Ross Markonish

OGRE

March 2008

Ross, your leads on the new album are varied in their sound and style. What did you do to give them different sounds? Were these differing sounds the result of gear choices, recording choices, or production choices? What effects did you use? Were these pedal-based at the amp, or where they rack-based at the board?

Well, thanks for noticing the variety in the solos! As Ed did with his vocals, I made a conscious decision to play leads that reflected the feel/style/approach of each individual section. Considering the range of styles within the entire epic, that certainly was a challenge, but it was a fun undertaking. In some cases, I even went back to earlier OGRE albums as inspiration for my solos. For example, I wanted the “Call to Colossus” solo to be drenched in delay and reverb. The reason for this decision was that this section involved the return of our recurring character, Colossus, who has already been featured in two earlier songs, “Colossus” (off of Dawn of the Proto-Man) and “God of Iron” (off of the Unleashed in the Northeast vinyl compilation). On both of those earlier songs, I play guitar solos that are heavily delayed, so that has become sort of a ‘signature sound’ for Colossus. Therefore, it was time to bring out the delay again! I know that sounds like a real guitar-geek sort of thing to think about, but it seemed to make sense to adapt the whole ‘concept album’ idea even to the recording techniques.

In terms of effects and the like, I played all the rhythm tracks straight through my amp, with no effects. For leads, I used a variety of effects, some pedal-based but most at the board. I tended to use my Small Stone for any phaser effects, but delays were handled at the board. I do have a delay pedal, but I was having some trouble getting the delay tempos to match the tempos of the songs, so we decided to drop in the delay later on. As much as I am not a fan of digital delay “plug-ins,” which never seem to get the sound I want despite having a seemingly unending range of options, I agreed that it was better to go that route this time around.

Finally, of course, there is my best friend, Mr. CryBaby himself, who helps me get through any soloing crisis, effectively covering up all the sloppiness of my playing. He was with me every step of the way.

Did you use your now-standard complement of Laney head, SG guitar, and Avatar cabinet? What made you choose the gear you used for this particular recording? That is, what about your gear allowed you to realize your vision for the record's sound?

Yeah, for most of the album I used the SG/Laney/Avatar combo, which I think worked pretty well for the rhythm tracks and most of the leads. There are two main reasons that I used this gear for the recording: I like how it sounds, and I’m familiar with it. For some reason, I turn into an incompetent fool whenever I am faced with gear that I “don’t know,” so I didn’t want to waste time in the studio twiddling knobs on some strange amp.

That said, there was more twiddling than I anticipated. As you know, the Laney I use for my main rig is a high-gain model, and when I went into the studio, I had it set for my live sound, which maximizes that gain. After a couple takes, the engineer came in and said that all the gain was translating into a real buzzy sound on the recording, so we worked on adjusting the settings a bit. Typically, I would be wary of a sound engineer messing with my guitar sound too much, but Marc (the engineer) is someone I completely trust. As opposed to some engineers we have worked with, he understands the 70s sound we are going for, so he just wanted to make sure that we were approximating those tones on my guitar. I think we succeeded for the most part.

I would also add that, for obvious reasons, the amp settings for the rhythm and lead tracks were different. I cranked up the gain for most of the solos and, in a couple instances, played in the same room as the cabinet, in order to maximize sustain and, if needed, feedback.

One last bit about a gear change that I didn’t anticipate: when I recorded the solo to the “Drive” section, I was having difficulty sustaining the final note of the solo on my SG. I don’t know what it was, but every time I hit that note (which is a bend at the top of the neck), it would just die on me. I did take after take, and I was getting really frustrated, when the engineer suggested I try another guitar. There were a couple lying around the studio, and oddly enough, the one that worked best was a big semi-hollow body(!) with really light gauge strings. I don’t remember for sure, but it may have even been a knock-off of a Gibson ES-355, which as we both well know, was Alex Lifeson’s favored guitar during the glory days of Rush. At any rate, I think the semi-hollow aspect allowed that final note to sustain/feedback more effectively, so that’s what I used on the solo. Throw some heavy delay on the note in the mixing process and, ta-da, infinite sustain!

Ed's bass sounds less aggressive on this record, certainly tamer than his live Rickenbacker sound. What did he play on the record? What changes were made to it while recording and during production?

