Asylum Denied Guitar Solos!

Hey everyone!  DUCK here!

What a proud moment for any guitar player...the guitar solos have finally been laid down!

We will probably re-visit the guitar solos a bit later after the vocals are down to accurately adjust the size and calibre of the solos, but so far so good.  Most of the songs have solos in them of some type - 9 out of the 13 songs have solos as of current.  They range from melodic solos to shredding balls solos.  I don't feel that I am too particularly well at making shredding balls solos, so I like to keep those at a minimum, but I understand the need for them if the song demands it.  I've always felt that the true talent in a solo guitarist is the ability to make a good melodically enhanced solo, and not just some random fast spur of notes.  All that aside, I did the best I could, and hope the magic of the moment makes its way through to the audience.

Here is a video I made of the progress:

Cheers!

DUCK

Let the Synth Begin!

Well Hello there!  Thank you for stopping by!

It's yet another busy day on the INSATIA front.  What ever is there to do when there are no vocals to record or produce?  Synth!  There are still some things that we haven't gotten to yet; namely, synth, guitar solos, and vocals.  In the mean time, we've been tweaking and adjusting the mix, the drums, the guitars – eventually you run out of those things to tweak.  Once they're perfect, there's no going back!  Today officially started the synthesizer, loops and samples part of INSATIA's debut album.  What is all that?  Why does it need to be in there?

Good questions...

What we are adding now, are electronic instruments, sounds, and samples of anything from noises to voices.  A lot of our favourite bands incorporate some level of these elements into their music, and we really like the way it sounds.  Which brings us to why we feel it needs to be there.  Well, it doesn't.  Many bands get to the point we're at and call it a finished product, send it off for mastering and call it a job well done.  Here at INSATIA, we like to make the music a bit more dimensional and layered.  We find that the same song suddenly takes on a new attitude, a new meaning, and even a more complete sound when we thicken it up with keyboards, and/or add in random sounds/voices.

The first track I did is "Torn Asunder", which you'll recognise from the demo, Left Behind (EP).  It's a freshly recorded track with all of the tweaks and mix enhancements, and now with fresh synth, loops and samples to complete it.

Here's a video of me talking about the process a bit more, along with audio from "Torn Asunder":



Cheers!

DUCK

Re-Engineering the Mix

Hey Everybody!

DUCK here with some of the latest.  It's really not too exciting, unless of course you're a nerd.  If you're a nerd then just keep reading, and you may need some time to clam down.  If you're not a nerd, then...well...just keep reading.  Reading, much like eating your vegetables and regular sexual activity are all healthy things.

Jester and I thought we were ready to start working on synth/loops/samples and guitar solos when we popped the tracks excitedly into our cars and exclaimed, "What happened!?"  To the mix that is.  The songs sounded rather awesome on YouTube (you can still hear them up there), and otherwise on our computers, and especially inside of iTunes (with and without the super-imposed EQ).  Somehow, when not being played on a computer, and on a real stereo such as in our cars, poop was flung at our faces from the speakers.  Well...  Something just had to be done.  What ensued were several weeks of trial and error in entirely re-engineering the mix of the tracks.  It seemed endless, but we're really glad that we ended up having the time available to learn where we went wrong and to fix it.

Turns out, I may not have understood audio production as well as maybe I had originally thought.  Simple is the way to go, apparently.  Ha!  Who'd of thought, eh?  We started by ripping down the mix of everything that didn't need to be there.  Lots of extra guitars and plug-ins that I thought we needed.  Turns out we didn't need all that extra stuff, so we took it out of there.  Next we sat down and decided if we liked some of the sounds we recorded months ago.  Then came the fun part.  We changed the electric guitar sound, which took several weeks of amp changes, microphone changes, and "what do we do about the ground noise?" changes.  Next came the drums.  We liked our overhead sound with the cymbals, and we liked the toms.  The kick and the snare just weren't cutting it though, so we replaced them with meatier, heavier sounding drums.  That process was actually quicker than the guitars, believe it or not.  We tried re-doing the toms, too, but it ended up being negligible, so we've stuck with the original toms.

How is it now, you ask?  We're happier.  Happier for sure.  I've made homemade burned copies of the 12-song disc we're calling "Asylum Denied" for the moment, and we'll do some more stereo testing, but I think we've got it.  This week I will proudly start working on the synth/loops/samples as Jester stereo tests the mix a bit more and funnels in some ideas about the synth/loops/samples.  It's nice that we're still making some progress.  Slow.  But still forward.

Cheers!

DUCK

No Singer New Look More Videos

Hey guys,

This is Jester here to give an update on what's been going on with INSATIA over the past few months. Things haven't been going as planned after finishing the drums. It turns out our singer, Chelsea, wasn't actually doing any work and then moved to another state leaving us without any vocals. Therefore you'll no longer see any of her on the site or as a member. As of late we have been talking with Jon and Conrad to see if they would like to stay on board or not, as we have had a tremendous amount of difficulty finding a new singer over the last four months and we totally understand if they have other things they want to do. In the mean time, Duck and I are going to record a few videos of the new tunes within the next couple weeks or so to help aid with finding a good professional singer that fits the sound that INSATIA has.


If you haven't checked it out yet, we have a new look to our website at 'insatia.net'. Kudos to my buddy, Patrick Baum, for the help with the awesome logo! I'll be working on adding some more spice to the website as well. Right now I'm working on a new background to replace the black one and so far it's coming along real well. Stay tuned as within the next few weeks we shall have a new and improved look to insatia.net and new videos up on youtube.com/insatiaofficial.

Peace!

-Jester

Update guys!!!

Ello everyone,

Jester here to let you all know that drums are done and recorded. Everything sounds fantastic, to say the least. I'm sure everyone will want to take their pants off the first ten seconds into the album, I know I did.

We also had our first photo shoot! We took some individual pictures, played some Super Mario World and ate some of Duck's tasty baked Macaroni and Cheese! It was fucking delicious. Conrad was a ninja and took some footage of Chelsea while she thought the camera was off, hehe :p

Here is that video.

Next! We are going to take our group photos sometime in the next week, finish up some tasty bass tracks and start recording vocals!

I will also write a blog soon talking about my drums and what I use(and post some pictures).

Stay classy metalheads!

- Jester