Recording Diary - Tambol Version

I really intended to write this a couple of weeks ago but I...uhhh...forgot. Hehehe. But my bandmates are really good at this "documenting the recording process" thing so I guess that makes up for my laziness busy-ness.

But all's well that ends well, right? I finally managed to start working, which is the first big hurdle for any procrastinator. So here goes...

Late February, we started work on a handful of new tracks some of which, like Pauwi Na and Wealth of Nations, are already part of our song rotation at gigs. Owel mentioned to me that he wanted the drums to stand out a bit more on the new songs--news that I really liked, for obvious reasons--so I locked myself in a room with my drumkit and hammered out my parts so I could attack the recording session with confidence. During the Themesongs recording sessions (as well as the Rizal Day Sessions, er, sessions), most of my drum parts were not final yet. If you listen carefully to the playing on the album vs a gig, you'll notice a lot of changes.

Another thing I did was use a click track. We didn't use a click track for any of the songs on the first album, and sometimes you can hear portions where I got a little excited and rushed things a bit. For the new songs, I intend to use a click as often as I can. An early exception would be Jing's punk-infused Saan Na, which felt better without a click.

I'm also gunning for a more consistent sound this time around so I'm using the same set of gear for the songs. Here's a photo of the rig I used at my last recording session:

Cymbals (Zildjian)
13" A Custom Projection Hihats
18" A Custom Fast Crash
19" K Dark Crash Thin
20" K Custom Dark Ride

Drums
14" x 5.5" Ludwig Acrolyte Snare [Remo coated Ambassador on top, Evans reso on bottom]
Yamaha drumkit (13" and 16" toms, 22" bass drum) [Remo Pinstripes on everything]
 
Except for the Yamaha kit, which is the house kit at Love One Another Studios, the rest is the same equipment I lug around in my yellow gig bags (also in photo) at each and every gig. Yes, I bring a LOT of gear. It helps me play better knowing I'm playing gear I'm used to. (Btw, those two dashing icons of virile masculinity are LOA engineers, Pancho and Wacky.)

I guess that covers drums for now.

Ciao.

Zig

themesongs track 10

"xmas lights" signified a lot of firsts for shirley. before this track was conceived, we were basically just playing gigs and practicing new songs from owel, ean and jing, trying to coalesce as a new lineup and figuring out our sound. but any thoughts of "album" and "making it big" had been far away from what we were focused on at the time, which was just to stay alive and keep playing. it was only when owel brought up the fact that sir toti dalmacion had offered us a slot in jam 88.3's upcoming christmas album that we considered the challenge of putting ourselves "out there" in terms of publication.

i think owel had a clear vision even then that he wanted shirley to go far, but most of us were going about this recording thing tentatively. he had a riff, though, and we all fell in love with it immediately when he played it for us during practice. we jammed some more to get the drum tracks pat, but it was still largely unfinished and the deadline was looming.

then there was the problem of finding the right recording studio. although most of us had day jobs, almost half were still studying, so we didn't have much of a budget. up dharma down's bassist, paul yap, recommended the fledgling Love One Another Studio, run by boy elroy guitarist joey santos. we decided to check them out and found instant chemistry with the studio's staff (plus, the name is just so shirley).

so zig puts his amazing drum skills to work, to which jing adds a perfect bass line, then owel lays in the guitars and that lovely, lovely riff. earlier, we'd all agreed that we didn't want to do a straightforward Christmas track. so owel penned a few sad lines, injecting some subtle verbal hints of Christmas ("disyembre", "regalo" and "kumukutikutitap") here and there -- and we had our Christmas track for all seasons!

the song was mostly constructed in the studio, adding the elements one by one. i remember one recording session where heidi was adding her synth parts and there was this one particular note that underwent a particular effect that sounded borderline noisy but just perfectly capped off the bridge part ("itong regalong bubuksaaaaan" TWENNGGGG!). we didn't have the melody until it was time for us to lay in the vocal parts, and i was quaking in my shoes for the dreaded moment when i'd have to sing because i had no idea how to make melodies. this sounds stupid, since i'd done okay in the four months or so since i'd officially joined shirley, but we had existing melodies for those songs to which i only had to listen a few times before i could add my harmonies. the process for "xmas lights", on the other hand, was entirely new and frightening for me.

