yes daddy yes is a five piece indie rock band from Agropoli (SA), which consists of two electric guitars: Andrea and Paolo, who is also the singer and the songwriter of the band, drums: Fabio Mitrano, bass: Gianluigi, acoustic guitar: Giuseppe. The latter two joined the band after the record was done. Infact I had been covering the bass duties for a while during the production of the record, rehearsing with them, recording some of the songs and playing a few gigs.
Go Bananas is their second album to date. The whole recording process took a few months, some songs were recorded twice and some didn’t end up in the final playlist. From the beginning it was clear that the band didn’t want to involve me just as an engineer but more as a producer, as I’ve been asked to contribute creatively, working with them not just on the sounds, but also on the arrangements and the structures of the songs. All the recordings took place in my home studio. We started with the utterly famous song “Imagine” of John Lennon (the only cover of the album), with the contributions of Julian Barrett of a toys Orchestra on keyboards.
The keyboards was recorded with a Korg SV-1 connected to my Victoria Bassman Replica and then miked with a large Michael Joly Condenser and an re20. Regarding bass, guitars and drums these were the instruments at our disposal:
Electric guitars: Fender Telecaster Hot Rod ’52, Fender Stratocaster American Standard, Fender Stratocaster USA ’62 Reissue, Gibson Les Paul R6, Gibson ES 330
Amps: Victoria Bassman, ’70s Orange OD Head with 70s Marshall 4x12 Greenback cabinet, late 50’s Fender Bassman Ten
Acoustic Guitars: Martin D-35
Bass: Gibson Rd Artist, ASM Solo (’70s italian shortscale bass), Epiphone Thunderbird, Fender Jazz Bass MIM,’60s Fender Jazz Bass
Drums: Custom sized DW with Zildjan K series cymbals and a Supraphonic snare
For the recording chain you can check the “my gear” section, adding to the list a few preamps I borrowed, notably an UA Solo 610 that we used on bass and on some vocals and an Avalon AD2022 that we didn’t like as much as the Daking and that I don’t recall using.
We started laying down the drums with just a basic guide track and a click, then bass, guitars and whatever else.
For the record we agreed with the band that we wanted a very natural feel, so I tried and largely succeded to avoid effects plugin altogether. All the drums reverb comes from the corridor that faces the recording room, a heavily compressed ORTF with a couple of modded Oktava sdc, and sometimes also from a mike up in the stairs that I used for some crazy efx (it’s quite obvious on the intro of Monkey See, Monkey Do). Guitars are always dry (or wet by analog stompboxes) or again, at the close mikes (which varied from Coles 4038, MJE ldc, RE20 and SM57) I added a mike in the hallway to capture a natural ‘verb. The delay on vocals is for most of the record a guitar stompbox echo which partners very well the singer’s timbre. Worth noting is the starting choir on “Between Mind & Body”, that has been recorded in a church by a large choir of twelve people that I miked with an ORTF couple.
Mixing’s been done completely itb with Reaper, using mainly Waves, Softube and Soundtoys plugins, monitoring through my beloved Quested S7. Fabio D’orza, better known as Fabio Musta, a great hip hop producer, took care of the mastering process in his Different Lab studio in Salerno. Companion to the album you can enjoy a beautiful musical video of the single “Noah”.
The record has been received with great praise by the italian press and the former fans of the band. I hope you like it too! Enjoy!
