February - March - early April
Mixing ...
A.K. recorded the final notes for "Rebirth" today and packed his stuff getting ready to move back to our training studio again.
Amr made an overall check to his tracks and worked on some of the retouches.
We have moved our equipments, (guitars, amps, effects, drums) back to our training studio after an overall check.
Shant finished all my work for guitars in the album today as for retouching and little solos and stuff, and packed my stuff.
Saturday January 25th
Shant started adding the final touches for
the guitars, for "Rebirth", and worked on the introduction for the Intro
which is called "Overture" till now.
Amr finished recording the song "Rebirth" only one little paragraph left to complete it, plus we've finished recording the keyboards for the song, there left a little vocal retouches on all the songs, and the final mix down. I know you are all waiting for the album to be out, well we want to release it as soon as possible too, but there are some rules and things to do before releasing it like the copyrighting thing and copying the cds, so hold your breathes...
Today finally we ended with the 6-th track "Wounded" Amr recorded the undone parts, and rerecorded some parts for it.
A.k. and Amr continued working on "Wounded" today and it's almost done, also rerecorded some parts from "Horses Of Steel".
Amr started recording "Wounded" after his long time cold catch.
Finally we found the right person for recording the cello parts in the both first and last tracks, we're ready now to add some sound effects on the recorded materials, and we're ready to go.
Shant and A.K. added some lead keyboard parts for "Horses Of Steel" and rerecorded other parts, Shant also recorded some stuff for "Revolution" with the acoustic guitar, and we did some copies.
Actually the sound engineer has started cleaning all of the recorded tracks during the past days, and getting ready for the mix down.
Amr recorded a lot of material today, some corrections, changes and some additional parts for all the songs, there left only two songs for Amr to record now and then we'll be done, we're going to Lebanon next week to see a music label and make the contract with them if it's possible and then we'll get ready for the album to be released. Cheers!!!
here are some new photos
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We started doing some overdubs for the drums and we added the timpani parts and the first drum parts for the intro.
Shant recorded almost my last guitar solo for the song "Horses Of Steel", It took real long time to do it, its tough .
Aram worked on some Timpani sounds to record it with the symphonic parts ...
We started working on "Rebirth" the final song, Amr did some parts for it, then we moved on to "Horses Of Steel" and we almost concluded that one too, now there left the last song , the slow one, plus some retouches like harmonies in vocal parts, and some extended guitar and keyboard solos in some songs, the cellos timpani and some sound effects : )
Amr continued work on "Memories On The Road" and he's almost done with it, we also worked on some other songs like "Revolution" and rerecorded some parts for them.
Amr came today finally! and we started work on the vocals for "Memories On The Road" he did 75% of it , and its almost done.
Shant played the guitar solo for the final song today "Rebirth" I think we've almost done with the instrumental parts now, it's time for Amr to finish his work, (so we're calling you man) that guy is lazy : P
Back from Dream Theater show in Istanbul that made us shocked till now ... long live D.T. :), we went back to the studio today and made some adjustments here and there.
As we planned, Elie came today afternoon and he recorded the bass line for the final track, later at night Shant has started working on it, and almost done with it , "Rebirth" . I'll continue work on it as soon as we return from D.T.'s show, we're moving tomorrow at 12:00 .
Shant worked on the second guitar solo part for "The Meeting" it took enough time to record it, later A.K. joined in to continue work on the keyboards for "Rebirth", later we called Elie and he was on his way to town, so plans for tomorrow are to record the bass line for "Rebirth" and start working on the guitar parts later.
* like this day just before a year it was our last concert in Aleppo " Musical Progressions " happy birthday : )
A.k. rerecorded the new rearranged keyboard parts for "Rebirth" the symphonic song and we dug through the 7-th minute tomorrow we'll put the final touches for the song, also the album for the keyboards.
Today Amr and A.k. re-arranged some parts for "Rebirth" on the keyboard to be ready for recording them later.
