'm not familiar
with your recording experience but I'm give you my take of
Mike McCauley's experience
at Moss Garden Studio in Raymond, WI. He is a trooper. We had
about 30 min. from when he arrived at our house and to when we had to leave for
the studio. Kathleen's like the cruise director, she had beer, water, hot tea,
hot chocolate, soda, chips, fruit, veggies.... for the day.
Moss Garden
Studio is on a nicely wooded property set back from the main road and reached
after passing through a black iron gated entrance. The
drive in crosses a fancy iron railed bridge and two four feet high weathered
griffin statues. There is a pond on the left and an out building on the
right. When approaching the house you see the round turreted library on the
left, a huge picture window in the center. The house is always under
construction. That weekend the dinning room was bare with no furniture. We
set up camping chairs, a stereo and a tiny portable DVD player. The kitchen
is "to die for" - even two ovens (OK, that's
Kathleen's opinion.) We always had
the tea pot on for tea or hot chocolate.
There is a small
room behind the dinning room with a carved wood railing that is sunk into the
floor. It has padded benches around a fireplace. We think that it
should be replaced with hot tub and have a huge big screen TV over the
fireplace. The rest of the house is beautifully decorated. Don't
forget, no latch on the bathroom door. (Sorry John)
The
studio recording room has strands of hippy beads hanging outside the door that
clank upon entrance. Kathleen told
Paul that the 60's beads were annoying, he said that they are the only thing he still has from his
college days and he will never give them up. She just had to try.
Mike and Kathleen
visited and rehearsed in the dinning room while John practiced on his upright
bass sitting next to his girlfriend, with a glass of whiskey in comfy old
fashioned chairs in front of the picture window. They found a need for
Guinness, so Mike and
Kathleen went on a field trip to buy Guinness and stop back home to let the beagles out.
Besides being in that
beautiful house with the great view and perfect kitchen,
Mike really did nothing
all day on Sat.
Sat. in the
studio, while we were chilling in the house, Jon Baade recorded guitar and
then bodhran with James directing.
Bill recorded lead vocal on the song
Jon
wrote, Wind in the Riggin. After breaking for a pizza dinner,
John Gladman
recorded Upright Bass in the studio on aprox. eight songs. That was it
for the night and for Sat.
During the day
Sunday Mike and Bill played on the computer, answered email and watched DVD's
while James &
Kathleen directed Michi recording Violin/Fiddle and Cello. Initially
there was some trouble
getting a full sound out of the Cello. Michi is to be praised for
performing
some great harmonies on the Cello and Paul is to
be praised for making the sound richer and fixing it into the song,
There Is A Ship.
Sunday night set-up for
Mike's vocals was finally started, even a few
tracks were recorded. It turned out to be much easier for him to sing after
Kathleen's
vocals were recorded. When has sung with 3 Pints Gone live he usually stands by
Kathleen and harmonizes around the lead and her part.
When in the
studio, Paul, the technician and owner of
Moss Garden Studio, has the
musician play or sing the song a couple times to get the feel for it while he
sets up the levels and records with up with to five different microphones.
Then all of us in the room listening and musician choose which
microphone seems to fit the best. Then they are recorded with different
mixers and that is chosen. Just the initial set up can take between 30 - 60
minutes.
Some songs are
sung or played differently. Like one is simple, subtle and legato while
another is crisp, playful and bright. In that case, each song may have a
microphone change. I believe that they recorded Mike with two microphones
each time, one further back, so that there is an easy stereo scenario or the
second microphone may fit the voice better in the final mix.
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