Having a concrete production process established through the sessions with Cherimoya, I was now ready to approach more bands/musicians who may require similar services.
About two months after the end of my course at SAE, I met the post grunge/alternative metal/sludge metal band Seppuku through a mutual friend (Chris). In the past Chris had mentioned to me about a band he met at a skate park who were keen to record and mix their debut EP. I urged him to utilize the studio time we were given by our college and bring the band in to have a chat and to do a trial recording. If they liked the trial, I had asked them to let us record, mix and master their EP. After attending their live shows, hearing few demos recorded on their phone and listening to certain references that they provided and that I thought may work for their sound helped in carefully planning a setup that would justify their sound. Next, we needed to schedule suitable times to to record based on everyone’s availability and make it happen. In total, it took us about six to seven days to record 5 songs which involved rerecording some instruments as we were all not satisfied with some elements.
Every session had a complicated setup and required advance planning. My role as the lead engineer and producer involved activities like scheduling sessions, planning microphone and mixing console layouts for each session which were incorporated into a session plan for each recording session.
As every session took place in a different studio room at Bankstock studios which meant working with different mixing desks and outboard gear, we generally had different session plans. We used the Neve C75, SSL G+, AWS 900 and Neve VR console preamps to record into Pro tools and occasionally used some nice analogue reverbs like the Lexicon or Bricasti. Bankstock studios was usually packed when we were booking sessions. So sometimes, we just had to go with the flow and take what’s available at times.
Bankstock studios being a part of our Uni Studios was the place where students go to work on their Uni Projects due to which it was mostly packed. This also meant students booked out a lot of microphones which we were planning to book out. That sometimes screws all are session plans and then we don’t have a choice but to go with the next best available microphone which sometimes maybe not be of the same caliber or we didn’t plan on using but someitmes could also lead to some exiciting things. I also do include backup microphones in my plan for some scenarios depending on how booked the studios look. But I take it on as a challenge to work within limitations and make the situation work.
The reference for this production was a cross between hard rock, noise rock and sludge metal (check the above clip recorded with my phone of Seppuku performing live in London) due to which, after a discussion with the band about the same, we ended up using certain recording techniques with the aim to emulate the raw sound of certain like bands like Calm and Dystopia. That’s just information we as engineers have to know in order to sculpt the sound right in the recording stage. I loved the Seppuku’s music and being a huge Deftones fan certain songs like Flower man from their Debut EP really hit me the same way. Therefore, I can’t lie I did try to also include Deftones as a mild influence for some sounds. Back then got the feeling that it might work for this band specifically. So, we tried a bunch of recording experiments for each song which makes each song very unique. The band also requested to not polish or edit any sounds. They just wanted a nice balanced mix that made them sound similar to how they sounded live.
I have to also say that being a huge fan of the great late Steve Albini, I am trying to idolize and pay my respects to him in my own way through producing a this band as I think he would have really liked their music. His style of produciton means acting like an outlet for the real sound for the band. Ensuring an unadulterated sound when needed or requested by a band like when he engineered Nirvan’s In Utero record. Producing an underproduced and not so overly polished record for Seppuku is also my tribute to the guy. May he rest in peace.
Coming back to the process. I next mixed and mastered the album in Pro Tools. Flower man was the only song that had some analog mixing elements as I mixed some of the recorded multitrack stems on an SSL G+ which were further mixed down on Protools. I mastered the tracks within the same Pro tools sessions.