Recording
On October 23, Cuomo announced that the band would start recording material "with or without" a producer. However, the band's record label decided to have the band employ a record producer due to the commercial failure of their self-produced album Pinkerton. The band began rehearsing and arranging both the Summer Songs of 2000 and newer material Cuomo had written at his home with engineer Chad Bamford. The band eventually decided to hire Ric Ocasek—who had also produced their debut album—as producer, and began sending demos to Ocasek during the summer of 2000. There was much debate among the band members as to whether they should record in Los Angeles or Ocasek's New York home, with the band eventually deciding to record in Los Angeles at Cello Studios. The band continued to demo new music daily and started to weed through more than seventy-five demos, eventually homing in on twenty-five potential album tracks in anticipation of Ocasek's arrival. Ocasek worked with the band to trim these down further to eighteen songs.
Recording sessions for the album began in early December, with Ocasek providing creative feedback to the band by telephone. On December 27, the band embarked on what would be close to six weeks of studio work by playing songs repetitively in order to track the bass and drums parts. They also did "scratch takes" of the vocals and guitar, designed to get accurate rhythm tracks before being redone more efficiently later in the recording process. While recording the album, the band continued to perform gigs under the pseudonym Goat Punishment.
During the recording sessions, an executive at the band's label, Geffen Records, visited to observe the band's progress and expressed dissatisfaction with several tracks. This feedback eventually forced the band to discard a few of the album's possible songs. The band then relocated for three weeks to a smaller studio in another part of Cello Studios where Cuomo and Bell worked on guitar takes while the entire band recorded vocal tracks. Ocasek remarked, "Rivers always does his guitar parts in one take."
Mixing for the album began on January 31 by Tom Lord-Alge at South Beach Studios. Bell was absent from the mixing process.
Read more about this topic: Weezer (2001 album)
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)