Day 3 - whatdoyoumeanI’mtalkingtoofast?

Sometimes when you’re all practiced up, you’re like a coiled spring ready to explode into activity.

It’s a bit like a boxer who’s trained above and beyond for a title fight, or a sprinter just waiting to burst out of the blocks and run like the wind.

Of course sometimes the adrenalin gets the upper hand and you end up doing everything twice as fast as you’re supposed to. It sometimes happens at gigs where you rehearse a set until you know it inside out and backwards. Then the extra shot of adrenalin on the night makes you play like an LP at 45 rpm.

Well, sometimes this happens in recording too and after listening to what we recorded on days 1 and 2 back home, we noticed that about seven of the songs were... a little pacey.

Kate laughs at how fast some of the songs are...

We also noticed they clocked in several seconds shorter than they should, which meant we’d played them too fast. 

So what did we spend day 3 doing? Well, drinking less caffeine for a start, and re-recording the tunes that we’d played just that bit too snappily.

...Wes isn't laughing though. No, not a bit.

We listened to some whale music and gave each other Indian head massages before we began. Then with scented candles and water lilies floating in a large copper cauldron next to us and the lights down low we set about re-recording those tunes.

It was a happy experience and although it was initially a bit annoying to realise we’d played them too fast, it was great to know we could go in again and play them just as well, if not better, at a more relaxed pace.

That took us most of the day, but it also left us enough time to double-double check everything and make sure there were no more strange steroid-induced speed issues.

Happily there were none.

In other news it rained heavily today... the sky was that sickly shade of pale yellow and battleship grey that speaks of an endless ability and willingness to piss it right down.

In the studio however, none of this mattered so we laughed heartily at those outside and got on with our work.

Because of the relativity anomaly of recording, just three minutes for
 Liam and Kate turned out to be five years for the outside world.

That marks the completion of all the drum parts and all the bass tracks – tomorrow we move onto Kate’s massive task of getting 20 piano parts done.

Look out for Day 4 ‘It’s lonely in here...guys?...guys?

Don't forget you can view all the photos of the sessions by Nicolai Amter here.

You can also watch a short video of us dicking about.

Technical info from Liam 

Since we spent day 3 doing similar stuff to days 1 and 2, just a bit slower... here’s some general information about how we’re recording.

This should have been in the first day’s report, but Wes forgot...

Everything was recorded into Pro Tools 10 on a Mac Pro, though I'll be editing stuff using a 300-year-old version of Cubase on Windows. One day I may get a Mac and Pro Tools... but not this day.  

I'M NOT MADE OF MONEY YOU APPLE TWATS*.

I know nothing about mixing desks. The studio website says it was a Toft ATB32 though, and among the preamps were some Manley's too.

*Apple Twats - a kind of sugar-glazed pastry dessert common in the North of England.

Child: Mother, are we having apple twats for tea?
Mother: No love, we’re having apple twats tomorrow. It’s treacle bastards tonight.