New Recording Adventures!

Today was quite a landmark day for recording for the band. We did a nearly 6 hour drum tracking session which yielded good takes for our song "I Can't Be Anybody Else," a song that is featured on our myspace page in a rehearsal version. Bass, guitar and vocals were tracked along with the drums to click track monitored through headphones. We decided to do it this way to give the track a more organic "live" feel, though the guitar, bass, and vocal parts will be redone through a series of overdubs to clean up the performance and allow the use of different microphones, amps and techniques. We started tracking a different version of "The Drifter" but did not get a useable take. We were all getting a little tired and burnt out, but now we're rather well rehearsed so we'll save that for another day.

Our friend Tom stopped by and did a little filming of the band... hopefully he'll take out the part where I'm talking. I've always been a little awkward in front of the camera.

Anyway here are some pictures of the session.

Alec about to wake up the neighbors. Modified Glyn Johns mic technique on drums.

Sennheiser MD421 on kick. Great punchy sound.

Top and bottom miking on snare with 2 SM57s. Make sure to use phase reverse on one of the mics to avoid phasing issues.

We tucked the guitar amp behind the bar in Mike's garage (and turned it very low) to help isolate it from the drum mics. Guitar was monitored through the headphone feed.

M-Audio Fast Track 8R Interface

Alec used his Mackie Mixer as a preamp for his bass guitar. The output of the mixer was then routed to a DI box which then sent the bass signal to the interface via XLR. Bass was monitored through headphones.

Tomorrow... GUITAR OVERDUBS.