Studio Diary: Day Eight. Violins

Recording Michelle's Violin Parts

Michelle had to leave early the night before for a rehearsal so she returned today to finish up the rest of the violins. I can't say much about this session because I wasn't present. This was the only session I missed out. Alda and Sel took over producing duties. I was quite flat out by this time and I needed the extra rest before I came in to do more vocals.

Kev Broken Scar

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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Studio Diary: Day Seven. Violins & Vocals.

Recording Michelle's Violin Parts and Kevin's Vocal Parts



This session was one of the most exciting ones. The song is coming together really well, with all the parts almost completed. Now comes the embellishments. I've always wanted strings in my songs and Shooting Star was just screaming for it. Thanks to Michelle, violinist extraordinaire, this dream is realised!

The Shooting Star sessions has offered surprise after surprise with things like these. First there was the awesome guitars that were made available for the session, now this!

Michelle is simply amazing! She is one of the most sought after violinist in the industry and she works with the top names in the industry. We're stoked that she was able to do this session with us. It was such an honour.

The session went like this.

Michelle rocked up to the studio.
She sat down with me to review the song.
She wrote the chord progression down.
She went into the recording room.
Sel pressed record.
She played her parts.
She double tracked her parts.
Sel stopped recording and asked whether she could do high harmonies for the parts.
Michelle of course replied yes and without even messing around, she ask Sel to press record.
Sel pressed record.
Michelle played the harmonies spot on.
Sel stopped recording.

That was how effortless it was! All this took less than 30 minutes. Thanks a million Michelle, you're a legend!

I also recorded vocals for Until I Fall in this session. I basically recorded all the main vocal parts for this song and by the end of it I was burnt out. I couldn't push any more so I decided to head home and rest up before I come in again for another vocal session. Despite being really tired, the takes turned out really well.

Kev Broken Scar
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Last Two Shows

Dear Friends, here are two more shows lined-up before I fly back to Melbourne again after Chinese New Year. We're playing most of the new stuff which we haven't recorded, so it'll be great if you could check it out. See you at the shows!

31 Jan 2008 (Thursday)
9:00 PM
Crossborders @ Laundry Bar
Petaling Jaya

7 Feb 2008 (Thursday)
9:30 PM
FLY FM Campur Chart Goes Live @ Laundry Bar
Petaling Jaya
Just in case you were wondering what are new songs are called, here are some to get you acquainted with them:
The Alien Song (The easy going one)
Shine (The one with the dance-like beat)
Until I Fall (The one with the emo riffs)
Shooting Star (Our next single)

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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Broken Scar Gigs

Upcoming Shows (view all)
27 Jan 2008
10:30 AM
KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre)
Kuala Lumpur
Kevin will be performing a solo set of new and old songs, acoustic style!
31 Jan 2008
9:00 PM
Crossborders @ Laundry Bar
Petaling Jaya
This is possibly the last Broken Scar show before Kevin leaves for Melbourne again. So make a date with the band!
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Studio Diary: Day Six. Vocals.

Recording Kevin's Vocal Parts




From L-R: Francis, Alda, Sel, Dina, Kevin

I should say that recording vocals has always been the biggest challenge for me in the studio. During a live show, we'd rock out and just let it rip. There's just this "now or never, do or die" vibe and attitude to a live show but not in the studio.

In the studio, it's more like, let's get a great vibe, a great tone, a great delivery and a great vocal performance all at the same time. So you can imagine how many takes I would need to do if any of those elements were not quite as perfect. Every little element is crucial.

For this session, I recorded all the main vocal parts for Shooting Star except the bridge. My voice was busting already by the end of the session. It was best to leave the rest of the work for another day.

Dina also came in for the session to lend a hand with the backup vocals and she is rock solid! She is such a professional. Her vocal takes were effortless and she did harmonies for the BV as well. She went into the vocal booth and within minutes, she was out and done with the session. She is incredibly awesome! She has such a golden voice and I am proud to have worked with her! It was such an honour to have Dina on board!

Sel has been awesome when it came to producing the vocals and parts. He really got the best out of me. There was heaps of laughter between takes which kept the good mood going because it could get very frustrating if everything was serious. All that pushing was worth it. Compared to the debut album, I am singing better now and I am more confident with my delivery and tone.

Pre-production definitely helped because we were able to demo the entire song and fix whatever we needed to fix so laying down the actual tracks were definitely made easier.


