For fans of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky or ambient indie

[sonaboy]

.

This is a 3 song demo we cut for roughly $400 using a friends mobile audio station.
recorded in our practice space that's a 5000 sq. foor brick and concrete basement, with 15 foot ceilings.

drums are C&C custom shop, mapex snare
bass rig is Rickenbacker 4003, Ampeg SVT classic, Ampeg 8x10, Ibanez ts9DX
guitar rig PRS McCarty Standard, Zoom Ultra Fuzz, Boss DD5, Marshall vibratrem, Akai Headrush, Line 6 DL4, Mesa Dual Rec, Ampeg 4x12

mobile unit consists of (what i remember) - Nuendo, Mackie 1604VLZ, apogee 8 channel converter, some chinese Neumann mic clones, CAD drum mic set, and various Shure workhorses.

bitrate isn't so high on these...only 128 if i remember...
no digital reverb was used though, since we had more natural verb on tap than we knew what to do with.
http://www.aaaband.com/media.htm

[Rolsen]

Wow. I like this! I'm jealous of your bass sound - defined lows with a bell-like clarity. I would like to hear the drums a little bit 'closer' or 'bigger." Could you reveal how the guitar was recorded? Mic? At what distance from amp?

[outreachrecords]

yo i like this. any plans on releasing anything?
rock action is one of my favorite records
check out our band let me know what you think you might be into it.
www.thebitterlifetypecast.net

[sonaboy]

yo i like this. any plans on releasing anything?
rock action is one of my favorite records
check out our band let me know what you think you might be into it.
www.thebitterlifetypecast.net

thanks for the compliment - we are making a second, hopefully "label quality" demo at the end of Jan at Great Western Record Recorders studio in Champaign, IL (some of you may know that is the studio owned by Hum frontman Matt Talbot) with Paul Malinkowski behind the console. Paul is the bass player from the now defunct Shiner, on Desoto records.
after that, we'll begin talking to a few local labels to see if we can get anything distributed around the midwest.

we'll also be trying to swing out through the area to play some live shows - most likely through St. Louis, Chicago, and maybe as far out as Indiannapolis.
2 of the songs available on our site currently will be redone at GMRRecorders, and when they're done, i'll repost some new audio.

heading off to check out your music now...

[sonaboy]

Wow. I like this! I'm jealous of your bass sound - defined lows with a bell-like clarity. I would like to hear the drums a little bit 'closer' or 'bigger." Could you reveal how the guitar was recorded? Mic? At what distance from amp?

yes - the bass tuning most likely has something to do with that.
Scott tunes low to high C - A - C - A, and plays with a very soft pick - the rest of the sound is most likely the room. the bass rig was set almost against the wall facing diagonally into the room where it doesn't even get reflected until about 20 yards in, by a solid concrete pillar about 4 feet in diameter. after that, it's got another 40 yards before it hits the front wall, which has some complex chambers in it, due to the elevator shaft and the building's front stairwell that intersects the structure at about a 50 degree angle.
our engineer placed 2 mics in the farthest corner about 8 feet off the ground, and in another brick room about 6x4 feet. so lots of tones bouncing around there. the main mic directly on the cab was I believe an AKG D112. i don't think our engineer used a DI feed for the bass, but i'm not positive.

the guitar was done with the mic backed off the grill (because i do a lot of quick, light picking to get those swelled notes, and we wanted to make sure that we didn't get the initial attack of the notes, but the resonance). so the mic was done both with a regular SM57 about 1 foot off, offcenter facing in at the speaker bell. a second pair was setup much like the bass was captured, with the ambient mics set up in corners picking up various tones and whatnot. the engineer was pretty conservative about mixing those channels into the sound though - not that much is in there for me.
lastly, we had a condenser straight out front of the 4x12 cab set about thigh high, 6 or 8 feet away - i believe that one was an AKG C4000B.
the heavier parts of dear dead person and sleepyhead were backed up with just some basic chording done through a Line 6 Pod, set to the model that's supposed to be a Vox, i think. i kept switching back from the marshall model to the vox, just for kicks. the distortion was set pretty low, anyway, since we were after some thickness.

dear dead person also had a dry signal with no effects on it (i leave my DD5 and Line 6 DL4 on almost all the time) to clarify the picking parts during the verses.

lastly - the drums sound a bit far off, because not every single drum Dave had was miked up. he also played with soft mallets on some parts, and those reed sticks on a lot of the other parts. i think they're called HotSticks.
his idea behind that was, he's more interested in getting the tone of the drum, rather than the attack.
SM57 on the snare, Shure Beta 52A in the kick hole, positioned to avoid the initial attack of the batter, the AKG condenser facing the kit 4 feet out, knee high to get the thump of the kick, and some of the toms, and two mics in stereo field 8 feet off the floor behind the drummer to get the rest.
i don't remember what brand the stereo field mics were, they were the Neumann clones our engineer picked up for cheap. Chinese manufactured.
drums were put almost dead center, with brick on 3 sides 20 yards away each side, concrete floor, concrete facing wall 45 yards away, and painted wood ceilings 15 feet up.

this was all done in one day, very quickly, so some of my memory is cloudy, just because we didn't really try that many mic positions, or do many takes.
but i'll definitely say we got our money's worth from this guy.

thanks for the compliments..

[sonaboy]

yo i like this. any plans on releasing anything?
rock action is one of my favorite records
check out our band let me know what you think you might be into it.
www.thebitterlifetypecast.net

very nice sounds you're getting - it reminds me very much of a local band here called Appleseed Cast. ever heard them?
they opened for Spiritualized for a few select dates on their Let It Come Down tour through the states.

what are you playing in these?

[outreachrecords]

yes we like them alot and saying we sound like them is a huge compliment. i have low level owl volume 1 and 2, its amazing.
thanks again and good luck with you band.

[Brett Siler]

I really liked your guys stuff! Especially Dear Dead Guy

[sonaboy]

I really liked your guys stuff! Especially Dear Dead Guy

thank you - the text of that story was written by a guy in NYC called Ben Weissman as a short story of the same name, in a book of the same name.
unfortunately, the publishing label is no longer around, and the book is probably out of print.
that guy has a very twisted sick mind and is probably working in daycare these days.
hah