Posts: 815 |
gladsadmad Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 2:00 PM |
http://www.travisonline.com/band/?id=152&p=1
Back In Rak.
Album 6 Day 1
Feeling buoyant.
The album rehearsal shows have, i hope, left us nicely prepared to get the record down on tape pretty quickly. The songs feel just about ready to go into the oven.
It's a blindingly beautiful day.
My walk into the studio takes me past the maternity hospital and i am filled with all kinds of frissons of excitement.
Claes and I arrive at exactly the same time and we head inside to see our lovely nick and delicious dave setting up the gear in studio 1,
a studio where we have recorded at least part of every album except 12 memories. Not to mention countless b sides.
Great to see Emery our engineer, who arrived from new york only the day before, and assistant engineer raj.
Inspired by the rather brilliant experience of recording "lovely rita" with geoff emerick on the original equipment we have decided this time to use old school technology. This means a rather large 16 track machine (actually two 8 tracks stuck together) from 1968.
The joy of this kind of recording is that it's all about capturing a band performance rather than sitting round a computer shuffling little chunks of music around. Also it limits the number of overdubs we can do as we only have 16 tracks to play with, and means we can't really drop in to fix any mistakes. So have to get a great take from everyone. It's all very exciting.
There are narturally a few teething problems with the gear but by mid afternoon we are making noise and begin running through chinese blues.
We go back into the control room to check how everything sounds and to be frank it already sounds massive. 2 inch tape and 40 year old machines are good!
We do a total of around 10 takes and go in to listen. there is something very arresting about the second to last take and the consensus is that it is the one.I can't see it needing many overdubs to be honest. Which is of course a very good thing. Time has flown though, so we must have been having fun, and we decide to call it a night. a good first day. good night. xd
That's Chinese Blues pretty much done then!
1 down, 10 to go...
Thanks for your first studio update Dougie! Looking forward to hearing more for the next 2 weeks.
1 question Dougie - What 3 songs are yours from this album?
Like their previous records, Fran has written the majority of the album, but a quarter are a collaboration with bass player Dougie Payne. Fran said: "Dougie came in with three songs. He's always writing songs but I'm a very hard task master and it's not that his previous ones weren't good, they just might not fit with an album. All of these ones fit and they're damn good songs so it's fantastic.
http://www.travisonline.com/board/view.php?t=6907 |
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Posts: 3258 |
mili Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 2:44 PM |
| Yay! How exciting!! And Claes is there too! |
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Posts: 303 |
Delia24Oct07 Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 2:50 PM |
Wow, great to hear something from Dougie!!!! It sounds very exciting, without ever heart a single bit of the new songs I start to think that this album will be brilliant!!!!
Great blog Dougie! Thanks very much! |
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Posts: 7598 |
weirdmom Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 2:53 PM |
| That blog has made me want to explode with excitement. I am so grateful that they share their recording experiences with us. We are spoiled by Travis. |
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Posts: 1918 |
Moray Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 3:14 PM |
Added at 12.50pm, ended with "goodnight!" lolz. Is Dougie off for a wee afternoon nap?!
In all seriousness, very exciting reading. Loving the old school approach. |
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Posts: 815 |
gladsadmad Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 3:29 PM |
MoraySwan wrote: Added at 12.50pm, ended with "goodnight!" lolz. Is Dougie off for a wee afternoon nap?!
I believe that we will get the previous day's entry the day after for the next two weeks.
Very similar to Dougie's Diaries from the studio recording of The Boy With No Name, I hope!
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Posts: 1514 |
moominbadger Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 3:40 PM |
| How exciting!! This must have been posted just after I finished my lunch break at 1.30 this afternoon cos I checked earlier and there was nowt there! |
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Posts: 3592 |
Monica Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 3:52 PM |
| Wow!! That's great news! |
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Posts: 815 |
gladsadmad Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 3:53 PM |
For those that either missed it the first time round or want to give it another look whilst we anxiously await for the next two weeks more of Dougie's Diaries Series Two (Ode To J. Smith), here is the complete Series One boxset of Dougie's Diaries for The Boy With No Name.
DOUGIE'S DIARIES - COMPLETE SERIES ONE BOXSET (The Boy With No Name)
Disc One
The Hospital Studio Diary 01
The Hospital Studio Diary 02
The Hospital Studio Diary 03
The Hospital Studio Diary 04
The Hospital Studio Diary 05
The Hospital Studio Diary 06
The Hospital Studio Diary 07
The Hospital Studio Diary 08
The Hospital Studio Diary 09
The Hospital Studio Diary 10
The Hospital Studio Diary 11
The Hospital Studio Diary 12
The Hospital Studio Diary 13
The Hospital Studio Diary 14
Disc Two
RAK Studio Diary 01
RAK Studio Diary 02
RAK Studio Diary 03
RAK Studio Diary 04
RAK Studio Diary 05
RAK Studio Diary 06
RAK Studio Diary 07
RAK Studio Diary 08
RAK Studio Diary 09
RAK Studio Diary 10
RAK Studio Diary 11
I expect that Series Two will be just as good!
Rak Studios Website |
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Posts: 123 |
Jennny Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 4:18 PM |
| It all sounds just brilliant, so excited! |
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FranFlower Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 4:18 PM |
Cheers for the update Dougie :-)
It's very much appreciated.
Edit: and you know how to spell Claes' name :P Well done, lol! |
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Posts: 1918 |
Moray Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 4:25 PM |
| It's quite fun reading Dougie's previous diarys and guessing which song is which! |
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I Came in Through the Bathroom Window Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 5:44 PM |
Yaaay!!! I'm so excited! I love blogs!!!!
And everything sounds so great!
I agree with Anne, we're so spoiled (I love it!!!).
MoraySwan wrote: It's quite fun reading Dougie's previous diarys and guessing which song is which!
Yes it is! I tried to do that a few months ago xD. |
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Posts: 2310 |
the boy with a cryptic name Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 6:27 PM |
| I thought about making a competition to see who guessed the most songs right. I never did it though, especially given that we probably wouldn't have answers! |
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Posts: 815 |
gladsadmad Posted Tue 19 Feb, 2008 6:42 PM |
the boy with a cryptic name wrote: I thought about making a competition to see who guessed the most songs right. I never did it though, especially given that we probably wouldn't have answers!
Except if we asked Dougie himself.. ;)
For example, which one was "the riffy one" etc? |
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