End of Time Productions was founded in 1998 by Justin Moats and is currently located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The studio was previously located in Port Huron and Roseville, Michigan.
Justin records all the music on the label from his computer, other than Alien Conspiracy Theory, which is recorded by Matt Miller on his mixing board, then digitally remastered by Justin, again on his computer. Justin first started an interest in music production about 7 years ago, on an Amiga 500 with the 4 channel music sampling program Sonix, then got a MIDI card and was programming MIDI files with keyboards in the Blue Ribbon Software program, Bars and Pipes. Around 1998, he started getting seriously interested when he met Jerry Steingruber, and started jamming with him and recording on a 4 track. That setup lasted until 2000, when the Amiga's MIDI card bit the dust, and he got a new computer system and a bunch of music programs with the money he was making from his job at the time. One of the first programs he got was Acid Music, which he messed around in for about a month before deciding he didn't like that the program just used public domain loops for creating music, because he couldn't stand when he'd hear rap groups ripping off old 80's songs, adding new vocals and making millions of dollars for music they didn't write. That same philosophy went towards his interest in electronic music, where most techno would be the same repetitious beats in 90% of the music. Instead of wasting the Acid Music program because the loops, he used it as a multichannel mixer and recorded his own music with keyboards, guitars and microphones. In 2001, he discovered the tracking program FruityLoops, which allowed him to create his own drum beats, music and butcher the samples. He still uses the combination of FruityLoops and Acid to this day, along with Steinberg's WaveLab and CoolEdit Pro 2 for additional sound manipulations.
The hardware setup consists of a Pentium 800mhz PC, 256 Megs RAM, 200 Gig hard drive, an internal 52x CD burner, ATI Rage video card, a Shure microphone, MIDI cables, a Yamaha DJX2 used mostly as a MIDI controller, a Tradition electric guitar, a Digitech multieffects, a VCR (video samples) and tons of movies.
The recording process generally begins in FruityLoops Studio to lay down some initial drum and synth tracks. Then I save that out as a WAV and load it into Acid Music Pro, where I record vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc. I save each of those files out as WAV's and load them into CoolEdit Pro to clean them up and add effects as needed. Then I reload the WAV's into FruityLoops, do more programming, and add effects and resave the WAV's with the changes. Then I load them back into Acid Music to mix the volume levels of each track. It's a lot less complicated than it sounds, but pretty time comsuming.
For recording samples, all the audio equipment here is always connected to the PC. The chain of audio wires goes from the VCR, to the stereo, the stereo to the 4 Track (which is just used as a patch bay), the 4 track to the computer, where it's then recorded in CoolEdit Pro, cleaned up, effects added, the outputed back to another surround sound stereo system.
For vocals, a lot of TechniKILL ones are recorded through the Korg Pandora's Box for distortion. Other ones are just recorded directly to the computer and the FX are done in the software. For 999 Gods, Shannon sings all the vocals direct to the computer unprocessed and I do all the manipulating there. Also another note, we don't use much delay on vocals, they're generally 3 seperate vocal takes, each one sung slightly different, or with different effects on different takes.
AfterBirth and The Closest Thing II Rap are the only real exceptions to this process. There I just come up with some stuff in FruityLoops and turn in into a WAV, and load it into Acid Music, where the 10+ layers of vocals are recorded. The only effects used are either through the Korg, or done with Sonic Foundry's FX plugins in Acid Music. The vocal levels are mixed down for about 10 minutes. Just enough to sound as raw as possible without totally sounding godawful, then it's saved out as it is, and that's the finished version. The bands are just fun stuff to mess around. If more than an hour is spent on a song, it looses it's chaotic edge. If you think it sounds like shit and makes your ears bleed, eyes implode and stomach flip over, that's awesome. Send us some pics of you covered in blood and vomit and they'll be posted to the site!
If you have any more questions, feel free to email me and I'll either reply to you directly, or post it to the site.