Kev Broken Scar
______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Project Shooting Star

Hey boys and girls, I've been asked to extend the submission date, so the new deadline is next Wednesday, 30 Jan. That should give you all enough time to go through those photos and send them in! BE QUICK!
P/S: The pics do not have to be taken with us. As long as the picture is of you, it'll be great!
In conjunction with our up-coming singles release of Shooting Star and Until I Fall, which is a special edition release in a brand new and exciting format (stay tuned to find out what all this is about), we are launching Project Shooting Star.
What’s this all about? It’s simple. Throughout the years, you have supported us and made this journey of playing and making music ever so rewarding for us. So in return, we would like to honour you by getting you involved with this project.
We are compiling pictures of anyone who has been to our shows and of our friends, to be featured with this release, along with the album art. It’ll be a massive photo album. It could be a crazy/funny/serious picture of you or it could be a picture of you at our shows.
So if you are in on this, send a picture that best portrays you to brokenscarmail@gmail.com with the subject, “Project Shooting Star”.
Looking forward to great things with you. Thanks heaps!
From the boys,
Broken Scar
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Broken Scar Live @ KLPAC



Arts in the park, anyone?

For the very first time,
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre
& Sentul Park Koi Centre
invite you, your friends & family to
Open Day '08
Sunday, 27 January
10am - 5pm
Sentul Park, Jln Strachan (off Jln Ipoh), 51100 KL
(
CLICK HERE for new location map & public transport options)

- ADMISSION IS FREE -

Broken Scar's set will be at 1030am. This will be a solo set by the way.

______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Perfecto

Everything is all over the place! Help!! Every time I attempt to clear up my room, I make a bigger mess out of it. I'd take stuff out to rearrange, but I end up going through them and by the time I'm done with them, the whole place is a war zone.
I mean, I've gotta get a grip. I can't even organise the content in my portable hard drive. I did a search the other day, and I found a particular file duplicated SEVEN times! No wonder I keep running out of space. Time for some spring cleaning. All that, in the midst of the recording schedules. Perfect!
Oh, we've got two gigs left that's lined up. The KLPAC one on 27 Jan, where I will play solo and Crossborders at Laundry on 31 Jan with the band.
______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Studio Diary: Day Five. Electirc Guitars.

Recording Paul's and Kevin's Guitar Parts


Jeremy, hanging out with us at the studio




Paul's toys


The good old analogue overdrive/distortion pedal


This was a pretty long session. As you can see in the pictures, Paul came straight from work, which explains why he is in his work clothes. That's what I call dedication.

I don't have any photos of me recording the guitar parts, well, mainly because I forgot all about taking photos when we were recording.

So yes, today's session was to finish up my electric guitar parts for Until I Fall. I used Rashdan's Epiphone SG on the bridge pickup and the distortion was screaming hot! It was awesome! We got that heavy tone we wanted for this track just like that. It was all in the cool combination of Rashdan's guitar, Paul's overdrive/distortion pedal and the Twin Reverb amp. Oh, one of the other reason's I didn't track the distortion parts for this song earlier was because I didn't have any access to a nice distortion pedal. Paul saved the day again!

After recording one take of the SG, I used Paul's Ibanez Talman for the double track of distortion. We cut back the drive on the distortion pedal and used the bridge pickup on the guitar to get a fatter tone this time round. The combination of different guitars and different guitar lines/melodies really gave the song the edge it was calling out for.

Once that was all done, Paul recorded all his distortion parts with his ever so sweet Tele. The highlight of the night though was after all the rhythm parts were all done and the time for the guitar solo came! Paul hit the ball out of the park with this one. I can't wait for you to hear it!


Kev Broken Scar

______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Studio Diary: Day Four. Bass.

Recording Alda's Bass Parts



Alda Tan the bassman himself!


Not for the faint hearted. Only hardcore bassists can play the bass this way!


There's been lots of pick action in Alda's playing with Broken Scar these days. Notice the pick stuck on the bridge?


Again, lots of smiles and laughter


Now, serious at work




There's also plenty of time for phone calls and SMS for sure! You should be working Alda!

Setting up for this session was a bit frustrating but it's just part and parcel of the whole recording process. There was this crazy hum and buzz when we plugged Alda's bass into the pre-amp. We managed to sort it out in the end and we went straight to work. I remember The Cat Empire having trouble when they were recording in Cuba. Compared to that, the problems we went through were incredibly minor.

It's like, "Hey! The problem's solved! Let's go, let's go. Sel, press record. Alda, PLAY!"

Apart from that, Alda's bass has been through some abuse lately which meant that he had to check the tuning every now and then, a little more than he would usually. Overall, those were just very minor setbacks. Gear is important, but the magic always comes from the player's hands. It's the touch!

Alda recorded his bass parts for Shooting Star and Until I Fall, all in one session. You are definitely da man, bro! The bass tone was fantastic and we were beginning to see the two songs coming together and coming to life.

