The Drama Continues: Rings of Saturn Guitarist Refutes Accusation that Band Recorded Album at Half-Speed, Accuser Fires Back
UPDATE, 1:38pm EST: Dingir recording engineer Robert Velasquez Swanson, from Mayhemness Recording Studios in Sacramento, CA, has issued a statement of his own to back up Rings of Saturn’s claims. That statement has been added to the bottom of this post.
Original Post:
Rings of Saturn guitarist Lucas Mann has sent a statement exclusively to MetalSucks refuting the claim by Brian Shields, published earlier today, that the band recorded their new album Dingir at half-speed. Here’s the money quote if you don’t feel like reading all of the below text: “–NOTHING– is recorded on Embryonic Anomaly or Dingir in half speed.”
Here is Mann’s statement in full:
You recently posted this article pertaining to my band Rings of Saturn. Brian Shields has a personal vendetta against the band, and constantly makes false claims about us in order to slander us because we had kicked out a past member of the band that he was friends with.
I attached some screen shots that refute the claims made against us. Many people saved this convo before we proved him wrong and he ultimately deleted the thread. This is what the expanded comment said, which is the most important one. The band, our recording studio, and our label ALL acknowledge that our album was recorded in full speed and in honesty and we hope that you will be sensitive about the personal information in these screenshots and drop the claims against us publicly on your site.
Thank you.
“lol wow, I came back online, and this post has reached nearly 500 comments. It seems that I actually DO need to shed some light on all of this.
Brian, you seem to think that I sent you a message through my girlfriend, who is the “third party” you mentioned above. Fact is, she hit you up without my knowledge on her own accord because she has seen you constantly bashing on the band in the past, and like others, wanted to know what you thought of the new record, and to see if maybe your opinion has changed of the band. It obviously hasn’t, and you have resorted to originally listening to our ex drummer about how GUITARS were recorded for apparently both albums.
Which brings me to the second fact. Brent was not even at the studio when guitars were tracked for Embryonic Anomaly, and was out of the band years before Dingir was even tracked, so he literally has NO IDEA how they were recorded. But because he has ill feelings towards the band, he obviously will say that they are all fake on both albums in an attempt to bash the band.
Third fact is quite simply that my girlfriend didn’t record our album dude lol a professional recording engineer did, and I don’t think that a recording engineer would put their reputation on the line with a band coming in saying that they wanted to record an ENTIRE album in half speed. My girlfriend doesn’t know anything about recording a band in a studio, and lives in South Carolina, so like Brent, she wasn’t there in the studio during tracking either. I mean, just look at the main point of her quote that you are trying to use and break it down a bit. “That’s a recording technique all members did for clarity in the album.”
Would recording vocals in half time improve clarity on an album? No, that would be almost impossible to do because Ian would have had to hold his screams for twice as long while pronouncing words twice as slow, it would sound retarded. Would recording drums half time improve clarity of an album? No, that would be even harder for a drummer to pull off because the playing would have a totally unnatural feel at that slow speed, and every crash, ride, china, hi-hat, and splash would all sound like a bunch of little fast mini cymbal swells all over the place. Finally would recording guitars in half time improve the clarity of an album? God no, it would literally sound like when you fast forward a tape, all the rhythm notes would be higher pitches, and vibrato would be twice as fast and way unnatural, same goes for bass. What I am trying to point out is that, If a band did this, it would be blatantly obvious and would not be something that was disputed in a thread over 400 comments long. Like I said earlier, my girlfriend obviously lacks knowledge on the subject of recording of a band in a studio.
The fourth fact, is that in your guy’s convo, YOU told her that we recorded in half time in your messages and that you had a problem with it when she asked you why you didn’t like the album. She RESPONDED saying the quote above out of lack of knowledge of how it was actually recorded. She believed what you were saying about us and didn’t think you would mislead her. She didn’t “admit” anything to you. Then you paraded around with what she said as some sort of truth. This type of method where things are taken out of context to make people believe what you want them to is one of the main methods used by news channels like Kron 4, Fox News, CNN, etc. no surprise seeing it used here.
And finally the fifth fact. –NOTHING– is recorded on Embryonic Anomaly or Dingir in half speed. That is just absurd and it would ultimately sound terrible for the reasons I have stated above. That is my word, that is our recording engineers word, and for those of you who say we can’t play our songs, I have linked videos of each of our band members preforming our material with ACTUAL audio from their instruments to further refute your claims.
Guitarists Joel and Lucas playing Seized and Devoured out of shitty 15 watt yamaha practice amps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P8AhBjEytP0Sean playing bass over annihilating the pure, I do not know what amp he is using
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoYJbh0kFoQ&list=UUPqlYMF6p15zGb4GX3MFK6w&index=4&feature=plcpIan playing drums to Objective to Harvest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfGU21ELD6sIan doing vocals for Annihilating the Pure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnHwiuTNj8w&list=UUPqlYMF6p15zGb4GX3MFK6w&index=10&feature=plcpThose are my statements, please don’t tell me that you are going to make another claim about how we practice at half speed in the future now too haha
So, there you have it. The band denies having recorded any of their past two albums at half-speed.
To make matters a little more interesting, Brian Shields updated his Facebook page with a new post addressing the situation:
My reply to Metalsucks:
All I asked from the beginning was for Lucas Mann to confirm or deny the statement that was attributed to him. For the longest time he played coy, like he was above it all. Now that he says it’s not true, I have no personal evidence one way or the other to confirm or deny it.
As I said in the thread, I’m not saying that people should or should not like this band based on whether they play at full speed, only that the band should not mislead the public about it. Given Luke’s vehement denials that he authorized the statement given to me by his girlfriend, I leave it to the listener to judge the authenticity of this record.
Given that the statement attributed to Luke is in question, I’ve deleted the thread. Thanks to everyone who participated.
(BTW, for the record Brent and Peter are two of my dearest friends in the world but neither is sitll a member of Rings of Saturn but that’s a discussion for another day and another forum.)
Brian
The irony of all ironies is that, no matter whether they did or did not actually record at half speed, Rings of Saturn win out here despite Shields’ attempts to cut them down; the band just received a shitload of unintended publicity for their new album. All press is good press.
Here is a screen shot of a post by Dingir recording engineer Robert Velasquez Swanson’s Facebook page that defends Rings of Saturn’s position. We do not have access to his Facebook account, so this screen cap sent to us by the band will have to suffice:
