Florida Lee

Carbon 7 is an improvisational/experimental trio that creates spontaneous music at the moment it's recorded. I left a tad of dialog at the beginning, so you could here our "process." Dennis gives Ron a hard time about choosing a key, then I call out C# & start it off. Clocks in at a whopping 26.5 minutes, but it evolves slowly the entire way.

Recorded live in Dennis' practice space, which we have named The Observatory.
This was my first outing with me new-to-me Precision, which I love, love, love. I cranked the distortion up a bit on this old tube Peavey, & man am I happy with my tone. I made a couple recording improvements over past efforts -- I managed to separate Ron's Ensoniq from his Roland module that he drives via midi, & they're panned hard L&R, with the Prophet 5 still pretty much just left of center. Now 33% more stereophonic! I also added a bottom snare mic instead of trying to pick up everything with just 1 overhead like I have in the past, & was able to tune the drums a little better. I feel like I'm getting the hang of this engineering business. I'm particularly knocked out by Dennis' hi-hat work over the first 4 or 5 minutes of this, so if you're into details, check that out. He's a subtle monster.

Also, Cortex's amazing album cover art is here. Lasers are fun!

Music for timing your dough rise, assembling model rocketry & planning the launch phase your sunset years on a legal pad, with a number 2 pencil & hand-held calculator.

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by Devils Rancher (7 comments total)

Extemporaneous is the word I always forget when I’m trying to write descriptions of these things.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:05 PM on August 5, 2018

[I've updated the file manually to use the higher bitrate file, larger than the normal allowable 20 Mb limit.]
posted by frimble at 5:48 AM on August 6, 2018

Hey, thanks, frimble. You’re aces.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:40 PM on August 6, 2018

Dude, that P-bass sounds great. I'm looking to replace my cheapo Chinese PJ with a (probably) Fender, but ... buying instruments is such a hassle. I basically want this sound, though, so ... I guess I want a P-bass.

As for the engineering: sounds pretty good to me. I want a little more of the drum overheads, I think (and more ... 3k maybe? more bite, in them). But honestly ... it's a fine recording. (And it sure helps having good players!)

Really dig the last section that starts at maybe 21' or so.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:04 AM on August 10, 2018

Yeah, I go back & forth with the overhead. I've been using 1 strategically placed SM81 to get the snare, rack tom & all the cymbals, & in the past I've had to crank up the high mids enough to get a good crack out of the snare that they cymbals were a little heavy in that same range, so I added the bottom mic on the snare, & went maybe too far the other way with the high mids on the SM81. It's tough figuring out how to do this all with 8 tracks, but that small capsule condenser is such a good mic it almost mixes itself if you point it right. Other than that, I close mic the floor tom & the kick. If I had 2 SM81's, I'd do it Glyn Johns style, with the 2nd one over the floor tom, but those things are pricey.

There's nothing in the world I'd like more than another 8 inputs - Focusrite makes an Octo-pre that's made the expand the Saffire Pro 40, but I'm dreaming.

That precision -- is a '98, Mexican-made el cheapo. It was hanging in a used store with all sorts of other precisions & jazzes, of various vintages going beck to the early 60's, & it played better than all of them. It has an open, ringy sustain that's on the far side of that envelope for a precision, & when I asked them if I could plug it in, I noticed someone had replaced the stock pickup with a Seymour Duncan 1/4-pounder, & blam, I was sold. It's got the wide, flat C-neck & somehow, the Mexicans accidentally made a really good one that day.

It's black & had a plain-jane white pick guard, with mis-matched knobs, one black plastic & one white plastic, & wasn't anything to look at. It was $360.00 & I spent another 40 on a red tortoise shell pick guard & n chrome knobs, & it spruced right up. It has a few dings that someone covered by dabbing them with probably testers model enamel -- but to me, the dings on a Precision are just charming.

And yeah, the 6/8 bit at the end really came out of nowhere, & Ron took it over in a good way wit hthe keys & I just tried to keep up as best I could.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:44 PM on August 12, 2018

This is great. I love the idea of planning the launch phase of your golden years to this music. Item one would have to be "1. Buy a hoverbike and take to the open near-future utopian/dystopian road."
posted by umbú at 6:51 AM on August 13, 2018

You're right, the hi-hat playing is perfect. Very impressive playing, and the recording sounds great to me.
posted by Corduroy at 11:59 PM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]