[quartie]

Originally Posted by zimbloth

Cool Hal, seeing as I'm your biggest fan around these parts...

Excuse me?

I'm sorry, excuse me?

Oh no, boy. Oh no.

[Apophis]

This is awesome

[metalfiend666]

As a veteran of many Interlock gigs (I think a couple even predated them being signed), I can assure you all that the kick arse sooo much more live than on cd. I'm also very, very, very much looking forward to Parasite. It's been my most awaited cd since I heard they were going into the studio again.

Originally Posted by zimbloth

seeing as I'm your biggest fan around these parts

*cough*

Sevenstring.org Interview: John Tyrell of Interlock

[halsinden]

ok chaps, this was actually part of a PM thread i had with nick, given the extent of the conversation i figured it might be relevant to post here.

nick's just heard the advance samples MP3, gave me some really interesting commentary on it, so i've replied. a lengthy read, so it's only if you're intrigued...



i hear what you’re saying man, it’s definitely interesting to listen to whatever feedback we can get from these new tracks. do of course bear in mind that these are only the demo versions though, we’re recording the album versions as we speak.

everything this time round has been refined and reconsidered. by that i mean john’s a much better producer than he was back in 2005, so the sound’s going to be intrinsically different in the first place, it’ll be a lot more clear. what’s happened now with the guitars is that we’ve actually got much better materials available to us, for instance these demo tracks were recorded using john’s framus dragon and the modded cabs he has from the endorsement. we’re also paying more attention to the basis of implied gain through more tracks rather than an initially overloaded tone for distortion, as many bands do - hardly a revelation, but the recording of the crisis guitars wasn’t working to the low gain key as much as now.

the main brief that pretty much everyone has been working to this time round, in arranging the songs, is definitely to add more space in the sound. we found fairly early on after the release of crisis//reinvention that when playing live the overall sound was simply too busy, so we worked to cut down a lot of the backing. the other major issue with crisis was the absence of identifiable choruses and ‘sections’, which i found made listening to it quite tiring. as you said, it just wouldn’t let up and many times followed a very linear approach with arrangement, rather than returning to a theme occasionally in a song which makes a listener identify with it more. this has all been realised since gigging the songs and monitoring the reactions combined with how we felt doing it.

another factor is that we’re operating more as a band now when concerned with penning new tunes. in that literally everyone else is providing material now, as opposed to crisis being so much more of a polarized summation of performers. this isn’t to say what happened with the last album was bad at all, but more that at the time and with the members who were in the band then (do note that only 50% of the crisis lineup are still in the band now) it was mostly only john who was coming up with music because it’s what sounded most like what we were pursuing, then i’d be coming in with lyrics and the odd riff here or there. now, we’ve got a drummer who is putting a definite human slant to his parts and has made them entirely his own, we’ve got a bassist who is really starting to revolutionise her own playing style (ie. now much more technical) to accommodate the material and therefore is more sensitive to her own dynamics, we have a tech-death second guitarist who has already written pretty much an entire song himself plus all the solos, a female vocalist who can actually belt out ALL parts without any problem (unlike her predecessor) and who also writes these amazingly anthemic choruses and then there’s me who’s writing a lot more on guitar now, putting new approaches to this album’s lyrics in (ie much more literal and easier to understand) and i’m putting so much more attention on my clean vocals.

at the core of the music will always be john. he produces it, he writes a huge amount of it and the programming will always stem him from him. for the album, we’ve got so much more to hand with the guitar stuff. john’s a framus endorsee, mart’s an ENGL endorsee, we also still have our ties with peavey and syan is a warwick endorsee. we’ve got joe with his mapex & istanbul endorsements, the list goes on… for instruments, john’s using his schecter 7 (can’t remember the name of it. black lacquer, mother of pearl binding, 707s, 26.25 scale i think. either a damian or something similar) and mart’s using his ESP steph carpenter baritone 7 which he’s loaded with a kahler trem. syan’s using a warwick vampire extended scale 4 string. we’ve been tracking using my pod XT pro so we can then re-amp later. i’m using an AKG sound control condenser mic, and christina’s using a neumann condenser which suits her voice more.

H

Originally Posted by zimbloth

Hal,

Okay I get you completely. Cool.

I'm listening to the song now...

