(11/24/10): Posted "The Divided Son" last night

Since we reached our 1,000th facebook fan milestone, we put up a demo of a song from the new album, previously referred to as TDS. This is the first time I actually mixed an entire Suspyre song; I used to sort of pre-mix stuff, then Rich would finish it up, so it was a big jump for me to do the whole thing. I've done lots of mixing before, but on much different music that didn't have much stuff going on. Just for posterity, I'll try to remember the process of how we recorded this song, and what actually didn't get changed when the mix was done.

• Drums: Recorded Gabe's playing with 15 mics originally, but by the end, it was much fewer. I wound up using two overheads, an occasional hi-hat mic during the more fancy hi-hat parts, at least three snare tracks (top, bottom, then another with a trigger on it for the crack-ier sound), three toms, and a few kick tracks (the main one is a trigger, then another track for the softer sections is another trigger sound, and there is also a natural kick sometimes).
  
  
• Bass: Sam just DIs Andrew's Carvin six-stringer and I apply the AmpegSVX plug-in. Simple and easy.
  
  
• Keyboards: April's keys were DId as well, but I also recorded a MIDI track just in case I wanted to run her playing through a softsynth as well. It wasn't necessary, since I really liked the sound of all of her patches. My piano sounds are way too epic; hers was lighter and more present and fit the song better. The synth sounds are sometimes a combination of patches; for the lead near the end I ran her patch through an amp-sim to give it some grit. Only the string parts were programmed; all the other synths were played, which is pretty much a first for Suspyre!
  
  
• Vocals: Clay sang into a Shure KSM44, like we used on the last couple albums, even though I have some nicer mics now. Verses are only single-tracked, but the choruses are triple-tracked and then there are about 6-8 harmony tracks. Lots of Clays, like always.
  
  
• Guitars: This was the experimental, yet stressful part. Andrew and I originally were going to play our respective parts through our respective amps. It sounded way too unbalanced. Ultimately, I got a DI Box and started tracking everything while capturing the clean signal as well. It also sped up the process when Andrew would borrow the DI box and track his parts at home, then bring his ENGL PowerBall to the studio and re-amp it in my live room.
  
  - Clean guitars are my Ibanez JPM through a Mesa/Boogie TriAxis / 2:90 rig, miced with an SM57
  
  - "Rhythm" distorted guitars are Andrew's Carvin through the ENGL, doubled with an Amplitubed track, and sometimes my Ibanez JPM doubling it through the Mesa. We used an SM57, a Royer 121, and an AKG 414, but I think I only kept the SM57 track for most of it
  
  - "Lead" guitars were either Andrew's ENGL (the smoother and brighter tone) or my TriAxis (the grittier and darker tone)
  
  - My solo is my custom Manne guitar through my Mesa rig.

The word "miced" means "to record with a microphone," not to throw a rodent at something. Hmm.

-Gregg