Archive for the 'Recording Talk' Category

26
Feb
12

But I’m Different Now – The Jam Live in Japan circa 1982

By sjmckenzie Leave a Comment
Categories: Minipod, Mp3s - Other Artists, post punk and Recording Talk

The JAM LIVE in JAPAN for download

This was an old Jam live single / EP I had, and put down in digital before selling my record collection.  It was one of those Asian 7inches with a giant hole and a fiddly plastic inset to make it fit on normal record players.

Songs:

1 – Move In Up (Curtis Mayfield cover, the Jam used to play this live all the time but never recorded it)

2 – Get Yourself Together (another obscure track)

3 – The Great Depression (from The Gift, great version)

4 – But I’m Different Now (from Sound Affects, also a great version)

I kinda think of this as an extension of The Jam Live album Dig the New Breed. Performances are pretty good although the singing gets rather wild in places.

The recording is scratchy, deal with it, I played the hell out of the record when I was fifteen and haven’t even tried to compensate on the mix I made on Cubase.

Steve

21
Jun
10

The recording process

By sjmckenzie Leave a Comment
Categories: CD Stuff, Luker and Southern news and Recording Talk

Recording for the debut CD occurred between about December 2009 and June 2010. We had about six sessions all up, all of them at my house. The standard day went something like this:

Emma gets to my house at about 10 after driving all the way from Salisbury and we immediately nip out the back to smoke her rolling tobbacco, drink tea, gossip, and talk about all the things we aren’t doing yet. Then we set up and select tunes to work on. Arrangement conversations go like this: “What about we do the whole thing twice and then stop?” “No, how about we do that twiddly bit twice and them come straight into the loud bit?” “You mean the A-part?” “I don’t know, why don’t you just nod at me?” “OK.”

The song thus arranged, we write song charts down on bits of paper that look like this: A A B CH & !! and we nod wisely.

I have subsequently found these sheets of paper in my bedroom studio, and now have no idea what they mean.

Then, we do several version, and either the first or the last will be the the best. We smoke more tobacco, repeat the process on another tune, and Emma leaves for the day.

Mixing occurred mostly in June and that session basically went like this. “I like it all, except that bit I don’t like,” “I think that vocal harmony would sound better if you couldn’t actually hear it”, “That sounds good turn it up louder,” etc.

After this rigorous process was complete, I spent about a day normalizing and standardizing the EQ profiles, and we were away.

Check out the CD page for more information:

http://lukerandsouthern.wordpress.com/debut-cd/

12
Apr
10

It’s Pronounced “Moron”

By sjmckenzie Leave a Comment
Categories: Gigs, Instruments and Gear, Luker and Southern news and Recording Talk

So one sunny day in April sees me walking down Jetty Road carrying an Irish drum made by Waltons for which I paid $7o. Since then it has been introduced into our sound and look.

My knowledge of Gaelic orthographic rules tells me that Bodhran is actually pronounced “I Don’t Know”, but a funny old Irish man with a beard and a severe head cold recently told me that it is pronounced “moron.” (Actually I’m not sure exactly what he said but he definitely used that word several times.)

Anyway its sound has been variously described as “cool”, “annoying”,” like someone playing a water tank”,” a big boomy droning sound” etc. In recording we use it as a bass note by tuning it electronically to the pitch of the song. Live, we use it advisedly, or not at all. In Ireland where the air is always moist, this type of drum apparently makes a slack wet bopping sound unless heated by the fire, but here the reverse is true and when it is dry, you have to get water on the skin otherwise it sounds like a tin can.

The before shot is what mine looked like before Emma painted it. The after shot is, well, you guessed it.

Southern Steve is…

...the online alter ego of S.J. (Steve) McKenzie.

I am an Australian guy who likes and plays lots of different styles of music, mostly for kicks.

There's samples of my own stuff here as well as lots of mp3 goodies from other bands I love; folk, punk, jazz and just whatever sounds like it has its own thing going on.

Feed Me!

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