The majority of
Six was written from scratch after Mansun returned from their
Attack of the Grey Lantern tour. In 2018, Draper noted about the writing process: Wanting to capitalise upon their increasing live skills, the band recorded the basic tracks on
Six live in the studio, firstly at
Liverpool's Parr Street Studios and then later at
London's
Olympic Sound Studios. Chad said: "There's a lot of horrible, dirty sounds on there as a result. There's all sorts of spill – guitars over the drum takes, drums over the bass – purely because we were just in a room together. I think that if a producer had tried to clean it up and separate it all, it just wouldn't have the same feel." After the basic tracks were recorded, the group added on the album's "nutsy effects," a lot of which were
guitar effects. The band decided that if any of them wrote a new idea to jam, such as a riff, they also had to create a new guitar sound. They repeatedly used the
TC Electronics Fireworx, a then-new rack processor which contributed to some "fantastic sounds." Chad said that "it doesn't so much process the sound of the guitar as completely change it. On some patches the notes you fret just trigger sounds; it's quite random." Other pedals used include a
Colorsound Tone Bender, a
Daddy-O, an
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a
Rat fuzz and, in helping to achieve a "really shitty chorus sound," a vintage Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory. In addition to usage of the
Eventide DSP4000 and Bell BF20 flangers, the band also put Chad's guitar through a
Korg synthesiser on occasion while messing around with the synth's filters, while having to tape one of the synthesiser's keys down prior to playing guitar through it. Draper also used the Roland G-707, an early
guitar synthesiser ("It's been mostly old gear, but new sounds,") while Chad developed a liking for using
vari-speed techniques when recording, "slowing the tape down to half-time, transposing the guitar line down about four semi-tones and then playing it back at normal speed. It all helps make the tones interesting." ==Composition==