microphones, monster manuals: lord god bird.
I just finished up another guerrilla recording project, an EP for Bay Area psyche/metal dorks Lord God Bird. It came out great.
Download the EP here. (40mb) Recommended if you like: Kyuss, Hawkwind, riffs, Boris, repetition, AD&D.
(Thanks to Ms. Kate Cronin for a spoken word appearance, and to Mr. Thompson for another quality mastering job. Which I later found out he did drunk. Appropriate.)
We tracked in LGB's tiny, crappy (but homey) practice space in Oakland. The band barely had to move a thing; I showed up with a shitload of gear and crammed myself against a wall. Here's a photo (well, a dozen photos). You can see my mobile rig in the middle of the room. I would guess the entire room is 8x10. There's a few more pics here.
We tracked in 2 moderately long days, with no headphones, and pretty much no isolation (I mean, come on, it's a rock band lighting up an 8x10 room) save for a couple of strategically placed packing blankets. The band breezed through the takes, making it look easy. There's nothing like a band that has their shit together.
Also, we ate delicious pupusas.
I really am stoked about the way this recording turned out. The songs are awesome, the performances are solid. And to track live, with no isolation, in a tiny room, and get results like this... that's pretty damn good.
What I've learned over time — and this is hardly news — is that for a lot of flavors of music, a good band can walk in, play through the song two or three times, and be done recording. It doesn't need to be this big drawn out thing where we cut scratch guitars and bass, then overdub those, comp lots of little bits into one performance, blah blah blah. Not only does it not need to be that way, it shouldn't be done that way if it doesn't have to be. Yeah, you'll do some spot fixes; yeah, you'll overdub vocals and solos, and add a bunch of little details. But you really can rock that shit live and get great results. (And if your band can't pull that off, you might think about why.)