Yesterday Jefferson Hamer came by to lay down basics for a new demo/EP he’s working on. He did 6 songs, all sort of in that “Irish Ballad” sort of style, but what do I really know about that stuff? Maybe it was Scottish?
There were a lot of takes that ended with me going, “Woah. That was amazing!”, and Jefferson saying, “Yeah, I probably could have played it cleaner.”
Well, that’s how it goes. We did this session on 1″ 16-track. ALWAYS better than digital. If I have my way, I’ll litter this demo with Townes Van-Zandt styled production and overdubs, and hopefully throw some elven flute and Wellingtonian snare drum in the mix. Of course some upright bass (8 tracks of bowed bass?), picked harmony bass, and electric guitar.
We used two of Jefferson’s mics, and two of mine. One of Jefferson’s was some Neumann that I’ve never heard of, and some other mic I’d never heard of. Very informative, right? Then we used a Blue Kiwi and a Peluso 2247 to create an AB stereo pair room sound. It sounded great, but I soon heard the quote of the day from Jefferson regarding the room mics…”it sounds like what it sounds like when I record on my mac’s built-in microphone.” I immediately turned down the faders on the room mics.
