Ramblings From Justin Penney

There was an idea put up on the TapeOp messageboard to do a song using only an SM57 into mic preamps. No EQ, no compression, nothing but pure mic signal. So here is mine title "Your Way Out. Keep in mind that it will be quiet due to the lack of compression that we are all so used to.

I started the song by just jamming on the guitar until I got the arrangement layed out. That same day I tried the drums but it wasn't working out. I thought I liked the drum sound (I had the mic hanging just infront and to the right of my head) but I was playing like crap, which I always do on the drums, so I hung it up for that day. When I came back to it there was just too much of the cymbals and no kick. Since I wouldn't be able to bring the low end up wtih any effects I rethought my place ment. I settled being just above the kick off to the floor tom side a bit and pointing straight at the snare. Since I'm not really a fan of loud cymbals this worked out great for me.

I redid the first guitar part, which was a trick since I didn't use a click and the guitar started it off. I added a click track by tappeing along with the into and copying to 8 beats before the beginning. It wrked out ok. The gaps in the middle I just tried to keep steady. They drift some but it's a pretty rawproject so I left them.

I made sure to compress the snot out of the bass on the amp. I almost always end up compressing bass some so I figured that was my only chance. I'm really happy witht he bass sound. I actually used both of the pickups on my P-Bass Deluxe. Usually I only use the neck (P) pickup.

The second guitar part is pretty straight forward. However right after I recorded it I ended up stepping on the cord and it broke input 1 on my Hot Rod Deluxe... 2 hours before I had to pack up to play a show. Input 2 wont work unless input one has something in it so I had to completely remove the jack for input 1. I need to order a new jack now.

All of the vocals were done through a Mackie 1202. I ran into channel 1, took the insert fron channel 1 into channel 2 and ran the insert from channel 2 into the computer. This let me crank up the preamp on channel 1 pretty good to smooth it out a bit and still run a reaonable level into the computer. This is also how I got the distortion on the vocals. Maybe it's bending the rules but I only used mic preamps... there was nothing about using 3 in series! It's pretty nasty and probably doesn't fit the song well but I felt like I was getting away with something.

I only own 1 SM57 so I had no chance to do any room micing. For the reverb/delay on the drums and vocals I put the mic facing the wall toward the back and off center and blasted each part individually through some cheap bookshelf speakers.

I'm not sure about the ending. I was going to add some vocals but haven't settled on anything, so now it's just a long section without much going on. Feel free to make up your own words and treat it like karaoke.

# posted by Justin @ 6:14 PM