Recording TU

 

We recorded most the music in Seattle in a loft studio that Trey shared with Matt Chamberlain, I even got to use Matt's drums! (FYI: Matt is, in my opinion, the most creative, best feeling and most recordable drummer working . .Look out for his sublime side project band "Critters Buggin' they have a stunningly elegant new record about to release). Check the little quicktime movies on the TU CD for a casual look at the loft/studio.

 

For drum gear: Matt had a vintage Rogers drum kit with a Ludwig coliseum snare, old K zild and Keplinger cymbals, a timpani, DW piccolo toms, a monstrous oil can and lots of ethnic percussion plus I brought some electronics, percussion,my FET47, harmonica, heavy breathing, and Paiste cyms with me.

 

I also brought my laptop running LIVE and Pro Tools Free with some ideas I had started earlier recorded in hotel rooms and a one idea recorded during soundchecks at Emerald studio in Nashville during KC TPTB sessions.

 

Trey used his Warr Guitars and also played his Godin 11-string fretless guitar,did some

Melismatic singing, and used a M Audio USB midi controller to play his laptop software like Absynth, Kontakt and LIVE.

 

Bill Munyon handled the recording in the loft using Pro Tools, Logic and LIVE and did ruff mixes as we went (many are the final mixes). Mat's recording gear in the loft was a lot of vintage mics (U47, U67, BBC mic, cole ribbon mics, some old sony mics) into various API, Neve, Telafunkin, and Boutique Audio mic pre's often routed thu vintage stomp boxes and mooger foogers. Other interesting mic techniques available in Mats drumbooth included using an old Victrola horn attached to a microphone as a filter, placing Mats hat over a mic and or using cheapo mics thu old fender amps with the vibrato turned up.

 

I took those PT sessions home to do edits and fly in more samples and even did a few overdubs using my API, Daykings and Drawmer 1960 and then mixed those tunes in PT.

 

Almost forgot: My pal Dr. Nakano Sunplaza overdubbed the voice of despair into his laptop in a Osaka hotel room using a YAMAHA mp3 mixing recorder [SoundSketcher]

microphone was built-in one, and then emailed it back to me.

 

Thats the tech side.

For the story on how the music was improvised/composed check here:

 

In November 2002, a few months after mixing the King Crimson TPTB CD, Trey and I absconded to Matt Chamberlains loft studio in Seattle with engineer, Bill Munyon.

Being Seattle (a city that drinks a lot of coffee), we formed a daily habit

of drinking strong coffee which was immediately followed by more coffee and

then jam. Later, we would drink more coffee, organize the jam into a form,

and drink more coffee and jam again. By the end of the day, which was

really the beginning of the next day, we would pause for coffee and Absinthe while Bill

would do a rough mix. After some sleep followed by coffee, we would repeat

the process allowing the muse to take us where she willed, which was usually

for more coffee and jam (except for that one day with smoked salmon and

coffee). After 10 days of this we had 90% of what is now called TU. The

last 8% required calander breaks and still more coffee. The remaining TU% are divided evenly between chocolate chip scones and orange cranberry muffins.

 

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