The Merrycrest Sessions

I had my big livestream show (well, big as far as stuff I hauled out to it!) last night. And I think it went very well all things considered. The weather was nice and cool after all the rain from the morning and afternoon. Glad I did my practice car load as it went much easier this time. Hell, after playing, all the loading and hauling excessive stuff actually seemed worth it! I went and drove out to Steve's place (on Merrycrest, hence The Merrycrest Sessions) and loaded in. There was a neighbor's cat continually greeting me on the porch as I was loading in (it would run away when I carried some big piece of equipment towards it but then would come back and wait by the door, so cute!). I got things set up. The only downside is that I got a small rip in my Gang of Four shirt (the corners of my ARP are apparently very sharp!). It was a slightly tighter space than I'd envisioned but I was able to make good use of the space and have some distance between all the "stations". I had sort of a rectangle concept. With the two amps in the back corners and two synths (Minimoog and ARP Avatar) in the front corners (and with modular and mixer on a table front center). I wasn't able to get the guitars/amps in the back as visible as I'd envisioned but it worked. I scooched the guitars over (I kept them on stands in front of each amp) so they were at least partially visible. I was able to get both the audio and video setups I'd desired. Steve put a mic on each amp and I was able to route those direct mics to my mixer (where I would send them for processing in my modular) as well as two room mics for each amp to get more of a room sound from the amps to go direct to the stream. And for the video, I wanted just plain room lights and a static wide shot of all the gear in formation. Simple, but what I wanted and I think it worked. I learned that carrying all that gear would get me super sweaty so I brought a change of clothes and changed before the performance. Didn't realize the video was streaming me setting up for a good while before that, oh well! He had some wireless headphone and I tried them for a minute but they were only the mono signal and not stereo and since I had some stereo stuff I was doing it didn't work quite right (also the sound felt a little off). But I was able to keep my earplugs in and use my own over-ears headphones. I took the headphones off when I was back by the amp but put them back on when up on the synths and I think that worked okay. I got so much difference in sound when taking the headphones off or on and walking from one amp to the other, just those big feedback drones causing so much variation in the room. It was pretty wonderful. I know it's not all captured in the stream/recording but I know that would be impossible. Still I think the sound that came across was pretty great. With so much sound going so loud, it was kinda hard to mix live and distinguish a lot of the parts, but that's okay. Kinda the effect I was going for anyway. I know I had a few mess-ups where a sound jumped in too loud and such, but fewer than I might have expected given that I was never even able to test the whole thing all together (hell, I didn't even get to test Wayne's amp at all beforehand). But really everything sounded massive and wonderful and better than I had hoped. While sound checking, I was having some issues especially with one of the guitars having some bad wiring and a switch that would cut out and I'd have to keep jiggling it to get the sound to happen again. At one point towards the end it was really bad and I could barely get sound out of the guitar. But then during the actual performance, there were no issues! Also, at Steve's place, I didn't have any of the amp hum that I was having real bad at home. So that was nice too! I wasn't online during it but a few people reached out to say it was good. So yay. Steve played it back while we were breaking down and I got to hear it just through the laptop speakers and it sounded good so can't wait to hear the whole recording when it's finalized! I recorded from my mixer but that doesn't include the room mics so I can't wait to get what Steve's got. I probably have some dumb, petty details I've forgotten but we'll see. Came back home feeling good with it and sweaty and thirsty and tired (I did drink a whole huge water bottle throughout). Anyway, again I think it worked out and I'm happy with it. Hopefully that feeling stays!