at the time, i was scared that owel would one day find a reason to kick me out of the band since backup singers have always been found throughout history to be dispensible. so i told myself before my vocal take, "suck it in, selena. it's make or break time," and steeled myself for the recording process. but joey and owel were very supportive when it was my turn to sing, and they never tired of giving me time to practice my harmonies, repeating the track whenever i felt like i hadn't gotten it yet, so that it ended up being an effortless session after all. owel was pleased, and i was amazed to discover that i could actually be musically creative.

after recording the song, we realized that we had enjoyed working with Love One Another so much that we wanted to continue working with them and we resolved to start making our first full-length album ASAP.

shirley during mixing of 'xmas lights', november '06

jam 88.3 accepted "xmas lights" and included it in their compilation, as well as played the track during the christmas season of 2006. but shirley friends continue to request the song even during the rest of the year, so i guess it was able to transcend owel's description of it at gigs, "a seasonal longing song reminiscent of 'pasko na sinta ko'."

- selena

themesongs track 3

"patintero/habulan/larong kalye"

the first of three "epic" tracks that absolutely had to go into the album. it's a sort of trilogy actually, anchoring the beginning middle and end of the whole concept of themesongs, actual theme songs for set occasions in the developments. p/h/lk is early yearning, sms is the middle intense section and bato is heavy endgame. pretty intense stuff to keep in your head, especially while you're recording the album, thinking about how the songs relate to each other and to you specifically and it's just great that it's out and i can stop thinking about it so much haha. it's a love-hate obsession with patintero/habulan/larong kalye.

it is a 3-segment song, during the writing of this thing i was heavily into brian wilson's smile and the fiery furnaces' blueberry boat and the unicorns' who will cut our hair when we're gone and these albums were all full of ADHD i was really into the whole idea of a multi-part song so i was writing with that in mind: first came the habulan section, which i was originally thought would be the opening part, written late 2004.

the patintero segment was written for fete de la musique 2005; i remember very vividly the practice where i was teaching the guys the song and the new segment. it was at the blue room studio along maginhawa, and janji of aizo was hanging out, and i remember being afraid of what he thought about the song and how we were arranging it as a band during the practice haha. i kind of cheated with the segue from patintero to habulan, nicking some manila sound areglos from vst haha.

the larong kalye segment happened naturally, we would just jam an informal outro, and i guess i just started singing on that. the album version of larong kalye was a pretty fun thing to record, all scratch takes and trial runs that joey santos recorded anyway, the relaxed feel owing to the "nah this isn't going onto the record yet.." and i guess that was pretty cool.

another cool thing about the album version are the SYNTH PARTS!!! i was absent when they recorded the synths, and loa engineer marc de vera did his thing, tweaking heidi's cs-10 and layering multiple tracks of the keyboard to give it this really really warm feel. i especially love the habulan chorus part, "kung ika'y aking mahuli.." with the 16 beat hihat, the palm-mute guitar and the surf rock bass, the synth really really really stands out and i love that part so much AAAAAAAAAAaa haha (self-sabunot moment)

the recording of the vocals for this song is also another conversation point. selena is a studio natural, if she's problematic with the harmonies, she'll just take some time to work them out in front of the mic, and usually most things are one-takes with her. but i am the brute force to her finesse, and this song was particularly amazing because joey and marc were engineering and everybody was playing with these ratatouille scratch and sniff cards, and i remember marc was playing with paper and scissors, trying to make paper dolls. so i was doing the vocal take, and usually when i hit a bad note joey or whoever's engineering at the time would stop me and we'll redo from there, and during this song we didn't have one redo (cause i thought i was singing so well haha) then i guess i just sang it all out. if i remember correctly, the whole segment in patintero where it goes "nais kong mahagip.." until the habulan part was kept as one single piece of breathless song-ery haha. only at love one another.

so many things about this song! jing's bass parts, especially in the larong kalye portion. the ROLAND JC-20 we were using to track all the guitar parts, guitar parts shimmery because of it. and all the history!

attached is the old lofiwithlove demo version circa 2005. that's me on everything, in front of a computer.

BILI NA KAYO NG THEMESONGS!!!!!!

-owel

Attachment: ang bandang shirley - habulan LOFIWITHLOVE.mp3