C O L L E G E F A L L

Day 1 – Friday 26 August 2005
Demo Analysis. Guide Tracking.
We flew into Sydney yesterday and spent the afternoon acclimatising after an embarrassing bout of jet lag (I mean it is only a four hour trip and two hour time change after all). We are staying in Annandale at the Annandale Lodge on Johnston Street, only ten minutes walk from the studio. A trek we made at 9:45am to meet Michael. It was the first time Jodie had seen the new studio but I had worked with him in March last year with the Nordeens. Last time we recorded with Michael together was in 2003 and he was in a smaller (one room) premises. The new studio features two control rooms, one of which is used for drum tracking, and a vocal booth between these rooms. The studio is housed within an industrial shed which also houses Reverberation record label and distribution company. So it is a hive of activity particularly during week days.
We spent the day going over the pre-production demos and tabling our thoughts before developing changes for each song. We recorded the demos between December of last year and February of this year alongside Jacob Snell on guitar and Simon Bartlett on drums for us. We recorded it at home on my 8-track machine, before giving it to our very good friend Matt Giovenangelo to mix. We looked at each demo track and made a final decision on the arrangement and beat per minute timing then put together a guide track based on our decisions – acoustic guitar first, then vocals. We mainly used the Gibson acoustic for guides because we wanted to be able to keep the guide track if it was played well and my Washburn is freshly re-strung and did not yet sound smooth enough for recording. Although we did use the Washburn acoustic for ‘You’re Not In Love’ as it has a bass line type feel that suited it’s ‘woodier’ sound. For ‘Closer’ Jodie played keyboard on the 1970’s Wurlitzer. We used a Rhythm Box sample machine plus a sampled melody to add colour to the percussion. It sounded great! We also used this in the guide for ‘For What It’s Worth’.
For most songs we stuck closely to our intended arrangement except for the song “Back Down”. In the demo we recorded the song in E but the vocals at the start were a little forced. In pre-production we decided to record the song in A so that Jodie could sing the beginning in a low range and introduce an octave change for the more dynamic final _’s of the song. Today we realised that A was a little too low for Jodie’s voice and did not allow her to sing with much emotiveness. It was a tough decision to change though as A allowed Jodie to sing both in a low octave range and a high octave range. It was decided to perform much of the song in the key of C to suit Jodie’s voice. Then at the point of the 3rd verse, where the song is intended to really lift in intensity, Michael suggested to change the key to E and Jodie can sing it with more attack and intensity. After a few listens we realised we were on a winner with that idea.
At lunch we fleetingly met Michael’s wife Kelly while dropping her into work. We haven’t met their exciting new arrival Eliza just yet but we have seen some awesome photo’s and she is a stunner! After the session we headed into town to have dinner at a vegetarian Thai restaurant that we spotted when dropping Kelly into work. It was fantastic and really cheap. We’ll definitely be heading there a few more times over the next fortnight. Tomorrow we will start working on the drums. Matt Fell, who co-owns the studio with Michael will be engineering and providing production thoughts while Michael plays drums.

Day 2 – Saturday 27 August 2005
Drum Tracking.
We let Michael and Matt get prepared for the first hour of the morning. Before beginning tracking we had an in depth discussion regarding general drum sounds. We used The Jealous Sound’s “Hope for Us” and Dashboard Confessionals “Saints and Sailors” as the main reference songs. It was agreed we would gun for a sound with very close microphones on the drums with a series of ambient microphones adding depth to the sound. The goal is to have a warm and full sound that will be strong but feature best set back into the mix. When performing the drums Michael was keen to listen to the demo to get a feel for what we are after, but once he started tracking he didn’t want to listen to the demo so that we could work off his ideas and create drum tracks free from the creative restrictions of having a previous reference. The general way things worked was that Michael would play three or four passes of each song and then compile the drum take from there. Some times though he only needed one or two passes. The opening track we worked on was ‘For What It’s Worth’. We started with a looped drum part played in half time at the beginning of the song. The goal was for it to have a live feel but to be an obvious loop. Only ambient microphones were used at the beginning to create more distant sound. At the second part of verse 1 a few more microphones were added before a full kit at the start of verse 2. We slightly increased the pace of the song so Michael had a bit of trouble with the initial urgency, especially being the first drum attempt of the day. Typically though he picked up the vibe and intricacies of the song immediately created a fantastic track which brought the track to life, as only his drumming can! The decision to move to an open high hat at the end of the first chorus added a superb driving element. On ‘You’re Not In Love’ Michael performed with a straight slowly developing beat. We toyed with my idea of a bass-hat-snare-hat beat but it did not seem appropriate in context. ‘Back Down” was next and Michael played a subdued rolling rhythm for the first half of the song (the part played in the key of C). At the moment when the key changed to E (first chorus) I suggested he play a true rock beat to really build the song to a dramatic climax. It worked perfectly and confirmed the success of Michael’s recommendation to change the key of the song at that point. For “Built And Empty Home” I was keen to use The Killers “Mr Brightside” as the reference for the drumming and the building of the song. Hence we used it as a guide for the intro of the song. Michael was keen to run with a similar ambient recording with minimal microphones at the start, and a highly rhythmic use of the high hat. It came out perfectly. The pace of this song increased as well and Michael played it with a before the beat urgency that made the song move at that edge of your seat pace. It was decided to put a small break just before the beginning of chorus 2 which worked well. “I Won’t Leave You” is the kind of song that has a feel unto itself and he picked up on it straight away and pulled off an awesome take.
Last for the day we did “Gravity”. It was the sixth song of the day and Mick was feeling understandably pretty tired before doing one of the more upbeat tracks on the album. We decided to use a kick drum loop at the beginning of this song, with Michael overdubbing tom rolls. Once the song kicked in he played a very energetic track with abundant drum rolls. Intriguingly we decided not to play drums during the middle eight part. We are going to look at a synthetic drum sound complete with “spacey” type noises… using The Postal Service “District Sleeps Alone Tonight” as a reference. With 7 tracks completed including the drum track for “It’s All Over” usable from the demo I did with Michael in 2003, we are making super-progress!
After the session Jodie and I headed to the North Annandale Hotel to celebrate a good days’ work with a bottle of wine and dinner. Unfortunately though the football was on and Fremantle’s poor result soured things a little bit… Oh well, perfect days don’t have to be perfect for all 24 hours.

