some sound samples
they were basically picked because
the band sounds good in these particular
parts
they don;t necessarily showcase my
accordion playing, per se, or my singing
some of it is me singing, some not
i also play triangle and rubboard on a couple
tracks, that are not in the clips
Could you describe the recording process a little - as in was it grueling, or maybe you just waltzed in and turned on the recorder and were done 3 hours later. Was it done "live in the studio" or a lot of takes/overdubs, etc.
Just curious. My recording experiences are limited, and it's interesting to hear some of the war stories.
it was
well
expensive
$50 an hour
for a guy who was pretty good
his studio is his basement
he has a ton of fancy mics and electronics
and protools on his recording computer
we did it all in about 60 hours
from walk-in to final mix done
recording was
one 9 hour session for all instrumental tracks
including scratch vocals for
place holding
after that, individuals or pairs went in to do their
solo parts [mostly guitar, though i
recorded harmonica on 1 song, and triangle on 1
during that]
there were some do-overs but not that many
we didn;t want it [or couldn;t afford for it to be]
perfect on vocals
mixing was about 20 hours i think
the hardest thing was getting drums right
partly because that is always hard, and partly
because our drummer wanted a mic on every drum,
which is possible, but we hadn;t said that, so
the engineer was set up for
kick
snare/hi hat
2 overhead mics
as a compromise, he added 2 mics on tom toms
but not the 5-6 more it would have taken to get
one everywhere
it sounds fine to everyone but the drummer
i recorded accordion using my internal pickups
probably should have done it with fancy studio mics
acoustically
but that would have added to the recording time
tremendously
since with an internal mic, you can record
the accordion with live drums in the same room
which is what we did
it sounds ok, and i did want internal mic sound
but it;s not really what i wanted, in retrospect
i think most 'real' records are made
the expensive way - not using the internal
pickups
or maybe they record internal and external sounds
then blend
we finished it all in a month, which meant a lot
of time spent on it in that month
we were also playing about 3x a week that whole
month
so it was pretty intense
none of it was unpleasant, just expensive
i never did know either, still don;t, if we could
have got what we needed for less per hour
it;s hard to find out what a studio can really
do until you actually use them for the whole process
kind of like picking a dentist
the cost of information [ how good is he? ]
is quite high
Larry just wanted to drop you a line and tell you your project sounds real good. Yes the recording process is an intense experience. But ya'll made it through it and the reward is a project you can be proud of. I still got to get out and see you guys one of these night here in town. Take care my friend. Bruce Weeks
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
