Basic Tracks Down

Three pretty solid days of work. We put down the bulk of six tracks with just lead vox, keys, and some additional guitar parts to add in the coming week. We did indeed swap out the Vox for the Super for most of the main parts, but did lots of overlay with the AC30 for more snap, as well as a couple Leslie tracks. Relied pretty heavily on the two Gibsons for most of the main guitars with the Tele coming in on a few rhythm tracks and a couple flourishes. The Super was generally run straight in, the AC30 with a Beano Boost inline. Micing was pretty varied, but in general, the M88, Crowley & Tripp, and SM7b were the main go-to mics. KSM141s made a few appearances, the I5 once, and the EV 642 SpaceLaser5000 in one case. One track was done with heavy fuzz using the homebuilt Tele + barge Bee-Ba + Sound City with the SM7 in a 276. The Mercury m76m was definitely the primary preamp, with the Phoenix DRS generally #2 and almost any track using the Crowley mic was into the Altec 1566 slightly overdriven. Acoustic parts were done 451/m76. I'll dissect a song or two later... too much right now to type out as I'm wiped.

Bass was mainly direct v71/Sta Level; a 70s Ric was the #1 bass. We used the Tele on one track and an Ibanez semihollow on another. One track was done live through the Ampeg B25; others will be reamped later in the week.

Drums stayed as they were - the Jazz Fest snare never left the stand. For the last two tracks we changed out to the 26" kick - one was a White Stripes sounding stomping sort of song, the other more Spaghetti Western country, for which we dampened the kick a little taping a foam ring to the batter side and a felt flap on the res head. Micing changed for these tracks - 4047s came down, replaced by 141s in omni as stereo rooms on the floor and the Bova as a mono omni overhead. MD421 on the outside head, ATM25 on the batter, TM2 moved in to emphasize kick.

Coolest thing was doing tracks fully live - acoustic guitar and main vocal in one mic, a couple of us gathered around another singing backups. All moving into a hallway to record handclaps together. Just finding nice sounding spots, setting up a single mic, and playing to it. Lots of bleed. Sounds like... music!

Mixing & Prep ... back to life, eh?

Cranking through the Bellflur EP mixes - we were racing against the clock as we were using demo plugin EQs that expired within a week. Not the most ideal way to work. But with my two EQP1s down, we were short equalisers. Drums are sounding insane. Too insane. Have to reign in that low end...

Just finished prep for tomorrow's session with a group. We're using my li'l Gretsch kit for most of it - we may swap out to the 26" for something. Looks like the Jazzfest will be the primary snare, with the Oyster subbing in on a track or two. Dex retuned the kit for me today with his fancy planar torqualising tensionometer and fuck! It sounds amazing again. My tech notes:

Kick In is the ATM25 into the 2108 35/5, Kik Out SM7b into Sytek @ 3.5. FOK is the good ol' TM2/V76/EQP1 (got one working) w/ the 76 at 24/11:30/12 and the EQP1 +2 at 100 +4 at 5khz. OHs are 4047s in modified Glyn Johns formation into the Tele 276s. Rear room is GT-MD1A into Altec 1566a. Snare top M201/2108 35/7 / snare bottom I5/Sytek 2/inverted. Toms are M179s, floor in hyper and rack in cardioid to deal with cymbal placement. Both into the Sytek.

Guitars, thus far I've set up the AC30 in the side hallway for main rhythm tracks. We may swap out for the Super depending on the playing. The Vox is mic'd with an M88 into V76 18/4:00/5:00 and the Crowley & Tripp mic into the DRS pad in -40/2:00.

Got the Leslie and ES330 set up as well. He said he wanted late period Beatles, and dammit, I can do that. Also amazing what the basstraps did for the weird echoes in the room...

Also, happy birthday to me. Bought the URS Neve EQ and put in an inquiry with VK on a pair of Calrec AM16 33609s... yeah, like I can afford those...

note: I *hate* the compressed tonal range look thing in pictures. Don't think I do it because I like it. It's because the one thing it actually is good for is showing detail in shadows for technical documents. Fuck that garbage everywhere else.

note II: A few nights ago heard a band play called The War on Drugs who despite the shitty name are pretty amazing. Singer does the Dylan/Boss thing without sounding like a ripoff, meanwhile the band is massive walls of shimmering beautiful double drummed sound. Nice.