We have an appointment with Bernie Grundman next week to master the record.  We're taking him three ½" tapes (Scotch 250) that our final mixes are on.  He is cutting a master vinyl straight from the tapes.  No digital fuckery.  I am talking to Justin Hampton about doing the cover art.  Then on to duplication.  

Most of the record was a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass into a 1970 SVT Blue Line and matching 8x10 Cabinet.  Higher Level and RnR Messiah was a mid 90's Music Man Stingray 5 string.  We split the signal and took a direct signal which we blended with the mic'ed cab.  We used two JBL compressors to get different tones through out the album.  We also overdrove the board preamps in certain places to get some wooly tones.  

We used a silver sparkle C&C kit on the record recommended to us by my drum tech buddy Johnny Seguin.  24" kick, 13" rack, 16" and 18" floor toms.  A Superphonic snare for ‘Make Up Your Mind’ and a Black Beauty snare for everything else.  Meinl cymbals.  

I bought my 100 Watt Super Lead from my buddy Alex Cora.  This is the same amp I had rented from him for the recording of Sunshine of Your Love and Johnny B. Goode.  I loved the tone and asked to buy it.  This was the main amp I used during Rock N roll Messiah.  It's a hand wired reissue.  The only other amp I used was a 1969 50 watt ‘Smallbox’ Marshall Plexi that I borrowed from my friends at Green Room Productions in Van Nuys. Most of the gear used on this album came from Green Room.  I used a Marshall 1960 BX 4x12 cab (Celestion Greenbacks) and a 2x12 Mesa Rectifier cab (Celestion Vintage 30s).  We used an AKG D224E dynamic mic on each cab.  I did a good portion of the tracks with my 2011 American Standard Strat.  However, I changed the pickups from Mojotone '58 Quiet Coils to Bare Knuckle '63 Veneers mid way through.  I'll go song by song for what I used:

Make Up Your Mind: 1969 50 watt Marshall Plexi with my 2011 Strat (with Bare Knuckle pups) and I boosted the solo with the Archer clean boost pedal.

Candy Flippin' Sweet Heart: The clean tones during the verses were my 2011 Strat (Mojotone pups) into the Super Lead and a Leslie Speaker Cabinet.  The chorus/solo tones are the same guitar and pups into the Super Lead and I used an Analog Man Sunface for fuzz.  

Come On: The rhthym guitars are a 1967 Telecaster into the Super Lead.  The solo was a 1988 American Strat into the Super Lead boosted by a FullTone Ultimate Octave for the octave fuzz thing. 

Song For Wes: Rhthym guitars were the '67 Tele into the Super Lead.  The solo was a 2002 Les Paul Standard into the 50 watt Plexi and boosted with an Xotic Effects SL Drive.  

Snapshot: I used my Taylor 114CE for the acoustic part.  This is an inexpensive guitar but it sounds incredible.  I think it's a 2008?  We mic'ed it with an MXL Revelation.  I used a Hi string guitar in the chorus which was also a Taylor but I don't recall what model. The clean electric is my 2011 Strat (Mojotone pups) into the Super Lead with the FullTone Deja Vibe for the Univibe thing.  The slide part was done on a Les Paul copy called a ‘Big Lou’ with an E-Bow into the Super Lead.

Awol Soldier: The rhthym electric is my 2011 strat (Mojotone pups) into the Super Lead with a vintage A/DA Flanger.  The solo is the same Strat set up into the Super Lead boosted with a FullTone OCD Germanium version. We also overdrove the preamp on the board for a bit of added saturation.  

Higher Level: 2011 Strat (Mojotone pups) into the Super Lead.  I boosted the solo with the Analog Man Sunface.

Rock N Roll Messiah: I used my 1979 Robin Artisan for this tune…the same guitar I used on Sunshine of Your Love. It's the one in the video if you care to see it.  I ran it straight into the Super lead for the rhythm parts and boosted the solo with the Xotic Effects SL Drive.  

So that's the run down of how I got all the guitar tones for the album.  Overall I think it kicks ass.

Special Thanks to Green Room Productions for:

1967 Fender Telecaster, 1988 Fender Stratocaster, 2002 Les Paul Standard, Taylor hi-string acoustic, 1969 50 watt Marshall Smallbox Plexi, Marshall 1960BX 4x12 Cabinet, FullTone OCD Germanium Overdrive, and the Archer Clean Boost

Hello,

  This blog post is dedicated to the over concepts, timeline and gear used in the recording of our third full length album Rock N Roll Messiah.  

Overall concepts:

I first met Doug Messenger in 2019.  I was looking for a studio to record some new original material in and Doug was referred to me by a mutual friend, Nihki Korula.  This was my first time recording to tape.  I couldn't believe the sound.  It was the first time my band sounded like my band….the first true representation of the energy I hoped to transmute via recorded sound.  It was uncompressed and raw, yet not harsh.  That first recording with Doug was the song ‘That Feelin’.  We then did several cover tunes…Johnny B. Goode and Sunshine of Your Love. The purpose of these were to refine our recorded sound and hopefully get a bit of online traction.  For the most part it was done all analog with the exception of digital rack mount reverb units.  We recorded to 24 track 2" tape and then mixed to stereo ½" tape.  We then took the ½" tape to be mastered and transferred to a digital format by Dale Becker at Becker Mastering in Pasadena.  Dale did a great job and we were happy with the outcome.  We repeated much of the same recording process for Rock N Roll Messiah but with the goal of keeping the sound 100% analog and going straight to vinyl from the final mix tape.  No computers…no digital fuckery.  I'm extremely proud of what we've created and can't wait to share it with everyone.  This is an honest record…no grid, no pitch correction, no time correction, no edits, no comping, very few punches and very little compression.  It is 100% analog including the reverb and delay lines.  We started the recording in late January of '24.  I made click tracks with scratch guitar and scratch vocals which is what Phil and Josh played to.  They did eight songs in two days.  I'm extremely proud of Phil, seven of the songs are complete takes…we punched in for one bar on one tune. Keep that in mind as you listen to all of the shit he plays on this record.  I would've preferred to do rhythm guitars live with the band but I'm also producing the album, so I decided to be in the control room to listen in hopes of getting the best takes.  After drums and bass were done I laid down guitars.  I'll go into all the gear I used in a separate post.  After guitars, Anthony ‘Brew’ Brewster came in to do B3, Wurli and Rhodes.  This would bring us up to about the end of March 2024.  I then started vocals and it was going well until we ran into some gear issues which I will discuss in another post.  It is now June of 25; we just finished mixing and are looking for a mastering engineer who can go straight to vinyl from the ½" tapes.  We are thinking about Bernie Grundman.