"Marriage" Q&A with snakybus and pals (1 Viewer)

[egg_]

I want to know how the bize made such an ace-sounding record

Steve Shannon recorded your other stuff too didn't he? How come this one sounds so much better? Sure, some of snaky's best ever songs are on this, and there's a brass section, and oh! that fiddle, but ... well, the other records sounded good, but this one sounds like The Real Thing. Even snaky's voice sounds 10 times better. What did ye do different? Did I hear an autotune artefact on "water crystalline" or am I imagining things?

And it's played way better too - how come? Did ye just take more care? Or do it live where it had been piece-by-piece (or vice versa)? Or do more editing? Or what?

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Don't think Steve recorded their other stuff.
He certainly did this from start to finish.
I know they put a lot of time and effort into this, particularly Steve.

 

[snakybus]

Behind the Music with Mike!

Thanks egg! We don't have much autotune on it, actually, though it is there in a few places--not sure about that particular line, I don't think so but I can't really remember. When we were recording it we'd prefer to do a second take and avoid having to use autotune if at all possible. In fact, Steve would generally go for three takes and use the best take, or maybe use a part of one and then a part of the other or whatever--depending on the take. I think the mic used and the mic placing was the secret to the vocals, we actually re-recorded a lot of vocals with a different mic setup. Steve's a smart, talented dude and pushes hard for the right sound, and he really worked hard on this one, as Pete said. Also my voice I think gets better the longer I'm off the fags.

As for how it's played, we had all that worked out beforehand. It sounds pretty much exactly how we had planned it, brass and violin included. (Kelan who did the brass and Eadaoin who did the violin were brilliant.) We wanted it to sound live and we did a good bit live and avoided overdubs of instruments that wouldn't be played live. I can think of maybe 2 or 3 overdubs tops, only inserted because they were really necessary. And with the connections between the songs and all, and the energy of it, we didn't want that to be artificially created in the studio. We practiced really hard on it, couple of times a week for like six months beforehand, even did it live to really give it the road test. The lads were brilliant, really got into it. So just a lot of hard work really.

 

[egg_]

Balls. I was afraid you'd say that. I was hoping there'd be some kind of magic secret. So you must have had the order of the songs worked out beforehand, did you?

On "Natural History Museum" and "All this happened ..." did you do those mostly live too, or overdub more?

How long did you spend in the studio recording this? And I'd love to know how much you spent on it, though you don't have to post that publicly

Shit, I was planning to do most of our recording at home from now on, but I think I might be talking to Stephen Shannon instead whenever we're ready to do another long-player. Pity I'm so fucking broke

 

[hugh]

How did you manage doing the live recording thing at Steve's place? i.e. achieve separation and so on ...

 

[egg_]

Oh yeah, and John-out-of-Stoat says

call him up, ask him where he gets the effin time

 

[egg_]

oops double post

 

[Anthony]

next album will be called Divorce.

 

[snakybus]

well we put the drums in the main room and D.I.'d the bass. Steve put Jeroen's guitar amp in the vocal booth and my guitar in the jacks. Ruan had to overdub his percussion parts and we redid a good bit of guitar, but we kept some of my original guitar and all the bass. Brian did nearly all his drums in one take cuz he's a goddam animal.

Yeah, Egg, sorry, it was lots of graft! I always think capturing a performance is key, I think the drums versus guitar/vocals dynamic is the crux of the "rock song" so that's like a single thing in my head. All This Happened... was 60% live, maybe even more. With Natural History... we consciously went for more of a construction, partly because that was the mindset we were in at the time, partly because of the nature of the songs and partly because Barry, the guy we were working, lives in Chicago and it had been decided from the start that he would contribute musical parts in a collaborative way so that lends itself to a more brick-by-brick approach.

 

[ann post]

Brian did nearly all his drums in one take cuz he's a goddam animal.

yup.

 

[egg_]

I always think capturing a performance is key

I always had that idea too, but I've been finding myself listening to processed/artificial sounding stuff lately and liking it (like Marina, say, and some of the stuff you'd find on Nialler9's blog). Hmmm hmmmm. That natural approach sure has worked for you though

 

[Wilbert]

Also, egg_, DI'ing the bass was fantastic. I don't think there's any effect on the bass on the album. It just sounded great straight away and even thought there was talk of doing something with it, we liked it so much we just left in pretty much untreated.

 

[egg_]

What bass were you using Wil?

edit: Just listening to that music lesson one now and yeah, the bass sounds pretty much perfect

 

[egg_]

Oh and another thing - how did you work the mixing? Did ye all sit in with Steve from the word go, or what?

 

[ann post]

you should update the myspace, just for the craic.

 

[Wilbert]

Fender American Standard Jazz bass.
This fellow...

 

[snakybus]

What bass were you using Wil?

edit: Just listening to that music lesson one now and yeah, the bass sounds pretty much perfect

Yeah well done on the bass on that one Wil!

 

[Wilbert]

Yeah well done on the bass on that one Wil!

haha! That's the one song I didn't play bass on! Clearly!

 

[ann post]

aha! i have a question: when it was coming to the final stages of recording, and ye's were deciding which songs to put on the record were there queasy band injokes about songs not being marriage material??

 

[snakybus]

damn, missed opportunity!