FOR MUSICIANS ONLY Hurricane Sessions - Day Two Rhythm Tracks Saturday, November 14, 2008 -- Manny had to work on Saturday, so the plan was to record at 5 p.m. Carl and I went over to Tim's house (an entire block away) at 2, bringing the Behringer mixer, mics, cables and stands, but no actual recording gear. These guys are rehearsing in what amounts to a, oh, I don't know, maybe 8' x 20 or so space they affectionately call the Shred Shed. It's got perforated board on the inside. The sound is pretty flat. While there is something to be said for isolation, if the whole band can play a song all the way through once in a row, it's not really a major problem. We were only going to do the rhythm tracks today. No vocals, no leads. And the thing about the Shred Shed is that this is where they rehearse. It's their normal environment and I'm pretty sure that every time they go play out, they're trying to recreate that feel. So catching their performance in that space is, in some respects, almost preferable to a studio environment. Okay, I forgot the snake, so we're going to improvise a little. On one hand, this is another good thing, simply because it meant we were going to eliminate 100 feet of wire between me and the band. I decided that I wanted to be right outside the door, within 20 feet of the band. We were just setting up. As long as we were within the radius, we could relocate a little, even after the mics were wired, thus the classy stand. The above photo was a composite of some video stills. Another 4 or 5 feet from the top of the photo was a gate, conveniently located. And yet, Carl and I carried everything about 30 yards, through the garage, down a narrow sidewalk, around the sauna (watch out for that cord), and around the pool. Tim and Manny carried most of it back out through the same path. On Monday, someone would point out the gate and we would all feel pretty damn stupid.   Tim uses a Marshall Workingman's 4004 bass head. Not sure about the speakers, but we took a line out of his amp, so we didn't record the speakers. On a couple of the tracks, Tim played the rhythm on the Fender 12-string, then came back and added the bass tracks. In those cases, we ran a line out straight from his guitar into ProTools. Tim plays a Fender Precision bass. Carl's set-up consists of a Marshall head and a Mesa Boogie 412 cabinet, combined with a Behringer GX212 amp/cabinet. He plays a Stratocaster. The Behringer has a stereo line out. In addition, Carl put a mic in front of each cabinet. But first, we turned the amps so their backs were to the drums. The result was almost no drum bleed into the guitar. Carl had a pair of mics he wanted to use, so I deferred, especially because he had them wired and ready to go, brought them to me at th4e board and I plugged them in. I would have used SM57s. I didn't even look at what he used. He was happy with the sound and that's all that mattered. Manny is playing a set of Remo drums. The cymbals are Zildjian, the snare is, uh, round. I've got a set of Nady drum mics that I use -- DM80 for the kick drum, DM70s for the toms and snare, a CM70 for the high hat and another deployed as an overhead. Then I added a second overhead mic, which was whatever rose to the top when I reached in the mic bag, in this case an Electrovoice PL-80. While certainly not the best out there, this mics have very good frequeny response and add little coloration. I like having a matched set of drum mics because then they're consistent. An even better investment was the set of mic mounts, each of which eliminates a mic stand. With everything plugged into the mixer, Carl and I made the arduous one-block trip to his house, grabbed a bite to eat, then took the recording gear over. Through the garage, down the sidewalk, around the sauna, etc. A little before 5, Manny pokes his head over the back gate. He also lives a block away. Manny brings iced tea and Tim has already been serving coffee. Manny and Carl aren't going to drink beer until they're done playing. I have ended up basically sitting on the sidewalk. My gear is in a little semi-circle. Tim is kind of disturbed that I might not be comfortable and brings me a couple of cushions, after which I am a happy camper. After all, it'll only be for a few hours. He's also concerned about my lighting situation, but I've mixed sound in dark clubs so many times that this is pretty much a non-issue. In fact, you'll notice a red peak indicator a little faster in the dark. All of the channels on the mixer have been set to flat. Channels 1 through 8 are the drum tracks, which are going out via optical to an ADAT. I'm also sending the snare track out via one of the four monitor outputs to ProTools. When I bring the drum tracks in later, this will let me sync the tracks in just a few minutes. I get all set up and then have Manny play for a few minutes. A couple of minor technicalities (forgot to turn on phantom power), then I've got levels set and we're ready to go. For the most part, they will nail every song on the first take. I made them restart one because I wasn't ready, there was another one where they had a quick re-do because they trashed an intro, but we recorded 7 songs and were done by 7 p.m. We all paused to drink a beer, then packed my studio up and took it back to Carl's to pull in drum tracks and get a rough mix going. We'll come back Monday to do guitar leads and vocals. Sunday will be a little different, as we're doing a session of hymns and some old public domain material.