Loveless Summer - "High Fidelity"

"Yes ma'am," George answered. "I'm their manager, George Bellamy. This is Cynthia, Ben, Mark, and Kyle is there in the back."

"Well then, welcome to the Dungeon." With this, the woman greeting the band motioned toward the sofas behind them. "Please take a seat, and your lead engineer will be out in a moment."

The band members sat in the lobby, while the receptionist, in her mid- to late- thirties, hammered away on her keyboard, deeply involved in whatever she was doing to such a degree that she seemed to forget there were people in the room. The lobby wasn't what any of them really expected, from having watched movies about recording sessions anyway. It wasn't sleek, hip, or stylish. The walls were a bland eggshell color, with three small black and white photographs of bands performing on stage. The black furniture was a few shades darker than the gray, sitting atop light gray commercial-grade carpeting. The most colorful things in the room were the potted plants in each of the corners, and the mosaic of yellow, green, pink, purple, and orange Post-It notes stuck to a dry-erase calendar next to the receptionist. Kyle could barely see it from his angle, but it looked as though the studio was pretty busy, with only a few random days off here and there. After glancing around the room for another moment, he joined his band-mates and manager in picking up a random magazine from the small, narrow coffee table in front of him and browsing casually through the various articles, most of which didn't interest him in the slightest, until he heard the band's name called out by an unfamiliar voice.

"Superhype?" The man was in his thirties, maybe a year or two younger than the receptionist, with slickly-styled, blonde-highlighted hair and the fanciest designer button-down short-sleeve shirt Kyle had ever seen. But the man was tragically hip, looking as if he'd just gotten back from a night at the Roxbury, his dark soul patch only heightening the evidence that his hair was obviously dyed blonde. "I'm Phil Davies. If you'll follow me..."

Phil motioned for the band to follow him, so everyone rose from the somewhat-uncomfortable sofas and marched down the narrow halls of the recording studio, passing by a conference room and a few smaller offices, eventually coming across a "T" junction in the hall. The new hall was much wider than the first, with odd panels hanging on the far wall that looked sort of like beige and brown wall art, made out of suede, or something similar to suede. They continued walking, passing by a few more lifeless black and white photographs that had less to do with music the further they traveled down the hall, until they turned into a room slightly larger than the lobby, filled to the brim with recording equipment. The buttons, knobs, sliders, and lights seemed to fill every crevice of the room, as if they'd just stepped into the cockpit of a space shuttle.

"Alrighty, if you guys will take a seat," Phil requested, waiting for everyone to make themselves comfortable before continuing. "It says here you guys haven't been recorded before, right?"

"That's right," Kyle answered. "None of us have ever been in a recording studio before."

"I've been to one once," George quickly stated. "But only as a manager."

"Okay... well, let's explain how this stuff works, okay? The first thing I'm gonna have you guys do is bring your gear upstairs. You don't need amps or anything, just your guitars and the drums."

"Wait," Cynthia interrupted, "No amps? We won't hear my Vox on the album?"

"Nope," Phil said, seemingly unmoved by the interruption, "Not necessary. We'll end up shaping your tone digitally. I mean, we could carry your amp up here, and we could mic it, but it'll sound better if we do it digitally, trust me."

"Oh... okay, if you say so."

"Don't worry, you guys will sound great! Okay, after that, I'll have you guys run a song or two so I can take some notes."

"You don't need all of their songs?" George asked, joining Cynthia in wondering if Phil Davies was up to snuff. "I've only ever been in a studio once before, but last time, they wanted to hear all of them."

"Again, not necessary. Most studios don't listen to any, really. But we're pros here at the Dungeon. So anyway, yeah, after that, we'll set up the kit to record the drums. Your drummer will lay down his takes over there, in the drum booth." Phil paused to point at the dimly-lit and somewhat-claustrophobic room behind him, visible only through a window. "Once we get the drums down, we'll track the bass, then the rhythm guitar, then the leads, and then we'll finish with the vocals. Everything gets done separately, and we piece it all together afterwards in a process called `the mix-down.' Questions?"

"Um, yeah," Mark replied. "That room is a bit... small... for my kit."

"Oh, don't worry about that. Leave the drums and cymbals you don't need, but yeah, it has to be tight like that, so we don't get a lot of room sound in the drums. Anything else? No? Alrighty, let's get to work!"

