Editing Dude Ranch (album) (section)

== Recording and production ==
{{Quote box
 |quote  = We write simple songs. In fact, the best songs are the ones that happen immediately and spontaneously. If you work on a song for weeks and weeks, you're forcing it...Every song has its own creation story. Sometimes someone comes to practice with a complete song. Other times we only have a riff, and we hammer out the right words. Mostly, we just screw around until inspiration hits.
 |source = Hoppus on the band's songwriting techniques.<ref name="modern">{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GQ8EAAAAMBAJ&q=blink+182+dude+ranch&pg=PA73|title=The Modern Age|last=Bell|first=Carrie|magazine=Billboard|publisher=Prometheus Global Media|date=February 21, 1998|access-date=January 5, 2013}}</ref>
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The band were afforded more time to record than previous endeavors, and were listening to music such as [[Jawbreaker (band)|Jawbreaker]], [[Bad Religion]] and [[Lagwagon]], which influenced the album.<ref name=shooman40>Shooman, 2010. p. 40</ref> For production duties, the band worked with [[Mark Trombino]], who provided additional piano and keyboards on ''Dude Ranch''.<ref name=shooman40/><ref name="linernotes"/> The band were initially slated to record with another producer,<ref name="Drummer 2016">{{cite web | last=Drummer | first=Modern | title=Drive Like Jehu's Mark Trombino | website=Modern Drummer Magazine | date=March 27, 2016 | url=https://www.moderndrummer.com/2016/03/drive-like-jehus-mark-trombino/ | access-date=May 19, 2023}}</ref> but picked Trombino because of his familiarity with the studio itself, his major-label know-how, and the work he had done on [[Jimmy Eat World]]'s ''[[Static Prevails]]'' (1996).<ref name="Gordon 2022">{{cite web | last=Gordon | first=Arielle | title=The Ten Producers Who Defined the Sound of Emo | website=The Ringer | date=July 29, 2022 | url=https://www.theringer.com/music/2022/7/29/23282831/emo-producers-j-robbins-sarah-tudzin-mark-trombino | access-date=May 19, 2023}}</ref><ref name=p71>Hoppus, 2001. p. 71</ref> The band first met Trombino through their friendship with San Diego punk band Fluf.<ref name="Drummer 2016"/> The group spent time trying to amuse Trombino, to no avail. Hoppus' sister, Anne Hoppus, described Trombino as very quiet during the sessions.<ref name="p71"/> Trombino, in a retrospective piece about the album, mentioned that he was "excited, but also nervous and intimidated. I felt weird that there were these guys who had sold way more records than I had ever sold and I'm sitting in the producer's chair telling them what to do."<ref name="20thmtv">{{cite news|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/3021959/blink-182-dude-ranch-twenty-years/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170621223014/http://www.mtv.com/news/3021959/blink-182-dude-ranch-twenty-years/|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 21, 2017|title= Back On The Dude Ranch: Blink-182's Breakthrough Record Turns 20|website=[[MTV]].com|author=Maria Sherman|date=June 21, 2017|access-date=September 25, 2018}}</ref> ''Dude Ranch'' was recorded at Big Fish Studios in [[Rancho Santa Fe, California]] in December 1996.<ref name="linernotes1">{{cite AV media notes | title=Apple Shampoo - Single | year=1997 | work=[[Blink-182]] | type=liner notes | publisher=[[Cargo Music]] / [[MCA Records]] | location=[[Australia]] | id=RAP023}}</ref> Big Fish was a converted guesthouse which had just survived a wildfire months before.<ref name=p69>Hoppus, 2001. p. 69</ref> However, the gloomy atmosphere did not faze Blink-182 at all, and what was a tragedy to local individuals became fodder for jokes for the group. Bassist Mark Hoppus had just bought a new video camera and he filmed stunts with guitarist Tom DeLonge on the burnt landscape in spare time.<ref name=p70>Hoppus, 2001. p. 70</ref> Despite this, Trombino was impressed by their work ethic: "They were the most business-centric band I'd ever seen at that point. They had their shit together."<ref name="20thmtv"/>

