Newspaper Joe
"Lazarus, Gin, Mercy and Sin" was
recorded at Dryhill on April 27th, 28th, and 29th 2006. We decided to record
all the basic tracks to the 8 track Otari reel to reel with a tape speed of 7.5
i.p.s., quantegy 456 tape, and no noise reduction. Eliminating the computer during tracking created a totally different atmosphere that brought more focus to capturing the right performance (I also enjoyed not having to look at a monitor.)
After tracking guitar, drums, bass, and vocals, we transferred the tracks to
pro tools for editing and additional overdubs. Most of the tracks on the album
were recorded live, with some songs receiving minimal overdubs.
Mike was playing his Fender acoustic on most tunes, typically miced with a shure sm57 going through the tl audio tube mic pre. His vocals were recorded with a couple of different mics, but most often it was the shure sm7 into the Sytek mic pre (both mics can be seen in the picture below.)
Bryon's bass was a combination of a
countryman d.i. and a LDC on an Ampeg SB-12 bass amp (Bryon had a great reverb pedal that really added to the amp sound.) Andy played a stripped down
kit that was miced with Earthworks QT1's in X/Y over the set, and an audio technica 4050 on the kick, and shure57 on the snare (in the picture below the overheads were pulled away from the kit for backup vocals.)
The third track on the album (best of luck), started out a bit differently than other songs on the album. I found a drum loop on the optigan keyboard at the studio that fit the song and Mike recorded vocals and acoustic guitar to the loop. Then Bryon and Andy came in halfway through the song, the real drums replacing the loop. In the picture below you can see me at the optigan recording the loop, and below I posted an mp3 of the song.
We were all pretty out of it after tracking was done (and our foray into a pack of steel reserve that ranks up there with one of the worst beers I have ever had.) So we all took a walk in Neawah park to catch up on some sunlight.