As Phil went about writing things on a piece of paper attached to a clipboard, the band headed outside to gather their instruments, with Cynthia and Mark both voicing a small degree of skepticism about the entire process, but ultimately carrying their instruments into the studio as asked. After running through the songs Blind Mind and Not Your Caddy, Phil passively explained that he had everything he needed. With this, Mark went about moving his drum kit from the larger room into the tiny drum booth, and on Phil's insistence, the band left Mark behind in the studio, heading out to grab some fast food at a nearby McDonalds.

"George, what do you think of this guy?" Cynthia asked, obviously not sure of the entire process. "I mean, I've read about recording in the studio, and the websites I saw, they all said to mic the amp if you really like the amp's tone. I love my foxy Voxy..."

"Well Cynthia, I haven't been in a recording studio since Kyle's dad's band went to one in Syracuse before you guys were born. But he seems like an alright fellow. I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

"From what I've read online, I have to agree with Cynthia here, George. I really wanted to hear my Les Paul through a Marshall on this album."

"Don't worry Kyle, this Mister Davies seems pretty confident, and I take that as a sign that he knows what he's doing. I'm sure he's got years of experience, and his equipment looked very professional. Don't worry about this at all, guys. I'll bet you that right now, Mark is back in the studio laying down the best drum takes any of us have ever heard!"

"Dang it! I can't do this," Mark yelled, just as the rest of the band made their way into he control room. "This is so annoying!"

"A lot of drummers have trouble with it, Mark. Give it another try."

"What's going on?" Kyle asked, foreseeing Mark's temper exploding into catastrophe."

"Your drummer is having a hard time tracking."

"Why? What's the matter?"

"It's the click track. He can't play along with the click track. But don't worry, every drummer has this problem the first time."

"What's a click track?" Cynthia asked, having seen the phrase during her internet research, but not reading much about it.

"It's basically a metronome that plays through the headphones. The drummer uses it to keep time better."

"Phil, I mean... Mark plays every day without a `click-track,'" Kyle explained, hoping to resolve the issue. "Why does he need one now? Is he off-time or something?"

"Well kid, it makes it easier for the engineer. I can't really do the mix-down if his time signature keeps shifting. The changes are subtle, but trust me, they're noticeable."

George put his hand in the air, speaking as soon as he realized it wasn't necessary. "The last band I managed, they were told they didn't need the click-track. Why does Mark need it?"

"Well," Phil started, his temper finally starting to peek through his faux-hipster appearance, "I don't know who that engineer was, but trust me, you need the click-track. You can't be pro without it."

"What if the tempo is supposed to change?" Kyle asked, knowing that in some of their songs, particularly Remorse, the group performed crescendos, and in that song, the group sped to a blistering pace before it suddenly ended. "Don't subtle time changes enhance the song? Make it more... like... organic?"

"Not really. It just makes them sound messy."

"Well, Phil, some of our songs have intentional time changes."

"Well guys, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now though, we need your drummer focusing. Drummers, right?" He laughed, but he was the only person in the room, and probably in the building, who would have found that funny.

It ended up taking Mark nearly thirty takes to get the first song recorded, and anywhere from seven to twelve per for most of the remaining songs. Remorse, with its fast crescendo at the end, caused more problems than any other song, requiring almost forty takes to finish, all while Phil grew more and more impatient, casually joking with his assistant, a young college-aged girl, that he "loved it when bands came into the studio" that "didn't have a clue what they were doing," saying all of this as if the group wasn't in the room. But finally, after their first weekend in the studio, the band had their drum takes finished, and some of Ben's bass tracks were snuck in as well. Ben, who was playing along with the drums, didn't have nearly the same difficulty that Mark had, not that anyone thought he was special for that.

The next weekend, Ben blasted through his remaining bass tracks, and then Cynthia finished most of her rhythm parts, requiring a few more takes than Ben, but ultimately nailing each song with laser-like precision. In the third weekend, it was Kyle's turn, performing his lead parts one day, and then his guitar solos, as well as a few overlapping segments, the next. Finally, the band reached their final weekend in the recording studio, devoted entirely to the vocals. By the time they'd reached this final phase, everyone had had their "fill of Phil," as Cynthia had put it. At one point, Ben had joked that the band should play a drinking game, where they'd tip a shot glass every time Phil Davies said the words "pro," "rad," "digital," or "mega," though George, only partially registering the humor, warned that they'd all likely die of alcohol poisoning if they gave it a go.

