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!