I'm really digging it. The guitar tone sure is much different than on Crisis/Reinvention. Its certainly more articulate and high-quality on this one, but I kind of liked the massive wall of crunch chainsaw sound that the previous album sported. It filled up a lot of space. It sounds like there's a lot of empty space in these songs, on the previous record there'd always be something going on, be it synths or guitars or whatnot.

I'll get used to this quickly however, I dig it, naturally I just need time to adjust. I listen to Crisis/Reinvention ALL THE fucking time so of course there's an adjustment period. The guitars do sound like it needs to be a little louder in the mix perhaps, at least from my end of things (FWIW I use studio headphones and monitors, never computer speakers).

I really like what I'm hearing so far though man. It's quite the cock-tease. I wish I could hear the full length versions now. Your new female singer sounds cool as well.

What gear did you use on this record? As a budding audio-engineer myself I'm always interested in all the little details if you're at liberty to share.

Finally, of course I mean no disrespect by my commentary/pseudo-criticism, I'm just a fan who's giving you real-time feedback on what I'm hearing - stream of consciousness if you will. I know I'm going to fall in love with this record.

[quartie]

Originally Posted by metalfiend666

*cough*

Sevenstring.org Interview: John Tyrell of Interlock

Wicked! I remember reading this!

However, I couldn't help this...



*cough*

[distressed_romeo]

This is gonna be fricking awesome!

Hal, a quick question...

What tuning does Syan use on her four? Does she tune down to G# to match Mart and John's 7s?

[zimbloth]

Originally Posted by halsinden

ok chaps, this was actually part of a PM thread i had with nick, given the extent of the conversation i figured it might be relevant to post here.

nick's just heard the advance samples MP3, gave me some really interesting commentary on it, so i've replied. a lengthy read, so it's only if you're intrigued...



i hear what you’re saying man, it’s definitely interesting to listen to whatever feedback we can get from these new tracks. do of course bear in mind that these are only the demo versions though, we’re recording the album versions as we speak.

everything this time round has been refined and reconsidered. by that i mean john’s a much better producer than he was back in 2005, so the sound’s going to be intrinsically different in the first place, it’ll be a lot more clear. what’s happened now with the guitars is that we’ve actually got much better materials available to us, for instance these demo tracks were recorded using john’s framus dragon and the modded cabs he has from the endorsement. we’re also paying more attention to the basis of implied gain through more tracks rather than an initially overloaded tone for distortion, as many bands do - hardly a revelation, but the recording of the crisis guitars wasn’t working to the low gain key as much as now.

the main brief that pretty much everyone has been working to this time round, in arranging the songs, is definitely to add more space in the sound. we found fairly early on after the release of crisis//reinvention that when playing live the overall sound was simply too busy, so we worked to cut down a lot of the backing. the other major issue with crisis was the absence of identifiable choruses and ‘sections’, which i found made listening to it quite tiring. as you said, it just wouldn’t let up and many times followed a very linear approach with arrangement, rather than returning to a theme occasionally in a song which makes a listener identify with it more. this has all been realised since gigging the songs and monitoring the reactions combined with how we felt doing it.

another factor is that we’re operating more as a band now when concerned with penning new tunes. in that literally everyone else is providing material now, as opposed to crisis being so much more of a polarized summation of performers. this isn’t to say what happened with the last album was bad at all, but more that at the time and with the members who were in the band then (do note that only 50% of the crisis lineup are still in the band now) it was mostly only john who was coming up with music because it’s what sounded most like what we were pursuing, then i’d be coming in with lyrics and the odd riff here or there. now, we’ve got a drummer who is putting a definite human slant to his parts and has made them entirely his own, we’ve got a bassist who is really starting to revolutionise her own playing style (ie. now much more technical) to accommodate the material and therefore is more sensitive to her own dynamics, we have a tech-death second guitarist who has already written pretty much an entire song himself plus all the solos, a female vocalist who can actually belt out ALL parts without any problem (unlike her predecessor) and who also writes these amazingly anthemic choruses and then there’s me who’s writing a lot more on guitar now, putting new approaches to this album’s lyrics in (ie much more literal and easier to understand) and i’m putting so much more attention on my clean vocals.

at the core of the music will always be john. he produces it, he writes a huge amount of it and the programming will always stem him from him. for the album, we’ve got so much more to hand with the guitar stuff. john’s a framus endorsee, mart’s an ENGL endorsee, we also still have our ties with peavey and syan is a warwick endorsee. we’ve got joe with his mapex & istanbul endorsements, the list goes on… for instruments, john’s using his schecter 7 (can’t remember the name of it. black lacquer, mother of pearl binding, 707s, 26.25 scale i think. either a damian or something similar) and mart’s using his ESP steph carpenter baritone 7 which he’s loaded with a kahler trem. syan’s using a warwick vampire extended scale 4 string. we’ve been tracking using my pod XT pro so we can then re-amp later. i’m using an AKG sound control condenser mic, and christina’s using a neumann condenser which suits her voice more.

