Sengir

Photoshoot

2005-12-09T08:57:00.000-08:00

The photoshoot for the first album took place outside during winter, it was freezing cold. This time we were smart enough to choose the comfort of a nice warm photostudio

After adjusting the lighting and putting on some music we were ready to start posing
(Tip: white guy next to the lights and tanned guy in the dark ... doesn't work)

A lot of pictures were taken that evening, and we had a lot of fun (resulting in some bad pictures)

Our favorite one made it to the album booklet, the other pictures will be available on our website soon.

A big thank you goes to Rudy De Doncker for taking the pictures. You can see more of his work at www.rudysphotos.com.

Album Artwork

2005-12-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

Of course the album can't be finished without the artwork and we must say that Sven "Svencho" (of Aborted fame) did a more then very nice job! (www.dirged.be)

For those who expect lots of blood and gore ... guess again

The artwork for our new album had to radiate what it stands for ...
"Sign Of Devotion" and Svencho absolutely translated that perfectly.

Studio Report - Mastering

2005-12-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

For the Mastering part we turned to Raf Roesems (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Triggerfinger, .Calibre, Janez Detd ... ) at the Alamo Sound Services.

While Raf worked his magic, we had plenty of time to discover the different studio areas
From the big SSL console to the PlayStation ... although we only had a chance to play around with the last one

Raf did a fantastic job on this final step in the album process.
Check out their facility at www.alamo-sound.com

Studio Report, Vocals - Part 2

2005-11-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

Maybe I can make a summary of the next few days:
vocal training, drinking lot’s of Rooibos tea with honey
(that’s a south african herbal tea, one of my favourites)
and singing till you drop

Nik was a great help during the recordings, he has a lot of patience and he came up with some pretty good ideas ... .

This studio experience was the best I’ve ever had.
This is the first time that I got the chance to record my vocals the way I wanted them to sound: no flat stuff but a clean, strong and dynamic voice.

Studio Report, Vocals - Part 1

2005-11-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

The first day of the vocal recordings finally arrived ...

Unfortunately I was not allowed to go “shopping” like the rest of the band because the guys at the studio had already chosen everything I needed ...

I was blessed with the heavenly sound of a high quality Neumann microphone. He would become my only friend for the next five days in the recording room.

At the end of day one I already knew we were a great match !

We managed to record the lead vocals of three songs on the first day: an amazing result.

Studio Report, Keys - Day 3&4

2005-11-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

The last two days went pretty well.

The rest of the songs came out smoothly.

We still had some time left to add a few extras here and there.
We hope you like it

Studio Report, Keys - Day 1&2

2005-09-25T08:30:00.002-07:00

We started the day by re-arranging the control room a little bit.
A big couch had to make room for the keyboard stand.

When everybody had found a nice chair to sit on, we were ready

We started off with some of the more bombastic songs to get into it.

Thanks to a good preparation (*ahum* ) and the power of the homestudio we managed to get things recorded without losing too many hours in the studio. More time left to play with sounds and effects

We started the second day of recording by reviewing some recorded songs of the first day, and small improvements were made where possible.

After a little break we continued the recordings with a slow piano song, which also turned out nicely

Two days left for me, still on schedule right now

Studio Report, Guitar - Day 5 (Pieter)

2005-09-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Frédéric and I have recorded all rhythm guitar parts.
The only thing left to do was the lead guitar and some minor clean parts.

I chose my Hamer guitar to play the leads, once again with the WARP and Marshall combined.

Not a lot of shredding going on, just some plain melodies .

Here and there we tried some cool harmonie stuff, but we're not sure that will make it to the album. Time will tell .

Stay tuned for more studio news, Wim is on his way ...

Studio Report, Guitar - Day 4 (Frederik)

2005-08-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

The first two days of guitar were all Pieters'.
All I had to do was read a book, have a drink, eat and give a comment here and there (great times).

The third day was mine and since we were running a bit behind on schedule (not our fault ) I knew that I had to work fast
but accurate.

A second "problem" occured that some parts of the songs had been altered, so I actually had to learn these new things in the studio. But since I like a good challenge it was done with pleasure.

First we tried my own set-up (a carvin poweramp, hughes & kettner preamp, a boss japanese eq and an intellifex FXrack,
all going through my laney cabinet with vintage TT-30 speakers).
Despite this giving an amazing, defined sound, it just wasn't the sound we were looking for; we wanted something more "dirty"
so we went back to the warp and the Marshall and just put a boss eq in between. And to make it even more dirty we put my boss gt-3 in the mix too.

Guitar-wise I played most the distorted parts on P's guitar, all dropped d-parts on my Gibson SG, and all the cleans on my Ibanez Jem 7V.

It was an exhausting day, but I'm happy to say that I managed to play the whole thing in one day, putting us a bit closer back on schedule.

Studio Report, Guitar - Day 2&3 (Pieter)

2005-08-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hi there again!

By now I have spent 2 days in the studio recording guitar.
The good news is my rhythm guitar parts are done

Some songs were easier then expected, some more difficult, ...
but in the end we're still on schedule, that's all that matters

The only thing left for me to do is play some clean parts and of course the leads.

But for now I can take a break, time for Frédéric to make some noise

Cheers,
Pieter

Studio Report, Guitar - Day 1 (Pieter)

2005-07-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, time to test out some amps.