Day 3 – Sunday 28 August 2005
Drum Tracking.
We began the morning with an in depth discussion about technology and the future of music in the ever changing world. It’s quite a daunting prospect to consider for humble musicians like ourselves. It was decided that Jodie and I have to get personal planners, a good laptop computer and an Ipod immediately. If only we hadn’t self funded the album we would have been able to afford all that stuff!
Today we continue working on the drum tracking. Yesterday we completed 6 tracks including most of the more dynamic songs. We started up listening over “Gravity”. It is all sounding good. We have decided to not play conventional drums for most of the Middle 8. To finish up drum tracking today we are doing “This Direction” “Like It Or Not” “Closer” and “To Where You Are”.
“This Direction” We went for a laid back drum vibe, slowly building throughout the song. Starting softly moving into a shuffle rhythm from the second verse and moving into a slowly developing rock beat. We spent a bit of time refining the middle 8 deciding between a tom driven beat or a snare rock beat with some tom fills. We ended up going for the second option. For “To Where You Are” we looked at a full snare sound referencing the Dashboard Confessional snare sound. We went for a similar feel to the demo but with some different accents in the build and break down parts of the song. We have decided to do an extended ending to the song and introduce some electronic percussion and other instruments toward the end. Michael did a whole bunch of drum samples to use at the end. He recorded everything slowly so that when it is played back in normal speed it sounds sped up and the pitch changes to create and interesting sound.
“Closer” Jodie wanted a drum pattern that was unusual. And a style of drumming that was a lot less rigid than on the demo. Mick went with a plan to start with a unique beat, using mallets at the start – Moving to a more standard 4/4 beat at the Middle 8 point. We toyed with the idea of dropping the drums out at Chorus 3, straight after the middle 8, but Jodie wasn’t sure about it. After experimenting with it in and out, it was decided to move to the ride cymbal as soon as the 4/4 beat starts in the middle 8 to lose the rigidness of the pattern and then drop out for the 3rd chorus. This allows more scope to add emotion and tension to the ending, and to include additional instrumentation, particularly strings.
Michael felt a little nervous about “Like It Or Not”. It was the only song that when listening to the demo he had no concrete ideas. And then with us changing the song dramatically from the demo it added to the pressure. I thought it was best to look at an anxious pop-rock feel for the song, and with that in mind Mick came up with a fantastic rock part for each section. The sections in this song are quite specific and he made them all flow superbly. It was one of the most enjoyable drum takes on the record to listen too, perhaps because it had such an uplifting vibe about it. We had finished all the drum parts finished by 5:30pm! So we used the remaining part of the day to get on to utilising the Wurlitzer (which is in Matt’s control room) for Jodie to do “This Direction”. We decided to make the part a little more complex for the second and third chorus - adding passing notes.
Tonight Jacob arrived. We showed him through the studio and then returned to our lodgings. We had to change rooms because our original one did not have a third bed. From there we talk a walk and then a taxi into Darling Harbour to show Jacob around. We then searched for a decent place to have dinner which proved impossible in the city centre and after an hour of searching we decided to catch a cab out to Newtown. Food was plentiful as was the window shopping. We are looking forward to heading back out there in daylight hours.