"Okay Cindy, that was great! Next song!"

"Uh, it's Cynthia. And that was one take. I was warming up... it sounded terrible."

"No, you were great!"

"If you do a playback I can show you where I was off. I really want to go again."

"Listen, Cynthia, trust me, that track was rad. I can fix it digitally. Don't worry kid, you're pro!"

"That was a three-fer!" Ben joked under his breath, prompting Kyle and Mark to fight off the urge to laugh aloud. "We'd be so wasted right now!"

"I really think I should..."

"Hey, sweetie, ever heard of auto-tune? Trust me kid, you got it."

"I don't want to be auto-tuned, Phil. Let me go again."

"Fine, fine, if you insist. It's your money."

"Wait, what's auto-tune?" George asked.

"I can use computer software to repair your singer's flubs. If she's off, the software will bring her singing up or down to the right notes. They call it pitch correction. But Cynthia here doesn't want to use it."

Phil queued Cynthia to go again, but her frustrations led her to a worse performance than her first attempt was. Several takes later, she felt like she'd finally conquered the song, but she wasn't as glad about having finished it as she was that this was their last week putting up with Phil Davies. The engineer had driven everyone off the wall, and no one had to say that they were never recording at "The Dungeon" again. When they recorded their second album, they'd need to shop around more. George felt particularly embarrassed about Phil Davies' practices. No one blamed him for the group's negative first experience in a recording, but George felt that as the group's manager, it was his duty to book them somewhere good, and at this, he felt like he had failed the band. And had he voiced this concern with the young musicians of Superhype, he was certain he probably would have heard several people agreeing with him.

On the first Thursday of May, Phil Davies called George Bellamy, reporting that the band's masters were finally completed, with ten free copies of the CD offered as a complimentary "please come back and record with us again" push, not that anyone in Superhype would ever consider recording there again. After having worked so hard and for so long, the band had decided to take the rest of the month of May off from rehearsals and gigging, resting up in preparation of their upcoming finals, but they all got together to listen to the masters at Kyle's house as soon as George brought them around. But as soon as the first track started, all of the cheer and excitement in the room was bled out, as they quickly realized that this "pro" recording studio wasn't actually as great as they'd been assured by Phil Davies. The drums sounded like they were made out of cardboard. The bass was dry and punchy. The guitars lacked any semblance of the silky, robust tone that their amps would have brought, had Phil allowed them to record the way they wanted to. But the most heartbreaking element of the album was the vocals. Cynthia sounded like she was singing from the end of a hallway, even though she'd been crammed into a tiny, coffin-like vocal booth to avoid exactly that. And even though she had insisted, if not demanded, that Phil not use auto-tune on her, auto-tune was used regardless, dampening the heart and soul Cynthia had crammed into her singing, and squeezing every last drop of passion from her words. When she intentionally scraped her voice along the pavement to evoke the adequate emotions of the words, Phil used a portion of a take where Cynthia's growl was absent... the takes that Cynthia didn't like, Phil decided to use. It made her sound less Joan Jett, and more Britney Spears... something that no one in Superhype, Cynthia in particular, was altogether happy with. They had been expecting the band's first album to sound spectacular; clean, crisp, silky, and of the same quality their favorite artists pulled off when they were in the studio. Instead, the album came across sounding generic, amateur, and as colorless as the recording studio itself was. But as frustrated as everyone in the band was with the final quality of the album, they couldn't afford to go into another studio and record something different. They were stuck with the album they had recorded, and nothing, as far as they could tell anyway, was going to improve their situation.

"Hey guys," George announced, walking into the Skylark diner with a smile and a skip in his step. "I've got some pretty good news for you!" It had been nearly a full month since they'd first heard their masters, and Phil Davies' handing them over was the last good thing any of them had heard, though that high note was wiped out when they finally heard their album. They'd sent copies of their masters out to a CD duplication company, called Oasis Disc Manufacturing, nearly a week earlier, with their parents chipping in together to get a thousand copies of the CD made, in jewel cases, and a thousand "digital download cards," which they'd use to sell their album online, but in-person at shows. Unless they'd saved a lot of money on the disc printing, none of them really felt that good news was waiting for them around the corner.

