Composer: Christian Tschuggnall
Artist: Snooze-On
This is a piece I wrote for Snooze-On’s record „Drawn“.
Being a hybrid track of classical instruments (string quartet, harp) as well as a rock-based band playing (drums, guitar, etc), the recording process had to be planned through precicely beforehand, since those instruments have all very different dynamics and therefore wouldn’t work well in a live situation. Especially if you want a loud and „fat“ drum sound, playing a soft harp part next to those loud drums would be very hard. So I had to plan the session through precicely.
To achieve this, it was very important to have the final product and sound already in mind before going to the recording studio – to have a musical overview of what instruments are going to be overdubbed etc.
To help with that, almost every song of the record got pre-produced on the computer, then a full score was written.
This also helped with many artistic decisions, for example a specific studio was hired to get a roomy, full drum sound in which you can use a lot of distant-placed room microphones.
The band recorded at the beginning doing 4-5 takes, to get the basic feel right. It was of crucial value to get that right since it’s the core of the piece. After that, the string quartet, vocals, harp, sax and trombone section, were recorded in different sessions. It was also important that the string quartet recorded in a room together avoiding overdubs, to create a uniform sound and also being able to use the string room as much as possible, to give it a very warm an natural feeling.
