Durch&Durch – Maarweg Singles

These four dudes from Cologne, Germany just want to make awesome guitar-driven pop that’s a bit more sophisticated than the middle-of-the-road radio crap. I had already mixed a single from their 2016 EP release “Versteckt verspielt”, so producing and recording two fresh songs for Durch&Durch from the ground up was the perfect next step. I totally enjoy mixing pre-recorded tracks, but being able to guide the song creation process from the very beginning is usually a lot more gratifying. So I was super excited to hit the studio with them and get creative.

It’s always very important to me that the band and I have a detailed conversation about the sonic vision and the goals for a new project like this. Sascha, the band’s guitarist and lead vocalist, came by for a coffee so we could get on the same page. It quickly became clear that they didn’t want to sound super polished. The new Durch&Durch sound was going to have a bit of an edge, a certain roughness, but also be fun to listen to. Sounds like a plan to me! The guys also expressed the wish to capture performance videos of the songs while we’re in the studio. I love it when a band thinks about how to reach their audience in today’s visual-centric world. Consequently, I was eager to make that work despite the workflow challenges and tight budget.

Considering the sonic goals, the desire to shoot video, and the band’s setup, it was obvious that a tracking session at the trusted Maarwegstudio2 here in Cologne made perfect sense. Studio time at such a place doesn’t come for free, but in a traditional band recording context it’s still the most efficient way to to go that also just kicks ass sound-wise. You can get to work quickly, get a great sound, and get into a creative flow. At the same time, you have an environment with a cool vibe that works well on screen for the videos. There’s one catch to it though: the band has to be well rehearsed and everybody needs to be focused when “tape” is rolling!

In the case of Durch&Durch this all worked out flawlessly: we did all the basic tracking for two songs and also captured multi-cam performance videos for each song – all in the matter of a single day! Massive thanks to the guys at klangmalerei.tv who handled the video production and allowed me to fully focus on the producing and engineering. We checked into Maarwegstudio the evening leading up to our tracking date for drums setup and soundcheck. This part usually takes up a lot of time while the rest of the band easily gets bored. Instead, we were able to hit the ground running the next day and get the rest of the band set up very quickly. All four musicians performed the songs at the same time, playing together as they should for a proper rock band. The band’s drummer, bassist and lead guitar player were all in close proximity to each other to feed off of each others’ energy. Meanwhile, Sacha, the singer, got cozy in one of the spacious iso booths so that we could capture the live vocals in good quality and with excellent isolation. It always surprises me how much energy and vibe you can capture in those raw live vocal tracks. Once again, some parts of those guide vocals made it into the final mix! Once we were happy with the basic tracks for each song we changed the setup just a bit so we could film the videos and capture the awesome vibe of the band performing in the studio.

When all was said and done at Maarwegstudio2 we moved operations to my own Satellite Studio for overdubs. Most of the vocals were cut again with more attention to detail. We also did some guitar and keyboard overdubs as well. Massive thanks to my guy Christian Frentzen for laying down a killer organ track on the song “Gut Zu Zweit”. The songs were then mixed by yours truly and got their icing on the cake in the shape of a fine analog mastering job by Alex Kloss.