Recording Two Songs for Mosson
Last weekend I got in a little studio time in as I recorded lead guitar on two songs for my good friend (and lead singer of The Here and Now), Chad Mosson. Chad's been writing and recording his own songs for some time now; he released three singles last year (two of which I also played on) and plans on releasing even more material over the next few months.
The cool thing about these two songs is that the rest of the band (Rick Mudd on drums and George Broyer on bass guitar) would also be contributing and playing on them. We did some pre-production work with Chad in the weeks leading up to the studio sessions. Chad recorded some basic demos of each song at my home studio which were shared amongst everyone and we also rehearsed together in various configurations to hone our parts and tighten up the arrangements.
The studio sessions were done at Full Circle Recording in Chester, VA over the course of three days. Rick laid down the drums to a demo recording that Chad created to a click track so that the timing could be locked for editing purposes. George put down his bass parts and Chad his rhythm guitar parts the following day.
Lead guitar and all vocals were done on the same day. The two songs we recorded, "Change of Heart" and "Vega", have very different vibes but in general are what I would consider in the singer/songwriter meets indie-rock vein. On the previous songs I did with Chad last year I used my Line 6 Helix pedal for all of the guitar sounds direct to Pro Tools. For these songs I wanted to take a more organic approach so I decided to bring my Vox AC15 combo amp and a small pedalboard for a few effects that would be used sparsely throughout the songs. I wanted the guitar tones to have an open, ringing tone to them that also had some bite when necessary. I decided to bring my two Gibson electrics, a 2004 Les Paul Standard Limited and 2012 SG Standard. The Les Paul through the Vox had a really nice tone to it, especially when pushed with a Fulltone OCD pedal in front of it.
When it came to mic'ing the amp, Full Circle owner/engineer Dan Uphoff went with the tried and true method of putting a Shure SM57 a few inches from the speaker slightly off axis. In addition to the 57, I brought one of my Cascade Fat Head ribbon mics and put it about a foot away from the center of the speaker. Both mics were run into Pro Tools using API mic pres, which always sound great on guitars. The 57 track sounded smooth and sat really well in the mix with the other guitar tracks that Chad had recorded the day before. The Fat Head was warm and fat and had a fullness to it that we all also really liked. In the end, I'm sure the 57 tracks will be the one mainly used, but Dan told me he would probably blend in the Fat Head any time he wanted to bring a different tonality to the tracks.
The Les Paul ended up being my go-to guitar for this session. I also doubled the guitar solo on "Change of Heart" with one of the studios' guitars, a nice Fender American Telecaster. The Vox handled everything I threw at it and more and reminded me again why I love that amp so much. I did use one of the studio amps, an Orange Thunderverb 50 through a Mesa/Boogie cab loaded with Celestion Vintage 30's for the chorus section of "Vega" just to add a different tone to those parts. Otherwise though, it's all Vox.
Overall I'm very pleased with the tracks I laid down during the sessions. I hung out for a little while afterwards to check out Chad recording his lead vocals. The songs are sounding really good though and I'm impressed with how big they sounded by the time I left for the day. I will post when these songs are released. Stay tuned and subscribe if you want to stay up-to-date with songs I'm working on.
The cool thing about these two songs is that the rest of the band (Rick Mudd on drums and George Broyer on bass guitar) would also be contributing and playing on them. We did some pre-production work with Chad in the weeks leading up to the studio sessions. Chad recorded some basic demos of each song at my home studio which were shared amongst everyone and we also rehearsed together in various configurations to hone our parts and tighten up the arrangements.
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| Full Circle Owner/Engineer Dan Uphoff working his magic. |
Lead guitar and all vocals were done on the same day. The two songs we recorded, "Change of Heart" and "Vega", have very different vibes but in general are what I would consider in the singer/songwriter meets indie-rock vein. On the previous songs I did with Chad last year I used my Line 6 Helix pedal for all of the guitar sounds direct to Pro Tools. For these songs I wanted to take a more organic approach so I decided to bring my Vox AC15 combo amp and a small pedalboard for a few effects that would be used sparsely throughout the songs. I wanted the guitar tones to have an open, ringing tone to them that also had some bite when necessary. I decided to bring my two Gibson electrics, a 2004 Les Paul Standard Limited and 2012 SG Standard. The Les Paul through the Vox had a really nice tone to it, especially when pushed with a Fulltone OCD pedal in front of it.
The Les Paul ended up being my go-to guitar for this session. I also doubled the guitar solo on "Change of Heart" with one of the studios' guitars, a nice Fender American Telecaster. The Vox handled everything I threw at it and more and reminded me again why I love that amp so much. I did use one of the studio amps, an Orange Thunderverb 50 through a Mesa/Boogie cab loaded with Celestion Vintage 30's for the chorus section of "Vega" just to add a different tone to those parts. Otherwise though, it's all Vox.
Overall I'm very pleased with the tracks I laid down during the sessions. I hung out for a little while afterwards to check out Chad recording his lead vocals. The songs are sounding really good though and I'm impressed with how big they sounded by the time I left for the day. I will post when these songs are released. Stay tuned and subscribe if you want to stay up-to-date with songs I'm working on.