cap'n sp00ky returns

since i didn't post yesterday, this is what happened then: went to class (i got a 92 on my spanish exam from friday...yay...) before this class while i was waiting in the hall for the class in the room before me to get out, this girl walked past wearing a SY shirt (the NYCG&F one w/ the picture of the dj and the pope...) it happened too fast for me to think to say "hey, nice shirt" or something lame like that...oh well...another mild and pointless regret...even though my best case would have been her saying something like "oh thanks" as she keept on walking...blah...i went home, watched The Simpsons, and napped...then Jacques wanted me to all come out w/ 'em to the Flying Saucer...so i did...i accompanied Jacques and Justin to Huey's...then we waited for David to come home...he did so we went...they drank i just sat there...woo...back to The Apartment...(oh yea...Chris W. was there, he packs heat now...that's a frightening thought...but it's cool seeing him nonetheless...) David did some neat acrobatics where he jumped into the door frame of the living room and smacked his head and fell on the floor, knocking his Korg over and smashing several of the keys on it...yay drunken rock'n'roll...i went to Justin's apartment and slept on his futon as it was quite late and his place is much closer to school and where we were than my house...woke up and went to today's single class...came home...sitting here waiting for The Simpsons to happen...i've got a calc exam tomorrow morning...after class i officially changed to a double major in computer science and math and officially declared my minor in spanish...and that's all i feel like talking about right now...

a "brief" verbal schematic of the recording process of our cover of "I Don't Want to Push It" - SY

musicians: Jacques and myself

instruments: my Danelectro guitar, Jacques' Fender Mustang guitar, my Moog Liberation synth, my rototoms, David's Kramer bass

"studio" location: various rooms of The Apartment (of Jacques, Paul, and David)

development of rhythm track:
i devised a drum beat on David's computer (David's bedroom) using AudioMulch and recorded 15 min or so of it looping out to Paul's half-together tape deck...

(as my SoundTech ST164 mixing console does not have an accompanying multitrack recorder, it can only be used to record live w/ no additional mixing or adding of tracks afterwards (aside from the "trick" used to get around this, as you will see mentioned later on...)

first/main recording "session" (living room):
track 1: the Danelectro and the Moog i was playing through my small Marshall amp...
track 2: the Mustang Jacques was playing through David's larger Crate guitar amp...
track 3: my vocals through my Casio karaoke microphone, straight into the mixer...
track 4: the drum track, as it was recorded on cassette tape, played out through my tape recorder through my Fender Sidekick bass amp...
track 5: the rototoms Jacques was playing mic'ed w/ my Sure (i forget the model #, and it's at The Apartment) microphone placed on a big stool...

the mix was outputted through the headphone jack into Paul's half-together tape deck and, of course, recorded to cassette tape...

[note: Jacques and i mostly played guitar, but durring the middle of the song, on one part i took the cord out of my guitar and hooked it up to the Moog and played that for several measures...and on the part right after that, Jacques put down his guitar and picked up the "drumsticks" to play the rototoms...as my drumsticks were missing that day (aside from a different drumstick we found under the couch) i handed Jacques a hammer to play the opposite end w/ for the second "drumstick" and he gracefully pulled this challenging task off...this section, too, lasted several measures...]

"second/overdub session" (Jacques' bedroom):
i drug the very large mixing console into Jacques' room along w/ Paul's half-together tape deck...
track 1: the tape of the first/main "session" played back through Paul's tape deck...this was a fun task 'cuz, for some reason, it would only play for several seconds before the play button would decide to pop back up and cease the playing of the tape...so i had to hold it down w/ duct tape...this worked nicely...
track 2: i played David's bass straight into the board...

the mix was outputted into Jacques' less mobile stereo unit casette deck and recorded onto casette tape thusly...i was able to listen to it all through the stereo's speakers, thus aiding my playing-along...

moral:
this whole process has led me to realize how much i love the recording/producing/mixing/whatever process...and the more fucked-up the conditions turn out, the more fun it is...lots of running around and trying out new things and duct tape and removing the duct tape when you don't need it and trying something else...since most ppl prob'ly don't remember, it was originally done w/ a drum beat on my Casio keyboard through David's delay pedal...until my Casio decided not to work anymore...i guess i'll have to attack it w/ the soldering iron sometime soon...again...i need to find other bands so i can record them too...it'd be a nice little "hobby" for me...or something...it'd be nice if we had a place to practice/record all hours of the day...instead of an apartment...oh well...enough blathering on about all this...