Pastepunk is extremely proud to present this exclusive Studio Journal from Ray Harkins, singer of the progressive post-hardcore band MIKOTO. Harkins has a biography that rich in the independent music scene with his musical experience starting with the influential hardcore band TAKEN and his current day job as an A&R kingpin at Abacus Recordings, as well as being the General Manager of the popular podcast Issue Oriented. We will be updating this studio journal almost daily, so please check back often!
June 28 2007 – Final Day
It was a sad yet exciting day driving to the studio as we were in the process of wrapping everything up and putting the finishing touches on it. Beau was leaving for tour later on that evening so we did not have the full day to work but we had ample enough time to finish our record.
Beau was going to spend the next 2-3 weeks mixing the record and putting all of the finishing touches on it. Then we are going to send it off to the mastering plant up in Seattle with Troy Glessner (Underoath, Anberlin) so we should have a finished product back in our hands by early August, fingers crossed.
We got cupcakes in celebration of the wrap. I could go on about how amazing the process was but I will let the public be the judge when our record comes out. All I can say is that I am the happiest I have ever been with this finished product.
June 27, 2007 – Day 17
This was the second to last day in the studio. Matt put it perfectly as it felt like summer camp was ending.
We were doing the same thing as we did yesterday where we were going over everything with a fine tooth comb and making sure all of the vocal parts were as strong as they could be. At one point, I honestly felt like I was going to pass out as I was screaming so hard and for so long. The pop filter that was covering up the microphone was covered in spit and grossness from all of the singing and screaming. I was going to take a picture of it but it honestly was just too gross.
Another amazing part of the studio was having open discussions on every part that was in question. We would listen to the song and someone would say, “What can we do to that part to make it better?” We would play it back and all give our opinions with Beau being the proverbial tie breaker with his opinion.
By this time we had consumed a ridiculous amount of Vitamin Water. I am talking at least 9 cases were consumed by all of us within the studio.
Here is a rough estimate of what we all consumed in the studio:
Pounds of tofu from Pick Up Stix
Quarts of Jamba Juice
Pounds of noodles and rice
Ounces of Chai Tea and Coffee
A little bit of cookies
A ton of throat spray for our tired vocal chords
Pounds of El Pollo Loco – BRC Burritos
We pulled quite a long day and wrapped things up around 9pm.
June 26, 2007 – Day 16
We were nearing the end of the process as now all of the songs were basically finished with all of the main chunks of vocals and now it was all about adding the additional parts, working on vocal melodies or rhythms that we did not feel comfortable with and just tightening things up in general. It was great because during this process at the end of every night we were able to take the songs home and soak them up for a night on our own. This was one of the most important things for me as I could sing the songs alone and have no influence from anyone else so when we came back together the next day, we had a few ideas for the song rather than just one persons.
If I can say that Beau is one of the hardest working people I know would be an understatement. He always was at the studio before us, editing the previous days work and making sure everything sounded good before we started working on it. Beau’s logic behind this was, “Why would you get excited about working on a song that sounded like crap.”
Today was really interesting as well because there were many parts that we had to lyrically change because they either would not fit in the space allotted or rhythmically would not make sense contextually. It was great working with the rest of the guys to come up with ideas and just brainstorming in general as in the past I have never had any help penning lyrics so it was a great way to bond intellectually.
We also had a special visitor to the studio today to lay down some guest vocals on the record as well. I will not reveal the person’s identity just to keep everyone in suspense.
June 25, 2007 – Day 15
Beau is back! We were extremely thankful for the help that Chris gave us but we anxious to hear what Beau thought of the work we had done over the weekend. We began at 11am and basically put the studio back into working order.
Matt’s vocals were the focus of today’s proceedings as I had knocked out quite a bit of work over the weekend. Matt is one of the most unique and funny individuals that I have ever had the privilege of knowing. It is extremely funny to watch Matt work because he has many, what I would like to call “mental blocks”. He is only able to really sing in certain environments and under certain circumstances. It does not mean he is not a good vocalist as everyone has patterns they feel comfortable with. Regardless, Matt psyched himself up and did an amazing job belting things out.