* like this day just before a year it was our last concert in Damascus " Musical Progressions " happy birthday : )
Amr concluded the most vocal parts for "The Meeting"
A.K. started working on the keyboard parts for the last track of our album "Rebirth" which is very symphonic, and full of harmony, we're about to finish very soon, all the artwork and designs for the album is ready by now.
Amr resumed his work on "The Meeting", we've been busy lately trying to attend the Dream Theater show which is going to be on November 8-th in Istanbul. :) (finally)
Today Aram recorded the drums for the final track of our album "Rebirth", it was quiet in the studio today, Shant was working on the mixer and Aram on his drums, no one else. There only left some timpani parts on this song to be added later... we'll start working on it very soon.
Amr started recording the vocals for "The Meeting", later at night we the Nu.Clear.Dawn played our first football match, and it ended 2315 goals to 0 for us : ) .
Shant and A.k. started working on the leads and the keyboard solo for "Revolution", it took a lot of time to create and record it, but at the end it's been awesome!
Happy Birthday Aram ! : ) ... today we worked on "Rebirth" and arranged the lyrics for "The Meeting", we'll start recording "Rebirth" very soon, Aram is first .
Happy Birthday Amr ! : )
More vocal works on "Horses of Steel", plus Shant and A.K. started working on the solo parts for the keyboards and we tried some sounds, merging them and we came out with some cool samples!
Amr recorded more parts for "Revolution" and also re-record some
Amr started working on the vocal parts for "Horses Of Steel", we are having some troubles in the sounding
Shant recoded some parts in "Memories On The Road" which had to be by an acoustic guitar, later Shant corrected some of the guitar solos in "The Falcon" and "The Crow".
Shant started recording the guitar solos for "The Falcon" and "The Crow".
"Revolution" vocals are almost done, think we'll be moving to the next song!
Amr resumed work on "Revolution" ... the only solution
Amr started working on "Revolution" today, we've done with great parts in it, we decided to end "The Falcon" and "The Crow" by playing the solos for it, so we can start mixing it down finally, as a test!
Amr resumed work on "The Falcon" and "The Crow", and he recorded almost the whole song, and we were all surprised by the vocals sound and quality, and by doing this finally we have satisfied and our brains have rested about all the past stress and worry about the album, today we didn't eat our daily food (chicken) ... strange : )
Today Amr started singing some parts for "The Falcon" ...( finally : P ), at night we did some jamming me A.K. and Aram , and some practice.
Shant started recording the guitar parts for "Memories On The Road" and almost done with it, there left some chords I want to play on an acoustic guitar later.
Elie called Shant today and asked to go to studio, Shant said leave me alone man we just came back from there before a few hours at 4:30 and I'm sleepy, but ... hey I had no choice, cause he had to go back to his work, so at 11:30 we were there and fortunately we finished the drums yesterday so we can start recording the bass line, well yes Elie recorded the song "Memories on the Road" we worked about 5 hours.
Later at night A.K. continued recording keyboard parts for "Memories on the Road" we worked for 6 hours until it was completely done, it's really been a weird song.
And hey! guess what.. here are some previously taken photos.
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| Nu.Clear.Dawn left to right Aram, Elie, Shant, Amr, A.K |
Yeghia (sound engineer) and Elie | Elie during "Wounded" | Shant (the world on my shoulders) |
Pretty much work today, Aram finished recording the 7-th track, and A.K. started to put his first touches on the same song later at night, good news A.K., we are going to put a lot of keyboards stuff in this song. : )
Off !
Shant and Amr started arranging the lyrics for "Memories on the Road" the 7-th track, later Karen and Shant worked on a new nice classical part with Flute and Guitar, and I think we're going to make it a separate short track that should be before "Wounded", at night Aram started recording the first beats for "Memories on the Road".
We got back to work again today, Shant started working on lead parts for "Wounded" and re-recorded some, later Shant added the acoustic guitar parts for it and it sounded real cool, later Shant continued work on some lead parts for "The Falcon" and added some more parts for "Revolution".
Studio work will delay till Thursday September 26th because of technical problems in studio.
See Friday September 20th ... hehehe
A.K. re-recorded the first free piano part for "Wounded" plus we've added about 3-4 measures as an intro for the song, it sounded amazing, later we listened to the guide "Memories on the Road" and we'll start working on it tomorrow.
