End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage

Download this song on itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-students-of-aaron-okeefe/id455402028 All proceeds will go towards future recording sessions for the students.

We obtained the license to sell 50 digital downloads of this song from songclearance.com The publisher, Notting Hill Music, has been informed and our license number is 15250231,15251876,15254172.

End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage

Presented by the students of Aaron O'Keefe: www.aaronokeefe.com

This song was recorded on Saturday, August 28th 2010 at the Saint Claire Recording Company in Lexington, Kentucky.

In order to get multiple camera angles I had the students record the song using a click track. Not only did using the click track help create a better video, but many professional recordings are laid down to a click track.

Many viewers might wonder why the students aren't jumping around and delivering a great visual performance as well. Playing along with the click track requires a great deal of concentration, so that wouldn't possible for many musicians, especially a bunch of kids....in this case students ranging in age from 13 to 16.

The guitars were recorded with a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier and a Marshall head. The speaker cabinets were two 4x12 Shawnee cabinets and were mic'd with a set of Royers.

In order to make the screaming vocals thicker we double tracked them. One track used the Neumann U87 that appears in the video. And the other track was simply an Shure SM58. Many viewers may doubt that a 14 year can sound like this. Granted, doubletracking the vocals made them more intense. But Blake honestly can make his voice sound like this. By using a dynamic microphone, cupping it and getting very close (techniques used by metal singers the world over), he can pull off songs that contain intense screaming vocals. In retrospect, we should have filmed him doing this in the studio instead of using the Neuman U87. I was worried that the singing portions of the song would contain too many plosives and sibilance if we used some of the techniques described above.

We attempted to mix the song just like the original recording. All of the effects, levels, etc... are based on the original version.

The audio has some crackling it in which occurs when I upload it to YouTube. If you listen to the video on decent speakers you'll hear it. Eventually, I'll have the mp3 available on my website for free.

We videotaped the performance using two Panasonic AG-HVX200 DVCPRO's.

A special thanks goes out to the following people:

Brian Anderson / Assistant Producer
Jeff Morris / Cameraman
Mike Walker / Guitar Tech
Tom Allen / Photographer
Dan Agee / Mixing Engineer
Tim Price / Engineer
Cailon Williams / Assistant Engineer

And of course...the students, for all their hard work!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• end of heartache
• killswitch engage
• aaron o'keefe
• students
• saint claire recording company