Well, Ed did play his Rickenbacker on the record, but you are correct in saying that it doesn’t quite have that classic Rick sound on the record. A lot of that has to do with some gear issues Ed was having. The week before, as a warm up for going into the studio, we played a couple shows with a certain band from Baltimore called Revelation (have you heard of them before, John?). In the middle of our set in Portland, Ed’s bass amp completely crapped out and stopped working. As distressing as this was on stage (it happened half-way through our debut performance of the epic!), it also posed a problem for the recording, as Ed didn’t have time to get it fixed or get a new one. He did have a shitty back up head (more of a PA head, actually), but when we got to the studio, we quickly realized that that wasn’t going to cut it. So, Ed’s signal ended up being recorded entirely as a direct input signal to the board. As you can imagine, that sapped some of the punchiness of the Rickenbacker.

Still, I think Ed’s performance on the album is great, and we did a lot of tweaking during production to bring out a stronger bass sound. In particular, Ed is doing a lot of cool stuff on the “Dawn of the Proto-Man” section, so we spent quite some time making sure that his bass was more prominent there.

The vocals are up-front in the mix and stand out. How did you decide how this record would be mixed? Who made the decisions for levels in the mix?

As I mentioned before, Marc, our sound engineer, contributed a lot to the decisions made at the mixing stage. We have known him for a long time; he often used to do live sound for us, and he has great ears for hearing subtle nuances in music. So, we put a lot of trust in his choices for mixing. That said, all three of us were in the studio for every stage of mixing, so it really was a collaborative effort.

In terms of the vocals, I’m not sure if there was a conscious decision to put them so up-front in the mix, but I think it’s a natural choice, considering how powerful Ed’s vocals are as well as the 70s-influenced music we play. I gotta say, I’m not a big fan of bands who bury the vocals under layers of sound fx, claiming that they are just using them for “texture” or some other crap like that. Usually that just means the person can’t sing and they need to hide that fact with tons of noise and delay. I know I’m biased here, but I think Ed has one of the very best and most expressive voices in heavy music today, so we wanted to maximize that as much as possible. Plus, he wrote some great lyrics for the album, so it makes sense that you should be able to hear them.

Listen to 2112 and Hemispheres as a point of comparison: are Geddy’s vocals pushed way back in the mix? No way, man. They are up front and in your face, and that’s what we were going for here as well.

Everyone plays incredibly tight throughout the song--did you play to a click track? Did Will? How much was recorded "live" in a room? What tracks are overdubbed? In what order did you record the individual tracks when you overdubbed?

For better or worse, no click track for us. To be honest, though, this was the first album in which we seriously (though only briefly) considered using a click, particularly for a few of the trickier sections. Consistency of tempo is not necessarily one of our strengths as a band, but we always have been firmly opposed to the concept of a click track, as we feel it would strip away that organic quality of three musicians interacting with one another.

This time around, due to the manner in which the different sections were recorded (more about that in a second), Marc suggested a click track. We considered it for about 30 seconds, and then promptly said, “No.” This definitely posed some challenges for us, especially on the “Deus ex Machina” and “G.F.R” sections (both of which required more precision than we are comfortable with!), but I think we were able to pull it all together pretty well. All the basic tracks of the album were recorded live in the studio. Ed, Will, and I were all in the same room, with my cabinet placed in a sound room. This allowed for us to use visual cues to help keep us tight (something we do a lot on stage) and it also made it feel more like a full band performance, which helps to maintain energy levels. For example, on the “Call to Colossus” section, which is really slow and heavy, I tend to watch Will’s snare drum very carefully, as I am hitting certain chords in tandem with his snare hits. Since we weren’t using a click, this could have been a mess, but because I was able to be in the same room as Will, we were able to stay locked in with one another, while still allowing for that organic push-and-pull in tempo that I mentioned before. Much of the credit here certainly goes to Will, who is such a steady force on the drums that he was able to keep me and Ed in line every step of the way.

In terms of overdubs, I spent the better part of a separate day recording all of my guitar overdubs (a second rhythm track and many leads), with the exception of the “Dawn of the Proto-Man” solo, which was performed entirely live during the basic tracking. Ed also went back into the studio a few times to re-record his vocals. On all our albums, Ed recorded scratch vocals while we were laying down the basic tracks (again approximating a full band performance), and then later re-recorded any vocals that needed fixing. You’d be amazed how many times those scratch vocals ended up being final takes, though!

