I know I haven't been that active around here in a while. I do lurk a bit and interject useless comments from time to time, but have been spending more time just seeing what others have to say.
Anyhoo... I just recorded a new 3 tune EP for my new-ish soul-ish jazz-ish whatever-ish band. My current studio's really small and kind of crappy sounding so I moved everything over to my wife's new art gallery space. As a drummer and recorder of said drums I tend to be afraid or at least weary of overly reverberant spaces but I faced my demons and went for it.
Originally, my plan was to use my Tascam 388, but after pulling it out of storage it seems it's not working right now and I didn't have time before the session to deal with trying to figure out what was wrong, so I just hauled my computer and Toft board over to the space.
The instrumentation is Alto Sax, Bass Clarinet, Accordion, Electric Guitar, Upright Bass and Drums. All recorded live, except the percussion (bells, tamborine) which I overdubbed later.
And, of course, this was masterfully mastered by Scott Craggs, who never ceases to amaze me with how well he always seems to get how the music's supposed to sound.
HERE'S THE MUSIC!!!
First a Duke Ellington tune, Fleurette Africaine. Then a very old original of mine, Gobble Gobble Gobble. Lastly a funky Hank Mobley number, Hi Voltage.
Here's a shot of the main part of the gallery when it's not being used by me... This is where I ended up putting the horns mostly
for some reason this photo link isn't working in the post but you should be able to click through to it:
http://www.trbimg.com/img-5241dad3/turb ... n--001/600
When I started setting up, the big room seemed too washy for the drums so I put the drums in this back room, where they seemed to sound the best. Those two little passageways in the back lead to an office to the right, where I stuck the bass and accordion, and a storage area to the left where I put the guitar amp.
I didn't get alot of shots with things set up but here's a few.
Horns surrounded by blankets and going into an AEA r88
Drums in Glynn Johns-esque style, with an omni dynamic as a "heart" mic
Nobody puts bass-ey in a corner.... except me.
421 shoved into the endpin pointing up
You can just barely see the CAD e-100 on the bottom that I used to record the accordion
If it weren't for the drums, separation would've been no problem. I was really happy with how the individual instruments sounded, and I loved the way the drums sounded through their mics, but got a bit overwhelmed at the onset with how much they got into all the other instrument mics, except the guitar amp mic which remained almost completely isolated. A lot of tweaking with EQ and soul searching later I think I found a balance between what I expected to hear in my head and what was there to deal with on the recording.
Gobble Gobble Gobble has the setup as it looks above.
For Fleurette, I brought the accordion into the big room to record into the stereo ribbon, and put the bass clarinet on the CAD e-100 in the same room as the bass.
And for Hi Voltage, I had both horns and accordion around the r-88 since they were all playing that same figure together anyway...
OK. Hope you enjoy it!
