Brian here, I'm sorry to say that Divergence has split up. We've always had minor issues with scheduling conflicts and the commitment level for some of the guys in the band. Until now we've only played a show every two months, most of the stuff we did was writing/recording, so it never got to a point where the band commitment was too much for them.
The problem came when things were going to pick up this month, I had 5 shows either booked or in the works through February. I told the other band members about them and got a less than enthusiastic reaction. A few days later, they decided that the band wasn't something they were looking to continue in a more demanding capacity, which it was going to become if we booked all of those shows.
The timing for all this is really unfortunate, we were about to step up to the next level. None of the shows we were going to play were opening spots, and we had two out-of-state gigs planned.
I'm not sure if any of the other guys plan to continue their musical careers in less intense projects, but I am planning to relocate to New York as soon as possible and get a new band together right away. I'm definitely looking to keep up with the style of music we made with Divergence too. I'll make sure to post updates about my new project once it gets off the ground so we can stay in touch and rock out together again real soon.
Also, we're going to finish the recordings for the new songs, "Bulltproof" and "Break The Mold" and put them up online so you can download them. We're almost done with them anyway, and they're great songs, so there's no reason to keep them hidden just because the band broke up. They will be the last hurrah for a band that's been a part of my life in one way or another for 7 years.
And what great years they were!
Showing posts with label Break The Mold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Break The Mold. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Greetings From The Studio
We've been hard at work in the recording studio laying down the instrument tracks for the two new songs we've debuted live, "Bulletproof" and "Break The Mold." We recorded the drums for them back in July at NYU's super-nice Studio 510. You can check out our pictures from the session too, if you want.
If you're following along on our Twitter or Facebook status updates, you'll know that we already finished up the bass and guitars for both songs, and the vocals for "Bulletproof" too. You can check out some videos of us recording on our YouTube page.
Bass is typically the easiest thing to record, once you find the sound you want you just need to record the parts once and your done. Guitars take a lot longer because you have to play each part at least twice, one for the left and one for the right speaker, and sometimes as much as six times depending on how many layers you want. In the biz they call playing a part for a second time "doubling".
Sometimes Shane and Garrett play different riffs during the same section of a song, like in the choruses where Shane usually does some type of lead part with a counter-melody to the vocals while Garrett plays chords. If they each played their parts once we would have the two guitars we need to pan to the left and right speakers, but we wanted these songs to be as thick and heavy as possible, so any time there were two separate parts for a given section of the song we doubled each part separately. That means each chorus has 4 layers of guitars!
Add to that any any doubled harmonies to the lead, or doubles on single hits/accents that we want extra heavy and you will see how we wound up recording as many as six guitar parts (rhythm, lead, harmony, all doubled) in some sections of these songs. Then Shane has to lay down his solos. He does some sick lines in these songs, so they took a decent amount of time as well. Tally all that together and guitars are probably the most time consuming thing in the recording process for us.
Now that they're out of the way it's on to vocals. Vocals can take a while also. Because they're the first thing people pay attention to when they hear a song, there can't be any weakness whatsoever in the delivery. Some people double vocals too, but we usually just do one pass of lead vocals except for individual words where we want extra emphasis. We feel that we can get a fatter, in-your-face sound with one vocal track and a good blend of effects to create depth. If you double a vocal it will add some dimension, but if that double lacks any energy/passion then it will subtract from the lead rather than enhance it.
Once lead vocals are done we'll see about putting some harmonies in, "Bulletproof" doesn't really seem to have any fitting places to add them, but "Break The Mold" might. We double the background vocals so we can pan them to the left and right speakers just like the guitars, but usually they are only a few words long so they don't take much time.
Keep following our Twitter/Facebook for in-the-moment updates, and we'll make sure to give you another detailed update here in the near future.
EDIT: Sorry that the link to the YouTube videos was broken, we fixed it now.
If you're following along on our Twitter or Facebook status updates, you'll know that we already finished up the bass and guitars for both songs, and the vocals for "Bulletproof" too. You can check out some videos of us recording on our YouTube page.
Bass is typically the easiest thing to record, once you find the sound you want you just need to record the parts once and your done. Guitars take a lot longer because you have to play each part at least twice, one for the left and one for the right speaker, and sometimes as much as six times depending on how many layers you want. In the biz they call playing a part for a second time "doubling".
Sometimes Shane and Garrett play different riffs during the same section of a song, like in the choruses where Shane usually does some type of lead part with a counter-melody to the vocals while Garrett plays chords. If they each played their parts once we would have the two guitars we need to pan to the left and right speakers, but we wanted these songs to be as thick and heavy as possible, so any time there were two separate parts for a given section of the song we doubled each part separately. That means each chorus has 4 layers of guitars!
Add to that any any doubled harmonies to the lead, or doubles on single hits/accents that we want extra heavy and you will see how we wound up recording as many as six guitar parts (rhythm, lead, harmony, all doubled) in some sections of these songs. Then Shane has to lay down his solos. He does some sick lines in these songs, so they took a decent amount of time as well. Tally all that together and guitars are probably the most time consuming thing in the recording process for us.
Now that they're out of the way it's on to vocals. Vocals can take a while also. Because they're the first thing people pay attention to when they hear a song, there can't be any weakness whatsoever in the delivery. Some people double vocals too, but we usually just do one pass of lead vocals except for individual words where we want extra emphasis. We feel that we can get a fatter, in-your-face sound with one vocal track and a good blend of effects to create depth. If you double a vocal it will add some dimension, but if that double lacks any energy/passion then it will subtract from the lead rather than enhance it.
Once lead vocals are done we'll see about putting some harmonies in, "Bulletproof" doesn't really seem to have any fitting places to add them, but "Break The Mold" might. We double the background vocals so we can pan them to the left and right speakers just like the guitars, but usually they are only a few words long so they don't take much time.
Keep following our Twitter/Facebook for in-the-moment updates, and we'll make sure to give you another detailed update here in the near future.
EDIT: Sorry that the link to the YouTube videos was broken, we fixed it now.
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