From the
http://thebarkingeye.blogspot.com/
I recently saw the local band Sykotyk Rampage play at the
KISS Battle of the Bands contest
where they offered up their brand of Sykotyk "muzyk". You could see that the audience didn't know
what to expect from the band and watched with curiosity as the band kicked out
2 of it's original songs. I can easily
say they are local garage rock pioneers and that night stood out as being the
most original sounding. This band has
released over 20 albums. Yes kids, over
20 albums and a new one on the way.
What does that tell you? It tells
me these guys love music and creating it, and that nothing will stop them from
blessing the world with it.
I've known guitarist/ vocalist Dirk Becker since our days in
highschool so when I asked him if he wanted to take part in this "Attack
of the Garage Bands" thread, he jumped on it and contributed all the info
below, so enjoy this article on how they create their "punkish, Zappa
meets the Ramones, Sykotyk rockisms" from one of the true pioneers of local garage rock.
"Creating music for Sykotyk Rampage has basically been
the same since its inception in the 80’s, we just plug-in and start crafting
music. All the lyrics and music are created as we play, and recorded live. No
editing out guitars, lyrics, mistakes...it all happens for a reason, no redo’s
no overdubs, just us creating live music as we have done for 30 years.
We each have a shure vocal microphone that has a noise gate
between 45d/60d. The main vocals for the songs are created by the Drummer Paul
as he plays drums and sings at the same time – an amazing feat just in
itself…let alone creating the music and lyrics at the same time. Occasionally I
will sing a song, but mostly it is Paul’s creativity that drives the direction
of the song and music. One of the guitar players, Shane or me, will start a
“riff”…rhythm then we just flow through the creative process; from one new
mantra right into another usually with numerous changes of genres. We have
played together for so long now that it comes natural to “know” the inflections
and dynamic changes of each other.
The drums, guitars, vocal microphones and if we have a bass
player they are all routed into a 12 channel peavey non-powered sound board.
There is a vocal effects off-board compressor/noise gate system. The sound
board is the mixer for recording, it takes a while to set the tones, peaks,
vocal effects, and levels but basically they are set the same for each session.
We usually play once a week, either as a recording session or an actual band
practice if we are going to play somewhere.
end part 1
Part 2
The drum kit has 6 dedicated drum microphones
Snare, kick, tom left, tom right, floor toms, and 1 cymbal
overhead, they are all tight to the sound resonant zones. The kick and overhead
have direction covers to cut background noise. Each microphone is level
separate, with the kick having a high peak zone, and the cymbals and high hat
at low peaks. On the kick and right toms a small amount of effects usually
running at level 1.
The guitar amps- crate 2 12”speakers 150watt, and Ibanez 150
watt 4 10” speakers
stack
external mic’d 6
inches from the speaker. On the sound board they are at
peak level 1. point 2 flat tones, no effects, .5 gain
Shane and I are both using a zoom pedal systems between amp
and guitars.
Guitars are a telecaster, and a hagstrom swede.
Bass amp is direct out to the board, that way there is more
control over tones and volume peak levels.
Recording is into a computer that is running a program
called Gold Wave (http://www.goldwave.com/), and is recorded in stereo. Volume
and gain levels from the board are levelled in the computer by an analogue
metering system. Tones are metered by a digital graphic control.
Basically I just set it up and we play and record live, we
may play 10 or 15 new songs in a 3 hour session, 5 are junk, 5 are good, 5 are
amazing. I take the songs chop them to length, equalize them and that’s it…what
you hear is raw Sykotyk Rampage, all music and lyrics created and recorded
live. Recording the way we do, we don’t actually “write” the music, ever. We
will then take a song and learn it after it is done, learn it for when we play
live. With a song catalogue in the thousands, so many songs have not been
released; we could pump out an album a month, which I don’t have time to do.
The songs that go on the albums are just random, from a few recording sessions.
We actually think of an album name then find the songs to fill it from the
recording catalogue.
The newest album
“Bella Disgusta” was thought of on the beach by Brian and Paul back in 2009.
The last album “22”
was called that by Shane for the only reason that it was our 22nd album. We
have a double album with completed songs, “Genius Mushrooms with Thoughts of
Intellect” which will be released in September; we thought of a theme and ideas
for it then just made the music. It’s in post production right now.
Well that’s how Sykotyk Rampage makes Blues Chinese Metal
Crash Punk consistently for the past 30 years and always thinking of new ways
to give people brain tumours with our own version of garage rock!