EPICA guitarist Ad Sluijter has issued the following update on the recording sessions for the band's forthcoming album:

"Hi,

As I mentioned in the previous report already, with the guitar recordings we’ve changed quite some things in comparison to the guitar recordings with the previous albums. Both of them I recorded with a engineer/producer, but this time I decided to do these recordings myself. The main reason for this was that I always prepare my guitar parts in the pre production in such a good way that they never really had to be changed in the real recordings, which makes a producer needless in a way. Beside that, I have quite some experience with recording in Pro Tools myself which basically makes the engineer a needless form of luxury.

The initial plan was even to record the guitars tracks at home to have them 're-amped' in the studio. Therefore I made some test recordings which I checked together with Sascha in between the drum recordings, but we both agreed on the fact that the result wasn’t 100% sound wise. And if there is something I dislike, it’s not going for the 100% hehe. Luckily there was a simple solution for the taking, since about a year the Gate studio has a 2nd studio room which is perfect for guitar recordings. This way I could do the sound check with Sascha and the recordings myself. Not that they would hire the studio just to anybody, this was even the first time they did it, as I heard later on, but as they said themselves they know how I work and trusted me completely with their new studio. Let’s wait ‘till they find out they are missing their SSL mixing desk;-)

This wasn’t the only thing we changed with the guitar recordings. For the first time I recorded four guitar parts instead of two. This really adds so much to the guitar sound, you can’t get this with just two guitar tracks, no matter how much you mix on it. And since this is our most guitar orientated album so far, we though this would be the perfect moment to experiment with this.

The recordings itself went very smoothly. It really was a pleasure to recording my guitar tracks to Arien’s drum parts. Even though I listened to the songs a lot in the meantime, I still got overwhelmed a lot by his drumming during the recordings. With the previous album I already tried to get this live feel on the recording. But it was only now that I found out what role the drums play in this. So Arien really contributed a lot as well to the overall sound on this album!

Doing the recordings myself also was something I liked a lot. One of the advantages to it is that you are not constrained to the studio hours and can decide yourself at what time to begin. It’s probably obvious that during the recording period this became later and later, I started out at 10AM, but eventually this became around midnight (still have trouble getting into a normal rhythm again haha).

There is one disadvantage to this way of recording is as well though, it takes a lot more concentration. Instead of only having to play the parts, now you have to pay attention to so much more which results in the fact that you just can’t record eight hours a day anymore since you just can’t listen with adequate concentration anymore after 4/5 hours. Moreover I had double the work to do since I had to record 4 tracks instead of 2. So in short, it took me a lot longer than I actually calculated. It even became an inside joke in the studio: 'One more week of recording? That’s what you said two weeks ago as well. So you’ll probably be here some more weeks huh?' Even the pizza delivery guy thought that the studio had a new employee haha.

Too bad some other band already used it, else Heartwork would be a fitting title for the new album haha. But hey, it’s the result what matters and it turned out great! I can’t wait for the result!

That pizza delivery guy wasn’t that incorrect btw, because Sascha was so satisfied with the result that he has indicated that he would really like to ask me for future productions as well, in fact I’m even going back later this month to do some other stuff on our album:-)

Oh, and for the guitar nerds amongst us, here’s a list of all the equipment I used:

[nerd talk mode]
Main rhythm sound:
Gibson Les Paul Custom / Mesa Boogie Mark IV head / Marshall 1960 cab V30’s / Brauner Valvet mic / Amek pre amp / Manley Massive Passive EQ

Epiphone Explorer / Ibanez Moshfet distortion pedal / Marshall JMP head / Marshall 1960 cab V30’s / Brauner Valvet mic / Amek pre amp / Manley Massive Passive EQ / Manley Stereo Variable MU limiter compressor

Clean sound:
Gibson Les Paul Standard / Mesa Boogie Mark IV head / Marshall 1960 cab V30’s / Brauner Valvet mic / Amek pre amp / Manley Massive Passive EQ

Gibson Les Paul Standard / Marshall JMP head / Marshall 1960 cab V30’s / Brauner Valvet mic / Amek pre amp / Manley Massive Passive EQ

Lead sound:
Gibson Les Paul Standard / Ibanez Tubescreamer distortion pedal / Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head / Marshall 1960 cab V30’s / Brauner Valvet mic / Amek 9098 pre amp / Manley Massive Passive EQ
[/nerd talk modus]

Lead sound? Yes you’ve read it correct, this album even is going to have a guitar solo. I couldn’t prevent it anymore this time;-)

For more pics check the photogallery.

Next time Yves will do a report on his bass recordings:-)

Best regards, Ad

Ps: Maybe I’m going to record the next album in another studio, but that’s mainly because none of them can play table soccer, it’s just not fun to win all the time.";-)