Last Day

Well, another recording week has come and gone.  I ended up working on the three solo parts today for the 2 songs that I'd been working on all week for the new Jazz Machine album.  The first solo, the one for "This Town's...", took forever.  Geesh.  I think I worked on it for like 2-3 hours which is a bit absurd, I'll admit.  I'm still not the greatest at laying down a really inventive solo for a fairly long musical passage so clearly I need to work on this more.  I did finally get something down that I really like, though, and I just listened to both tracks on my stereo so I think they'll pass with flying colors.

It was pretty late by the time I even started messing around with the two solos on "Younger Days of Manchester".  I had a feeling that this song would be a bit easier since both solos are shorter in nature, plus the song has a fairly slow tempo.  I pretty much laid down the first solo right away; the second took me a bit of time, mainly just to figure out what I wanted to play and then actually learn how to play it.  I used the Gibson ES-335...it seemed like the perfect choice since it's kind of a bluesy solo, really, and a bit different for me, to be honest.  Using only 2 pedals, the sound recorded perfectly, I think, and it's got exactly the tone I was looking for.

I've also been experimenting all week with different mic placement, although I've been primarily using the same 2 mic's, namely a Royer R122 and a Neumann U87ai.  In the beginning of the week, I followed some advice that I read online but today I decided to try something a bit different, making the U87ai the primary for most of the sound.  I think it worked quite well and this configuration may just become my goto going forward.  The biggest difference from what I've done before is that I hanged the U87ai upside down this time, primarily for the reason that I can get the two mic's closer together.  Everyone seems to talk at length about how they love the sound and tone of the ribbon mic's.  Whereas I got a much better tone out of the Royer this week using the advised placement, I think I still much prefer the U87ai for it just sounds bigger to me.  The key with the U87ai, though, is that you absolutely do not want to overload the condenser for it sounds like complete crap, in my opinion at least.

The only thing I didn't get done today or this week was the bass for "This Town's...".  I'm going to try and put that down sometime this week, just because I don't want it to sit too terribly long.  It's also an opportunity for me to use my new fretless bass and see how that goes.  I record most of my bass parts direct so I also won't be bothering my neighbors when doing it.

All in all, even though I didn't get tons done, it's been a pretty good recording week, putting my eyes, nose, and finger issues aside.  Even with those things, I still got through it so I feel pretty good about that.  What can I say?  I'm learning.