Track 9: Obamanation
I was doing something else, screwing around with guitar tones and pulling together some undoubtedly stupid, far-flug idea. I was also boy-sitting (I take care of a friends boys in my spare time) and Joshua was up with me in the studio, content enough bashing away on the drums and toying with the many knobs and buttons on my guitar processor. Out of nowhere I changed gears and played the now main riff for “Obamanation”, Joshua’s ear perked up and he shouted “OOOh hey that sounds cool, I really like that one.” as he aped me, sliding his hand up and down an air guitar, sneering at me knowingly.
I decided to pursue this new riff, and banged out a quick beat and began to workshop it. It was the only time i can remember the boy taking such an interest in something i was doing in my studio, as normally he’d come up to retrieve me when i wasn’t spending enough time playing with him, but there he sat, tweaking my guitar tones, looking up at me, watching me record this new riff - almost six years old.
It came together very quickly as fire spread to the other ideas I was cobbling together and before I knew it, i was sitting there pen in hand writing out the lyrics to our newest song.
Studio work has been going pretty smooth as of late, we’ve been hitting a groove in our sessions and getting a lot done, this one came together really well and was one of the larger projects we’ve ever done, well over 200 channels bounced down to 17 mixdowns that we send off to our producer Nic Heidt. That’s a hell of a lot of sound, but it all comes together to create one swirling mass.
Everyone is on this one bringing their own brand of craftmenship to this monster. I wrote a specific parts with each member of the band in mind and everyone gets their pocket in which to violently hash their vocal cords. Dave did his first singing (not screaming) back up’s for us on this one (the middle harmony on the ‘wish or pray’, ‘day to day’ lines in the verses (listen hard). Be sure to listen for all the special subliminal goodies we’ve sprinkled in for you, play the song backwards for an inspirational and touching message from satan himself.
We sent off a ton of mixdowns to our producer, see if you can hear all these elements when listening to the song…
1.) Kick Drum: We isolate the kick drum, so that we may placate all the drum geeks out there who only listen for brutal doubles on the kicks… all. the. time. plus it makes it easier to eq the bastard and get it to thump.
2.) Snare/Toms: We’ve just started tracking our drums and hardware separate so our producer can work his magic.
3.) Cymbals: Having the cymbals hard panned left and right and two mics for ride and hats respectively really creates a wide space and the best depth for our drums.
4.) E-Drums: OBCT’s beats have beats in em so when the beat stops there’s still a beat going. We program a shit ton of drums, typically Geoff does half and Booty does half and we split em up accordingly.
5.) Samples: This is Booty’s thunderdome, this channel could have everything from vocal samples to entire betaeight subtracks that we started writting from. Most songs have at least 5 to 6 sample takes, we hack em up and make em funky from there.
6.) Synthesizers: Geoff step sequences most of our riffs and creates a ton of different outputs with various sounds and effects applied. From bass lines to piano parts, synth leads and pads, it’s all in here.
7.) Aeryn’s Synthesizers: Aeryn usually drops about 5 or 6 takes and we prune them and shift sounds through out the tracks. He gives us his trademark sound and then we get him to do some more far out shit and then we mix it all together.
8.) Bass Guitar: All of Geoffs’ hand played bass lines get dropped here, a lot of low end to be found in this channel.
9.) Lead Bass Guitar: Geoff also enjoys crafting a second counterpoint bass lines with a bit of crunch or distortion, we pull em apart to get the most bang for the buck in post production.
10.) Geoff’s Guitars: Geoff records a lot of the rhythm guitars, the chunky stuff he’s been tossing out for a decade now. Our guitars are almost always doubles and hard panned left and right to create the bookends for our entire sound.
11.) Dave’s Guitars: Dave’s lead guitars are mixed down into a single file for mixing, all of his leads, tapping lines and chord structures get pulled together and compressed for a tight sound.
12.) Intro/Outro Samples: I almost always forget something, or have to have an overflow for into and outro samples so that we don’t torture our producer by making him pick through the 9,000 sounds we created to get it right, mixing is a bitch at times.
13.) Geoff’s Vocals: Geoff’s leads and backup’s all are compiled here. Geoff does a ton of harmonizing and records multiple takes for each line, this channel is huge by the time we go to output, any given song can have 50-100 vocal takes.
14.) Booty’s Vocals: Boot has levels for both lead and backup vocals, we tend to mix booy a little more straight forward, single takes to capture his energy and intricacies he drops on each take.
15.) Aeryn’s Vocals: We cover our ears when Aeryn steps up to the mic to record his vocals, we pull the input levels and let him hash his shit out.
16.) Dave’s Vocals: Dave’s got a variety of metal tinged voices as well as a nice complimentary singing voice we’ll be employing more as time goes on.
17.) Drum Extras: Sometimes we’ll add an extra snare or cymbal hit here and there, maybe a punch in for a tom fill if something isn’t sounding quite right.
