Our first CD release is finally out and also available for digital download in most places that sell MP3s.

The EP consists of four carefully selected tracks, and if you want to listen right now, and also follow their progression from idea/sketch to finished form, click these links:

1. Fire Fire Fire
2. Underachievers
3. Silver Night
4. Left Behind

If you want to get your hands on one of those old-fashioned plastic discs that music used to come delivered on, you can write us and we’ll let you know how to buy one if you can’t find it online. You can also listen to it on Spotify and iTunes.

First vocals on this track were laid down yesterday, and hence the first version of this song being posted. This is the first track post “Fire Fire Fire EP” to be worked on, and while we were looking through our “sketch” folder yesterday we realized we’ve got another four or so songs to work on in the near future.

Most likely we’ll try to finish this track before moving on, we’ve still got some work to do on the ending of this song, and this is a very rough mix, so there will be more work to do on the vocal track as well.

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Yesterday we went to Stockholm Mastering to master the four songs selected to be included on the forthcoming Fire Fire Fire EP. Thomas Eberger listened carefully and did wonders to our mixes! The four songs are Fire Fire Fire, Underachiveres, Silver Night and Left Behind. All four masters have now been uploaded to the All Recordings page and are also available on this page.

The next step in producing this EP is making the cover design. More on that soon!

Now please enjoy the mastered and final versions of the songs:

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It didn’t take long for Anders to make a new mix for this one. Nothing much has changed however, just slightly more bass and a more polished sound.

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This song is based on a chord sequence and a specific piano sound repeating over and over, creating the foundation for the sound. Anders added some really nice synth bass grooves and a beautiful guitar melody at the end of the song, and we recorded all of the “live” parts during one session in the studio, complete with vocals.

Motu Traveler mk2

There are a lot of multichannel audio interfaces on the market, and many of them have similar specs. I haven’t tried that many, but my impression is that they ARE very similar both in design and sound quality.

I initially bought a Motu UltraLite and was very happy with it. I have never experienced any problem with Motu interfaces, and I really liked the smallness (it fit in my laptop bag) and rugged design of the UltraLite. But when a coworker said he wanted to “downgrade” his Motu Traveler for a UltraLite, I suggested a trade which he accepted. The only reason for me doing this was that the Traveler has 4 mic preamps where the UltraLite only has 2. For me this means that I can take the laptop, the Traveler, and some mics, go to our rehearsal space and record 4 channels of drums. With my TLA 5001 4-channel mic preamp I can record 8 channels.

I’m thinking we should maybe rerecord the main guitar. It was done quite fast as a guide track, but then we thought it sounded good and kept it. I think the playing is pretty OK (sloppy enough!) but the sound is too “country” and twangy. I would like a darker, more jazz-like sound. If I mute it in the verses there is much more room for the vocals, but then there is not enough drive in the music. I have a guitar with flatwound strings, so I might try that.

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Måns testing mics

We were not so happy with the vocal sound on some of the tracks, so we decided to do a microphone test. It has been difficult to get a sound that is both pleasant yet can cut through the mix. We chose the song Fire Fire Fire to try different mics on, partly because it has both very soft and quite loud vocals, and partly because it was a song where the vocals were hard to mix.

We connected four mics we had available to the four mic inputs on my Motu Traveler. The mics were (left to right in pic):

• T-Bone SC400 large diaphragm condenser
• Sennheiser MD 541 dynamic (no bass cut)
• Sennheiser MD 421 dynamic (no bass cut)
• Studio Electronics B1 large diaphragm condenser (no bass cut)

To make the test at least pseudo-scientific Måns connected the mics and I connected the mic inputs, so we didn’t know which mic went what input. But then I had to cheat: two mics needed phantom power, so I knew which were the condenser mics at least. All mics were set to give approximately the same level to the track.

Måns sang a verse/chorus and then we listened. Track 1 sounded pretty good, but a bit thin. Track 2 sounded crap in comparison, less treble and with some ugly resonant frequencies in the lower mid. Track 3 lacked a lot of treble. Track 4 was similar to Track 1, but less sticky.

So what was the result? Track 2 was the T-Bone mic. It sounded quite bad, so we won’t use it for vocals. Track 3 was the Sennheiser 541. I bought this second hand from an auction and have used it as a snare mic. Compared to the others it sounded almost broken since it lacked so much treble. It will stay in the drawer when we record vocals.

The mics that sounded good were the 421 (Track 1) and the B1 (Track 4). The 421 had a quite sharp quality that made the vocals cut through the mix. Unfortunately it sounded a bit unpleasant on the louder parts. The B1 sounded the most “natural” of the four mics, but it didn’t cut through the mix as well as the 421.

We re-recorded the whole song using the 421. We’ll see if we are happy with this take or if we want to do it again.

What we learned:

• Mics sound really different.
• It’s hard to say if a mic sounds good or bad if you don’t have anything to compare with. A/B testing is recommended.
• We want to try a really expesive mic!