Fortunately with my past few recording experiences I have been able to sing into a microphone that is not in my hands. Many singers when they get thrown in the studio freak out because they are simply standing there, singing (or in my case, yelling) into an empty room. For obvious reasons this is extremely awkward and simply nothing like the live setting. All throughout Taken’s recording time, with the exception of our last EP, I sang into a hand held microphone. Now it feels really comfortable and this recording process has made me change my mind about recording. I actually like recording vocals after this studio experience.
We had to wrap things up a bit early because Saosin was playing a benefit show that night at Chain Reaction.
June 22-24th – Day 12-14
Over the course of the weekend we really worked on all of the songs that we had to hammer out vocally. For some reason all of these days seemed to blend into one another as we progressed throughout the record.
Normally, we had been taking Sunday’s off but since we wanted to make sure every day was utilized we decided to work on that day.
I haven’t introduced Pete up until this point but he is one of the co-owners of the studio and basically an extremely nice dude. He plays bass in the band Year Future which is an awesome band who has put out a few records with GSL. He was popping his head in the studio a decent amount, helping Chris through some technical difficulties that we had been having with microphones and the like.
At this time I would also like to bring up what I affectionately call, “The Ghost In the Machine”. A few days prior, Pete brought in these ridiculous speakers and got them plugged into the board for playback purposes. He mentioned that one of the speakers had been unfortunately dropped by a person he lent them to, After plugging them in he said that one particular speaker made a weird feedback noise at certain points. Occasionally Beau chose to playback our songs out of these speakers as they sounded superior to the other ones being used. Then, at random times the noise came. I can’t really describe it well enough but at one point I literally was close to going crazy. The noise is this mixture of static, feedback, and all played at an insanely loud volume. It was hands down one of the worst pieces of noise I have EVER heard.
June 21, 2007 – Day 11
Today began with us seeing our old buddy Chris and having him get the lay of the land with the studio and what buttons to press to make us sound damn awesome. It is funny how different people in the studio can really bring about different feelings. Chris is much more detail oriented and will spend half an hour getting the perfect tone on a pedal. Not to say that one is preferred over the other but studio dynamics are a really interesting experiment in sociology.
Chris was really excited about working with some of the songs musically and he was able to interject some cool parts over what we already had.
June 20, 2007 – Day 10
I missed yesterdays entry, sorry but things have been very busy.
I showed up to the studio at around 3pm after I had to go pick up some stuff for Beau and the rest of the guys in Mikoto. When I arrived, we had already completed 2 songs musically and Matt had already completed his vocals on one of the songs. I was shocked that things moved that quickly. Martin, Matt and Kelly were really on top of their game today.
My vocals were feeling a bit scratchy today but I was able to get through one of our newer songs with only a few problems. I am really concentrating on making my vocals as coherent and really rhythmically capturing what it is I am trying to convey. After we wrapped that up I started singing over the song we wrote in the studio affectionately have called “Delay Song” and I was able to come up with some great patterns and working with Beau, Kelly and Martin we were able to really hone that song into something really powerful. Once Matt lays his vocals down, this song has the potential for being the best song on the record, no joke.
Matt began experimenting with some harmonies on the new song and we really got a head start for the work that we were planning on completing tomorrow. Beau is going to be out of town for the next few days so his co-producer Chris (and the bass player for Saosin) was going to be handling the production duties over the next few days.
June 18, 2007 – Day 8
I showed up at the studio at 1pm after Martin was working on some guitar parts and flying through them with great ease. All of the practice was really paying off. We had to make a quick run to Guitar Center so we can purchase some items then return them later on that day, (it’s an age old trick for recording purposes).
We finished the new song and then moved on to an older song that Martin, Matt and Kelly cranked out pretty quickly. By this time it was a bit later on in the evening and was my time to lay down vocals on our heaviest song that we have a working title called “Dirty 3”. Without the vocals the song was already sounding absolutely incredible and my fear is that the second I start putting my vocals over the music, I ruin it. I realize this is just a mental block but that fear always creeps up. Regardless, I went in there and belted out some vocals to the best of my ability and let me tell you, it is pretty damn amazing. The song came out so heavy, and just downright brutal. This is the song that everyone hears and says, “Damn, that’s heavy.”
