Destination Unknown - studio podcast

Day 18: That's all folks!

2009-08-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

The recording is finished!
There's still a lot of steps ahead before the CD is out - mixing, mastering, negotiating with record labels...

But our podcast journey ends here!
I might do a podcast video every now and then with some updates on the album, but I won't be making podcasts every day anymore.

Thank you for following this podcast, I hope the podcast was interesting to you and that you liked the bits of music from this album you had the chance to hear.

See you soon!

Ivan Mihaljevic

Day 17: Vocals

2009-08-02T05:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started recording vocals in the morning, but needed to stop in the early afternoon, because my voice started sounding worn out from 3 days in a row of singing.
Today I'm taking a break and I'm continuing tomorrow with refreshed vocal cords :)

The podcast video from yesterday is a bit short, but so was the recording session:

Days 15 & 16: Vocals

2009-07-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm getting really close to finishing the recording!
I've recorded vocals on 5 songs and there's 3 more to go (the rest of the songs are instrumentals).

Check out what was going on through the last 2 days:

Day 14: Keyboards

2009-07-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

I was planning to keep this a secret, but decided to show you anyway :)
While I'm working on getting in shape vocally, I'm also recording some keyboard parts!
My friend Igor Tatarevic already recorded some more complex keyboard parts for a few songs and I'm doing only the easy parts.
Also, my relative Josip Mihaljevic, who played the keyboards in my live band before moving to Germany recorded the keyboard parts on one song.
I might call another friend to play keyboards on one more song...

Day 13: Acoustic Guitars

2009-07-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

I recorded all the acoustic guitars today and they sound very nice to my ears. I've used my Seagull S6 acoustic guitar which I think is definitely the best bang for the buck in its price range.
I'm going to take a few days off from the recording to practice singing a little bit as I didn't have much time to do that lately and now I have to record the vocals for the album.

Day 12: Finishing Leads and checking everything

2009-07-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

The electric guitars for the album are now officialy finished!
I recorded the last solo today, listened to everything I've done so far and fixed some minor glitches here and there.
I'm very satisfied with the sound I got and I have to say again that Music Man guitars and Engl amps ROCK!

Tomorrow I'm recording the acoustic guitars, it will be fun! ;)

Day 11: Lead Guitars

2009-07-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'm almost finished with the lead guitars!
Just one more song and then I need to check everything.
After that I can move on to acoustic guitars and then vocals!

Although this tempo of working is really intense, I really like it because I have deeply connected with the music I'm recording and don't break the connection by doing other stuff in the meantime. I'm 100% focused on making this CD and I'm sure it will turn out fantastic!

Day 10: Clean and Lead Guitar

2009-07-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

I was alone in the studio the whole day today again.
I recorded all the clean guitars and started the solos!

Everything's starting to sound like music! With drums we had just rhythm, then with the bass and rhythm guitars we got some harmonic context and now there's finally some melody with the lead guitars!

Here's the podcast video:

Day 9: Rhythm Guitars

2009-07-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

Today I recorded all the distorted rhythm guitars for the album!
I'm going to listen to them again tomorrow and see if anything needs fixing and record all the clean guitars.

I don't know what else there is to say, I was recording alone and I was just recording, nothing unexpected happened. :)

Here's the video (not much jokes today, but a lot of playing):

Day 8: Getting A Guitar Sound

2009-07-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hello, I'm back!
I'm feeling refreshed and ready to work again!

And now comes the part that most of you have been waiting for: guitars...
Today Viktor and I spent the day experimenting with different microphone combinations and positions for guitars.
We found a great guitar sound and I'll start recording the guitars tomorrow!

For all you gear heads out there here's a list of the gear we're using:

Ernie Ball Music Man JP in White (newer model with the DiMarzio D sonic on bridge position)
Ernie Ball Music Man JP in Sapphire Black (older model with the old DiMarzio custom JP pickup)
Engl Powerball amp head
Engl 4x12 slanted cab with Celestion Vintage 30s
Sennheiser e906 dynamic microphone
Shure SM58 dynamic microphone
Audio-Technica AT4040 condenser microphone
TL Audio C-1 microphone tube preamp and compressor
dbx 386 microphone tube preamp

Here's a list of other mics we tried out in various positions:
Neumann U47 (we were very excited about trying this one out, but there's something wrong with this particular one and it needs to get fixed), RCA BK-5, Shure SM57, Shure Beta 52, Beyerdynamic MCE 91

Here's the today's video:

Day 7: Bass Guitar

2009-07-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of the bass guitar recording. We had just one song left and we finished it today!
Majkl did a really great job with the bass guitars on this album and I'm proud to have him in my band.
So, now I have all the drum tracks and all the bass tracks for the album finished!