"Did Oasis set our masters on fire and re-record the album for us?" Ben asked, only half-kidding.

"Not quite... it's even better!" George took a seat, taking off his spring jacket and nodding at the waitress, who was marching over with a cup of coffee and a pastry for him, having well-established her customer's routine throughout the winter and spring. "Actually, it's two bits of good news, really. I'll save the best for last, though. First off, there's your album. I just got off the phone with Oasis about an hour ago. They have a mastering service at their company."

"George, it was already mastered, silly," Cynthia pointed out. "And I doubt that weasel Phil Davies kept our takes."

"Doesn't matter, gang! They gave the album a listen, and they said they can remaster the album using only what we gave them on the master discs. It's going to cost extra, but they'll let us listen to the fixes, and if we don't like it, we can run the original, and they won't charge us for it!"

"Wait... extra?" Mark asked, recognizing the fault in George's logic. "Our parents already paid for the studio time, and the disc printing. We don't have any more money to pay for anything extra."

"Don't worry gang, I've got it all worked out!" George reached into his pocket, pulling out a small envelope, and placing it on the table. "Guess what this is?"

"Naked pictures of you with Betty White?" Ben joked.

"I wish!" George proudly declared, apparently not noticing the puzzled and disgusted expressions sweeping across the faces of the teenagers in the booth. "Even better!" He paused, hoping someone would try to guess, but after a few moments, he decided to continue. "Do you kids know a girl named... let's see here... Krissy Campbell?"

"I do," Ben announced. "She's a cheerleader at BHS. Youngest girl accepted into Varsity cheer that year." Everyone stared blankly at him for a moment, including George. "What! I... I know some cheerleaders!"

"Anyway, her sixteenth birthday is coming up next week, the day after your graduation," George continued, eying Kyle and Ben to signify that it was their graduation he was specifically talking about. "and her parents are throwing her a `Sweet Sixteen' party."

"Don't tell me you booked us to that, George," Kyle replied. "That doesn't sound like `great news' to me."

"Yes, but I didn't finish yet, Kyle. This envelope contains a check. Her parents paid Superhype in advance for the performance. Are you sitting down?"

"Uh, yeah George, we're in a booth. You can see we're all sitting down."

"Okay Cynthia, okay! It's just a figure of speech! Anyway, guess what they're paying us?" Again, everyone went silent. "Five thousand dollars!"

"Get out of here!" Mark bellowed. "Five grand? For a birthday party?!"

"Not just any birthday party, Mark. A sweet sixteen birthday party! Her parents reached me at the music store. They said they wanted the biggest, most popular local band to perform, and they were willing to pay anything. When I told them that Superhype doesn't perform at private parties, they replied by offering the band two-thousand five hundred dollars. Before I could even say anything, they said `fine, five thousand,' and the father started writing a check! Can you believe it?"

"Man, what else are they doing at this party?"

" I'm not sure, Benjamin. But the mastering service would cost us about five-hundred dollars, plus another two hundred dollars for what they call an `album tune up.' So after that, you guys will still be making well over four thousand dollars... a thousand dollars to each of you!"

"What about your ten-percent, George?"

" Well, okay, other than that... yeah, so around a thousand dollars each. Not bad, is it?"

"I have to say, you outdid yourself this time, George!"

"Thanks Kyle. Now, let's order ourselves some food and start discussing the summer!"

With finals behind them and the summer quickly approaching, Superhype started planning the busiest, and possibly the most stressful, period of their young lives. In the upcoming summer months, they'd perform as many live shows as they could, and sell off as many CD's and digital downloads as possible, all leading up to what they hoped would be their first-ever tour. George had planned tours in the past, so their lineup of cities was easy for him to develop. The band wasn't going on a crazy, long-range tour, but a smaller, regional one, with stops that wouldn't take the band too far from home, or outside of the sort of reach they might reasonably have if they were to build fan bases outside of Binghamton. After a few hours of discussion, George had narrowed down the list of potential stops to a reasonably-close region. In the last week of July, Superhype would hit the road, heading to Ithaca, Syracuse, Buffalo, and Cleveland Ohio, before turning around and stopping in Scranton before returning to Binghamton. And just like that, over some lukewarm food and somewhat-flat cola, Superhype had designed their first tour.