Volume & Density

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Volume & Density (2003) Duvall Genre(s) Rock Label Asian Man Records


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Behind the scenes
07.15.03 Drum Recording Day Two Welcome to my new recording log for the ultra exciting first Duvall LP!!! This log can also be called "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by Eric Cockrell, sure would beat the lame things I wrote about back when I had to do that dumb report. Anyhow, I'm getting off track way too early.... on to the recording!!! Well to catch you up, Duvall began recording yesterday. They already had the drums for seven tracks hammered out perfectly by Mr. Kellenberger with the assistance of the brilliant Matt Allison. Anyhow, that brings us up to date pretty much. So here's where we come in. We walked in during the recording of "Where I Belong". The song was debuted in Champaign, Illinois last August during an acoustic set with Josh and Eli. The band had been recording for about four hours when we arrived. Josh and Eli were playing behind the soundboard and Rob was alone in the big room at Atlas. The next few hours would be the completion of the groundwork for the album. Rob can then sit back, until backing vocals, and let the Caterer boys do their part. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For sometime they toyed with the tempo of the song and they toyed with "more cowbell". There were a few outbursts of classic tunes such as "Break on Through". Eventually the song was sped up a bit more than previous versions and they rocked it out. It was about this time that we broke and went out for food to a Mexican Restaurant down the street, I don't recall the name. At the restaurant Rob tried his darnedest to convince me that the jalapeños that were soaked in jalapeño juice were much less hot than that of your average run of the mill jalapeño. I didn't buy this for a second, well as far as anyone will ever know. There was then much discussion about poor hair decisions, i.e.. comb-overs and the like, then it was back to the studio. Oh yeah.... we ate some too. The drumming for "Jesus Never Leaves Me" was done in one take, I believe. Maybe it was two, but man it was awesome. Led Zeppelin was the band choice to jam out at this time. It was getting late and there was just one more drum track to complete. "All In Your Hands" was recorded earlier in the day, but they wanted to make sure to get it perfect before the drums were disassembled. It took about three takes to get the track perfect and the song was sped up considerably. A couple touch-ups were then applied to a couple other tracks and Rob sat relieved with the drumming finished. The guys packed up for the night and we headed out. Josh and Eli will begin recording rhythm the next two days and I will be joining them on Monday for some further reporting. I hope you enjoyed this small peek into the studio. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the Web board. Also, I promise to release more of the track listing as I report from the studio. And that's how I spent my summer vacation..... written by eric cockrell 08.05.03 Vocals Recording we had a great day in the studio yesterday. all the lead vocal tracks are done. most of them went pretty smoothly...i'd sing through the song once, just to kinda warm up to it, then we'd record a couple takes and listen to them and pick the best one (usually the first one.) some of the songs took a little longer. like "taking me home" for example. it's one of the slower songs on the album, so it needed to have a certain atmosphere. i kept doing more takes and then i'd say "no, that didn't feel right. let me try it again." i don't know how many takes i did, maybe five or six, then matt suggested i should try standing really close to the mic to get a more intimate sound, which worked pretty well, and we kept the next take. "what it is" also took longer than i expected. i've sung that song at a bunch of shows, so i thought it would be a breeze, but for some reason it took a few extra tries to get something i was happy with. anyway, here's the tracklist for the album: these are all songs you've heard us play live, except "i'll be around" which is brand new. we recorded a new version of "standing at the door" (this one's a little faster, i think) and we'll also probably include "racine" on the album as well (the same version from the single, possibly remixed.) we expect to have everything wrapped up next week. pretty soon we'll be putting some of the new music up on the site, to give you a taste of what the album will sound like. see you soon. josh written by josh caterer 08.08.03 Hey Josh Hey Josh, What equipment or instruments were used on the new album? Bass,guitar,drums? Greg Greg, i used my silver strat for all solos and most rhythm tracks, but i used my black strat for a couple of the slower songs because the pickups aren't quite as hot, and it gets a cleaner sound. i played through the Marshall Super Lead 100w head and the 4x12 cabinet with the reflector on the front, the one i play through live (which is actually Eli's amp, but he lets me use it) and i did the acoustic tracks with a Taylor i borrowed from my friend Matt Stowell. Eli used his green custom tele jr for all his guitar tracks, and for his bass tracks he played the blue Ernie Ball musicman through a huge Ampeg amp, which we borrowed from Jeff, the bass player for Colossal. Rob used a 60's vintage Ludwig drum kit with a lovely red sparkle finish. josh 08.10.03 Mixing session Today I stopped in on Josh and Matt Allison to check out the mixing process. This is the second to last part of the whole recording deal. For anyone who is not familiar at all with this, here's what it boils down to (since I know the minimum, this will be very very much in layman's terms). Each instrument is recorded onto seperate tracks, as are all vocals. After all recording is complete Matt sits down with all the tracks and adjusts the volume of each until they sound right. It is a lot of listening, adjusting, listening, adjusting, etc, and so on.... Honestly this is the whole process and it'd be redundant to run through the changes on each song, it was all the same.....listen.....bass is too quiet....turn it up.....listen.....turn it down a touch.....turn up vocals.....and so on. So rather than run through all that, I'll go through a few fun points and tell you what I have heard so far and how awesome it is sounding. While Matt worked his magic, Josh relaxed with his book "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. The book sounded interesting and Josh was very into it, it's his second time reading it. So there's a nice plug for it. Between the last couple songs Josh played a couple tunes at my request, such as the Beatles' "I Will". Then we played a game of "Classic Rock Name That Tune". I'm not very good with classic rock titles, so my buddy Ryan won the game, if we were keeping score. But I did get "Werewolves of London" right. For anyone who really likes to hear about our dinner choice, it was a hotdog and burger joint this time, I had their polish sausage, it was good. There were good things said about their chili dogs and burgers as well. But as usual I don't remember the name of the place, oh well. The songs I've heard complete are All In Your Hands, What it Is, I'll Be Around, Gimme Some Light and Standing at the Door. Each song sounds as amazing as we'd expect from these guys. I guarantee there will be no disappointments. written by eric cockrell

Tracklisting
1. All In Your Hands 2. Way Deep Inside 3. What It Is 4. Between The Lines 5. I'll Be Around 6. Gimme Some Light 7. Taking Me Home 8. Standing At The Door 9. Where I Belong 10. Racine 11. True 12. Jesus Never Leaves Me