H

Hal, thanks for the thorough response to my PM. Very interesting. All that makes a lot of sense and sounds like a good progression indeed. Your point about analyzing what works best live and then taking that into the next writing session is a good call. We've been doing that too, it's a learning process.

One final point though, when I said "it seems like there's a lot of empty space", I didn't imply that there needed to be chaos at all times like on Crisis/Reinvention. I just meant something like a steady pad or just something creating some subtle mood/atmosphere (ala old Fear Factory). Something in the backround that wouldn't really stand out, but would make a difference nonetheless. That said I think it'll sound kickass either way, I'm definitely not telling you what you should do, just like I said: feedback on the fly.

Also, are you sure you can re-amp properly with a Pod? I don't know how pure of a DI a pod is you know? I'm sure you guys have done tests, but it can't hurt to ask and make sure. I've been dabbling in re-amping and it can be a pain in the ass to get the re-amped signal sounding pure. I've been using either a Little Labs Redeye or an Avalon U5 for what it's worth.

I'm looking forward to checking out the final version!

[halsinden]

Originally Posted by distressed_romeo

This is gonna be fricking awesome!

Hal, a quick question...

What tuning does Syan use on her four? Does she tune down to G# to match Mart and John's 7s?

yeah, she does actually. it's 4 strings all the way down in Gsharp (bloody mac keyboards)

H

[bulb]

hal, i just checked out your myspace for the first time a second ago and the songs are awesome!!
very unique sound you have going on there, im very curious to hear this further progression in the sound now!

[halsinden]

Originally Posted by bulb

hal, i just checked out your myspace for the first time a second ago and the songs are awesome!!
very unique sound you have going on there, im very curious to hear this further progression in the sound now!

thank you mate, glad you like it.

oddly enough, mart & john have been tracking with my pod and have found themselves using your rhythm patch to get the parts down whilst they're re-amped.

small world, innit?

H

Originally Posted by zimbloth

Hal, thanks for the thorough response to my PM. Very interesting. All that makes a lot of sense and sounds like a good progression indeed. Your point about analyzing what works best live and then taking that into the next writing session is a good call. We've been doing that too, it's a learning process.

One final point though, when I said "it seems like there's a lot of empty space", I didn't imply that there needed to be chaos at all times like on Crisis/Reinvention. I just meant something like a steady pad or just something creating some subtle mood/atmosphere (ala old Fear Factory). Something in the backround that wouldn't really stand out, but would make a difference nonetheless. That said I think it'll sound kickass either way, I'm definitely not telling you what you should do, just like I said: feedback on the fly.

Also, are you sure you can re-amp properly with a Pod? I don't know how pure of a DI a pod is you know? I'm sure you guys have done tests, but it can't hurt to ask and make sure. I've been dabbling in re-amping and it can be a pain in the ass to get the re-amped signal sounding pure. I've been using either a Little Labs Redeye or an Avalon U5 for what it's worth.

I'm looking forward to checking out the final version!

yeah, in some ways i get what you mean with the background pads. oddly enough, they're actually there quite a lot on this one, i suppose they're not really there at that moment on the sample MP3 as yet. there will be more to come.

with the live stuff, we were just very eager to communicate with those who actually listened to our music and we've spent, what is it... 3 years now pretty much solidly on the live circuit (yes, that is a long time without a new release, but label mistrust is what it is) and therefore had an ample opportunity to observe and attempt to compile the 'best parts' of what people seemed to react to.

i'm actually writing this whilst at the studio during christina's vocal parts (i'm doing mine later tonight), so i've had a chance to ask john about the reamping (by the way, his is a schecter hellraiser), he ran some tests and it turned out better to run the guitar signal direct into the new sonic-core soundcard, then run a feed off that and into the pod for a sound reference.

H