Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Latest

The new Donna Beasley album, "Under The Rushes" is coming along nicely. I've been working on guitar overdubs, which is always big fun. I've been trying to think outside the band, and by that I mean - try to think of parts that serve the song even if they cannot be reproduced live on stage. That requires some doing, as I need to get past my familiarity with the demos and treat these master versions as fresh songs.

Even if you try to copy the demo, it always sounds different once different people play their instruments. I played all of the instruments and programmed the drums/loops on the demos, so I had an inside-out view. When you hire a band to play those parts, it's always different, usually better.

I've been trying to approach these songs as wide-open, with no conscious limitations to radio or genre or whatever...if I glimpse and idea, chase it and catch it, I'm trying to let my creative side be satisfied with it before I begin to edit. This means some favorite parts might fall by the side, but that's OK.



There's some OmniChord on this record already, and may be more to come. Probably get buried in the final mix, but that's the kind of thing I am looking for...a bit of ear candy to make the listener want to hear it again.

I've been using my Deluxe Reverb for most tracks, and the 3 Monkeys Orangutan head into my DR's Celestion Vintage 30. Stuart Mathis loaned me his Orange AD15 and a very old and cool Supro, so I'll get some of that vibe onto this record eventually. Guitars have been the Epiphone Casino, Gibson ES-350T and Fender Esquire.




The Vox ValveTone overdrive pedal has been a regular choice with the Deluxe. The Orangutan has that chimey grind in spades without a pedal.