Let Us Pray

[MasterCylinder]

Dear Lord:


Give me the combined strength of all the thread-posters here at RR to provide decent acoustic drum tracks for Troy's "ATOM" song. We can pray that half the ideas I have for this project work out -- if so, it will be a success. Further, Father, I am glad I am not the guy that will reproduce and mail the copies that might be requested from all the great friends here at the board.

Amen

Hi folks:
Starting at 6:30PM (Central) tonight, I will be in the studio getting this put together and will need your thoughts and support -- hey -- it's a weird tune.
I mean, c'mon.....it's TROY !

[BarryL]

Dear Lord:


Give me decent ideas for I am weird.

I will be praying for Troy, and that I will have the opportunity to visit with him again to pick up a copy in person.

He's probably praying that the missus shows up without me, and leaves me CD shopping.

(Hey, that doesn't sound too bad!)

Go to it MC, let's see what you can do. I suppose the one thing that can be said is that you can't ruin it!

[Troy]

Make me proud MC! Make it WORTH sending.

Just remember, "the atom is your friend".

Were you able to find the bass only track?

[Finch Platte]

Dear Lord:


it's TROY !

This could be interesting.

Nah.

fp

[Dusty Chalk]

You don't need prayer. That's my prayer.

[Finch Platte]

This could be interesting.

Nah.

fp

...was that, if you can't do it, send it my way. I've been listening to my Casio, and have several new beats I'd like to try out.

I don't pray, but while you guys are all on your knees, could you ask God to send me a girlfriend? Thanks.

fp

[MasterCylinder]

Well guys...........the night was very interesting.

Just me and the engineer in the entire building. The main control room that houses the board, the hard-drives and all the outboard gear could not be physically further from the drum room. So a good amount of time was spent trying to communicate through drum mikes and headphones.

Troy's song now has more punch -- when acoustic drums are miked, recorded and mixed with the proper EQ, the result is always some nice punch. So, the most notable improvement is simply the nice acoustic drum punch as opposed to the drum loops that were previously used.

My biggest disappointment was that I was not able to put as much "musical percussion flash" into the middle instrumental section as I thought I could. The structure is a bit odd and I was never able to get totally comfortable with the fills without handling the basics so I think I reverted to my training which places priorities on accents and cues while maintaining absolute tempo.

As far as the verses and choruses, I always do my job, which is accompaniment.

The ending was a work of art by the engineer...........while I usually avoid the "big fade-out" on my arrangements, he matched these tracks perfectly to get the desired result.

The intro proved to be the best part............the tracks that Troy sent to me all began at once and had no "count-in" so what we did was this............went to the middle of the first verse and just played a snare "pop" in tempo and recorded eight counts.
Then we did a "cut and paste" and synched the 8-count to the front of the track.
I then utilized the first 4 counts as the "count-in" and took the liberty to create a drum intro with the next four counts. And, I must say, while this intro is not overly complex, it is absolutely nailed.


Overall, that is the way I would summarize the night -- not great but, certainly not bad.

No complaints.........it was a fun project........with these observations:

1) The marriage of man and machine is weird. Obviously, it is just not the same as having the guys in the studio and finding a groove.

2) We had to do the best we could with what was provided....meaning, we were not able seperate the mix and thus, at times, had technical difficulty hearing what needed to be heard. Simply put, we are spoiled and we are used to having more control over arragement, mix and production.

3) I was surprised to find that after sitting behing the kit for a while, I had trouble finding Troy's speed..........I was rushing things as I feel this song at a bit of an increased tempo.
So I had to "pull back on the reins" in order to find the pocket.

So there you have it kids...........Troy's song gets a cool drum intro and some new punch.

[DarrenH]

Thanks for the interesting comments MC.

I'd like to hear this track someday.

Cool pic too, is that you or the engineer?

Darren

[MasterCylinder]

The man in the photo is Ray Brooks, the sound engineer.

He is sitting at the main board of a 36-channel MACKIE digital system.

The "EDIT" time spent is amazingly productive with digital systems.

Notice the mouse is sitting on a old octogonal-shaped trigger pad from a vintage set of SIMMONS electronic drums..........it serves a purpose, even today !

[Troy]

Hey MC,

Are you gonna send me a CD of the recording or what?

Yeah, the structure is odd in the middle section. No surprise there. Had a buddy that plays the bass come over and try to play some of my basslines recently. He said my songs are really difficult to play. The only thing I can say is that if you were able to give yourself more than one evening to learn it, I bet you could have become more facile with it. Practice the song more!

The playing without a band is a problem with a lot of musicians, it seems. Again, my buddy said the same thing. But I see session musicians playing alone in studios all the time . . . ?

Sorry you were not able to separate the mix out more. I could have provided you with any combination of instruments in the mix. What kind of mix would you have required?

[MasterCylinder]

TROY:
CD is in the mail -- with various tracks and versions available to you.

Practice more ?
Well........that would be nice but, the only kit available right now is the one at the studio.
For some reason, at the studio, time = money.

Track seperations ?
With hindsight, perhaps I should have asked you to send me all the tracks on an individual basis, but we eventually got through this fairly well. Like I said, I'm just spoiled.
BTW, if anyone ever asks you to send them tracks on an individual basis, make sure they all have a uniform click track or count-in so they can be lined up later.

Didn't intend to sound negative in my post -- all things considered, I think the end result turned out quite nice. You should have it early next week.

[Troy]

No negativity noticed.

Yeah, I can dig teh practice=$ dillema.

If we do this again, I will definitely give you an into count and as many tracks broken down as you can stand.

Thanks, I can't wait to hear it!

Now all I gotta do is re-sing it . . . .