How We Captured the Room Sound on Our Last Recording

When we set out to record our newest songs, we knew the room itself had to become an instrument. There is a weight that comes from hearing the air around a performance, the way walls breathe with the band. After years of chasing that atmosphere, we finally leaned all the way in. The result is a record that feels less like a snapshot and more like being in the room with us, whether you are listening from a flat in Perth or a share house in Brisbane.

The sessions took place across a couple of Australian studios we have been quietly obsessing over. We tracked most of the basics in a converted warehouse in Melbourne's inner north, then moved overdubs and vocals to a smaller room in Sydney. Both spaces had character, and we preserved what each gave us. Here is a walkthrough of how we approached the room sound, what gear we trusted, and where we let things breathe.

Picking the right room for the project

We toured spaces in Melbourne, including Sing Sing Studios and a few smaller rooms tucked behind factories in Brunswick. Each sang differently. Some had tight, controlled reflections, perfect for punchy drums. Others had a tail that kept rolling, and that is what we wanted for the heavier tracks. For the more delicate numbers we crossed town to a wood-lined room in Sydney that sounds like a warm cuppa on a cold winter morning.

We listened to each room on its own for a full afternoon before committing. We clapped, we played tracks through portable speakers, and we dragged a snare in and hit it once. By sunset we knew which room was ours, and we never looked back at the others.

Setting up room microphones

Once the rooms were picked out, the microphone plan became a map of the space. We used a stereo pair of ribbons high in the corners to catch the long reflections, plus a single dynamic near the drummer but angled away from the kit. The goal was to capture the air the band was pushing around, not just the instruments themselves.

In the Melbourne warehouse we ran a third mic down a hallway just to see what would come back. What came back was gold, a distant, smudged reverb that gave one chorus an almost stadium-sized feeling without ever leaving the room. It ended up louder in the final mix than either of us expected.

Tracking the band live together

We tracked almost everything live, with everyone in the same room, headphones up, amp levels hot, and the red light on. There is no pretending this is easy. People make mistakes, count-ins go wrong, guitars squeal. But the room catches all of it, and the bleed between guitars and drums is what gives a rock record its pulse.

We borrowed a tip from older Australian recordings and made sure nobody wore headphones in their left ear, letting the natural room wash over the left side of the mix before touching a fader. That move alone changed how the whole record breathed, and we never went back to closed sessions after that.

Mixing room and close signals

In the mix, the room sound got the same respect as any lead vocal. We sat with the engineer for late nights at a small desk in the Adelaide Hills, listening to the same chorus over and over and riding the room mic fader up until the air felt like it was sitting in the room with us.

We automated the room tracks so they swell during choruses and pull back during verses. APRA AMCOS royalty reports later confirmed what our ears already knew, those choruses were the parts fans kept replaying. The room sound was carrying the emotion without anyone really noticing it.

Happy accidents and the unexpected gift

A few moments from the sessions never made the final cut but still shaped how we hear the record. There was a chair that squeaked on the downbeat of the title track, a cough during a vocal take that turned into a ghost in the final mix, and one guitar amp that mysteriously caught a radio signal halfway through a take. None of it was planned. All of it stayed.

The same kind of beautiful chaos followed us to the stage too, as we wrote about in a recent journal entry on a joyful accidental mistake onstage. The lesson, again and again, is that rooms, like crowds, have opinions of their own.

Where we go from here

The record is heading toward mastering soon, and we are already talking about where to record next. There is talk of a coastal room near Byron, an old church in Hobart that a friend swears sounds like the bottom of the ocean, and a backyard shed in Geelong that has produced some wild demos. Whatever we choose, the room will lead.

That is the rule now. Close the mic preamps, open the windows, and let the building sing with us. We will carry that mindset into every session, every tour, and probably every argument about kick drums from here on out.

Studio photos, snippets from the sessions, and the full track listing will land on the news feed and socials over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out. Tickets for the upcoming run, including freshly announced Sydney and Melbourne dates, go on sale Friday. Grab a tee, a vinyl pre-order, or a signed setlist from the merch store before they sell out, and we will see you out there.