Howdy folks.
The strangest thing has been happening for a week...no gigs. It's a weeeird feeling :-)
We had put this time aside for the album fixing and mixing, but still, it's weeeird. We're not playing live until the Yackandandah Folk Fest (3 gigs) and thereafter we go back into a busy period of gigging, but still...
Ok, so what's been happening.
We circulated the desk mixes last week and the boys have all had a chance to listen to the songs at their leisure and start making notes. If you want to spot one of the band members, look for guys driving around in cars listening intently to their CD player and making notes at traffic lights :-)
As they've now had a chance to form their own opinions, without undue influence from me, I can now mention a few of my own thoughts.
1.Equalisation of the vocals?
We're not sure if the EQ unit in the Vocal chain performed correctly - Pete is a little worried about a few of the frequencies.
Poor Pete, I accept the blame here. We made him leave the nice, predictable surrounds of his studio and rig a guerilla makeshift studio in the middle of nowhere...well, not exactly 'nowhere' but the mental image is illustrative.
Given the time pressures and constraints of our resources, we didn't have the luxury of setting every instrument and sound to absolute perfection.
It was easier with Carl's Chair, as it was more or less acoustic and recording in the open air is OK for sound (if you don't mind wind, rain, birds and bugs).
One of the issues Pete faced during the mixing of Carl's Chair was 'Spill' (instruments being picked up on the tracks of other instruments - vocals in the drum mikes, drums in the vocals etc).
This makes it difficult to replace stuff in the studio, but then again, Carl's Chair was always intended as a 'Live' style album - yes we did replace bits, but most of the studio stuff was adding to the songs, such as the Slide figures on 'Company of a friend' (Paul cant play slide and mandolin at the same time...yet).
In our sound design setup for this recording, we made great efforts to get 'separation' - the guitar amps were outside the room, in sound reduction cabinets, the vocals were down the other end of the house and the Bass was a direct input, as was the Harmonica.
Listening to the desk mixes, the spill problem has been dealt with.
Whether we got the perfect EQ and compression on the vocals is up for debate - Pete would have needed much more time to make sure the vocal recording environment was perfect - I know there are quite a few takes with the sounds of Rain forest Birds in the background, which may or may not be a problem. Ok, probably will be a problem.
However, that's OK. We knew that our time was limited, we we structured the sound design so that we could replace anything that might go wrong, in studio. The crucial element was getting the drum and bass sound, everything else could be replaced, but the preference was to get a good take on location.
For any other 'self producers' (you have my sympathies), this becomes a judgement call. Cost, time, mental states, logistics, technical stuff, all of these things will need to be prioritised and balanced within your means and resources. My guiding principal was to secure Bass, Drums, try to get some good and usable takes of guitars and vocals and manage the spill so that we could replace stuff in the studio, if needed.
2. Desk Mixes have no colour
We're listening to desk mixes without effects and treatments and almost no mixing. That means you need a little imagination to hear what the tracks might sound like after you've messed with them.
However, some tracks come out more or less right just as they are. 'Even in a lifetime' and 'South of the Border' both came out pretty much fully formed. I can hear them sounding the way I had expected.
For other songs, such as Feel So Blue, Road Rise Up and a few others, the guitars don't have the same nice room sound of the Drums - to quote Rosie, 'they sound like they've been recorded in a box'. And he'd be right. they were recorded in a box...well we prefer the term 'sound reduction cabinet' - but the tone of the amp is there, it just needs 'placement' in the recording so that all the instruments sound like they're int he same room.
3. Technical glitches.
On one track, I can hear the sound of people talking outside the house. The borrowed microphone we had was, as previously blogged, remarkably powerful.
One of the crackles and pops from the early recording sessions, before we worked out the latency issue, is still audible on 'Same Old Blues', but fortunately it's before the song actually starts, but during a part where we had hoped to have some intro slide guitar.
As previously mentioned, Pete's worried about some of the equalising on the vocals, but that's OK, and everything else seems to have worked as predicted.
4. Performances
OK on that front. There's some guitar work to be looked at and some alternative rhythm and Bass elements to look at. This is normal and expected. Just because you think something is working may not prove to be the case, upon reflection. That's the whole reason for going through the review process.
I must make mention of The Machine (Theo). His stuff was flawless. Spooky.
5. Musical Arrangements
We have two versions of Suit Yourself, and I see merit in both of them. We may wind up with two releasable versions, or one release and a special 'alternate' mix for those who are keen :-)
6. Next Steps.
In the coming week, we'll start adding in Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar and start looking at the vocals, harmonica, and rhythm guitar. I'll post some pics and vids as we keep going.
