Somewhat Moral
Equipment List
Audio Samples
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thoughts
I can count the number of ‘band’ music I have recorded on a single hand. Classical, Jazz and even some pop music is just a normal occurrence, but I have very little experience (though a lot of book-smarts) in rock band recording.
So what happens when one of my good buddies is in a band and we start talking after a few beers?..... next thing I know, I’m setting up a 16-track to blast the walls out of the School of Music.
Background: Matt [drummer] is a super longtime buddy. I met Dan [guitar/vocals] through Matt a few years ago when they lived next door..vertically… I’m still not sure who the bassist is.
This project was just fun to do… a great break between the daily bouncing of classical pieces. I had started to get involved in Jazz, but this defiantly cured my need for exploration. Now onto the session details.
We decided to record at the School of Music for two reasons:
1.) It was the day before and the room was ours while the studio at Com-Arts were not.
2.) I am very familiar with the building, room, and equipment. We could also record directly onto the Protools HD system without moving incredible amounts of equipment. Everything was already there.
Setup took a good 1 1/2 for mics and playback, giving another 3-ish hours of recording time. Initially isolation was thought to be a problem, but proved otherwise. I am not sure what these guys expected, but after seeing 10 mics on the drumset, and big huge mics on the guitar amps, I think they were pumped. Matt, the drummer, was geeking out pretty good 
I did the best I could with an array of professional-standard CLASSICAL mics, preams and plugins. After an equipment-check take, the guys came back up for a listen and…. wow…. were floored at what the dry mix sounded like. A little reverb on the drums and the drummer was in 80’s heaven. Some tweaking on the guitars and quick splicing and everyone was super-happy. All in a days work for me really; I’m used to picky professional faculty nit-picking takes and reverb, so it was wonderful to get the constant positive feedback from the guys.
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After the usual amount of editing and such, I had a friend in Pennsylvania training for studio work take some shots at the mix. The best line was “This mix really gave me back confidence in myself.“
Cue “Requiem for my Ego” please….
Needless to say, I went back to the drawing board, reseting everything. Then Dan and I did overdubs and guitar solos/double tracks at a church. Note to self - Check the lyrics before having the singer yell “...You Fucked Up my life….“ in a church. Session was done with the firewire hard drive, Protools LE with a Digi 002 and the usual 8 channel of Millennia preamps.
The final mix went much better, and thus is what you hear out in the world. Many things learned, and I hope to do more of this sort of work every so often in the future!
http://www.somewhatmoral.com
http://www.myspace.com/somewhatmoral
—Blair—
