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Studio Blogs
We haven’t updated you guys on our studio sessions since Ryans blog because the laptop with all our footage and photo’s got stolen out the car during a sound check. We might do a special video or you’re just going to have to come through to one of the following gigs to see us play it!

Artwork
The cover of our debut album!

New song and Metal 4 Africa Feature “Sabretooth Bare Their Fangs Outside of Metal Circles”.

The guys at Metal 4 Africa have done a feature on us on their website, talking about our absence from the metal scene.

What do you think?
We have a poll up on facebook, tell us where you think we belong!

Synergy

Off to Synergy this weekend! We’ll be partying on the main stage at 8pm on friday (25th)

Vans off the Wall Music Night
After Synergy we’ll be at The Assembly Rocking out with Juggernaught and the Great apes.
Here’s the event on facebook.

“The Cheers Mate Show” A farewell to George of Hogs at the Purple Turtle.

Hopefully see you at Synergy this weekend! – Dean

We’re proud to announce that we have partnered up with Monster Energy in kicking ass!
Click here to launch our artist profile.

Sunday 14th; Day of our photoshoot! We finally get to get rid of our old ones so been it’s a long time coming!

It was a bit of a drive to the Stellenboch Academy of Design and Photography (Cape Town) which is where we shot everything. But it was worth, it once we saw how they came out.
Photographer Robin Bernstein hooked us up and we shot there for the day.

Thanks to Gia Benatar for a perfect job on the make up and to Micela Nash and Kirstie Russell for the beautification!

Click here for the final photo’s.

This album has been a dream of mine since day one. From meeting Damian on the train which turned out to be a complete coincidence, to auditioning for the band, to finally playing our first show after about a year of practice & to be sitting here writing this blog about my experiences recording our first album – It’s something that’s very difficult to put into words – I remember the day that I was called in for my audition. In walked this guy who looked like a cross between Conan the Barbarian & somebody that literally fell out of an 80’s music video – That was the first time I met Charlie. As for Nikolai, I remember him being this strange yet interesting looking fellow who permanently had a cigarette hanging out of his face. Damian? Well, he’s always been the same – He’s just Damian – Let’s just say a picture is worth a thousand words. Anyways – I couldn’t play their songs to save my life but sure knew that I wanted to join their band. These guys were totally ridiculous; I mean not only in their appearance but in the way they played their instruments. I was completely fascinated & blown away to say the least. We hadn’t met Mauri & Dean at that stage. I still get ragged to this day about my audition as back then I used only one finger to pluck my strings, still do – sometimes.

So what the hell has this got to do with my recording experience, you’re probably asking yourself? Well, If I think back now, this album has been there from day one – Charlie had it all planned, each instrument down to its’ finest detail, each member being handpicked. For me personally, I can’t describe the emotions experienced & captured in our recordings – It’s something that’ll hopefully come out in the finished product. You’ll have to listen to it for yourself.

I remember the day we decided to record a full length studio album. The boys and I were at the pub for few beers – idea’s were flying around the table & next thing I know, drums are recorded, rhythm guitars tracked and I get a call to come in to the studio to start recording bass. I’ll be straight with you. Having only recorded a few quick demos with previous bands, I was a little nervous, I mean, a hell of a lot more than a little nervous – I was super amped though.

The first order of business was to restring my bass with the right gauge string for the desired tone which would be song specific. This was tricky at first but through trial and error, we came across an awesome product: Rotosounds’ Billy Shehan pro-model, kindly supplied by Paul Bothner’s, once again, Thank you guys; we really appreciate your support.

There are two reasons for my choice of strings:
The first is that the standard ‘A’ & ‘E’ (top two strings) are considerably thicker than your average set of bass strings. (Gauge 110 80 65 43)
These worked very well for me as we tune down a tone from the standard tuning to D standard. The idea behind this was to reduce any fret – buzz caused by my lower action & tuning. The standard ‘G’ & ‘D’ (two bottom strings) are considerably thinner than that of your average strings – allowing one to play those melodic runs with feel, whilst still retaining a consistent tone.

The other reason is due to the fact that they are stainless steel. Having recorded with nickel strings I can honestly say that these stainless steel strings are the way to go if you’re looking for that super fat gritty growl. It all comes down to preference, but for me, if the bass tone has no balls, I may as well be playing a banjo.