If you noticed, the bass wasn't recorded traditionally, right after the drums were recorded. We did this so we could give all the other instruments space and then craft the bass-line to weave in and out of all the other instruments. This was Sel's and Alda's idea of course, which was brilliant! It's always good to do things unconventionally.

We were at the studio all day and the session ended pretty late. By the time I got home it was about 3 in the morning or so. We had to be at TV3 for the Malaysia Hari Ini interview by 7AM. It was quite draining, but it was heaps of fun! That's what you call maximising your hours in a day! Who needs sleep? haha.

Kev Broken Scar
______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Quick Update



Here's a quick update. I am alive and kickin', just in case you were wonderin'.
It's been crazy days over the last few weeks. I spent most of my days and nights at the studio, recording for our up-coming singles release. It's been tiring but exciting and thrilling at the same time!
Broken Scar is recording two singles, Shooting Star and Until I Fall which is due for release by the end of the month. It's going to be exciting as the release will be one of its kind! Keep your eyes and ears open!
We tracked the drums at Nick Lee's Sonique Productions and the rest will be completed at PurpleHouz Productions. The sessions were engineered by Sel of PurpleHouz and Keith at Sonique productions assisted during the drums session.
So far, things are going as planned and I am stoked!
I also thank all my friends who lent me all that sweet gear! During the guitar recording session, we had 7 guitars to pick from. We had a two Taylor acoustics courtesy of Timothy Shanon and Justin Foo, my Norman acoustic, an Epiphone SG courtesy of Rashdan Harith, a Fender Strat custom shopped courtesy of Jeremy Lim, and Paul's Fender Tele and Ibanez. Jeremy's Strat was used on everything! It was sounding sweet!
More on the recording in the recording diary, soon.
Other than that, I've also had the privilege to hang out with some of my friends which was freaking ace!
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Studio Diary: Day Three. Electric Guitars

Recording Paul's Electric Guitar Parts


See, there's always laughter in the studio and look at that "slacker", laughing away.


Paul and his sweet Tele!


Paul on Jeremy's Strat.




Paul and his Ibanez Talman! Sweet feedback!

We had an interesting session today. I was at the studio early and we decided to lay down some vocals for Shooting Star. We ended up with a few very good takes of the verses and we left it as that. We would continue the rest of the vocal parts in another session as Paul arrived already.

We launched straight into setting up the amp and Paul's gear. Paul ran his Fender Telecaster through the Fender Twin Reverb amp and it was sounding as sweet as ever. Sel miked up the amp in the sweet spot and it was spot on indeed.

Paul used his Tele for all the main parts (clean and distortion) for Shooting Star. He also used Jeremy's Strat for the double tracking overdubs. This meant that we had 2 tracks of the Tele (L & R channels) and 2 tracks of the Strat (L & R channels). Paul also used his Ibanez Talman and stood in front of the amp in the recording room to get some sick feedback for a part that was used in the entry of the last chorus in Shooting Star.

The initial plan was to record all Paul's guitar parts for Shooting Star and Until I Fall but we had to put Until I Fall aside for another session because we were mucking around with the tone for each section of the song, giving the song a different dimension for each section. We also got Paul to try different solo lines and different single-string parts to further enhance the texture of the song. Putting aside Until I Fall and concentrating on Shooting Star's parts was the best move. It was worth it as we spent the time to craft each section, line and part into perfection. Thanks Paul for being ever so obliging and tolerating out crazy ideas and suggestions.

We had heaps of fun messing around with different ideas and it finally contributed to a rich texture in the song. Kudos to Paul, Sel and Alda for brainstorming those great ideas. If you listen to the song carefully, it may not seem like there's much in there, but if you remove even just one small line, it'll stick out like a thorn.

Kev Broken Scar
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Studio Diary: Day Two. Acoustic & Electric Guitars

Recording Kevin's Acoustic & Electric Guitar Parts


Using Tim's Taylor


Using Jeremy's Fender Strat


Sel, recording, mixing & mastering engineer


Alda and Jeremy


Guitars used on Shooting Star and Until I Fall. From L-R: Rashdan's Epiphone SG, Tim's Taylor, Justin's Taylor & Jeremy's Fender Strat.

Recording guitars this time round was heaps of fun. I had a total of 8 guitars to choose from for recording. We had the above, which were eventually used on the recording and the other guitars which weren't used on the recording were my two Norman acoustics, my Ibanez RG and Ibanez AX. It's great to have a few guitars to choose from so we could get the best sound for each part instead of just sticking to one.