How much editing was involved in putting the song together? Did you record the parts in order, or did you record them arbitrarily and then splice them later?

Without a doubt, editing was a crucial aspect of constructing this album. In fact, Marc referred to the album as “the biggest puzzle” he had yet had to “assemble” in his years as an engineer. Though we certainly were capable of playing the entire song from start to finish in one take (we had done so live a couple times and many times in rehearsals), we knew that we would end up wasting our time in the studio if we tried to get it all in one take. One screw up and start over? I think not.

So, we decided (correctly) that it would be best to record the song in sections, though we did not do so in order. Basically, we started off with some of the more straightforward sections (e.g. “End Days”), which allowed us to warm up in the studio. One thing I’ve found is that I, in particular, often take a LONG time to warm up in a studio. There’s just something about the headphones and the unfamiliar space and the pressure to perform well that makes it such an uncomfortable manner in which to play music. Eventually, I do warm up and start to enjoy the process, but at first, it’s tough.

At any rate, after we warmed up with the “easy” sections, we moved onto the more challenging sections, such as “G.F.R.” Also, any parts that used the same riffs (“End Days” and “Colonizer Rex”, for example) were recorded in succession so that we could preserve the feel and tempo for when we spliced everything together.

One section that we were very careful about recording at the “right time” was the final part, “Dawn of the Proto-Man.” This section was all about feel and band interaction, so we didn’t want to record it when we were too stiff or when we were too tired. So, we hit it about mid-day, after lunch, and we nailed it in only two takes. Up until that point in the recording session, we weren’t really pumped up about anything we had done, but getting that section completed really re-energized us, and the rest of the session went much more smoothly.

During the intro to the record, you have 4 guitars playing at once, which build up one at a time. For such quiet guitar parts, did you play with a metronome?

No click tracks, no metronome. I started with a six-string acoustic track, and then began layering each of the other guitars (12-string acoustic, 12-string electric, and 6-string electric w/phase) one at a time. I made sure that the playback of that initial 6-string acoustic was really loud in my headphones when recording the other guitars, so I used that as a guide for tempo. The 12-string guitars were a bitch to play, but I eventually got them all down!

Can you describe the studio rooms in which you recorded? Do you know what mics, pre-amps, boards, and recorders were used?

I am woefully ignorant when it comes to recording technology, so I’m afraid I won’t be too helpful with this question (You can go to the studio website www.acadiarecording.com if you want more info. Make sure you click on the “Studio” link and check out the pictures of the crazy wood panel mural that takes up one entire wall of the live room!). The album was recorded completely digitally, using ProTools, I believe. Even though we would love to continue to use analog recording methods, we realized it just wouldn’t be practical for such an undertaking, particularly in terms of editing. I know the popular thing in heavy music today is to praise analog as much as possible, but digital technology really was our friend this time around, especially when we were putting all the different tracks together.

One unique technological aspect of this album---and all of the credit goes to Marc and Scott (mastering) for this one---is that it was recorded at 192 khz, which apparently is the highest fidelity digital recording level available right now. Essentially, 192 khz is DVD-Audio level. Marc recently acquired the technology to record at this level and thought that we would be a good band to test it out on. As he explained (and I hope I’m interpreting this correctly), the fidelity level of 192 khz recording actually gives the music a warmth that is closer to analog than most digital recordings. Of course, we eventually needed to mix down to a lower fidelity for CD purposes, but I think it still resulted in a much clearer overall production for the album. One day, I’d love to hear it in full DVD-Audio sound, and maybe even release a special edition that way (provided other people are interested in hearing it in that format as well).

What were the challenges of recording a suite of songs that are one long song, in effect?

There were certainly a lot of challenges, starting with composition and moving all the way to mixing and mastering, but I have to say it was amazing to watch the project unfold over these past several months. There were many times when we thought to ourselves, “What the hell are we doing?” seriously doubting whether anyone would want to listen to such a monstrosity, but once it all started to come together in the mixing process, we realized we had something special on our hands. I still remember the moment when Marc played back the final mix to us in the studio. The three of us sat there, quietly and with our eyes closed, for 37+ minutes. When it was over, we turned to each other and, without saying a word, gave each other high-fives. Even now, we’re amazed that we actually were able to pull this off, and even if no one buys it or likes the album, we’re still going to be really proud of what we have produced.
 

Everyone needs to buy this CD immediately. I mean it. Go NOW to      www.leafhound.com