Nothing at all!
Shant continued recording "The Falcon" and "The Crow" guitar parts today at 5:00p.m. and later he finished the most lead and chord parts for "Wounded".
Elie called Shant today, he was in town, and we hurried to the studio and started recording "The Falcon" and "The Crow" they sounded real good, later he had to record "Wounded" and Shant asked him to bring his fretless bass guitar, so we continued work at night while all the guys were at the studio and we did some corrections to them plus a few measures from "Revolution".
We started late today cause the sound engineer had some work to do in the studio, we started preparing "The Falcon" for guitar recording, and Shant recorded some parts of it, "The Crow" will be next.
Well .. Aram started to record the drums for "Wounded" finally after he and Amr sat together and worked on its parts, it's the slowest song of the album, so you know the balance should be PERFECT! we had some troubles, and we thought that Aram got tired, cause actually we started recording at about 12:00a.m., anyways we started hearing some stuff and getting prepared for the next song "Memories On The Road", later Aram tried his last shot, and he really used it well ...
A break at Damascus.
Today Aram decided to record the drums for "The Crow" after we finished the rearrangements for it , but later he recorded the drums for "The Falcon" and "The Crow" cause they're actually one song and they have to feel the same, later A.K. re-recorded the keyboards for "The crow".
Today at afternoon me and Amr did the final arrangement for the lyrics of "Wounded" and later A.K. recorded some Piano parts for it, because of a little mistake, then we started listening to all the 4 almost finished tracks, and we wrote down some notes to be corrected later, I think we have to work hard tomorrow.
Amr and Aram came to the studio at afternoon, we worked on "The Crow", then we worked on arranging and rewriting some lyrics for "Wounded", later at night Shant continued recording some lead parts for "The Meeting" and "Horses of Steel".
We started working on some of the leads for guitar, and hey ... I discovered something bad, the sound isn't as it should be, I mean the new records which I did today were different from the old ones, damn . We kept trying and trying, we're sure everything was ok , the miking was ok the amp setting were ok too, I got angry and then ... F*** , we were getting the microphone sound from line 8 by mistake, which was far away from my amp about 1 meter, we had to get the line 9 microphone which was kissing the amp speaker, ah damn anyways I continued recording some lead parts for "Horses Of Steel" and "The Meeting".
Shant and Aram did some rearrangements on the guide for "The Crow" and we've progressed in a good way unless it's not completed yet, later A.K. recorded the first part for "Wounded" which is in free time, only piano and it sounded great.
Aram re-recorded all the drums once again for "Horses Of Steel" and I believe it sounded much much better this time, later me and A.K. continued working on the left parts for "Wounded" .. the strings , and we've almost done with them.
We've downloaded the guide for the song "Wounded" the 6-th track, and A.K. recorded most of the piano parts for it, plus some strings, we'll start recording the drums tomorrow and also continue work on the keyboards.
Nothing At All ... : )
Nothing much today, we did some cleaning, and Aram decided to record "Horses Of Steel" once again, cause we didn't like it much, actually we got a rest today.
"Wounded"'s lyrics has been re-written today and it's ready to be recorded, tomorrow is the day, later at night Shant recorded the first piece "Intro", the last one in the songs I had to repeat, later we spent some time working on the mixer, and cleaned some stuff and remixed them for the drum parts.
Today Shant did "Horses Of Steel" for the second time, and it ended with peace, we kept saving and saving it to the last minute, later at night the guys came in and I recorded "The Meeting" and for tomorrow the plan is set to record "Intro" guitars.
Finally we achieved the guitar sound I wanted, using my amplifier's gain and 2 microphones for recording, it sounded great with a great fat and rich tone, and net distortion, so I had to record everything I did once again and we decided to work on "Revolution" and "Horses Of Steel" , I played "Revolution" and later we were about to finish "Horses Of Steel" while the clock was showing around 2:00 a.m. ... Unfortunately there were a few seconds remaining before we finish the track and save it to the disk but the electricity has cut for less than a second and aaaaaall the work has gone : D ... damn it, I have to play it once again tomorrow.
