Balance Instars Production

The Production of Balance Instars

Stage 1:
After spending 2 years developing Of The I’s sound, the production phase of our first album consisted of four stages.The first stage was the easiest and also the fastest. It took us ten days to record Balance Instars – one day per song. Each day consisted of setting up the amps, drums, and mics, recording a part, and then re-doing everything to get the sound we wanted for the following section. Most parts of our songs required totally different set-ups. We were using Framus and Rivera amps for certain sections, and Cornford, Mesa Boogie, and Vox amps for others. We also alternated cymbals and snares to achieve the desired drum sound. Fortunately, we had reached the stage at which we knew exactly how we wanted not only the songs, but also the individual sections to sound. Some songs (e.g. Cold, Modern Equivalent) were recorded quite quickly, while others (e.g. Ascend, Stopping the World) presented us with huge obstacles. The song Instars was recorded spontaneously; what else were we going to do with 4 hours to spare at the end of ten days? When we left the studio, I had a terrifying amount of gigabytes to sort through in order to find the best of each section. Conveniently, I had some computer problems...

Stage 2:
By computer problems I mean that in hindsight, I would have preferred to have had physical tape to cut, rather than doing it all on Logic Pro 8. I hadn't realized how bad its first versions were and sometimes I still wonder why I didn't go back to Logic Pro 7. What was done was done, and I never changed back. I often lie awake at night, scratching into the cement of my wall until the skin on my fingertips begins to break, and as my tears wash off the blood, I scream into the night ‘WHY, OH WHY DIDN'T I USE LOGIC PRO 7 INSTEAD?!’ Anyway, it took me a long time to get used to the bugs but I put it all together, and after getting over the ridiculously long period of ‘What If?’ I decided that the editing stage was complete and scheduled some mixing time. Originally, I booked ten days for mixing, since this seemed reasonable at the time. I thought maybe there would have to be one or two more days we hadn't predicted, and we'd have to squeeze and try to come up with extra cash and then we’d laugh about it over a bottle of champagne on a fantastic night out with dancing and chasing tail. Conveniently however, I had some computer problems...

Stage 3:
During mixing, we used an old analog 'Studer’ desk, with some decent outboard ‘gear’ but mostly just compressors and Eq. Given what I wanted to do, we were pretty limited. A lot of the delays and reverbs you hear on the album are from really good plug-ins, as shaping these was really important. Outboard gear is different, it’s hard to replicate reverberations that are changing in size and texture while they move around in seemingly 360 degree motion on a metal box with four knobs. Anyway, this album was all about creating an atmosphere that would lead you to stare into your speakers as if you were standing at the edge of a cliff, staring at an ocean; it had to sound inviting but massive. A lot of that was accomplished with very careful panning of the different instruments, as well as with some stereo spreaders and wideners. At the same time I used automation to alter the settings of various controls on plug-ins, bringing instruments in and out of effects, the textures of which were also constantly changing. Because we were mixing on an analogue desk without flying faders or anything of the sort, almost each section of every song was mixed separately and then stuck together at the end. This was also necessary because the outboard hardware settings and the desk's Eq were different on many of the channels for the different parts.
After a while, the mixing process became so tedious that I found myself staying overnight at the studio, battling continuously failing hard drives and computer issues along with the technical demands for the songs. I started believing the album was cursed, as each day brought more incomprehensible problems, like the mixing desk continuously outputting different volumes for left and right speakers, and certain channels not operating unless an extremely heavy metal suitcase was placed on some of the pots and controls. In the end I had so much automation going on that the computer couldn't deal with all the constant changes. As a result, it became necessary to export each track through its associated desk channel and outboard hardware back into the computer, so I was working with semi-mixed dry tracks.
Now we had to start testing what the audio sounded like on different stereo systems. We listened to the tracks on all sorts of stereos and speakers to make sure they were sounding essentially how we wanted them to sound. What we found was that some frequencies were irritating on certain hi-fi's but not others, and when those were turned down or modified, it occasionally dulled the timbre of the associated instrument. In the end, it took some really weird Eq stuff to make sure that you can listen to the entire album as loud as possible, without encountering any overly offensive frequencies. The louder you turn up the album, the more you can hear; there is a lot of little intricate detail that is much easier to hear at loud volumes and it makes for a very different listening experience.

Stage 4:
The transitions between the different songs were recorded after the bulk of mixing was done. They are, as I like to call them, a sorbet before the next course – something that totally pulls you away and neutralizes your perception. The moods of the transitions are quite eerie and ambient at times, leaving you with a sense of mystery about what is yet to come. Listening to the whole album, with transitions, gives it a character that escapes if you’re just skipping through songs. We spent a lot of time thinking about the track order, deciding which order would be most successful in injecting this feeling of a continuously flowing journey, instead of a mere collection of tracks. The transitions contain sounds from our everyday environment (footsteps through our flat, our door bell, our tube station, storms, and rivers). Once these were recorded and mixed, the album was done. Finally, finally, finally done… Balance Instars was mastered, the transitions were stuck into negative seconds between the tracks, our artwork was finalized, and many copies were printed.