Wednesday
Apr202005
It's Hot in Here
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at 07:34PM
So our air-conditioning broke a few days ago, or at least that's when we needed it, turned it on and found out it wasn't working. A guy was coming to look at it at 3pm, and it's 6:30 and nobody's here. It's 85 degrees in our house. That's hot. We want to leave to go eat, because we're not about to turn on the oven, but then we'll miss the guy if he comes.
ANYWAY, the studio was fun today. We finished up the acoustic guitars, finally, and moved on to other sounds. I played electric on the song "The Far Country", which was a lot of fun. It's a huge song, and that means I get to let loose a bit. I played the Gretsch and the Les Paul through the BadCat, and all was well with the world.
We also started on AP's vocals last night. We did a mic shoot-out, like the guitar shoot-out, and I feel like I learned a ton. We set up four mics, an AKG 414, an Audio-Technica 4047, a Rode NTK tube mic, and an old 57. We ran them each through a Neve 1272 and then a dbx 160x compressor, that I just got and I love. Andy sang a verse and a chorus on each, and we listened to them with our eyes closed and picked the number we liked the best. Drum roll, please, the big surprise was that we ALL chose the 57. That mic costs like eighty bucks, the others are each at least seven or eight hundred. So good news, basement musicians! It does not matter! Use a 57 on your vocal! Save your money to buy my records!! Really, though, that was a huge and welcome surprise. I'd read that Peter Gabriel and Tom Petty both sang through 57's a lot, and I thought "well, that's cool, but they're probably running through a ton of other expensive gear so it doesn't matter." I guess the Neves help, but still, you would think the more expensive the mic the better it would sound. I'm sure that doesn't relate to every voice, and the same shoot-out on my voice, or Cliff's, or Ella's, might yield a different result. Anyway, it shouldn't be such a big deal, but for some reason I just got excited about all the possibilities my cheaper gear can open up. I am such a nerd.
Well, I need to go get us some dinner before the air-conditioning people come. They just called and said they'd be here in a half an hour. If they don't get it fixed by 8, we're watching Alias at your house.
ANYWAY, the studio was fun today. We finished up the acoustic guitars, finally, and moved on to other sounds. I played electric on the song "The Far Country", which was a lot of fun. It's a huge song, and that means I get to let loose a bit. I played the Gretsch and the Les Paul through the BadCat, and all was well with the world.
We also started on AP's vocals last night. We did a mic shoot-out, like the guitar shoot-out, and I feel like I learned a ton. We set up four mics, an AKG 414, an Audio-Technica 4047, a Rode NTK tube mic, and an old 57. We ran them each through a Neve 1272 and then a dbx 160x compressor, that I just got and I love. Andy sang a verse and a chorus on each, and we listened to them with our eyes closed and picked the number we liked the best. Drum roll, please, the big surprise was that we ALL chose the 57. That mic costs like eighty bucks, the others are each at least seven or eight hundred. So good news, basement musicians! It does not matter! Use a 57 on your vocal! Save your money to buy my records!! Really, though, that was a huge and welcome surprise. I'd read that Peter Gabriel and Tom Petty both sang through 57's a lot, and I thought "well, that's cool, but they're probably running through a ton of other expensive gear so it doesn't matter." I guess the Neves help, but still, you would think the more expensive the mic the better it would sound. I'm sure that doesn't relate to every voice, and the same shoot-out on my voice, or Cliff's, or Ella's, might yield a different result. Anyway, it shouldn't be such a big deal, but for some reason I just got excited about all the possibilities my cheaper gear can open up. I am such a nerd.
Well, I need to go get us some dinner before the air-conditioning people come. They just called and said they'd be here in a half an hour. If they don't get it fixed by 8, we're watching Alias at your house.
Reader Comments (5)
Andy,
English, man!! You're using what? For what?
D (frustrated & uninformed, um, musician?)
Andy, you double posted. Just sayin. But anyway...i love reading this and gleaning information about how recording works...very cool for me, especially since i'm about to buy a bunch of stuff.
Since you didn't show up at my house, I'll assume you got your A/C fixed in time for Alias... :-) The joys of homeownership.
Thanks again for giving us a little peek into your life.
You should be all excited about the cheaper gear working out. :)
Do you like this Sloane copycat business. At first I thought, bleh, this is almost too overthetop even for Alias, but now I am thinking it is ok.
Jeff