Las Vegas was a fun song to record. We had a very definite idea of what it should sound like and I think we managed to capture the vibe fairly well.

I wanted something with lots of guitar but still sounding a little hollow, a bit like a ghost town. So we ended up having 4 guitar tracks; One is the acoustic guitar (which is a kind of a base, present in many of the tracks on the album), which I recorded. The three others were record by Thad DeBrock. In this song he plays the pedal steel, an electric with bottle neck, and another electric with a somewhat dirty bluesy tone. Oh, and he also played the banjo part that starts in the second chorus.

The result is a very nice texture that fitted perfectly our vision of the track’s atmosphere. I made a bounce of just the guitars and the banjo so that you can hear what it all sounds like (I left some of the bass drum to fill those empty spaces)… Listen all the way to the end! At points I find this mix almost eerie…

[wpaudio url=”/blog/wp-content/uploads/Las vegas – Guitars only.mp3″ dl=’0′ text=’Las Vegas – Just Guitars… Oh Yeah!’]

Another thing we ended up putting in the track is something our drummer (the awesome Chris Schultz) came up with. I’m not sure when he came up with it but he played a really high pitch sound, not very unlike chalk screeching on a board, by rubbing the tip of a stick on the cymbal. So here’s to give him the credits, and show you how it’s done: the sound snippet that made it in the final recording, and a video of him recording it!

[wpaudio url=”/blog/wp-content/uploads/Las vegas – cymbal fx.mp3″ dl=’0′ text=’The Cymbal Screech’]

Hope you’ve enjoyed this second post in the Making Of series. Don’t hesitate to post a comment if you have any question about it, or about any aspect of the recording, I’ll do my best to answer all of them!