During this session, I tracked all the electric and acoustic guitars for both the songs.

Shooting Star
I used Tim's Taylor for all the rhythm parts. I did double tracks for the rhythm parts. I initially wanted to use Justin's Taylor for extra rhythm guitars but what was recorded was sounding great already that more acoustic guitars just weren't necessary. I used Justin's Taylor for the extra lines instead and both the guitars blended perfectly with each distinct tone. I also used Jeremy's Strat for the extra clean electric guitar overdubs.

Until I Fall
I used Jeremy's Strat all the way for all the clean rhythm parts. This would be one of the few Broken Scar song that doesn't feature any acoustic guitars. The only other song with no acoustic guitars is Little Red Forest from the debut album.

The Strat ran through a Fender Twin Reverb amp and Sel knew how to get the tone that I wanted and it was sounding awesome! The tone and feel was definitely spot on.

The rest of the electric guitar parts were left for another day, to be tracked with Rashdan's SG with some distortion pedals.

It was good times recording guitars. If only the vocal sessions were as easy as this one. Jeremy and Alda were also at the studio and the session was filled with lots of laughter and encouragement. It was the perfect environment. By the end of the session, I was even more excited with the results!

Kev Broken Scar
______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Broken Scar Live @ One Cafe





Hello again everyone,I hope that everyone is having a great 2008 so far. I'll be heading back to Melbourne in the first week of Feb. This explains why we've been blasting you with so many messages about gigs and stuff. We're just trying to play as many shows as we can while I'm in town and I hope we all get to hang out.
We'd like to invite you to join us at our show tomorrow night (Saturday) as we unfold a whole bunch of brand new songs. Judging that One Cafe is a fairly new venue, Here are some links to the flyer and map.
We really hope to see you there. Details below:12 Jan 2008 7:00 POne CafeKuala LumpurIndie Saturday Showdown, featuring: Aural Joint, Infiltrated, Triple Six Posers, Y2K, Knowa and Broken Scar.
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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

Studio Diary: Day One. Drums

Recording Alex's Drum Parts






Prior to this session we had done some pre-production at Purple Houz Productions.

We recorded the drums for Until I Fall and Shooting Star Nick Lee's Sonique Productions. Nick was around but he wasn't involved in the recording. Keith Yong was the assistant engineer while Sel recorded the tracks. Credits to Keith for recording the remainder of Shooting Star as Sel had to take off a little earlier.

The session started at around 9pm where we set up the drum kit and microphones. Alex soon got around the kit and got the tone we wanted. For Until I Fall, we used the kit at Nick's while for Shooting Star, Alex used his snare on the verses and Nick's snare on the choruses. We also hooked up an extra floor tom for Shooting Star to get that extra low end and it worked.

By the end of the session, Alex was flat out. My brother, Darren came along to the session and by the end of the session, Alex and Darren were both knocked out on the couch and on the floor. Alda was around for the session too but he left a little earlier.

Keith burnt me a copy of the recorded drum tracks and when I heard it in the car, all I could do is smile and go, "man, this is worth it. It sounds great!". I was just stoked with the results! Alex did great despite having a long and tiring day at work. Simply awesome!

Kev Broken Scar

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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Open Up And Say AHH!

Man, I really need to blog! I guess it’s good that I don’t have time to blog because it means that I’m actually going out and making full use of my days and nights back here in KL. But I guess, at the end of the day, it isn’t all that hard to say a few words just to keep the momentum going.
I haven’t even blogged a proper one for the new year. I mean, I haven’t even done my year end post. What’ happening?


This is what I've been doing over the past few weeks. Eating up the whole of KL/Selangor! I'll be posting up more eating pics yeah? I know the picture isn't flattering but hey, the boy enjoys his food okay?

The best part of all was that I was able to bring my mates from Melbourne around and about, tasting our local food! It was awesome!

Oh, Happy 2008 everyone! Hope you're having a great start to the year and I hope to see you at our shows too! Cheers! *Fireworks and confetti*

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Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on www.mytracks.com/brokenscar

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Broken Scar Live @ Laundry

We'll be playing at Laundry, The Curve this Thursday. Details below:
10 Jan 2008
8:00 PM
Moonshine @ Laundry, The Curve
Petaling Jaya
We'll be playing a bunch of our new songs and we hope you could be a part of that. See you there!
______________________________________________________
Broken Scar's album, Midnight In St. Kilda is available on
www.mytracks.com/brokenscar




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    Who Is Broken Scar:


    Loves Jesus. Singer. Guitarist. Songwriter. Audio Engineer. Producer. Wears band t-shirts. Wears red t-shirts. Based in Melbourne.



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