See that console? That's a 1970's Trident A-Range, rumored to have been used by Lennon and Sinatra for various projects. And, as of two weeks ago, my bass tracks for the new Explone EP, Telescope and Satellite.
Behold! The power of black and white to make one look totally competent!
Here's Patrick in front of a wall of gear and blinking lights:
This is what I love about music hubs like Seattle, every studio has a history. And sometimes so does the gear. AVAST! is also home to "Lenny," a modded API Legacy console, once owned by Lenny Kravitz. My backing vocals went through that one. There's another API that used to tour with Heart as a monitor mixer. We didn't use that one. Tons of famous PNW artists have recorded here -- Death Cab, The Shins, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes -- but I think its real cachet comes from being the place where Soundgarden recorded their breakout album Badmotorfinger.
It's hard not to hope for a little of that magic to rub off on you.
Exciting as that may be, the majority of time spent in-studio looks a lot like this:
That's us listening to probably four or five different takes of the same song at 11pm, trying to decide what parts to keep. This is also probably ten hours in, the first six of those spent setting up microphones and getting good guitar and drum tones. There's a lot of hanging around and listening. It still manages to be a blast while slowly destroying your sanity.
Let's go see how Josh's drum check is going:
Here are a few more snaps from the studio at Flickr:
(View this slideshow at Flickr.)
With some luck, Telescope and Satellite should be ready to go by summertime. Summer! Can't wait!