No one came today .. A.K. caught some cold , Aram took a trip to Homs (don't ask me for why), Amr as usual .... : D , and of course Elie is at his work (Latakia) , so Shant did make the miking for the guitar , and recorded "Horses Of Steel".
We continued recording the keyboard parts for "The Crow", and we've finished working on it we had a little problem in it , and we got a little misunderstanding so we have to rework on its arrangement later, plans for tomorrow are set for arranging the title "Wounded" once again .
At 6:00 p.m we started recording the drums for the third track which is actually made of two parts " I - The Falcon " and " II - The Crow ", we finished doing all the drum parts at about 9:30 then A.K. joined in to work on the keyboards for it , and we did " The Falcon " and tomorrow we'll work on the second part. And I think we'll start arranging the lyrics for the 6-th track "Wounded".. laterz
We did some lyrics arrangements today for "The Falcon - The Crow" actually the 3rd track of the album, and we added some new parts, tomorrow Aram is going to play the drums for it I think, later at night A.K. finished the keyboard parts for "Horses Of Steel" it sounds so good. But I'm sure we'll add more later. Cheers!!!
Nothing ! ... only guitar sound tests .
Amr and Shant arranged the lyrics for "The Falcon" and we'll continue it later the second part of it "The Crow", at night we started late, but we worked good, A.K. started recording the keyboards for "Horses Of Steel", well at first when we heard it on MIDI we thought it was going to be the worst song of the album, but hey, we put great keyboard sounds in it and it started looking much much greater!! I can imagine what is it going to turn out after doing the guitars and vocals ... wow , anyways we couldn't do it all today, so we'll continue work tomorrow. see ya around!
2 to 2 ... yes once again today we've pushed it to the limit, Elie played two more songs "The Meeting" and "Horses Of Steel" and they sounded great, Elie played almost half of the album, I think he did an incredible job in two days. So plans for tomorrow are to work on "Rebirth" and arrange the lyrics for "The falcon" and/or start recording the keyboards parts for "Horses Of Steel"...Oh one more thing we got some studio shots today ... here they are.
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4 to 4 ... yes I was in the studio from 4:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. 12 complete non stop hours, Elie came to town today and called me at 12:00p.m and we decided to meet at the studio at 4:00 to work , and that's what happened after I had a small check for my Fender Stratocaster, we started working on "Revolution" bass line after that I asked him to do the "Intro" once again cause it didn't sound good last time, and I believe he did it in a great new way. Later Aram started working on the 5-th track "Horses Of Steel" and we've finished recording all the drum parts at 4:00 a.m. (before an hour from posting this message :P), it was a great day for me, full of musical events, our plan for tomorrow is to work on the bass lines for the other 2 songs "The Meeting" and "Horses Of Steel", and if Amr comes at night we'll do some vocals for the "Revolution" if not we'll start for keyboards for "Horses Of Steel", by the way Amr is a little bit sick , caught some cold ... that bastard :D ...
Today all the flute parts were over, and we've downloaded the "Horses Of Steel" to the mixer and tomorrow we'll start recording the drums for it, later today we continued work on "Rebirth" which we left it to work in the studio and its almost done.
Unfortunately we discovered some noise recording along the pre-recorded flute parts so we had to record them once again today, actually we're having bad luck, but anyways we recoded the flute once again, and we arranged the lyrics and the melodies for the song "Horses Of Steel" and tomorrow we'll start recording "Revolution" vocals, now while we are working on the album we are also thinking of the other part that we're going to play in our show, which is the covers part, so till now we have chosen about 3-4 songs that we're going to play for sure. Hmmm so you want to know what huh ? , well one of those bands is Nightwish (surprised eh?) ... ; )
Karen recorded her flute parts for the "Intro" today, we also added some new flute parts for it and they sounded pretty good, Shant finished recording all the guitars for the "Intro", I used my second Petrucci patterned guitar, and it was a nice choice for the instrumental, it sounded fat .
