HOW "666PM" WAS RECORDED...
And that´s how we did it.

At first i had to decide how to record an album with the zombies. Are zombies really producible ? And for shure - they are !

As an audio producer since so many years, i had to realise how todays recordings are getting formatted more and more.
No matter which style or artist - everything sounds the same.

Technically this is because everyone uses the same programm or plug-in. Autotune, drum-replacement, amp simulations, tons of overdubs
and niggling track editing made contemporary sound, and in the end the music, flat, boring and not as exciting as it had been then.

So, i choose to break the rules of modern recording tech ! But i also wanted to use it, as long as it was helpful for me and our music.

The main question was : " When was it, when music & recording music was thrilling and wild ? " And i remembered one of my first recordings on a 4-track tape deck in 1985. Rude, wild and full of inspiration...

Chris Void
How to produce THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES !? :

# 1 Keep it simple : I decided to use max. 8 tracks for recording to keep the recordings simple and easy to move.
# 2 No overdubs : Recording in a "live" situation focusing on the performance, rather than planning with overdubs.
# 3 Find a cosy place : At least we found the KAFE KULT, where we had enough space to spread out.
# 4 Take your time : We took 3 days. One for setting up. One for the main recording session and another day for recording and disassembling.
Recording guitars :

Chris used an old GUILD jumbo accoustic guitar with an SEYMOUR DUNCAN magnetic soundhole pickup and a REGAL resonator-guitar equipped with a HÄUSSEL Telecaster pickup in original neck position.



I played my original 2 amp live setup. A vintage FENDER TWIN REVERB with 135 watts and original red JBL 12" speakers. A MARSHALL 50 watts accoustic amp only for the loops.

The MARSHALL amp was recorded directely via the built-in di-box.

The microphone for the main amp was a cheap T-BONE 450 large diaphragm microphone, which turned out to be really fit great to my TWIN REVERB.

Bass setup :

Grossmutter played an old and rare Fender Precision fretless into a 70ies Fender Bassman with 135 watts into a CARLSBRO 4 x 10" basscabinet.



Bass was recorded with an ELECTROVOICE RE-20 placed slightly angeled on one of the 10" speakers,

No di-box was used ´cause i wanted a dirty live-like sound and to capture all of grossmutters effectsounds and noises.

For the mixdown the basschannel was split into 2 tracks. One highpassed and the other lowpassed, so i was able to keep the bass frequencies in the middle and to pan the highpass bass signal on just one side of the stereo mix - like having a 2nd guitar.

Drums :

Bens drumset was a SONOR in standard configuration kick, snare, hi-hat, floor- tom, high-tom and cymbals.


Bens little playground:

Ben also used several noise- (and more) producing effect-units and some keybord stuff...


The keyboard and special FX stuff was recorded mono via di-box.

To record the drumset i only used 2 microphones: An AKG 414-BULS as Overhead, deliberately placed about 90 centimeters obove the set, directed onto the snare in cardioid configuration. For the kick i used a vintage AKG D-12 in front of the (closed) kick.



Vocal recording :

I used a SHURE SUPER 55-BCR. It´s like a normal SUPER 55 but in a limited edition, in black and red. It uses a beta-58 supercardioid capsule.


My original plan was to use this microphone just for guide vocal tracks and to overdub the "real" vocals later.

The main reason was that vocal microphones generally picking up too much of the rest of the live noises.

But it turned out that the ambient noisfloor was absolutely to handle and this microphone sounds really, really great.

Not to forget i played an HOHNER BLUES HARP (in e) for the "Sunday Papers" cover version.

And last but not least my lovely CASIO VL-1...


The mixdown:

All recordings had been done on ProTools in 88.2 KHz and 24 Bit resolution on an Apple MacBookPro. Audio interface was an Alesis I/O 26.

The mixdown was kind of a hybrid workflow. The DAW worked basically like a tape machine. Even as i used some of the DAWs plug-ins, I mixed the tracks via my old analogue ACE 32-channels mixing console, using a lots of outboard gear like my Drawmer compressors, Roland Space Echo and so on.

The final mix was bounced back into Pro Tools and mastered with IK-Multimedia´s Lurrsen mastering software.

And it all happened @ my Garageland Studios - Which are called Garageland because it is so.