Recorded live at the
Top Water Grill
San Leon, Texas 2007-09-21
Comments & Notes
The live show sounded good, had a large audience, and was lots of fun. So far as recordings go, we were able to learn a considerable number of things.
Room Reflections - The band played in a large room with concrete floors and walls making for an interesting atmosphere.
You can see in the picture that Kevin (the drummer) is in the corner and projects well into the audience. Kevin initially had set up his kit with individual mics but his projection was good enough that we didn't need to send him out of the mains. We used two mics for the drums an overhead mic and Figure 8 pattern mic. Looking at the picture, you can see the overhead mic aimed towards not only the kit but also into the corner of the room (uh oh). Listening very closely to the drum track, you can hear phase cancellations, especially when Kevin strikes his large cymbals, due to the reflections. Next time we do a project in this situation, we can improve the cymbal recordings by adjusting the mic locations so that it's not pointing into the reflective corner.
Mic Sharing - Between the 1st and 2nd set, we switched the C-3 large diaphragm mic from cartoid into a Figure 8 pattern. Also, we moved it from the front of the pedal steel amp to a spot between the amp's (ported rearward) and the kick drum head. These are two very different sounding instruments so it *should* be possible to split the track into the two instruments with an equalizer.
Two Lead Instruments - The guitar and pedal steel traded off through the night on solos. During the mixing, this made for interesting situations on which of the two was actually leading.
Wandering Pedal Steel Guitar - Alot of interesting pedal steel was played that evening. Sitting stationary in the stereo space, it sounded a bit odd so we ran the pedal steel signal through a slow auto-panning sweep which added some gentle movement throughout.
2007-09-25
Sound Mixes & Comments
Demo Round #1
Mixed, first mastering pass, auditioned on a variety of playback systems.
03Track03-EverybodysTalking.mp3
09Track09-MyWifeThinksYoureDead.mp3
12Track12-EarlyintheMorningl.mp3
14Track14Dancincgisdancing.mp3
Demo Round #2
Mixed, first mastering pass, has NOT been fully auditioned yet.
01Track-1 - Coming Home Baby (not uploaded here-- Out of disk space!)
Never fear -- Click here for Coming Home Baby.
06Track06-RockAroundTheClock.mp3
14Track14-GreatFillingStationHoldup.mp3
15Track15-GodBlessTheChild.mp3