Recording Week 1
Greetings from the Hollywood Hills. We are in the US to record our second album with a producer called Brad Wood . We spent many a month and many a conference call, sifting through a number of potential producers and engineers. Brad came out on top. The Studio is in the back garden of his house in the San Fernando Valley, set on an idyllic street in suburban Los Angeles. He has built a studio control room in his guesthouse and a separate live recording room about 10 feet away, all nice and cosy.
THE STUDIO CONTROL ROOM THE STUDIO LIVE ROOM
We are staying at an apartment complex called ‘the Oakwood’, about 10 minutes drive from the studio. It is a peculiar place, filled with aspiring actors, general ‘entertainment’ workers and child stars with their pushy parents. September is apparently pilot season in LA, so actors are in town for auditions. For trivia fans out there, it is where Nirvana stayed when they were recording ‘Nevermind’, and where ‘superfreak’, Rick James died http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qXUfp4wtw.
THE OAKWOOD APARTMENTS
We soon realised that getting taxis back and forth to the studio wouldn’t make sense. We tried to rent the smallest car we could, but due to lack of availability got repeatedly upgraded to a colossal SUV. I have never driven a car that size, nor have I ever driven an automatic, so taking it out on the 101 freeway to the studio was an experience. There are no slow and fast lanes, everyone just fights for the space, and no one really indicates when changing lanes. It took a few days to get up to speed. THE CAR Our first four days in the studio were spent on pre-production; running through the tracks in the live room with Brad to figure out if we needed to change song tempos or arrangements. We went into this session with about 16 songs on the boil, and are hoping to record 13 or 14 depending on time constraints. So we have some pretty big decisions to make post-haste. INSIDE THE LIVE ROOM
LISTENING BACK WITH BRAD IN THE CONTROL ROOM Rowan