I'll just take a 2 day break from working on the album to do some other stuff I need to do and to relax a little bit and continue with rhythm guitars on Wednesday.

Check out today's video and see you again on Wednesday!

Day 6: Bass Guitar

2009-07-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

We planned to finish the bass guitars today, but we didn't! :/ We probably would finish if I didn't mess something up with the input signals which has set us back for 3 hours!
We've got just one more song to do tomorrow and then I'll take a couple days to do some other personal stuff that I need to do and to rest a little bit before continuing with the guitars!
See you tomorrow on the last bass recording day :)

Day 5: Bass Guitar

2009-07-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's day 5 of the Destination Unknown recording and it's also the fifth day that I'm working from dawn until midnight!
I really need a break, but I decided we should finish the bass tracks and then I'll take a 2 day break from the recording before continuing!

Today we recorded bass guitar for a couple more songs and I edited all the bass tracks for all the songs we've recorded so far.
We will probably finish with the bass guitar tomorrow or on Sunday!

See you tomorrow!

Day 4: Bass Guitar

2009-07-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

Today's day was a bit hectic again! I needed to get the few things done around the studio before the recording session.
After my bass player Majkl arrived, we spent 3 hours playing with the bass amp, microphone positions and getting the mics in phase. When we got the sound we were after, we started recording.

We were a bit rushed with our schedules, so we didn't have a lot of time to fool around :)
Majkl recorded the bass parts for 3 songs today and I'll choose the best takes for those 3 songs tomorrow in the morning. Majkl will be here tomorrow at about 2:30 PM and we're continuing with the bass recording. We left the amp and the mics setup, so tomorrow we can hit the record button right away!

Day 3: Basic Drum Editing

2009-07-15T13:49:00.001-07:00

Today was a bit more relaxed day! I was all alone in my studio just choosing the takes I'll use for each song and making sure there are no mistakes that would confuse the bass player while recording.

So, from now on, we're doing everything in my studio (it isn't nearly as fancy as Soundcage, but I can get some good sounding tracks here), but you might see Viktor in the podcasts every now and then helping me out a little bit and I'll probably have Alen come over one day to record some percussion.

Today's video is fairly short because I didn't think it makes too much sense to have a video of just me sitting in front of my computer and working... :)

Day 2: Drums

2009-07-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the drum tracks are finished!!! I'll do some basic editing tomorrow to choose the takes we'll be using and we're starting the bass guitar recording on Thursday.

We started early today and everything went as planned. After finishing all the regular drum tracks we did some experimenting with different drum tunings, techniques and setup for one of the songs and got some really neat results.

Although it's not as late as it was yesterday when I was writing the podcast text, I'm completely drained because I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I went to bed late and my brain was spinning at 5000 rounds per minute with all kinds of crazy thoughts and ideas, so I just couldn't fall asleep.
I hope to make it up tomorrow :)

Here's the video:

Day 1: Drums

2009-07-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

I hope you won't mind if I don't write a lot of text about today's recording because I'm completely exhausted!

I left home at 9 AM, got back home from the studio at 10 PM and started compiling the video from today's recording. It's almost 1:30 AM at the moment of writing and I think it's insane of me to do this podcast now, but I promised to you I'll do it every day, so I can't allow myself to mess it up on the first day. :)

The first day was absolute mayhem!!! We had some technical difficulties so we started with the recording quite a bit later than planned, but we managed to do a decent amount of work done and had some fun in the process. Alen Frljak proved he's an amazing drummer once again and it's such an honor to have him in my band and to be able to work with him.
I also feel the urge to give our drum recording engineer Viktor Grabar credits for being so meticulous!

Check out some of the scenes from today's recording session:

Episode 0: Prerecording

2009-07-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hello World! :)
I've got 11 new songs finished and everything is ready to record a new album. The recording starts next week on Monday, July 13 2009 with drum tracks!

My plan is to record a few video clips from each day of the album recording, write some text and publish it all here for every day of the album recording. So, you'll be witnessing "the making of" videos before the album is even finished!

The working title for the album (and probably the one that will stay in the end) is Destination Unknown.

I'm taking you on this journey with me and we'll see where it takes us, our destination is still unknown ;)