Just spent the entire weekend in The Chamber, a truly remarkable place.
Things kicked off at about 12pm on Saturday, everyone arriving and meeting Grant Macnamara, our weekend engineer/producer – a guy with a great ear and a particularly impressive CV. Suffice to say I wasn’t on my best behaviour during the days/nights leading up to our time in the studio and was therefore slightly worse for wear when arriving. But the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, putting a hungover Stu slightly at ease – well, after I got my amp set up that is…
We played together in a live room with Grant observing from the control room, where he sat and twiddled with his amazing collection of knobs. Our amps were all miked up in their individual soundproofed rooms and a mix of all instruments was duly provided through our lovely headphones.
We recorded one song at a time before running – like excited little boys – through to the control room where we could have a listen. The four of us played air guitar and bopped our heads while listening to our song while Grant had his head down at the mixing desk, listening intently then providing his opinion. The fact that he had the ability to turn down the guitars and drums and listen to nothing but my bass line made me very nervous, especially when I realised I’d made a wee mistake or two. And going back through to the live room to re-record a bass track in full view of everyone in the control room was quite nerve-wracking too. The fact that it was 1pm and I was hungover didn’t help.
Anyway, we were in from 11am till 7pm on Saturday and from 11am till 6pm on Sunday and got our 8 songs recorded and mixed. I currently have a CD-R copy at home that I recorded onto cassette which I have in my Walkman at work right now. That is how old skool I am.
My mission now is to organise a gig in Aberdeen and I’m going to get the ball rolling on that one today. Any Aberdonians or former residents of Aberdonia are welcome to suggest possible venues…
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