CORDELL

ZAPIAIN

JIMMY FLOYD HASSELBAIND

TRAGICAL HISTORY TOUR

DENNISON

THE CRASH MATS - 69 PERUVIAN PANPIPE CLASSICS

69 Peruvian Panpipe Classics by The Crash Mats

I had loads of fun making this record. We recorded the album in 2 batches and we did everything really quick as well! We recorded all the drums live with bass, guitar and vocals all playing along, this was to keep the fun energy that The Crash Mats have. We finished all the drums in just over a day! For the drums we used my Pearl Masters shells and then we used Chris snare and cymbals. I wanted a big drum sound, that was quite "live sounding" because we wanted the live energy to come across well on the record. I mic'd up the kick with a Shure B91a, an Audix D6 and a Yamaha Subkick, the snare was a pair of Beyerdynamic M201, and SM7B on the hi-hat and Sennheiser MD-421 on the toms, I then used a pair of AKG C214 as overheads then further back in the room I used a Shure SM81 as a "Slam" mic, a pair of Cascade Fathead microphons in the far corners of the room, and then I used a pair of Shure SM81 in an ORTF placement in the middle of the room. For the bass, we started off with a DI into my SSL X-Logic Alpha Channel compressed heavily with a DBX160 to tame some attack on some of the more aggressive songs, this was then sent out and split between my Tech 21 VT Bass which we used to dial in a distorted sound, and then the rest of the bass sound was made up using Baz's TC bass head into my Ampeg 4 x 10 mic'd up with a Shure SM57. For the guitars we kept it super simple, 2 layers, guitars straight into amps, cranked really loud with quite a lot of distortion. For one side we used Royales Les Paul into his Blackstar mic'd up with a Shure SM57 and AKG C214 and the other side was my Gibson SG through my Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier mic'd up with a Beyerdynamic M201 and Rode K2. Vocals were kept simple as well, we used my Slate VMS using the C800G emulation, in the mix I added a bit of saturation to give it more of a "live" feel. For the saxophone of Watchmen, The Farce and one of the secret tracks I used my Slate VMS as well, I moved it round until we got the right sound and I then used the U67 emulation which sat it nicely in the mix! I have pictures from the session up on my instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kesbristudios/

GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST

- Spent a couple of days with Nick Miller finishing all but one layer of lead guitars on his new EP.

- Spent a couple of days with The Crash Mats recording another batch of songs for their new album, as well as adding some saxophone to a bunch of tracks and making some edits to a number of songs.

- Started recording a new EP with Alright, so far we have finished the drums and bass, sounds awesome so far!

- Worked another live session with my mates in Tragical History Tour and Goodbye Blue Monday while they were on tour, first live session I’ve done in a while and I forgot how fun they are to do!

- I’ve been working for Naughty Boy and Ray BLK as monitor for the summer so we’ve been doing a bunch of rehearsals as well as Glastonbury, British Summer Time at Hyde Park, House Festival, Lovebox, Longitude, Wilderness, Custom House Square in Belfast supporting Emeli Sande, Leeds and Reading Festival and Szin Festival in Hungary!

- In between all of that I’ve also worked as house tech at Gorilla in Manchester for Minus The Bear, Haley Reinhart, Group Therapy x 2, BIMM, Tom Clarke and The Haxan Cloak and at The Ritz in Manchester for Whitney, Emperor Phunk, BIMM, Cabbage, Clarke, Ride and Maddie & Tae.

AVAS

ALRIGHT - EP2

EP 2 by Alright

This was such a fun EP to make! For the drums we used my Pearl Masters Studio Birch kit and then we added an extra 16" floor tom, that Phil the drummer owns, we used my Mapex Black Panther Deep Forest Walnut snare. We use Aquarian coated heads on everything and tried tuning the drums to the key of the songs so the kick and snare were tuned to A# then the toms were tuned to C#, E#, and another A#. Microphone wise for the kick I used a Shure B91a, an Audix D6 and a Yamaha Subkick. For the snare I used a Beyerdynamic M201 top and bottom with the top mic in a Primacoustic Crashguard. Toms were simply Sennheiser MD 421 and the Hi hat was a Shure SM7B. For the overheads I under mic'd the cymbals as well as a spaced pair above the kit with the mics pointed at the snare as much as possible to get a nice big snare sound, I then used the Slate VMS as a slam mic which I placed about a foot above the kick and 2 foot away pointed straight at the snare, 2 x Cascade Fatheads out in the room really far away for some stereo ambience and a Rode K2 quite close to the floor about 6 foot away from the kick to fill out some body. For the bass we recorded it in the exact same way as the first EP which was a clean DI then linked into my Tech 21 VT Bass DI. We used Cottys Fender P-Bass and then we used the Clean DI for a big solid sub range and the VT Bass for a super aggressive, distorted bass sound with a massively hyped top end. We then recorded the guitars quite similar to last time but this time used my Gibson SG for both sounds just because we wanted a heavier more grinding sound than the first EP. For one side we used my Peavey 6505 through my Zilla cab mic'd up with a Beyerdynamic M201 and a AKG C214, for the other side we used my Laney AOR driven a bit harder with an OCD fulltone through my Zilla cab and mic'd up with an SM57 and a Rode K2. All the vocals were recorded using the Slate VMS and double tracked, then the group vocals I used the Rode K2 in Omni doing 8 passes of each part to bulk it up!

MAY

- Recorded drums and bass for the new Alright EP.

- Recorded drums and bass for the new Hummer record.

- Did a live session with my boys in AVAS

- Put on gigs at the Alma Inn in Bolton for Second Hand Wings, Emily Cooke, Toria Wooff, The Crash Mats, The Mighty Bossmags, Will Hummer, Throw Me Off The Bridge, Arms & Hearts and Enda McCallan.

- Worked as house tech at the Albert Hall for Tom Clapton, Metronomy, Broken Social Scene, Dot To Dot Festival and at Deaf Institute for Carnival Club and The Body.

SECOND HAND WINGS - RECOVERY

APRIL

- I spent 3 days with The Crash Mats recording all the drums, bass, guitars and lead vocals for their new album. I also spent a day with Nick Miller finishing the acoustic guitars and lead vocals for his new EP.

- I did another live session with Hummer that is on my youtube channel!

- I put on a load of gigs at The Alma Inn in Bolton for Billyclub, AVAS, Not For You, Sounds Of Swami, Zapiain, Hummer, The Dissociates, Tragical History Tour, Only Strangers, Cordell, Johnny West Is Missing, Clayface, Ste FB4, Horse Opera, Dennison and Hi, Blake!

- I also did a bunch of venue shifts with The Amazons at The Deaf Institute, British Sea Power at The Ritz and a whole bunch of shifts at The Alma Inn

HUMMER

HOT MASS

MARCH

- Did another couple of live session for the Kesbri Studios Youtube Channel with the amazing Burnt Tapes and Hot Mass.

- Finished off some extra keys with Second Hand Wings keys a couple of mixing/mastering sessions to get their EP finished.

- I put on a couple of of gigs at The Alma for Seawhite and Limbs as well as Greg Rekus and Tim Holehouse as well as engineering on a handful of other gigs through the month.

- I did a bunch of venue shifts at The Ritz for Kehlani, Tove Lo, Projekt, Mist, at The Deaf Institute for Basement and Gorilla for Hurray For The Riff Raff and a Top Shop/NME showcase.

BURNT TAPES