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Senses Fail Studio Blog #4: Breathing life into an album skeleton

November 25-28

Hi!  I hope everyone's Thanksgivings went great.  We have been on a steady schedule of tracking guitars and vocals throughout the past few days. The record is beginning to take shape, and everything is sounding super-thick.  I don't want to give too much away, but we are taking a completely new approach to putting this album together. 

We started working on this album during the summer while we were on the Vans Warped Tour.  We set up V-drums in the back lounge, and we would all take turns going in the back lounge with Dan and jamming hard.  We would take the skeleton ideas from the day, pass them around to each other and refine them over time.  After Warped Tour, Buddy and Dan spent some time with our friend, Jeremy, in his studio making proper demos of the tunes for referencing and writing leads.  We all live in different states so we have to keep our communication tip-top in order to do our work.  It is a really awesome process though; it makes for some interesting creative tension that will be reflected on the final product.

Usually when you record an album, you start with drums (which we did) then move onto bass, then rhythm guitars, then lead guitars, then vocals.  For this album we have done everything almost one song at a time.  Yesterday we finished bass on a tune, moved straight on to rhythm guitars, added a few leads, then Buddy tracked all of the screaming towards the end of the night.  It's kind of cool doing it this way because we can come up with different tones for every single guitar track and give each song it's own personality.  At Shaun's studio (The Airport Studios) we have around 30 guitars, 10 guitar heads, and hundreds of vintage/boutique pedals to work with to build tones.  All of that shit is really giving these songs their own heavy uniqueness. 

Oh, Sunday we saw New Found Glory, but I'll save that experience for the next update.

Party at the moon-tower,
Zack & Senses Fail