News : Be'lakor hit the studio

Victorian melodic death metal band Be’lakor have finally hit the studio to begin recording their second release. No real details have been released but those of you who have seen them live will probably have heard a few of the songs that are to be recorded. The following is the first part of the bands studio diary –
Today was our first day in the studio. We got there around 10.30am and left at about 10.00pm!

There were two main things that we needed to do today. Firstly, we had to set up Jim’s kit and place the microphones. This took a couple of hours, but as is to be expected in the studio, there were the inevitable delays. The adaptor for Jim’s trigger module had somehow been damaged between his house and the studio, so a suitable replacement needed to be found. This meant that George and John ended up driving to Bayswater, and then back to Cheltenham. Fun times.

Anyway, the other major job for the day was to get the click tracks onto the studio computer and set up the ‘grids’ for these in Pro Tools. I’ve been making these click tracks for many months, adjusting them along the way so that they match the tempo of our songs exactly. It took us about 8 hours to drop them into Pro Tools and set up all of the grids to the correct time signatures and tempos.

It’s all done now though, which means that the foundations of the album are in place.

Tomorrow we will start to record drums, after we’ve experimented with a few different snares and microphones. Jimmy will play along to the click tracks and work his magic. \m/ The game of cricket will probably also resume (this is being played in the vast industrial expanses of Cheltenham when band members are not required in the studio itself ).

More news soon!

Warren arranges the overheads.

John observes. He’s an angry man. 😛

Jim’s kit is rumoured to be ‘sex on fire’.

Chillaxing. Jim practises his ‘Calvin Klein’ pose.

More drum goodness.

And even more.

Looking through the window, from the control room out into the large live recording room.

Warren knows what every single one of those little knobs does. He’d better.

The laptop over which we huddled for many hours, studying the tempos of the original modplug click tracks.

CYMBALS!

Warren and George discuss how best to kill themselves after the long ordeal of staring at grids has become too much to bear.