We then placed some vocals over another song and then wrapped things up. Today was a very productive day.
June 16, 2007 – Day 7
Today, was the first day of vocals. As I have said before, it is my least favorite part of the recording process as it feels very sterile but you make the best of it.
I was able to get one song finished but was not extremely pleased with a few parts so on Monday I plan on going over some of those parts again. We wrapped the day up by finishing up the song that we wrote here in the studio. Epic really is the word to describe it.
Sunday we took off for our Father’s Day holiday. Gotta spend time with the family =)
June 15, 2007 – Day 6
We arrived to the studio after battling some pretty horrible traffic at around noon. Beau was busy picking up his amp for Martin and or Matt to use for the guitar tracking. Beau got back and we began tracking the super duper secret cover song for our import versions of the record (Europe, Japan etc...). It came out extremely quick and I think everyone will be pretty surprised at what cover it is.
We moved on to tracking the guitars, doubling them and putting all of the leads over it. Over the next week or so the plan is to track as much as we can in the morning music wise (guitar and bass wise) then track some vocals in the evening to not burn Matt or I out so we wouldn’t have to sing millions of songs in the span of two days.
The one thing that I have felt like this entire week is a sense of something impending. This sense of us creating something bigger than ourselves and stepping back to be really proud of this piece of art. It is just very satisfying.
June 14, 2007 – Day 5
We were almost complete with the drums today, only 3 more songs to go. Beau spent most of the morning doing drum edits with an amazing program called Beat Detective (I don’t really know how it works, all I do know is that it has a great logo). We began at Noon and spent a bit of the morning going through Chuck Norris facts such as “Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door” and “Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, he decides what time it is”.
The recording began with a song that we had not fully fleshed out so Martin, Max and Matt worked on the skeleton of the song with Beau and started to piece meal the song together. It really was amazing watching this song be created with only a simple idea in this team like atmosphere. Piece by piece everything started to fall into place and the song became a monster. This will be the song that will stick out as far as not sounding like anything we have done in the past. Once that was wrapped up we had one song for Max to finish on drums and it was around 7pm. I knew we would be able to hammer it out so I suggested we just map out the tempos and then Max just impressed everyone and knocked the whole song out in about 2 takes. With that we were done with the drums with the exception of a few drum beats and the secret cover song we were recording tomorrow morning.
It was a great feeling being complete with the core of the record and we all left with a sense of accomplishment on our shoulders.
June 13th 2007 – Day 4
We started our recording day a bit later than normal because Beau had a bit more drum editing to finish before we started to move forward with the tracking. Once we started, it didn’t go quite as smoothly as the previous days. We had hit the proverbial “brick wall” of writers block. We had recorded a full song, and then as we were trying to work out an alternate chorus, it just felt like it was all falling apart. So after much debate, and hours of fiddling with riffs and chord progressions, we decided to just stick with what we had… “Why fix it if it aint broke” right?
After that song was all said and done, we literally ripped through the next track free of any speed bumps at all. So all in all, the day started off rough but ended with a bang. We’re really happy with how both songs came out, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
June 12, 2007 – Day 3
Beau began his work at 9am, mixing and editing a lot of the work that we completed yesterday. He gives himself two hours to work unbothered by us as we come in at around 11am.
Things really seemed to click today as we were able to roll through two songs pretty quickly so we now have 6 songs behind us and are taking it into the 7th one. It feels really strange to be relaxed in the studio as I am usually used to the tension building as my vocal duties are coming up but this I just feel like we have an infinite amount of time (which I know isn’t the case) and making sure everything is exactly where it needs to be.
It seems to be an Apple-centric environment as everyone in this building is using their own Mac as well as the computer Beau is recording on. Funny to think they have such a small market share but it seems to me in the artistic field of work, everyone uses Macintosh.
June 11, 2007 – Day Two
Today was basically the same as the first day where our main focus would be to lay down the foundation on drums for all of the songs and then begin to hammer out the rest of the songs on guitar, bass and vocals. This is where the boredom sets in but fortunately gives us time to really soak in the songs and get very familiar with them. Beau is able to wrap his head around the songs and be able to give some great input, changing songs that we have had set in stone for years.
