFDM and NIN (to name a couple biggies).
And i have to say, I generally love the result. hell, I haven't even touched a midi sequencer in over a year in favor of just playing the notes myself.
Don't know what all that means but i do like what it produces.

[Christopher Jon]

I've noticed this among industrial musicians today, they seem to be ditching their vile midi ways in favor of the raw "i played this on a keyboard" method of recording songs. Especially over the past two years, i.e. KMFDM and NIN (to name a couple biggies).
And i have to say, I generally love the result. hell, I haven't even touched a midi sequencer in over a year in favor of just playing the notes myself.
Don't know what all that means but i do like what it produces.

Other than those two big ones (who are more rock anyway) I can't think of anything I've heard in that scene that is going in that direction. If anything so-called "industrial" music now is more quantized and grid-locked midi than ever. Then again, I don't consider any of that crap industrial, so i dunno. Also - all I know of that genre these days is what I hear in a club when playing shows, so maybe there's stuff like this out there that's just not getting club play!

[wraze]

I should add that there's a track on this album that's the MiniMoog played live through the Midfi GlitchComputer. It's nasty sounding. There are lots of live synths - Mini, Juno, Evolver, modular - processed and recorded as played. Or an Evolver or modular sequence, or Juno arpeggiation recorded w/o synching to MIDI clock or something, where I have to discover the tempo after the fact. Then you end up with a track that's 73.4 bpm or something. And of course it might drift a little, so you're writing in tempo changes to make it all line up. I love that.

I think the album has this gritty kinda raw nasty thing happening that I really like. Lots of noise, dirt, buzz, hum, sounds that you'd normally want to edit out to keep the recording more polished. But this time I'm saying "fuck that, bring the noise". Yeah.

im going to throw something out there.

music should be violent too, and ugly too. isnt life? doesnt the contrast ultimately serve it well? i think so anyways. glad to hear you bring this up.

[Christopher Jon]

im going to throw something out there.

music should be violent too, and ugly too. isnt life? doesnt the contrast ultimately serve it well? i think so anyways. glad to hear you bring this up.

I like contrast. And I like ugly. I think there's a bit of ugly on this album - it's much uglier than OTCF, anyway. There is also beauty - beauty made more beautiful perhaps because it's surrounded by so much ugly.