Studioreport
click here to see some pictures taken @ the studio
July 19, 2005
At night Exterminator leaves Belgium. With a long trip, 1.300 km
more or less, ahead of them to the Los Angered Recording Studio
in a village called Angered,
near Götheborg, Sweden.
July 20, 2005
It takes about 17 hours to arrive at the studio, where Marc, Kris,
Jacky and Alan receive a warm welcome from Mr. Andy Larocque,
guitarist from King Diamond. At
that moment Andy is finishing up demorecordings for the Swedish
band TRUST. After the bands make acquaintance with each other,
Exterminator is shown around the studio by Andy. Then the
instruments are taken from the mobilhome into the studio. Later
that night Exterminator explores the local pubs, but gets stuck in
the Rock Bar(en). At 23 hours, the men decide to call it a day and
turn to bed.
July 21, 2005
Nevertheless the early start at 10 a.m., the tuning of the drum
creates immediate problems when it appears a hammer on one of the
drumpedals gets broken. Marc needs to use other drumpedals, which
isn't easy at all. In the afternoon the setting of the metronome
is on the agenda. Still, it seems shit happens again, when the
disk where the data is on, seems to be unreadable. Editing the
drum will be impossible without them. At 14 p.m. Exterminator
decides to give it a go: recording the drum without metronome on
all the songs. Two hours later and with help from home, through
the internet drumclicks are transferred into the studiosystem. At
night Exterminator heads for the Sticky Fingers, but ends up in the
Rock Bar again.
July 22, 2005
At 9 a.m. Jacky and Kris start searching for a good sound for the
recording of the leadguitars on the first songs RCR and ITP.
Still, it appears that some tempos on the songs need to be changed,
but at the end of the day 2 new songs are recorded.
July 23, 2005
As a consequence of an allergic reaction on some medication, Andy
winds up in the Emergency Room of the local hospital the evening
before. He manages to appear in the studio in the late afternoon,
so two more songs, PL and LS can be recorded. But again, there
appears to be a problem with the guitar. Re-tuning and intonation
needs to be checked urgently.
July 24, 2005
A day off for Andy and Exterminator, so Andy can take a rest after
the incident with the medication. Exterminator decides to visit
the amusementpark Liseberg in Götheborg.
July 25, 2005
Starting at 10 a.m. (and after a short check-up) the remaining
leadguitars on CP, THV, 732 and BDOTOD are recorded. Again some
tempos needed to be changed. At 20h30 clean guitars with a 12
string are used and recorded for one of the songs. At 22 hours
They all decide to call it a day after a short visit to the Rock
Bar again.
July 26, 2005
At 10 a.m. a sound for the bass is searched for. Immediately after
Alan starts recording and before we can even call it noon, he
recorded 4 basstracks already (on ITP, RCR, PL an THV). Meanwhile
the remaining bandmembers managed to cook some Belgian dinner
together and after this delicious meal the remaining basstracks on
CP, BDOTOD, 732P and LS are recorded in the remaining of the
afternoon. Then it is Rock Bar time again.
July 27, 2005
On this day Exterminator decides to rerecord the drums again. Marc
played much better, but could not adapt immediately to the many
tempochanges made in the songs. It appears he needs a lot of time
to learn the songs by heart again, with the changes made in them
during the studiorecordings. In the afternoon Jacky wets his throat
and starts with the clean vocals. Again, they finish the day in the
Rock bar.
July 28, 2005
On this last day the lead (screaming) vocals are recorded
August 5, 2005
In the rehearsalroom Marc is found int the idea to start looking
for a sessiondrummer to record the drums again, otherwise the band
needed to wait too long to get the new album released. Meanwhile he
will prepare the new songs for live concerts.
August 11, 2005
Andy informs Exterminator he started recording the drums with
sessiondrummer Danni "Mojjo" Moilanen, whom he already worked with.
Danni was also involved in following projects: www.runemagick.se ,
www.engelpropaganda.com , www.relevantfew.com and
www.grindnecks.com . He also worked with bands like Sandalinas,
Deathwitch and Lord Belial.
August 12, 2005
The drums are recorded. Now only guitarsolos and some vocals need
to be recorded before the mixing and mastering can start.
September 3, 2005
Kris and Jacky go to Rik's Rockshop in
Tongeren (Belgium) to record the guitarsolos and record the French
vocals on 732P. Thibaut from Xhenat will do the job for
Exterminator. Nicky Neyah, his companion, is with him and Jacky
and Kris were happy to see them and dig up some old memmories.
September 6, 2005
Kris continues the recording of the guitarsolos at Rik's place.
September 10, 2005
All solo's have been recorded. Now it remains waiting on the Arab
vocals on 732P, which will be recorded in Studio Cameleon in
Switzerland by Jalal (vocals) and Cedric (engineer). When this will
be is not clear at the moment. But we'll keep you posted on
further updates.
October 3, 2005
While setting up the mix, it seemed some solo's we're played in the wrong key or had bad timing , because they were recorded without drums. Those few solo's needed to be redone.
October 5, 2005
Andy started with a first rough mix, waiting for the few soloparts, a few samples and of course the Arab vocals.
October 17, 2005
A first impression on the rough mix has finally arrived with three songs on it: LA SOUFFRANCE, THE HUMAN VERMIN and BLACK DOMINION OF THE OLD DRAGON. Meanwhile Jacky received rather bad news from Switzerland: all recorded vocals got lost, due to an electrical failure which infected the studiocomputer and all backupfiles. All the Arab vocals need to be redone. Exterminator immediately started the search for Arab-speaking Belgians to redo the recordings in the Belgian studio.
October 24 and 25, 2005
Because the studio or engineer Kristof weren't available sooner, Kris and Jacky started re-recording some soloparts today. Jacky also brought with him the samples for 732 POITIERS and CANNIBALISTIC PARANOIA, but it seemed that the files weren't PC-compatible.
November 10, 2005
Engineer Kristof, Kris and Jacky started re-recording the last soloparts. Also the samples on 732 POITIERS and CANNIBALISTIC PARANOIA were adapted. The last remaining lyrics - including the Arab vocals - were recorded. Guess who the Arab was?
December 16, 2005
Finally the pieces of the puzzle were available and send to Sweden. But... Los Angered was fully booked the past months, which was the reason why Andy just now could start with the final mixing and mastering session in December. The first final mix was available for Exterminator on 12th of December and after Andy had dealt with all the remarks, he finally could start mastering on the 16th!
December 23, 2005
Almost X-mass and what a surprise: a fully mastered new CD of Exterminator was in the mail!!! Now the hard work for releasing the newborn begins...