Rock and Roll Diary- The EP is mastered and ready for print

Last night we wrapped on recording the Rise of the Templars Ep for Hoagy and my band, Crusader.  Unlike most of the days I've spent in the studio, I didn't snap any pics and upload them here.  We were basically just adding synths, mixing, and mastering the 4 tracks, so I can assure you that it wasn't so exciting.  No midget porn, strange donut frosting incidents, large body/regular sized guitar hijinks, or any of that- just 4 dudes sitting around a mixing board with my trusty MIDI controller in tow.  Trust me, as exciting as it was to hear the finished songs for the first time, it would only have ended in a "you had to be there" scenario. 

Other than being about 20 hours over budget, I have no real regrets about this recording session for the first time ever.  I think being a loud mouth jerk on the Internet has helped me to be more vocal about how I want things to sound.  It might be weird for a drummer to be so involved in the overall process, but I like what I do and I want that to come through in harmony with the rest of the band.  I've got to give it to the whole group, I think everyone was in top form. 

I was hoping to have more versions of 2 of the songs, showing how a track is built in the studio- from scratch tracks and demos all the way to the finished product.  Sadly, that would have eaten up a lot of expensive studio time that was already running very thin.  It's too bad, as I set out on this endeavor originall to let you all share in the experience of hearing something come together, but I guess it wasn't to be.  Regardless, I'll re-post the original scratch tracks for 2 songs that I've put up previously set against the final versions from last night.  That should give you some idea of what a little spit and polish will do to a track.  Enjoy.

Here is the scratch version of track number one (labled as #3 for some reason)- the title track "Rise of the Templars"



03 rise of the templars unmixed by dethtron


.....and here is the final version



01 Rise of the Templars by dethtron


Now for track number 3, Asgard's Fire, formerly known simply as the Viking song. I'm glad it finally found a name. This is the original scratch track



04 untitled unmixed viking shenaniga by dethtron


......and here is the final version. You may find that it ends a little abruptly, but it bleeds over into the next song, so it makes more sense in the context of the album.



03 Asgard's Fire by dethtron

That's it.  Enjoy these while they're up; I will be taking the tracks off of Soundcloud in a while, but all of this should be on disc and iTunes by early December.  Feel free to comment, but if it's about Hoagy's voice sounding nasal, I think you might be smoking crack.  I've got 4 other bandmates and a very experienced recording engineer that will all disagree with you.