Listen to Scobie

To purchase Scobie E.P. click on this link:

Scobie on iTunes

Listen to Scobie

To purchase Scobie E.P. click on this link:

Scobie on iTunes

Scobie on iTunes

This was the first time that the band staged their own show, as they arranged the venue, PA, and all of the promotion themselves. Scobie were very pleased with the result because the venue was absolutely packed and they and sold quite a few units on their CD. Everyone in the audience who they spoke to said that they has had a great time and that they enjoyed all 3 performances very much. Scobie would like to thank the members of Pets Win Prizes, Papersun for putting their time into performing. They would also like to thank the brilliant Jules Shapter for providing Lighting and Sound.

Scobie @ the Willoghby Arms, Kingson

Scobie performing ‘Waking the Neighbors’ featuring Matt Petch on violin

Thursday

The band decided to record the EP themselves- some thing which is quite easy to do these days- provided you know what your doing. This firstly involved converting James’ drum cabin at the bottom of his garden into a recording studio.

Jake arrived in the evening with a car load of equipment including Apple Mac, mixing desk and acoustic separation boards (all kindly provided by his employers). Jake and James then spent the evening propping up boards and taping duvets to the walls to create 3 separate booths in which they could make the recordings.

They also set up the computer and all the microphones. The plan was that would get all of the technology ready so that they wouldn’t have to worry about any of it the following night. That way they could focus making really good performances. They made the recordings using Logic Pro 8.

Friday

The band arrived and we squashed our selves into our tiny booths and sound checked our instruments. Typically, there is always something which goes wrong or is tricky with these things. When they went to play they found that they couldn’t hear each other properly. This is a very important thing when your trying to gel and make good music. After a bit of faffing about they got the sound right.

They then proceeded to record the drums, double bass and acoustic guitar parts 5 songs:

‘Wout’s Room’; ‘Control and Awareness’; ‘Funk and Funktionality’; ‘Switched’ and ‘The Madness of King Jake’.

They recorded 2 takes of each song

Saturday

They met as before and recorded the drums, double bass and acoustic guitar parts for the remaining 2 songs:

‘The Watcher’ and ‘Scobie’

Whilst making these recordings Jim Horsburgh Snr. took some photos of the performances.

Jake than had the idea to put down the guitars and over dub some wind parts. John played the Soprano Sax whilst Jake played the Flute. They played each song through together, improvising over the top of what we had previously recorded. Jake threw in a few ideas of how they could arrange what they were doing. Listening back, they decided what to keep and what to throw out.

Scobie were pleased with the initial results and that the last few months of rehearsing and gigs had obviously paid off

Monday

Just Jake and James met to record some overdubs of percussion parts. They created our own percussion instruments, in various ways. They filled some old tins with dried  pulses to see how they would sound when shook. James also experimented with hitting various objects with different kinds of sticks, to see if they made an interesting sound. After quite a lot of experimenting they came up with some sounds they were happy with.

The following weekend..

Saturday

Jake collected his old 1970’s ‘Siel’ organ from his old shared house. We wanted to use this because it’s got a really old fashioned authentic sound which you can’t get from digital technology. Also, it’s enormous, weighs half a ton and plays out of tune..

Jake added some simple organ parts to fill out the texture of the recordings.

Sunday

They threw together a rough mix of the recordings so they could listen to and reflect on the work so far.

All in all it was an excellent week of recording. They now have the backbone of the recordings, with just a few more overdubs of Guitar and Vocal parts needed.

Many thanks to Jim Horsburgh Snr. for the photos.

*            *            *            *

May and June

With the bulk of the Scobie E.P. recorded, it was now time to work on the production and the finer details of the work. Jake spent the a lot of time by himself in the studio recording additional instruments and overdubs.

“When creating a musical recording, it’s often small details in the production, which define the character and mystery of the music. These kind of sounds, may not be consciously noticed by the listener until after they have heard the recording several times- if at all! But they are as essential as the other musical components because they make the music sound complete.”

JB

He went on to record parts on: Acoustic Guitar; Electric guitar; Ukulele; Flute; Bazuki; Sitar; Analogue Synthesiser. He also recorded many layers of Vocals, both lead and backing.

Watcher DEMO

Sanway DEMO