Pick Up Stix and Jamba Juice are the staples of our diet here which we are fortunate to have in this area as it is a bit, hmmm, run down I think is a nice word for it.
Max and Beau worked their asses off today and really worked through tempos on two of our songs, one being extremely difficult because there is a pause in it that is all based off of feel rather than timing. Regardless things have been progressing quite well.
At the end of the day we were able to finish 2 more songs and begin work on another one so by the end of the week we should be able to complete the drums and then move on to working on the guitar/bass/vocals. We wrapped things up at around 7pm.
June 10th (Day One)
Wow, it’s hard to believe that this is the time but finally, the Mikoto full length gets underway. I want to give you guys a little bit of background of the band as well as give you a glimpse of what it is like being an independent band, funding your own recording time.
My name is Ray Harkins and I will be your narrator throughout this studio journal, I sing for the band. We have been preparing this record for around six months or so, it has been a rewarding, conflicting and altogether exhausting process. In my ten plus years of playing music I have never invested so much time and effort into something, not to mention the ability to properly document it as we have around 22 days to record this record. Normally, in the past I have had around a day and a half to do vocals rather than the massive amount of time we are going to have for this. Needless to say it is an exciting time.
We are funding the record by ourselves (with the help of our gracious and ever supporting family and manager) rather than the traditional method of getting signed, go into the studio and then pump out a record. We felt in today’s musical climate, we wanted to put the control in our hands and delivering a finished product to a label is a much more appealing prospect.
The producer of this record is none other than Beau Burchell from the band Saosin. Him and his band have been kind enough to support us by bringing us on tour with them and now offering what little time he has off, to dedicate to this project. In Saosin’s busy touring schedule, he had a window of 22 days in June that he would be able to produce the record. It seemed like fate.
The studio we are recording at is called Infrasonic Studios in Los Angeles. The studio has produced records from Mars Volta, Saosin and many other quality records. It is actually co-owned by Omar from At The Drive In/Mars Volta. It was great because the drum tech for the day was Saosin’s tour manager, Scott. Seeing old friends is always great.
I showed up to the studio at around 3pm as Beau was going to be working on drum, guitar and bass tones all day. Although the studio looks like a hole in the wall, you walk inside and the tracking room is gorgeous. The aesthetic vibe that is presented is a 70’s motif with a lot of wood and warm colors. The control room looks gorgeous with a lot of vintage gear lying around and a reel to reel tape machine which you don’t see very often.
At around 4pm, the initial drum tones were finished and now we were going to move into getting tones for all of the other instruments. I have to note a disclaimer right now as well, I hate recording. It is a combination of nervous energy, the fear of failure and sheer boredom that all combine into a feeling that I have never felt in any other capacity. Oddly enough, this time entering the studio I felt prepared and ready to finally get these songs documented as they had been sitting in our hearts and minds for months.
Our first priority in the studio is getting a click track set for every single one of our 10 songs and then getting the drums tracked. We worked until about 8 o’clock and we got 2 songs finished on drums. Beau is extremely meticulous when it comes to drumming and he feels that getting a good foundation in place is necessary for the rest of the recording to go smoothly.
Max is a true champ as he came into the band 3 weeks ago and he is really putting his heart and soul into this. We feel very blessed to have him in the band. Already the drums are sounding better than I could have ever anticipated.
The studio is very homey and has a kitchen in which we can prepare food in, so fortunately that will save some money for me as I can just simply pack a lunch and dinner from home every day. Beau really is committing himself to this record and I can see it paying off in the long run.
Pastepunk is extremely proud to present this exclusive Studio Journal from Ray Harkins, singer of the progressive post-hardcore band MIKOTO. Harkins has a biography that rich in the independent music scene with his musical experience starting with the influential hardcore band TAKEN and his current day job as an A&R kingpin at Abacus Recordings, as well as being the General Manager of the popular podcast Issue Oriented. We will be updating this studio journal almost daily, so please check back often!
