sainté part 1 

Especially focuses on finishing the EPs, but also talks about the gig at the Cronos.

 the local scene 

There genuinely is a rich local scene here in Saint-Etienne. This year, a new page called La Scène Libre ("The Free Scene") started relaying infos about musical events in town. Soon, there were 3 events every day of the week. We have jams

 more tech stuff 

Let's talk about guitar sound. In real life, a guitar's sound gets out from a cabinet. Choosing a good one is key for obtaining a good sound.

I was using Ableton's default 4x12 cab plugin. And verdict: it sounds absolutely terrible, sucks malevolent ass. Instead, I started using IRs (Impulse Responses), which can simulate cabinets. I used Ignite Amps' NadIR plugin for loading the IRs.

Finding good IRs truly is an adventure. I started by downloading Jens Bogren's IR pack (huge sound engineer who worked with Trivium), but then I found Diego's IR pack somewhere (literally a random guy) and I ended up using his instead.

 finishing the songs 

Song facts are available in this other diary entry.

I clearly spent too much time verifying that every track was good. Even though it was necessary to work on the sound, try different IRs and really work on the mix, I want to do better next time. Spend less time on stitching tracks together, and record a few good tracks rather than a lot of bad ones.

Though, I don't feel like wasting time when I discard 2 hours of vocal takes. These 2 hours were spent practicing.

save me: about 45 minutes of sorting tracks (session 2)

I ended up only rerecording the pre-chorus riff in Save Me. I also wanted to rerecord the last solo, but I figured i could just Frankenstein the tracks and call it a day. I really didn't want to get back into recording.

 vocals mess (yet again) 

SONG	VOCALS	SORTING VOCALS	[ TOTAL ]
DIE ANYWAY	1:45	0:45
SACRIFICE	1:05 + 1:40	0:45
MORUE	2:00 + 0:45	0:40
LUCKY	2:15	0:50
CHAMBER	0:45 + 1:50	1:10
SAVE ME	0:30 + 1:10	1:10
WHEN YOU DIE	1:00 + 1:30	1:10
SARDENED	0:50	1:10
[ TOTAL ]	17:45	1:10

Here are the recording times of the vocal sessions that lasted from January 6th to February 10th. In total, every song had vocal takes from about five separate days.

Compared to this summer, I did not bother listening to every take. I only worked with the most recent ones, and made sure that I was happy with them while I was recording them. Listening back was helpful. It makes mistakes stand out, and then it's easier to work on them.

Sessions lasted up to 2 hours, a bit longer than last time. I started by doing about 15 minutes of warmups, then sang a few songs, mostly from the set. Then, I repeated this until I felt like the takes weren't good anymore: I did one or two takes, then rested for two to three minutes, taking deep breaths to give my lungs some oxygen. Takes were better when I did that.

I wasted quite some time just scrolling between takes. At some point, I started replacing that with reading manga, which was better. I'm thinking that booking could be done during this rest period.

I chose to record the lower part of Morue separately from the higher one.

aaaaa

I don't believe that spending 1 hour on vocals that I will not end up using is a waste of time, because it makes me work and become better. However, I spent way too much time on small details. I spent two hours just on the first part of Morue (4 lines, not even 1 minute).

I could have recorded the Die Anyway vocals again, but they honestly work fine like this.

There was a clear improvement compared to this summer. Vocals are more engaged, have more raspiness, are better projected... I feel like I could have still done better, but I also needed to stop trying to find perfection and just finish the songs, put them out and start working on something else.

listened to lucky and tbh takes are great but i felt like they were better while recording and also innocence

 Cronos concert 

Played a new song called A Long Way. I started writing it in Finland, and finished it when I came back.

we have jams, events, la scène libre...

 booking gigs 

This was the first time I was actually looking/searching for gigs outside of Saint-Etienne.

I'd really like to thank Jaune from Menace Pâte à Modeler for taking the time to teach me stuff related to booking. Here are a few things I've learned that can hopefully be helpful:

· Networking is super important. Bands have to become friends, not enemies

· Looking at other bands' tours is helpful as it can help finding venues

· Apply to as many TREMPLINS as possible

· Keep sending follow-ups to emails

· Invite media people (TV, zines, newspapers, radios), promoters and other bands to your release party. It's supposed to act as a showcase too

· Have different email addresses for booking and communicating (I still only use one). Use labels for organization (refused, ongoing, confirmed..)

· Scheduling mails to tomorrow morning at 8:00 is better than sending them at 20:00 (promoters read them in the morning)

· Customize the mail to include the venue/promoter's name

· Minimize the amount of clicks before a promoter can get to your live session (maximum 2)

· Have an EPK and put your next shows on Bandsintown

· Promoters have 1000 mails to read, and they read fast. Put your band name, genre, origin and the dates you want in bold, and only include the necessary info.

· First tours usually don't look perfect and might include 8 hours on the road between two shows

 thoughts for next time 

As my dad says, "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (better is the enemy of good).

· Disable dithering when exporting stems from Ableton.

· Spend more time on getting the right guitar sound so that I don't waste time fixing takes.

· Play bass more aggressively. I tend to play too soft at the beginning.

· Record bass with more treble. Frequencies can be removed later if I want a different tone, but they cannot be added to a track that is lacking.

· Maybe less gain and/or distortion on the guitar. Notes on Save Me are not defined enough, and maybe this could have helped.

· Record vocals during a rehearsal period. Either after rehearsing (leaving a bit in the tank) or on days where there is no rehearsal. Coming back to singing after 2 weeks of not doing it regularly is doable, but produces worse takes.

· Only keep 8-10 good takes from each vocals session. Sorting vocals is not fun and takes too much time. It's better to have 8 perfect takes than 20 bad ones.