Tuesday, October 19, 2004

TINY DOT

Did another great session with Microdot last night. We're currently working on four of their tunes, and this session was another journey into guitar overdubs. George Vitray (producer) arrived fresh from his day job wearing a suit, while Dave Cavalier (guitar, venture capitalist) wore jeans and a tee shirt. There were no fresh flowers, but there was Czech beer and Marlboro mediums.

Time flies when you're doing guitars. Soon it's 11:30 and the neighbors are banging on the pipes and running to their computers to print out more signs to hang on our door. "No audible sound after 11pm." There's a philosophical argument here somewhere, something about a tree in a forest and what inaudible sound sounds like, but I digress. We got a lot of good guitar sounds and did a fair amount of work. I'm really happy with the rough mixes, even though there are still some holes to fill. There's going to be banjo on this record, which I'm very excited about. What was the last banjo part played in 7/8 time? Anyone know? I sure don't.

My favorite part is watching the songs grow up. That initial guitar line is like a recording's first shave. Suddenly, it's borrowing the car and breaking into the liquor cabinet. All we can do is try to prepare it for the world and hope it doesn't pick up head lice at school.

The beauty of Microdot is that they can play just about anything, and when George calls for a suspended fourth they don't just laugh at him. I wish we all had enough money to do this stuff all day.

2 Comments:

At 7:58 AM, Blogger Tony Alva said...

Great post... See Bela Fleck and the Flecktones for the 7:8 banjo thing. I've had a lot of fun recording banjo in the past. Your partner might recall some of the sessions. As with acoutic guitars, the better the instrument, the better the sound. I remember taping a PZM onto a banjo at some point. Have no recollection of whether that came out all right or not, but I do know that when employing this same tactic to a Dobro a year later it sounded great.

Say hey to the gang up there for me...

 
At 9:48 AM, Blogger Jackson said...

I recall the PZM working on the banjo, which is why we did it to the dobro. The player helps too.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home