Guitar parts for the "Revolution" was redone again, almost finished with them, we've nothing else today, we've finished early. Tomorrow is time to start recording the flute parts. Karen's next ...
Today we worked on the final strings part for "The Meeting", and we did some mixing stuff for it, Shant put some final touches for the cover photo of our album.
Later started recording the guitar riffs for "The Meeting", and I have to redo "Revolution" once again because of the guitar sound. I think we've worked pretty hard today. Cheers!
Karen the flute player came to the studio today, we gave her the flute parts for the "Intro" and "The Meeting" she'll work on them and we'll record her parts soon, later we continued recording the keyboards for "The Meeting" it's almost over, plans for recording the guitar parts are set for tomorrow.
We recorded the keyboard solos for the "Intro" plus some additional work with the mixer, some more rearrangements to the vocal parts for the two songs, "Revolution" and "The Meeting", and later A.K. started recording the strings for "The Meeting" song.
The lyrics for the songs "Revolution" and "The Meeting" were redone, and we've added some harmonies to the same songs, although we have to work more on "The Meeting" for vocals, A.K. started getting an idea about "The Meeting" chords and mood, there are a lot of new ideas we may add them, actually we're lost, I think we'll add them during the recording, the only problem is the drums, if we changed a little part for the song then Aram has to play it again from the point for the feeling.
Today we rearranged and recorded some parts for the beginning symphonic part of "Intro", and we did a little jam together and found a new great piece, its really nice and a weird one, we'll add it to "The Falcon" I think.
We started working from 8:00 P.M. on the other parts of the "Intro" for keyboards, we've chosen the Strings and Voice Aahs for it , and it was also completed at 1:00 A.M., and it was time to eat : ) actually the most wanted part for us ........ eating !
I wasn't happy with my guitar sound, so I told the engineer to let us work on it more, we started hearing some guitar effects, and sounds, the most problem was with the distortion, it was a kind of digital sounding and I hate that, we played with some of the ranges till we got a little bit satisfied with a sound, later A.K. started recording the first part for the "Intro" the symphony style. and once again it was about 3:00 a.m as usual.
At last recording the drums for "The Meeting" ended.
We made some corrections to the lyrics of "Meeting", and added some more lines, later we've almost concluded the drums for it, (not that easy)
We started working on the bass parts for "Intro" and at night we recorded them down, and started our 2nd track from the album, actually the first song "The Meeting" Aram started recording some of the drum parts, (not all of them, too much hard work and speedy double bass drumming).
Some studio work, one more thing, actually we had a little fight because of the non-organized work, but hey don't worry everything is ok, we always have to do this kind of fights (not a fight actually)
More chords and stuff recorded for "Revolution" by keyboards.
4:00 p.m. Aram started recording "Revolution" for the second time, but this time with the overhead mic. working : ) , later at night we've added some guitar parts for the song.
Recording of the keyboards continued on the same song, and later at night we've discovered a little problem in the drums recording for the "Revolution" song , which was a little problem as Aram said " the overhead mic. wasn't working during the recording " , which wasn't a little problem : ) ...
Sunday we made checkups for the guitar sound, and did some extra equalizing, later A.K. started recording the keyboards of the song "Revolution" except the solos that we're going to record them after the vocals are done.
The drums for the "Intro" has been recorded, plus some more work on miking my guitar amplifier.
We made the keyboard connections preparing to record the first "Intro" instrumental, which is unnamed till now, we chose some keyboards sounds, which one is good, what fits here, and what fits there.
Aram started recording the drums for "Revolution"
Tuesday we started tuning and miking the Drums, and recorded some beats for the song "Revolution"
9:00 p.m. Everything was almost ready, the guides were already composed on our home computer, so we had to copy them to the digital mixer, we had some MIDI troubles which has been solved later by one of our friends, and at last we started uploading all of the tempo maps, then the guides one by one, we were almost done with 5 songs by 3:00a.m.
Sunday afternoon at 6:00 p.m. all the equipments were ready in the studio, the drums was set, the guitar keyboards and amps are all ready to rock on. We had some troubles reading the guide on the studio computer, so we had to replace the computers.
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