Tues 15th April 08
The Lexicon effects unit turned up, and we spent the evening sussing it out and being blown away by the reverbs it can produce. 
 
Soooooo much better than using software.

Fri 11th, Sat12th & Mon 14th April 08
All  the chorus vocals were finished pretty quickly.
 
With all the vocals finally finished we started thinking  about how to process them, so started playing with some FXs combinations within Logic.   After about half an hour we came to the conclusion that software FXs are cold, throwaway and uninspiring, so did a quick bit a research to find a hardware processor and eventually decided to order a Lexicon processor that seems to do everything we want.

Mon 7th - Tues 8th April 08
Dan finished his low vocal harmonies for the verses pretty quickly (and roughly), but we intend to process them through an interesting effect and EQ them quite a bit to get them to gel with the rest of the music, and support the main vocals.
 
Only the chorus vocals left to do.  Spent an evening working on the main vocals for it, and deciding whether they needed to be subtle, powerful or restrained, and whether they need to be sung quite flat or with lots of movement, as both of our vocals in the chorus have to compliment each other perfectly (Dan’s part is far more sung out, and lifts the chorus).
 
Finished the evening by deciding on the order of chorus lyrics throughout the song.

12th Feb - 2nd April 08
Started recording the vocals for ‘To The Lions’.  Really, really slow start, all very rusty and lacking practice.  Spent almost forever trying to find the right strength, shape and timbre for the vocals, but for some reason it's proving to be really difficult.  Once they’re right they’re good, but it’s just taking ‘a while’ to get there.
 
After a three week break we got back to it. 
 
Approx 80% of the vocals are complete, main vocals for the chorus still need to get done.  Dan’s started to record backing vocals to add a low harmony under the verse vocals, which gives the vocals a darker tone.

Fri 8th - Sun 10th February 08
Friday – Programmed and recorded numerous samples of the ES2 rising sound with varying extremes of modulation to use at the end of the track. Even though the ES2 is a software synth it's actually sounding pretty damn good and beefy.

Saturday – Worked on the end of the track and the transition from the 'ES1 rising' sound to the 'ES2' sounds that we sampled yesterday. Difficult finding the right timing and flow at first, but after a bit of perseverance we cracked it.

So……finally the song is fully programmed and arranged. Spent the evening recording everything onto its own track in Logic on the Mac, ready start recording the final vocals.

Sunday – Tidied up the audio files and grouped everything together and then did a rough guide mix of the song ready for vocals to be recorded.

Remembered that the key change in the first bridge needed a sound coming from the Synthex tweaking and re-recording - but it was covered in dust and a few of the knobs had developed a mind of their own - so we had to abandon that idea and use an old recording of it in the 2nd bridge only. Time to send the Synthex off for a service!

Mon 4th Feb 08
Continued with trying to get the ES1 chorus sound to do something interesting for the end of the track. Had to recreate the ES1 sound on the ES2 as we forgot just how much of the modulation stuff was being used on the ES1, so there was nothing left to modulate anything.

The idea now is to swap between the original and then a heavily edited version, and to alter the sequence to create an uneasy feel.

Tues 29th & Thurs 30th Jan 08
Worked on the arrangement for the ending of the song. Ditching the previous idea of expanding the bridge melody and deciding to use the chorus instrumentation as the whole basis but probably remaining on one chord, as the song seemed to lose too much momentum with the other idea.

We always try to have something new and interesting going on at the end of tracks, even when it’s just fading out. So the idea is to alter the ES1 rising sound, and generally trying to make it sound a bit out of control.

Thought this idea would be fairly easy to implement, but everything we tried on Thursday night sounded rubbish. It still feels like the correct arrangement and the right idea, but perhaps need to explore adding more modulations to the original sound, instead of just modulating it in the sampler.

Tues 29th & Thurs 30th Jan 08
Worked on the arrangement for the ending of the song. Ditching the previous idea of expanding the bridge melody and deciding to use the chorus instrumentation as the whole basis but probably remaining on one chord, as the song seemed to lose too much momentum with the other idea.

We always try to have something new and interesting going on at the end of tracks, even when it’s just fading out. So the idea is to alter the ES1 rising sound, and generally trying to make it sound a bit out of control.

Thought this idea would be fairly easy to implement, but everything we tried on Thursday night sounded rubbish. It still feels like the correct arrangement and the right idea, but perhaps need to explore adding more modulations to the original sound, instead of just modulating it in the sampler.

Sat 26th - Sun 27th Jan 08
Copied a sample of the Andromeda that’s used in the verses, to bring it out more as a lead melody into the pre-bridge section.

Next came an hour or so of sequencer dilemmas. We transferred the song into Logic (still on the Atari) to see if the timing sounded more accurate between song sections. There was definitely a noticeable difference between playing the song in Notator and in Logic - but we couldn't quite put our finger on what it was.

After plenty of testing, we discovered that for some unknown reason Logic was playing half a bpm quicker than Notator (even though both sequencers were set to 128bpm). This small difference is pretty noticable over a short amount of time.

So, we thought that perhaps it sounded better because it was faster, but after playing different sections of the song with vocals it sounded too rushed.

Basically it came down to the delay effect on the hi hats in the MPC4000 being set slightly wrong, so we switched back to Notator and started tweaking the delays until everything sounded a lot tighter.

With that out the way we edited a sound that’s used in the bridge that had got swamped by the other big sounds, works really well with the bassline, adding more texture to the part.

Spent a fair bit of time programming the few bars before second verse comes in…at first it was quite uninteresting – wasn’t sure what we could really do of interest in there, but got a good combination of parts in it, using some sounds from the end of the verse and the bridge together. Sounds fresh and interesting.

Tues 15th Jan 08
Tonight was mostly work on hi hats - to the progression between parts of the song. Results are subtle but effective.

Begun de-cluttering sections where parts are busy – there’s so many sounds on this song that we want to make sure certain elements aren’t overpowering others.

Fri 11th - Sun 13th Jan 08
Reluctantly started programming a new sound (surely there's enough sounds in this song by now!) to get something working for the tremolo idea. Got something really cool – a big, dirty, sliding sound that fades in a fast tremolo and really helps the transition into the Bridge.

Loads of work on the arrangement – especially on how to end the track. There's a possibility of using the new tremolo sound from the Andromeda throughout the ending by progressing the melody used in the Bridge and having it cycle every 3 or 5 bars to give it more of an interesting, fragmented feel.

Just before we finished we tried out another sound over the chorus rising sound, but played before the beat. It’s similar to the ES1 sound, but harder and with more severe modulation. it definitely adds something to the whole feel of the chorus.

Mon 7th - Tues 8th Jan 08
Back to it! Specifically back to ‘To The Lions’ and the want to get it finished and on with other stuff.

Toyed with the idea of giving the bassline in the chorus more progression, but decided to leave it as it was, as it’d change the feel of it too much.

Lots of work on the Bridge, introducing a scale change for its first occurrence in the song and altering the melody for the main Microwave sound so the new chord change works.

Recorded in a mega rough idea for a tremolo type sound to run throughout the Bridge.

The goal posts seem to be constantly moving with this song – just when you think it’s almost done, along comes another set of ideas to try out!