THE MINOR TIMES offers studio update
Pennsylvania's THE MINOR TIMES is currently in the studio with engineer
Vince Ratti at Skylight Studio recording the follow-up to 2005's 'Making
Enemies,' which is scheduled for a spring 2007 release through Prosthetic
Records. The forthcoming effort has already been dubbed 'Summer of Wolves'
and THE MINOR TIMES has already revealed a handful of song titles, including
"This Is The Blues," "Blackhole Living," "Van Zant," "Bringing In The Suit"
and "+ + +."

Drummer Brian Medlin offers an update for the first week's activity: "Hello
everyone!! Things are going great in the studio. We have lots of time, and
we are using it to our advantage. We're keeping it a very relaxed
environment which helps spawn more creativity. We're definitely
experimenting with every sound and idea that comes to mind. Here's how the
past week went:

Day 1- We cleaned and reorganized the studio, making it easier to work in
and feel a little less cramped. We discussed the overall game plan: our
ideas for drum sounds, guitars, vocals, etc. Then Lou and Matt sang "Happy
Birthday" to a girl at a diner because she thought they were cute.

Day 2- We set up the drums and started getting sounds. The room sound is
very important to us on this record, so we started with that before we got
to the kick and snare. Our bass player went to school for engineering, so
he'll be collaborating a lot with Vince on ideas for mic placement, EQing,
pre-amp selections, etc.

Day 3- We finished all the remaining drum sounds. Like I said, we're taking
our time and trying as much as we can. We brought multiple bass drums and
snare drums. You can see the extra snare drums set up in this picture:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/TheMinorTimes/Studio/brian3.jpg

Day 4- Started tracking drums and got solid takes of about 5 songs. Most of
the days this week were just Matt and myself in the studio, with the other
guys showing up later in the day.

Day 5- Tracked the remaining songs on the main drum sound.

Day 6- Listened over to the takes, checking if other takes were needed. Or,
simply made drum edits if needed. Then we tracked some extra kit ideas. We
had ideas for some parts of songs to have an additional drum kit playing.

Day 7- This day was a blast! We messed around with loads of pre-amp ideas
for certain parts in songs where we want a completely different drum sound.
We like this much better than using a computer plug-in for the effect.

Day 8- Another really fun day. For an additional percussion part of a song,
we used very organic instruments (i.e. things around the room). So we banged
on trash cans, slammed doors, slapped things, even recorded spraying a can
of Lysol! I liked this because everyone got involved. So everyone has their
hand in percussion on this record. Here's a picture of some of the
"instruments":
<http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/TheMinorTimes/Studio/percussion.jpg>
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/TheMinorTimes/Studio/percussion.jpg.
After that, we stripped down the drum set to just a bass, snare, and two
broken cymbals that I brought for a part in another song. Here's a picture:
<http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/TheMinorTimes/Studio/strippedset.jpg
>
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/TheMinorTimes/Studio/strippedset.jpg.
We muffled the hell out of the bass and snare, brought the mics a little
closer, and got a really nice dry/trashy sound. That was the last of the
drum tracking. We ended the day by clearing the room of drums, brought in
the amps, and started on bass guitar tones. More studio updates to come!"