please, a kerble to learn my unknowings.

has anyone recorded live at electrical? like, had an engineer mic everything up and then plow through their set/album songs. just wondering if that's a viable option to get a professional sounding recording. seems like it'd take a lot less time and possibly sound more organic and together. or maybe everything just bleeds together... i really have no idea.

if anyone knows of an album or albums recorded this way at EA it'd help me out a ton to figure out if it's an option for us.

You mean live direct to two-track? Yes, this one:

Robbie Fulk's "13 Hillbilly Giants".

cool thanks i'll check this out.

Parts of the new Weedeater record sounds like it was recorded in one take. I could get the CD and check but that would require me getting out of my chair, and it's too hot to move.

I'm fairly certain Electrelanes' Axes was tracked live. I really like the sound of that record.

What are the chances of ever seeing a hip-hop/rap/r'n'b/pop album recorded this way? It seems only rock, blues, jazz, classical, basically anything that can be played with real acoustic instruments, occasionally gets recorded this way. How about a 50 Cent, Depeche Mode or Christina Aguilera album recorded live direct to two-track?

Bear Claw recorded 7 of our 11 songs on our new record in a single take except for vocals which were done as overdubs. 2 of these are available on our website www.bearclawrock.com. Check out "By Popular Demand" and "Point A to Point". The 3rd track "Embrace" had a few punches but was mostly live.

The recording was done in Studio A with Steve. We recorded and mixed the record in 4, ten hour days. The album is around 47 min. long. We tracked the music and vocals in a 2 days including setup time (4 to 5 hours). It can be done just practice your butt off!

cool thanks picco
these songs sound great, i'm sorry i missed you guys when i was out there for the TnG anniversary.

we do practice our asses of, and we want to try to record at the tail end of a tour where we're playing every night and should be tight like spandex on sumo.

i've got the (probably false?) hope we could record 30-40 minutes of music in a day and mix it in a second day. you think two days will be too much of a rush even if we've really got our shit together?

coming away with a great sounding record is obviously the most important thing but we're thin in the wallets and that is a major consideration. we don't even have a van yet.

4 to 5 hours seems like a lot of setup time to me. is this normal?

are there major benefits to NOT recording live?

these tracks are sounding great! i like demand and embrace best. vocals on embrace are totally reminding me of guy piccoto.

hogrot wrote:i've got the (probably false?) hope we could record 30-40 minutes of music in a day and mix it in a second day. you think two days will be too much of a rush even if we've really got our shit together?

I think this is how Federation X's X-Patriot was done. They were super tight and were able to do it quick.

I personally wouldn't want to spend any less than four days on a record. That's just me, though.

Well, I know that Steve has talked about this time issue before and I agree with his philosophy. You can make a record in a day or two days but there has to be a acceptance of the end result in that you can't set unrealistic expectations. You won't be able to be picky and need to accept some of the limitations of the situation (ie. not being able to do multipule takes, overdubs, making it sound in reality exactly how it sounds perfect in your head, ect...). We did 4 days because I felt like the mixing was rushed last time at being slightly over one day long and I felt that giving Steve two full days was more appropiate for our music, expectations, and based on Steve's style.

Setup time was probably more like 3 to 4 hours. You have to take you time before doing a live recording and hitting record. Also, if you get the placement right and have everything coming back from tape sounding good before even thinking of mixing, you'll save yourself a lot of time and dissapointment after the fact (ie. mixing).

Here is a link to a post I put up with pictures and some details of our latest experience. Check it out if you have time:

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=26552


Scott