Live Lodge: From the main desk, Volume 1
Hello punters
Pleased to say that I’ve finally found time to start mixing down the lodge sessions. I was very pleasantly surprised - a lot of it sounds great IMHO.
Sorry about poor sound on “Your Face” - badly seated soundcard, I think. A reboot solved it but there’s fuzz all over this one track and it’s not intentional…
Because in most cases all the vocal mics were going into one track (due to lack of inputs on my soundcard) I was in many cases faced with huge differences in levels between lead and backing vocals (e.g. on “Green Vinyl Shores” and others). The only way of saving the backing vox in any form was to apply ridiculous amounts of compression to the vocal track (e.g. threshold at -40dB or lower!) which had the interesting side effect of bringing up the ambient sound of the rehearsal room - made the drums sound great, for example. I also fiddled around with a few effects - particularly amusing results on at least one occasion.
Hope you enjoy these. This is only maybe 30% of the session - plenty more where these came from (over the next few days).
BT x
February 27th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Note that the track “My Foot” clipped on mastering - will reupload this morning.
February 27th, 2010 at 10:34 am
And “Old Time R’n'R”… oh dear.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I think you’ve done a great job with these BTw! They sound better than they did at the time
I’m really enjoting hearing these..
Old time rock and roll is great
Pockets only hints at how good I though it was at the time. We should re record it but I’ll never sing it like that again.
These confirm again the talent of Rosie!
February 27th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
I think the mastering thing was a dodgy connection to the speakers on my part - anyway, should be OK now. Yeah, it’s strange - it sounds like a completely different session from what I thought we recorded. Maybe someone hacked into my computer and changed the files…
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Half way through (just listened to Supernatural) - I have to say you’re a saint, BTY, for doing all this mixing. The strange compression setting is great. Favourites so far - ‘Old Time R&R’, and ‘Song of the Starfish.’ Like the subtle effects on my voice on ‘Matlock Mouse,’ you’ve really preserved the nuances of the performance. Brother Oak x
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Yeah - sorry about the vocal fx on ‘Mouse’, I was just pissing about and then there it was… hearing you sing ‘That Mouse’ an octave higher just cracked me up. It was the best comedy vocal since they mucked about with Peter Gabriel’s voice on ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’! But it does mean that your Peter Sellers impersonation doesn’t come across properly. Which is a shame.
I was trying to work out what happened to the drums on ‘How I Totalled the Family Car’ and then realised that I’d decided it would be a good idea to mix them way back, like Spiritualised. Apologies to whoever was drumming on that track - you ARE there, honest…
March 4th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Just made a mad dash through second half …
Particular highlights for me were ‘Uh … heavy’ and ‘Rucksack.’ Clearly we’re not quite sure what the time signature is on U.H, but the sound is crunching, and it’s a great dual lead on the vocals.
Rucksack has a lovely feel with the ambient sounds in the background, and the steady kick (in places). Reminds me a bit of Daniel Lanois’ production - very cool.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Those two are really good, yep.
I love “I’m All Ears” as well - that vocal wash effect, a bit like 10CC’s “I’m not in Love” although we took considerably less time to get it than the three weeks of studio time it took them… see http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/classictracks.htm - an extraordinary tale.
“Green Vinyl Shores” is like early Roxy Music with Brother Oak as Bryan Ferry. Especially the first Roxy album when they weren’t really sure what they were doing. I think it’s my favourite.