BIOGRAPHY OF ARSENIO ORO #2
THEORY OF LIFE
While I was recording M.A.D, I remember getting a
call from three guys. They answered an old add that I didn’t even know it was
still posted at guitar center. The guys were Ted, Jim, and Carlos, a Cuban DJ
and two American rock and rollers. The next day we met at Ted’s apartment in
Kendall. I didn’t want to go get something going since I was already finishing
my album, but I went at least to see what they had to offer. I told them who I
was and played them the first five songs from my
record. They were blown away. Ted, and Jim wanted to do something with me right
away at full sail studios located in Orlando Florida. They gave me a CD of
things that Matt, Ted, and Jim have done before on a software called Cubase. I
didn’t want to be rude with them by saying that those demos sucked. Instead, I
told them that I never go into a studio to work on something if I haven’t played
before. That same day I got a call from Jim saying, fuck Ted, lets go do this
thing together, him thinking that I didn’t liked Ted as a band member because of
his obesity. It felt weird seeing this guy talking about Ted like if he hated
him and supposedly he was his best friend. That made me feel quite bad for Ted. I even remember the next incident that happened a few days or so after that like if it was yesterday. I was with Ted drinking a beer at his place where I
told him that his band members were trying to eliminate him from the band. But,
he didn’t believe me until he got the call from Jim minutes later saying that
he sucked and they weren’t going to take him to full sail. Since that moment it
felt right for me to help Ted by recording something with him. That’s how
“Theory of life,” a name I gave to this record, got started in the first place. I told him that I wanted to do brand-new songs, but he insisted
on redoing the old
songs. I said OK, and gave him a few
rules to agree on before we got started and one of them was that if he was not
able to finish the project I was going to have to finish it without him cause I
wasn't going to just throw away all of my work which was going to be EVERYTHING
BUT SINGING. Anyway, a year and a half trying to record Ted's vocals I got
tired of recording take after take and decided not to record with him no more
cause I knew he was never going to be ready any time soon. But, I was
stuck now with this project and found no1 to finish it for me so I had to sing
it. I have to admit the record was pretty easy to finish since it was in
my vocal range. A week after I was mastering it and the rest is history.
RECORDING FORMAT OF
THEORY OF LIFE
Theory of
life is a very experimental album. I used
ideas like, not recording the same amplifier through the entire record, singing
for the first time, recording with different guitars, different microphones,
different drum machine sounds, and the list goes on. That also made me exercise
being careful with the overall sound of the record since I’m using so many
different sounds. Because, no matter how different the songs are from one
another they have to feel like I was the only person producing them. It’s a matter of how do you
set the volumes and equalize the instruments in your recordings. Here are
the amp settings and selections I use for Theory of Life.
THEORY OF LIFE
BELIEVE (Clean tone, Zoom Dist. 8 Sim 0)
SINNERS AND DREAMERS (Zoom Dist. 8 Sim 3)
SEA OF DREAMS (Clean tone, Zoom Dist. 7 & 8 Sim 0)
WORST PARTS OF TOWN (Clean tone, Peavey Special 112 Amp)
CLOUDS (Clean tone, Roland VF8-2 Blues drive)
REACH (Carvin 3200 MTS. Amp)
WHAT I WANT (Zoom Dist. 8 Sim 0)
SWEET LOVE (Clean tone, Zoom Dist. 7 Sim 3)
WIPED (Peavey Special 112 Amp)
DOWN THE LINE (Clean tone, Zoom Dist. 7 Sim 3)
HOLDING ON (Zoom Dist. 8 Sim 0)
S.O.B (Carvin 3200 MTS. Amp)
HEY NOW PEOPLE (Zoom Dist. 7 Sim 0)
TIME @ HAND ` (Clean Tone, the Zoom)
The guitars I used for the record were Carvin, Jackson, Dean, and Vantage
classical. But, not only the guitars were different, also the tuning.
I remember varying the tune from a dropped 6th E to a D, and living the rest of
the strings in concert tuning. Another tuning I used for the album was dropping
everything a half step down, and the final one is using a concert tuning with the
seventh string guitar, my personal favorite. It was done like that because
every song has a different attitude, there for, they should sound differently
from one another. I was very happy with every distinctive tuning I gave to
each song. I have to say that the only complain I have about recording the
guitars for some songs, is that I used a very cheap shure mic to record the
cabinets. It changed the real sound of the amps. That's why the
peavey doesn't sound like a peavey and the carvin doesn't sound like a carvin.
But, I had to work with what I'd got and to tell you the truth I started to like
the dirty sound it gave me the more I played it. Of course, I didn't have
that problem with the Zoom preamp, because everything was recorded directly into the mixer.
