It's not often I get so excited about young upcoming bands however today I worked with a band from Wigan called Fleuers. A hard hitting concoction of grungy riffs and floaty seraphic vocals; Fleurs are band that I hope bloom to success!
I had perviously listened to this bands current tracks and instantly got a feel of the sound they were going for; reminiscent of 90s vibe bands like Smashing Pumpkins combined with modern bands like Superheaven and Wolf Alice. The track screamed out for a HUGE drum sound. Luckily, huge drums are my jam! Close mics combined with near and far room mics in our big, high ceiling live room was the perfect recipe for this and drummer, Sam instantly started the track off on the right foot with a drum part that slapped! I'm the type of engineer that likes mixing a little bit as I go along and for todays session I tried a couple of new chains. I utilised the SSL Native Channel Strip a lot more that I usually would and found the EQ to be very musical! I also used the SSL Native X-Saturator on the Kick and Snare which gave them both a nice bite.
Once we had tracked drums, Dylan absolutely smashed it through his Bass takes! We ran the Studio Jazz Bass into the Golden Age PRE-73 then into a Sans Amp (drive on full, Blend at 12 o'clock) and eventually into the Ampeg V-4B Simulation Plugin. Well Rounded, Bitey and Punchy.
Guitars were up next and tracked by Joe. I was excited about recording these guitars as I knew that the wall of sound style we were going for was my vibe to a tee! And they did not disappoint. The studio's trusty J-Mascis Jazzmaster through the Golden Age PRE-73 and they into a new favourite plugin of mine, The Blackstar St. James Plugin. Raw gnarliness at it best! For leads all we did was swap guitars to something with humbuckers; my Chapman ML3 Bea. Running this as a Stereo rig with two separate cabs gave this guitar the space it needed to embed itself into the track perfectly.
Vocals were provided by vocalist Tamara and just like the lads, she brought her A-game and delivered a really strong performance. The trusty U87 into an LA-2A and then through an 1176 worked a treat! We were wondering wether the track needed Backing vocals, however we all decided that the track was sounding huge and we would see what the track sounded like once the mix had been complete.
Absolutely buzzing after this session and super excited to sing my teeth into the mix this week! What a week so far!
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