flying through space courtesy of Carlos and Allison's Mural

Just finished mixing a song for Sam Russell. Sam is about to put out 2 new eight-song releases; these new ones being 4th and 5th in a series of eight. You can read all about it at his blog.

Engineering was a blast. Recorded on five separate dates in four different locations. All the musicians pulled through and Sam saw everything through.

While mixing I learned a ton of new tricks, when to avoid tricks, and Sam said he happy with our final product. That makes me happy! I’ve never been so intimately involved in a song’s mixing process and it can get heady at times. Like when trying to make educated moves after listening to the same mix for over an hour straight.

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Madrona

Lots of time passed since last update. Here’s the brief summary of titled entries that were never written out:

• Prosser Scottish Fest with Ockham’s Razor – a really receptive crowd in Eastern Washington. They even let us participate in the anvil toss!
• Music at the Hospitals. While visiting the University of Michigan Hospital, I met a woman who gets paid salary + benefits to visit people’s rooms and play guitar and/or banjo. I had my mandolin with me and we got to play some duets together.
• Schuyler got married.
• Johnny left after awesome final Pies and Pints show (still my favorite P&P show). Steve Mayone stopped through town.
• Georgetown Brewery opened up a new facility. I drank way too much as the food lines were longer than the beer lines. I was thoroughly hungover for the other show that started at 8pm.
• Dune Music. While in Michigan, we attended a concert at the foot of the Dune Climb – part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Incredible venue, great music.
• Pies and Pints – jaws dropped. All I remember from the night was that everybody was jaw-dropped during the last song. All the players (all 9 of us) and everybody in the crowd. Amazing music.
• Don’t call them Charlatans. Got to play a fun set of music with Brett Joseph’s project @ Tost. Great musicians.
• Dave Delmar got married! Oliver sat on my lap for a couple songs.
• Tom Rooney invited Colin Klein and myself out to Hoquiam to play as a bluegrass group. He left us to play as a bluegrass duo when his other band got double-booked. Somehow we pulled it off.
• Tom toured all of August. I took over playing/booking Pies and Pints. Had some great nights. Covered Grateful Dead’s Reckoning with Pat Ferris and Geoff Kraus, met BLVD Park, TableTop band, standard Bluegrass. Pat, Colin, Geoff, Judd, Kirk, Sam, James, Ken, Jarret, Brian, Jill, Millie.
• A couple recording sessions with James Apollo.
• New job.
• MADRONA MARIA SPALY!!!!!!!
• Home recording. Fatherhood!
• Holidays
• Played lots of great shows with BLVD Park

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Laurie Katherine Carlson and Jerin Falkner were kind enough to come down and add some vocal tracks to the Creeping Time recording project. We’ve got a great song that was just begging for the voices of the sirens, and LKC and Jerin did just the trick.

Super great people to work with and just plain fine folks. Was a pleasure working with them again, and just wait until you hear what they added!

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Another Sunday, another song laid down for Creeping Time’s upcoming album. Ken was in charge of this tune and came in with some ideas for the sound he wanted to achieve – ‘chicken pickin‘. Usually, our order of operations is drums/acoustic guitar/bass tracking, followed by a vocal scratch track, then Kjell’s fiddle parts, and, if time permits, a pass at some electric guitars. What usually happens is my finding myself having to rush my guitar parts because time did not permit. This time, however, we tracked the electric guitars before the fiddles, leaving me in the hot seat. It was really great to take the extra time to explore various intro/outro/solo options and really nail the rhythm parts. Unfortunately, this left Kjell sitting around for the session and only getting a few passes at his violin sections. Though, even with just that little time, Ken had a  good point that Kjell’s parts really put the “CT” stamp on the song.

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Dave Forrester, Creeping Time’s drummer, took his turn at producing the latest song for the upcoming album. His main idea was to record a bluegrass style song without drums. And therefore he didn’t have to come to the session, either. Was that some sort of trick to get out of it, or is it a purely genius move to improve the overall sounds of the album? You be the judge.

Anyway, for the session we brought in a few extras to help out. Matt Heron sacrificed his health and volunteered to add a double-fiddle while Johnny Fitzpatrick supplied some banjo. With Ken unable to attend, we still ended up getting a nice set of base-tracks. Though bluegrassy in instrumentation, any track where Kjell cuts loose on the fiddle will always have a signature that is undefineable.

We tried standing around an omni-pattern condenser supplemented with two small diaphragm condensers to get a stereo image. But it ended up sounding better having the large diaphragm condenser focus on guitar, mandolin and vocals while the small condensers captured the details on the banjo and fiddles.

Nice work, boys! I hope you’re feeling better, Matt.

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