For the drums and bass of this
record I used the same Zoom 234 rhythm machine I used for M.A.D, which got the
job done like always. The only difference is that I did not use the same
preset I used on M.A.D. I didn't even use the same preset on every song on
Theory of Life. Every song had a completely different sound from each
other. If
you listen to all of them you might think that I used a different drummer for
every song. That's another reason why I like using rhythm machines. Although,
the bass was the same on every song of Theory of Life. It was even the
same preset I used on M.A.D. The only difference is that I used a mic simulation on Theory of Life to give it a much more old school sound.
For the vocals of this album I used an AKG C2000B microphone. It’s not a great mic,
but it did a decent job. I also used the expansion board of my Roland to
compress the vocals and to add some nice effects to make it more interesting.
But, there where no pitch rectifier or anything like that. I was trying to
get the most honest sound possible, just like the Ramones or the Sex Pistols.
Not that I'm a fan of punk music, but I like their "I don't care" attitude. That way I got done before I got sick of it.
Because, I don't enjoy singing like I enjoy playing guitar. I just feel
wrong without an instrument in my hands. Anyway, Theory of Life started out as
a favor from me to Ted, and he wasn’t able to sing it, so I got stock with the
songs and
I’m giving them to you for free along with a bunch of Videos of the
entire making of Theory of Life.
TRANSITION’S RECORDING STORY
Transition was a piece I composed with a friend of mine called Carlos. He
answered an add that I placed at guitar center when I was looking for a rhythm
guitar player to play M.A.D. I was really impressed by the way he was playing
the first time I met him at my studio. He had a lot of influences from Malmsteen and bands like Rata Blanca. I told him that I could do something with
him instead of just making him play rhythm for M.A.D.
A week from that day he brought me the song on a piece of paper that wasn’t
written with music notation. It was kind of funny, because he didn’t even
understand his own music language. I told him to play it for me and explain me
how he wanted the song to sound. Because, not knowing how to write music limits
communication among musicians. So, in this case the only way to explain it was
by playing the song. Let me tell you, it was a mess. Some things were on the
wrong time signature, wrong keys, I didn’t even know where to begin fixing it.
But, little by little I re-composed it and it made sense after that. We were
really happy with how it was sounding.
But, when I told him that we were going to use a rhythm machine, he was negative
about it. He didn’t know or have seen anybody using it the way I do. Well, he
saw me working with it and he was impressed by how I was composing those drums.
It was sounding as good, if not better than a lot of famous drummers he knew. Also, knowing that I didn’t play the drums professionally, made him realized
that being a composer takes a lot of knowing how other instruments work. Anyway, I wasn’t trying to have a lot of complicated
drumming on transition. I actually wanted to have more of a grove than to be
progressive like other projects that I’ve done in the past. It actually came
out just as I expected, perfect.
By the time I got done with the drums, I started recording his guitars. Normally
I would wait and finish with the bass, and then move onto the guitars. But, I
wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to finish the recording after I saw him
improvising very poorly. Although, recording the rhythm guitars in one day made
me be lenient and I ignored the fact that he couldn’t improvise. Later that week
I finished adding the effects to the rhythm guitars. Which, I remember using a
digital distortion that I programmed from the Roland 1680 and an acoustic effect
also from the Roland for the clean passages. Anyhow, when it was time for us to
record the solos, I was very frustrated with his playing. I actually found out
that the day he came to my studio, he played something that was a routine for
him. I decided not to record with him anymore after sending him home a bunch of
times in a roll, just to compose a lead guitar no longer than eight bars. It got
to the point of me telling him every note he should play and if I have to tell
him every note, I rather play it my self. He couldn’t compose anything after
giving him two weeks to come up with something cool. I was pissed off and I
never saw him again.
After a month of recording theory of
life, I decided to finish transition and used it for that album. Ted and I
sat down one day and I told him about my idea. Because, it had a different
sound, and I didn’t want to through it away. He took it home for three
weeks to write the lyrics, but he could not come up with anything, not even the
melody he was going to sing. I got tired of waiting and decided to write
everything for that song. So, we got together again and I started asking
him about the death of his father and I would write it in my own words to make
poems.
Well, after writing the lyrics and finishing composing the melody for the
vocals, I started working on the bass. The bass turned out better than I
planned. I was extremely happy how everything was coming out, until we started
recording Ted’s vocals. He was the worst singer that I have ever heard singing
in harmonic minor. He didn’t even know how to scream and sound aggressive. I was
getting sick of doing that song over and over with him knowing that I can do a
better job.
Everything started to come out better when I decided to sing it instead. I was able to sing clean, screaming or even on death metal style. I have to say
that I did a decent job taking in consideration that it was the first time I
have recorded my vocals.
Arsenio Oro. Sep 13th, 2003.