Parcels ‘Tieduprightnow‘
Recording session notes: an interview with Ed Bentley
About the Tieduprightnow recording session
Day 1 / 2: recording equipment, studio set up, performance
“I recorded tieduprightnow over a four day session at my own studio in Berlin, Bakermoon Studios. During day 1 and 2 of the recording session, the track was recorded live as an instrumental performance with Parcels playing all together, capturing the magic of the musical live performance. The studio had a main live room, drum booth, and smaller vocal booth. I set up the drums in the drum booth and the bass amp in the vocal booth. The rest of the band, including the bassist, were together in the main live room performing live with the guitar amp, grand piano and DI keyboard. They arrived with a template for the bmp, key, and song structure, which also had the catchy synth bass line.”
“In terms of studio equipment, I recorded everything through my beautiful sounding 1978 Quad 8 Coronado console, driving the pre-amps hard for extra warmth and saturation. For the drum recording, I recall I used a pair of Coles 4038 for the overheads, two mics on both the kick and snare, and probably the SM7 B on the high-hat for extra isolation. I used the Quad 8 console’s EQ on each microphone, cutting mud, adding brightness and low-end where I saw fit. The overheads had the Urei 1176 compressors on them in the ‘all’ setting and were driven hard, and I also had a pair of Neve broadcast channel strips on the kick-in and top-snare mics, with the compression on and a touch of brightness from the eq, in addition to console eq.”
“The bass guitar and lead guitar both had delicate compression from the LA4s plus eq from the console. The guitar amp was miced with an AKG 414 B-ULS and on the grand piano I had a pair of Beyerdynamic M160s. The keyboard was DId through the Quad 8, and the bass may also have had a DI in addition to the amp. The vocals were recorded as an overdub in the dry vocal booth with either a Neumann M147 or an AKG 414, plus Quad 8 eq, and compression from x2 1176 compressors in series.”
Day 3 / 4: songwriting, arrangement, overdubs
“After recording the instrumental version of the track, on day 3 of the session we started work on the lead vocals and had a break-through moment in the songwriting. The verses and bridge sections were already fantastic, but in my view the chorus was just a little too close to Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’.”
“I felt Parcels had the talent, drive and ability to create something new of their own that was just as good, if not even better, so I took the risky step of suggesting they might like to re-write the chorus. You have to be quite delicate when suggesting these things as you don’t want to offend, rather encourage. I believed they would rise to the challenge, dig deeper, and get the most out of their songwriting abilities and potential, and sure enough, after going outside to the studio hangout zone, they came back to the control room not long after with the brilliant chorus you hear today, ‘tieduprightnow’.”
“With this new catchy chorus we set about recording the lead vocals and harmonies, and then for the remainder of the session we focused on adding additional musical overdubs. A couple of my own suggestions were the sparkly ‘Nashville’ tuned rhythm guitar you hear come in in verse 2, which added a touch of forward momentum whilst not interfering with the low-mids, bass frequencies and the main guitar. More subtle suggestions are doubling the main riff with a Hammond Organ for extra texture and playing around with a Roland 505 drum machine to add texture and emphasis to rhythm.”
“Throughout day 3 and 4 of the session we continued to build the track and it was a great pleasure to record the intricate, distinctive, Parcels harmonies in the breakdown section, which they had predominantly written already – a superb display of singing abilities. One key element that also stands out was the virtuoso performance of the triangle, which again, along with the Nashville guitar, added to the development of forward momentum from the second verse.
The overdub of improvised bass fills around the quantized synth bass was another highlight that brought the low-end rhythm to life. After the session was finished the group took the ProTools sessions away to edit and add additional overdubs such as the spacey synth you hear in the breakdown section, and then to get it mixed and mastered.”
Final thoughts:
“Overall, the tieduprightnow session could be a simple lesson that, in the end, the secret is in the song and the musicianship. From an engineer and producer’s point of view, it’s about being able to create a trusting, confident studio environment which facilitates the artist to go beyond and reach for the very best results.”
“You never know which track will be the one to get away, but you do know when you’ve had a good studio session!”
Cheers, Ed