Next to the WARP we had several other amps at our disposal,
so we tried to mix and match those to get the sound we were looking for. We decided to use the Marshall combined with the WARP.

Only one more thing left to do (besides recording the album :-p),
choose the AXE

Again, we had several options such as Hamer, Jackson, Ibanez (and some other exotic things), but I went for the Gibson which gave me a fat but compact sound.

Some tuning ... and ready to roll.

We took our time testing out the amps and guitars, so it was already late in the afternoon that day when we started recording.
I only recorded a couple of songs to get started and get acquainted with the studio.

A lot of work to be done ...

Studio Report, Guitar - Pre-recording

2005-07-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Before starting the recording we had a little shopping to do

We had a few ideas about possible amps before entering the store, but since we were there, why not check them all

We tried Engl, Mesa Boogie, Marshall, Crate, ... but ended up liking the sound of the Hughes and Kettner WARP the most.

Not only does it look evil ... it sounds evil as well
A warm heavy sound without becoming too "muddy".
It will make a good companion for my Marshall amp, so we hope :)

And boy, is this thing loud !!
I've learned this the hard way by cranking it up too loud at home when plugging in my guitar. A headache for the evening, but hey :p

Off to the studio to take it for a spin ...

Studio Report, Bass - Recording

2005-07-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

After creating the sound we could kick off with the recording.

The purpose was that the bass would fill the music in a way never provoking, never coming in the spotlights
but adding a lot of deepness to the rest of the music.

That is why several pieces were simplified because one note sounded a lot fuller than a combination of notes.
I hope that this idea will work out.

Let's wait and see (hear) what the rest of the band will ad to the puzzle ...

Studio Report, Bass - Pre-recording

2005-07-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

The first day we went to the studio was to create a sound which would match the bombastic drumsound of our friend Bru.

To obtain this goal, we went shopping at Key Music where we found what we were looking for.

What do you think our choice was? We went for the Ampeg sound of course. But unlike most musicians, we made a combination of a basic amp with a 6x10 speaker cabinet.

We thought this made a perfect combination to create a warm boosting sound, a bit like a French Mistral, warm, strong and above all, refreshing.

Studio Report - Drums, Day 5

2005-07-08T04:21:00.000-07:00

Ooooh yeah, I'm on the roll! A few last drum-tracks, very easy and smooth... aaaand cut!

After nailing the drums on tape we moved on to the percussion parts.

My favorite drum-store supplied me with a big 29" Timpali and a giant gong.

Again we pursued the best recording possible and we moved the giant timpali into a small room with hard-reflecting walls and a dozen microphones. At this point we re-invented the meaning for the word BOMBASTIC. Some parts of the album are recorded with 6 different timpali-parts on top of each other.

Smack in the gong-parts with that and my piece of the pie is a wrap.

... these last few days were MAXIMUM ROCK & ROLL.

Or as Nick from studio Midas said: Lets maximum rock !

Studio Report - Drums, Day 4

2005-07-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

A new recording day after a good night sleep, let's hit those skins with the sticks!

Today we recorded the more difficult songs. Up-tempo, a few nice double-bass parts, some polyrhythmics and a massive load of potential "bone breaking" grooves.
This is where my drum-pedagogue's advice came in. Using the J.P. Komack rudiment techniques, the Bruno Meeus groove skills and the Dom Famularo hard hitting "spaghetti-arms"- power... man I'm having a ball!

Studio Report - Drums, Day 3

2005-06-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Let's get it on!

Started recording the first drumparts and since we were well prepared for the recordings it's all going "silky & smooth"! Although, there are always some parts where you have to reach deeper and that can get quite hard. Especially when you're behind the drums for 10 hours. Most common discussions during the recordings were not about "technique", "capabilities", "structure" or "difficulty" but about the right feeling off the groove. Luckely enough that's a luxury-problem we are happy to deal with.

Studio Report - Drums, Day 2

2005-06-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

So the drums were set-up, tuned, miked and sounding great ...
and we started talking about different materials that are used during recordings to enhance the sound of a room.

To make a long story short ... we ended up placing plexi-glass plates above and behind the drums to improve the reflection of the drumsound toward the mike-set up, a wooden sub-bass boosting construction to place under the drums, corner breaking - dampening but bass boosting crates ... etc.

Holy margaritas !!! The drum-sound from hell is born !!!

Studio Report - Drums, Day 1

2005-06-18T03:24:00.000-07:00

After taping the pilot-tracks we started creating the perfect drum sound for the new Sengir-album. The guys from Buzzville records gave us plenty of time to work on the sound, so we went all the way.
To achieve our goal we started testing all kind of drumskins at different tuning-scales. We wanted a big fat sound but with enough definition so the articulation of the drums wouldn't drown in the songs. Once tuned, we searched the sweet-spot of the room and set-up the BIG-BLACK. (... as I like to refer to my DW black velvet collector's series ).

Sengir recording its 2nd album!

2005-05-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Sengir is currently working on the follow up for their debut album “Guilty Water”.

The band entered the Midas studio’s in Lokeren (Belgium) to start the recordings of their second full album.
This long awaited second album will be released in October/November.

More information will be available soon ...

Graspop Metal Meeting

2005-05-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sengir will be performing this year at the 10th anniversary of Graspop Metal Meeting in Dessel (Belgium) on Friday 24th June.

More information can be found on www.graspop.be