dB Band (UK) 'In Session', Monday February 28th 2011

dB Band (Oxford, UK), 2-Track & 4-Track recorded.
Monday February 28th 2011, ‘Gouwestad Radio Studio 2’ Gouda.
Tracks:
Stranger In The Alps (Tk 1-4)/Dreams (Tk 1-3)/Stranger In The Alps (Tk 5-6)/5 A Day (Tk 1-4)/Stranger In The Alps (Tk 7)/Up In Smoke (Tk 1)/Dreams (Tk 4)/5 A Day (Tk 5-7)/Bus Stop Shuffle (Tk 1-5)/Up In smoke (Tk 2)/Dreams (Overdubs Tk 1-3)/Interview

Note:
‘dB Band’ are Mick Quinn, Paul ‘Fab’ Wilson and Mikey D Smith from Oxford, England. Being very excited to have a former member of longtime favourites ‘Supergrass’ in the studio for a session, I was disappointed in turning sick the night prior to the session, leaving me tired and a bit dreary. Which led to problems with the vocalmix from the start untill about halfway through the session.

Right after an early appearance on Amsterdam based ‘English Breakfast Radio’, the band arrived knackered at the studio by 10:30 AM. Having skipped the night before, after a short, festive night the day before that, energy was scarce and moods swinging. Takes 1 and 3 of ‘Stranger’ were breakdowns, while others suffered from difficulties in soundlevels. Take 7 was deemed best.

Take 1 of ‘Dreams’ was already in progress, when the record-button got pressed. For the other takes recording switched from Marantz P660 Flashrecorder to good ‘ole Tascam 440 Portastudio, cassettebased. Take 2 broke down, Take 3 had the lead vocals drowned in the overall sound, while the backing vocals were too prominent. Take 4 got second vocals on track three, in addition to the basic track taped live onto tracks 1 and 2. Takes 2, 4 and 5 of ‘5 A Day’ broke down, before problems with the livemix were solved by re-levelling the vocals.

After a break and an unrecorded jam with Mick on drums, the session was picked up by ‘Up In Smoke’, whick lacked it’s first two minutes, as the band started to play unannounced during technical maintenance. Take 1 of ‘Bus Stop Shuffle’ broke down, while Take 3 was a loose runthrough, in which the band focussed on some adjustments. The other takes were dissatisfactory to the band, untill Take 6 came out as best one. A 25 minute full band interview concluded this 7 hour session-day. Few hours later, while transferring the session from the recorder to my computer, I mixed ‘Dreams’ at home in a single take.