One of my clients, a death metal band, has lured me out of my 3.5 year retirement as a recording sound engineer. I start the new EP with them this month and should have some interesting blog posts coming. I’ll be remotely recording with my macbook, cubase and a firewire I/O at their practice facility. And when I say “facility” I really mean it.
More to come
Meet my new buddy Michael Renna. He’s a studio owner/engineer in New York. Strangely enough we met because his brother frequents one of my golf sites. Small world.
So Michael and I have been sending some notes, audio and images back & forth…. The images below are of Michael and his very famous client Al Di Meola. Al Di Meola is one of the worlds greatest guitar players. If you don’t know who Al is, and you play guitar….well, you’re not a guitar player.
Michael Renna and Al Di Meola
Well as many of you know I have several golf sites I work on. One is a blog that is HUGE. I just opened my 4th golf site this month so I’ve been slacking on making posts here. Trust me, I have plenty of material. I’ll get back to it.
I have a new best friend! He happens to be the engineer for Al DiMeola. If you don’t know who AD is, especially if you are a guitar player, then shame on you. AD is one of the top guitar players in history. I’d say his trademark is his lightning fast licks with extremeley staccato notes. No one can play tight, crisp staccato notes like AD.
My autographed AD photo is on the way thanks to my new buddy. I hope to get to know him much better and maybe some day meet him and Al and even sit in on a session. That would be major.
Hey Al… Need a drummer? I’d KILL to play some tracks on one of your albums. I only charge room and board 🙂
Ok I have listened to the entire new DT album. I must say I’m not impressed. Don’t get me wrong, the musicians are amazing. That’s not my beef.
The engineering and production on this album stinks. It sounds very mid-rangey (if that’s a word). In my one car stereo all I can hear clearly driving down the streen is snare drum and vocals. Can’t hear the bass, and the guitar & keyboards just blend into each other to form foggy sort of “audio soup.” And it seems like the whole thing is damn near panned center. Mix in some stereo will ya?
The lead guitar parts are way too low. The snare drum is too loud and in fact the whole kit sounds very mid-rangey and thin. The kick drum doesn’t kick. The toms are kind of whimpy. And the whole kit was obviously recorded in a tight space and it is totally lacking “life” or some kind of wideness or ambience.
The vocals sound pretty good.
Did these guys engineer/produce it themselves? That’s just what it sounds like.
I ran across an old metal band I recorded years ago through myspace. They’re in the midst of hammering out a record deal and they’re in need of a drummer. Looks like I’m going to do some drum tracks for them here. When they do the real album they say I’ll do the tracks wherever they record (LA or somewhere). Sounds like a lot of fun.
If it goes well I could see doing some touring. I hated the last tour I was on but that was a little different. I hope I get along with these guys.