The new band on the block: Lady Violet
Taking on an EP or an album for a band is always a different journey. Working with Lady Violet was a super fun and exciting time and I'm proud of these songs we've created. In this blog I'll talk about the writing experience as well as recording and mixing.
WRITING:
Working on these songs with the band was awesome. Josh (guitar) came in wanting these songs to be the best they could be, which meant we were able to work on any parts we felt were lacking and re-write sections to fit the vision we were after. The end goal was a heavy, in your face, late 90's-early 2000's influenced nu-metal with a modern sounding edge to it. A current twist to update an old sound. We spent a lot of time working on these songs and I think they turned out awesome.
Josh came in with 4 song ideas and we wrote one completely new track in the studio. We took a lot of time to rework choruses, change leads, add programming; anything we felt these songs needed for the extra bit to reach our vision. Josh being open to change made this an awesome work environment for us to write in. These songs changed a lot from the start, and in the end we were all more than stoked with what we created. After the music was written, we laid down vocals with Thomas. He's an amazing vocalist, so this was a breeze. He had pretty much all of the vocals written to these songs before we started tracking, so when we dove into it, there was only a little we had to add/change or work on.
RECORDING:
These guitars were recorded with an LTD EC-407 in drop G. The guitar ran through a Countryman DI box into an Apollo interface. The interface already sounds amazingly clean, but the DI box gives it that extra 10%. We used a new set of strings for every song as well.
Vocals were tracked with a Shure sm7b into the Apollo interface as well. This mic is so dynamic for heavy vocals, it's awesome. These vocals were then compressed with a plugin called Gain Reduction from JST.
MIXING:
The idea for the mix on this EP was to be nothing short of loud and in your face. Everything was brought to the front to make one big wall of sound. I'll go over some tones and plugins we used.
For guitars, we used an amp sim called TSE x50. It's a clone of a Peavey 5150 and it sounds awesome. It has a hi-gain, in your face tone which was just what we wanted.
For bass, we actually used programmed bass. I only use programmed bass on certain occasions and for this mix, it sounded great. The virtual instrument is a Dingwall Combustion bass made by Impact Studios. This is hands down the best virtual bass I've used for heavy music. For the tone, we used a Podfarm head called Brit Invader. This has an awesome tone already, but then we also used a bass distortion plugin called TSE BOD. This is a clone of a sansamp pedal. This gave us the extra fuzz and grind of a gnarly bass tone we were after.
Drums on this EP were programmed as well. A lot of the sounds come from Steven Slate Drums, but we used a snare from an Impact Studios drum pack. All these tones were all routed out to their own channels with their own processing.
The thing that made this is EP awesome, We were all well prepared. Anytime going into the it makes everything so much smoother when everyone is prepared and comes in with an open mind. I love helping artists bring their ideas to life in a creative environment.
All in all, this was an awesome experience and I'm proud of the sounds we've created. I can't wait for you all to hear it!
If you have any questions about recording, mixing, or anything audio related, feel free to reach out to us with any questions!
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@ladyvioletband
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