Master

Wow man.... the stuff is coming together. I put up the table that the wife gave me for Christmas and set up my "B" monitor system. A $10.00 set of bookshelf speakers made in the 70's, an Alesis RA-100 reference amplifier and crappy boom box. Listing to some Streetlight Manifesto as i write this. The speakers sound pretty good and they should with the Marantz drivers that are stuffed in em'. The really cool part is they are factory seconds from a knock off brand. Does not get much better.

I won a pair of vintage Shure SM 57 dynamic cardioid mics off of the Egay at a very good price and should see them in a week or so. An all around work horse of a mic that can be used on percussion, guitars, horns and well, just about anything. Hoping to score a Pro-Co 16 channel snake i found a couple of towns away just waiting to hear back from the dude.

I pulled my two Tascam reel to reel decks out of mothballs. They are both 1/2" format with 8 and 16 tracks respectively. I am hoping that the 16 track is still in good shape but if not the 8 track will do just fine. Analog is the way to go with drums and bass if you want that fat warm sound.

I have obsessively been watching videos on You Tube of Eddie Kramer, who engineered for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, KISS and Led-Zeppelin. The man is very passionate about is art and started his career in England when all you had to work with was 4 tracks and a handful of compressors and EQ's. He now embraces the digital side of recording but uses a hybrid approach of which, with my limited resources, i am trying to emulate. The next time you listen to Led-Zeppelin 2, Jimi Hendrix Experience or KISS Alive, it was Eddie Kramer who produced, engineered and/or mixed those great classic albums. I even found an original demo he recorded of KISS on a 4 track reel to reel. "Black Diamond" is the same song you here on the record but mixed to 4 tracks. Drums on the right, bass to the left etc. Very different sounding but very good too. The 6 songs he recorded for the band is what got KISS there first record contract. Eddie must be in his 60's now and as far as i know is still recording and producing to this day. The word "inspirational" falls way short of the mark.

The more i mix the better my ears are getting. Good to be back in the game after so many years.


PsychoManifesto Music Production