In my opinion – tone is the absolute key to making any bass recording sound decent – it’s for this reason that we chose to change to a new pack of strings after every second songs recorded. For me, tone is that sound that catches the ear & demands the listeners’ full attention – I’ve learned that it requires as much attention as the bass playing itself. Once again, this was achieved by trial & error between gear & EQ. Dean & I worked on the bass tone for quite a while before actually tracking anything as each song required a different tone – some songs a few tones.

We would constantly experiment by alternating between playing with a pick & using fingers learning more about what sound the song required, as we went along. We would also use the toilet paper & sock methods in an effort to dampen the ringing of any unused strings. On this recording I ran a Sansamp preamp which enabled us to have full control over my tone at all times. This combination of preamp & Hartke 350 watt head with aluminium 4 by 10’s worked really well for us – We cranked the hell out of it – forcing me to only be able to record on weekends. At first we thought we’d be able to re-amp the bass but felt that we would be compromising the tone if we worked that way. It took a little longer having to mike up the amp for each bass session but we’re all about quality over quantity.

The atmosphere in the studio played a very important role as to how I would perform on a particular day – Luckily for me that was never a concern as I was constantly surrounded by friends, beer & Xbox. It was really nice having the boys in studio while I recorded – for reasons beyond an explanation. I honestly believe that this process has opened everybody’s eyes to each member’s contribution & has created a sense of mutual appreciation. There were times where I wanted to literally swing my bass & end the life of a certain ‘air-drummer’ who wouldn’t stop tapping out triplets with his feet…

…For fuck sakes Damian.

Anyways, these last few Saturdays have honestly been some of the funniest most memorable days of my life. I must thank Dean for his insane passion and commitment to this band; He is an amazing engineer & always finds a solution to a problem. To Damian, Charles, Nikolai, Dean and Mauri, you boys are incredible musicians – the best a bassist could ever dream of.

- Ryan Swanich

(Photo’s by Robin Bernstein)

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Hey Sabrefans!
Get yourself a copy of LMG’s 50th issue! Not only is it an awesome magazine, but it includes an article on Dean and Charlie’s gear for your reading pleasure!

JUNE 10 2011
LMG’s 50th issue bash with:
SABRETOOTH
Peachy Keen &
Taxi Violence

Come party with us!!

Click here for more photo’s.

Dean:
FINALLY! Rhythm guitars are done! Charles and I tried to stick to the 1-song-a-day schedule but that was easier said than done…
…ended up taking 3-4 weeks.

Charles:
So far we’ve done all rhythm guitars and drums, but bass and guitars solos on just a few songs. We started tracking rhythm guitars about a month ago and I guess we had some issues, but nothing that was a super big deal or anything. Maybe a bit of performance and tone issues and dealing with squeaks and scratches from our hands on the strings. We used new strings every two songs, so all the guitarists out there, you know what I’m talking about with the squeaks. Then obviously we had some parts where I’d play things a little differently to Dean (eg: I’d hammer-on a note, he’d pick), but we’ve kept some of those to make things a bit more organic.

Dean:
We had 11 songs to track of the regular; OD (overdrive) guitars, clean (electric) and acoustic guitar. Our songs are pretty busy and high in tempo so to keep them as clean as we could we decided to Dual track all the rhythms. Besides, buying twice the amount of strings and having to redo everything a second time makes quad tracking such a pain! In my personal opinion I don’t feel like they’re any less big than it would have sounded with two extra guitar tracks in the mix.

Charles:
As for gear… Well we didn’t really use that much. The main guitar we used was my red Ibanez RG550 (1991) with a maple fret board and EMG pickups (85b/81n), but we also used a Fender strat USA, Ibanez Jem77bfp and a steel string here and there.

Dean:
I used my BFOC custom 7 (emg707′s) for the bigger, lower tuned riffs and used the strat on the ballad “Tomorrows Gone”. All guitars strung with D’addario strings. The steel string acoustic had Elixir strings though. Elixirs were great on acoustic because we tried our best to avoid those in-between-chord-string-slides that spike your mix at chord change points. On acoustic guitars it’s so much louder! The coating on those strings allowed your fingers to slide across them without getting caught in the winding grooves, lowering the intense harshness of that scrape/slide sound. Giving you a cleaner acoustic take.

Charles:
As far as amplification we used a Peavey 5150 head and a Mesa Boogie 4×12 rectifier cab for all the amp stuff (which will be re-amped later anyways).

