Skye Ladder - 11th December 2012

Session times: 8pm-10:30pm

Janie and Paul from Skye Ladder came over tonight to record some vocals.

Skye May Fall

The backing for this track had been done previously, so we just needed the vocals recording.  Because the song is mostly just piano and voice, the vocal had to be spot on and it took quite a while recording  each line a few times to get just the right emphasis or to make sure the words were clear.

Name Of The Game

We recorded most of this track a few weeks ago and just needed to record the main vocal and any backing vocals we could think of.  Unlike the previous track, this song is up-tempo with guitar, bass, drums, piano, strings (and solo cello!), so the main vocal was quite straightforward and only took a couple of takes with the odd replacement of lines here and there.  Then we moved onto some backing vocals.  I recorded Janie riffing over the main vocal and we played it back to decide on any good bits we liked.

The chorus needed a lift so I suggested Janie ahh-ing a 3-part harmony but after we recorded it, it was apparent her voice wasn't quite right for this task.  We tried a few voice patches on Janie's synth, but they all seemed too fake.  Paul suggested some brass instead, so we found a decent trumpet patch on the synth and Janie put down a few stabs which really lifted it.  We will replace it with a proper horn section at a later date, but that gave us a good idea of what it sounded like.

Looking for horn section

If you know anyone who can play trombone or saxophone, who is in the Littleborough area, and might be interested in playing on a few tracks, please drop us a line at: starringstudio@hotmail.com.