Despite the creative boom while writing lyrics for the album, all three members of Blink-182 faced setbacks while recording ''Dude Ranch''. DeLonge was having vocal problems and spent much time recording and re-recording vocal tracks, and Hoppus realized he too was having difficulty singing after losing his voice during a one-off [[Christmas]] concert.<ref name=p72>Hoppus, 2001. p. 72</ref> Hoppus realized the magnitude of the situation and cancelled the final week of recording in December 1996. He quit smoking in order to take care of his voice, which was stressed due to lack of vocal warm-ups, full days of vocal tracks, and the strain of singing for "Dammit", which was accidentally written just outside his vocal range.<ref name="p72"/> Meanwhile, Raynor had to record his drum tracks while still in his wheelchair, the result of injuries sustained at the signing party.<ref name="p72"/> He would wheelchair up to the drum set and scoot onto the drum throne and play," remembered Trombino in a later interview. "I got the sense that [the band] were bummed."<ref name="20thmtv"/> Aside from the recording, the band spent time playing ''[[Crash Bandicoot (video game)|Crash Bandicoot]]'' and "reading the articles from the shelves and shelves of ''[[Playboy]]''s that the studio had thoughtfully provided."<ref name="shooman40"/> The group ate lunch nearly each day at Sombrero, a local [[Mexican cuisine|Mexican restaurant]] namedropped in "[[Josie (Blink-182 song)|Josie]]", and [[Chinese cuisine|Chinese]] for dinner from [[Encinitas]]' [[Pick Up Stix]].<ref name="p70"/>

It would be January 1997 by the time the band was able to wrap up sessions for ''Dude Ranch'', eventually amounting to five weeks of recording.<ref name="totalguitar"/> For the final touches, [[Unwritten Law]] frontman Scott Russo donated a few vocal tracks to "Josie", and Trombino let Blink-182 record a couple of jokes between songs using a sound-effects machine he owned.<ref name="p74"/> The group contacted [[Fletcher Dragge]] of Pennywise to find someone to remix a few tracks from the album, and he suggested [[Donnell Cameron]] of Track Recording Studios. The band went in to Track and re-recorded Raynor's drum tracks for several songs.<ref name="shooman40"/> Representatives from MCA dropped by on occasion and seemed excited by the material they heard.<ref name=shooman41>Shooman, 2010. p. 41</ref> "When we were in there mixing, the A&R person would come by," remembered Cameron. "I don't think the band really knew what they had but certainly the label knew they had so many good songs on the record."<ref name="shooman41"/> DeLonge remembered it differently: "[Label executives] fucking hated pop-punk. They wanted nothing to do with it. They were into [[Pavement (band)|Pavement]] or whatever."<ref name="AP07">{{cite news|title=Class of 1997: Blink-182, ''Dude Ranch''|volume=230|author=Scott Heisel & Trevor Kelley|work=[[Alternative Press (music magazine)|Alternative Press]]|pages=100–01|issue=2|date=September 2007}}</ref> A funny story happened upon  the executives' first listen to the album, according to Hoppus:
{{cquote|When [we] went into the label to present ''Dude Ranch'', a handful of people came, and they sat down, and we started playing the record, and people were like on their [[BlackBerry|Blackberries]], and then people were like, 'Oh, I gotta take this call, or I got a meeting,' and they'd stand up and walk away. And by the time we were four or five songs in, it was literally just [Tom], me, and Scott sitting there by ourselves, looking around and nobody even listened to it. So we just took the cassette, got back in the car, drove back to San Diego.<ref name="Jovanović 2021">{{cite web | last=Jovanović | first=Marko | title=Tom DeLonge Tells Mark Hoppus What He Thinks About Him, Recalls 'A Lot of Stress' After Iconic Blink-182 Album | website=Music News @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com | date=August 10, 2021 | url=https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/tom_delonge_tells_mark_hoppus_what_he_thinks_about_him_recalls_a_lot_of_stress_after_iconic_blink-182_album.html | access-date=May 19, 2023}}</ref>}}
After production completed, the album was mastered by [[Brian Gardner]] at [[Bernie Grundman|Bernie Grundman Mastering]] in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]].<ref name="linernotes">{{cite AV media notes | title=Dude Ranch | year=1997 | work=[[Blink-182]] | type=liner notes | publisher=[[Cargo Music]] / [[MCA Records]] | location=[[United States|US]] | id=CRGD-11624}}</ref> In 2001, Hoppus recalled, "I remember when we finished ''Dude Ranch'' I was so proud. That was the first time we could take the time and whatever to make a good record."<ref name=p74>Hoppus, 2001. p. 74</ref>  In addition to the record, Trombino produced "[[I Won't Be Home for Christmas]]", a [[Christmas music|Christmas song]] recorded during the ''Dude Ranch'' sessions.<ref name="christmas">{{cite AV media notes | title=Josie (Everything's Gonna Be Fine - Single | year=1998 | work=[[Blink-182]] | type=liner notes | publisher=[[Cargo Music]] / [[MCA Records]] | location=[[United States|US]] | id=CRGDM-55513}}</ref>