Dean:
We’ll change the Overdrive tones for every song to keep it less monotonous/fatiguing to the ear, plus, each song feels better with their own unique vibe.

Charles:
I’m really happy with the performances and sound so far, even though everything is kinda far from being complete. On a performance note, I think I struggled with some things and found others pretty easy, but we put a lot of thought and time into things, so even the easiest parts Dean and I had talks over as to how we felt it should be played. As usual, Dean motored through things that I might have struggled with and the other way round, so we filled in on each other’s weaknesses. Not much has changed from the way we play some of the songs live, but there will be few bits and pieces here and there and also the songs that no one has heard yet. I am very excited about our ballad though, i think it’s written well and the way it’s coming together makes me very happy. I’m also trying to use whatever influence I have to get little song specific quirks and effects into songs to make them more of their own song and have little parts that sound a bit more creative. (Ryan) Swanich the farthog actually came up with a really good quirk the other week…

Dean:
We left in small (tasteful) mistakes through out the whole process because we thought it was better to embrace the natural sound of a guitar than to do an over-clinically-tight-robot-sounding album with no feel and vibe (like the sound of today’s modern metal productions), but without losing any power or energy. As much as I couldn’t wait to finish, I enjoyed tracking guitars. It’s like another sit-in practice but a lot more intense because you’re constantly playing at your best, having every minor error in your technique become much more apparent for you to fix. Not only allowing for great takes but also to make you a much better player.

Charles:
All in all everything is coming along very well and it’s been a long effort, but we are really trying to do the most professional album we can from head to toe. I hope you guys will hear the thought behind everything we’ve done. For now, peace out and I’ll be back when the solos are done!

- Dean Bailey and Charles Knighton-Pullin

(Photo’s by Robin Bernstein)

Click here for more photo’s.

Things started off smoothly but as you probably know they don’t always stay that way, so there were a couple of issues but we pushed through them. One thing I do remember from the recording experience and the room I was recording in was that it was fricken HOT! Summer plus drum room equals me being a sweaty mofo but I think I made up the kg’s I lost sweating in Cloud studios by eating a whole bunch of crap during these holidays. I’m not 100% sure what I’m supposed to be talking about in this little paragraph, seen as it’s another first for me but lets talk drums!

I used a Mapex M birch kit for this recording, which we completely re skinned excluding the resonant skin of the bass drum. We used REMO Emperor batter skins and standard Ambassador resonant skins on the toms which were a 10 inch rack (mounted on a snare stand) and a 16 inch floor tom (with legs). The bass drum was 22 inch where we used a clear powerstroke 3 and the snare was a 14 piccolo with a coated powerstroke 3 on top. Pretty standard stuff if you ask me. I’ve been experimenting with different tom setups and realized that the old school jazz vibe of “one up, one down” works for me. It means my second rack tom gets replaced with my floor tom, which I love the sound of, and I get to use my snare a bit more when working out the fills for certain sections. The real truth of the matter is…
…well there’re 2 reasons.

1; the venues here (South Africa) almost never have a 10 (inch) and a 12 (inch) tom so I thought let me just get used to using either. My personal preference would be to use 10 rack and 16 floor but most of the time I’ll have to use a 12 instead of a 10 which I’m trying to get used to, it’s just a little more distance to cover when doing fills. Oh yeah! The other reason is I’m lazy, I’d call it efficient but yeah, the fewer things I have to carry to a gig the better. I’m sure all you drummers out there will agree.

Ok, so onto cymbals. Now I have to start off thanking a few people, mainly Sean (Nunan), Sebastian (Guile) and Kyle (Gray) thanks so much guys. I used mainly Zildjian cymbals, both my crashes and hi-hats were zildjian but I used a few other makes as well, which include a Sabian (AAX metal) ride and splash and a Wuhan China.

I rocked my awesome pearl elims on this recording. One thing I’ve realised about pedals is that the more time you spend playing them the better. I’ve had some popo (shitty) pedals in the past but I got to a certain stage even with them that I felt comfortable.

That’s pretty much it from me, all in all it was an awesome experience recording with friend and fellow band member Dean Bailey, he definitely cracked his whip and stood up to his reputation but in the end what we were left with are some awesome takes. Thanks Deanius!!! You the Man!!!

- Damian Rijkers

(Photo’s by Robin Bernstein)

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