.44 Pistol album in the pipeline.

Some of you will have spotted this from my comments on twitter and facebook, but you can consider this the official announcement that .44 Pistol are working on what we hope will eventually be our first self-released album. In a fit either of ambitious
control freakiness, or tight-fisted reluctance to spend money, we decided to have a bash at doing it all ourselves. This was at least in part down to all the studios we spoke to being somewhat reluctant to track the whole band 'live' in the room instead of one by one to a click track, a technique which seemed almost certain to suck all the soul out of our ragged and dirty approach to music.

So there's been something of a steep learning curve for me as engineer. Session #1 took place in my dining room/study. Thanks must go to my surprisingly understanding neighbours, who didn't bang the wall once! We managed to lay down six songs in a couple of hours, and generally we're pretty pleased with how it's all sounding...except with my inexperience showing through we've ended up with what might just be the worst sounding kick drum ever recorded. I'm still trying to mix my way around the damn thing and praying that most people only listen to it in the car or on their iPod where it doesn't show up in the same way as on the good hi-fi in the living room!

Session #2 was at our usual rehearsal space, the function room of The Prince of Wales. The good news is that, after a good spell of reading up on what I'd done wrong, the kick drum is sounding greatly improved. Unfortunately whether it was down to not being able to hear myself over Dunc's tub-thumping, or my bi-annual bout of asthma, most of the vocals are as ropey as hell. So the question is, do I overdub the vocals and abandon the pretence that it's a 'live in the studio' effort, or get the whole gang together again and re-do the whole session? I'm edging toward the overdub option at the minute, but it does feel rather like cheating. Perhaps I should just attack them with the auto-tune and make the whole thing sound like an X-factor winner ;-)

Still once I've done some research on getting the thing mastered and pressed, we should be able to at least let you know a likely release date pretty soon. Hoping to hit the shelves in time for that xmas rush!

Alas time to get back to mixing!

Pete