Recording Daldry

For the past few weeks I’ve been working with a local Celtic/traditional artist by the name of Peter Daldry. Undertaking this sort of recording/producing project is a nice change of pace from my normal, hyper-detailed, uber-produced faire with Maximum Indifference. I’m liking the reactionary aspect of producing someone else’s music—that is, not having to come up with the actual song or idea, but rather responding and helping to shape the ultimate output.

Another nice switch is recording actual acoustic instruments. Voice, guitar, Irish Pipes, Whistles, Fiddle, and of course… Bodhran. (I think I got that spelling right). Most of what I record for myself (or MI, for that matter) consists mostly of virtual instruments, synths and samples, and direct-injected guitars and basses. Then there’s the mic’ing of the odd amp every once and a while (oh, and the cookie sheet!). By and large I don’t often get to stretch out that purely acoustic muscle, giving my vastly limited microphone selection a workout, but this is just such a time.

Out with the click. What? For the longest time, one of my mandatory requirements in recording any sort of project was strict adherence to the click. My sanity during sequencing, synching, sampling, and rexing was utterly dependent on it! Many an evening have been spent painstakingly outlining songs and sequences with the correct tempos, time signatures, retards, accelerandos… and just about anything else with which I could torture myself. Alas… no more! I recorded Peter’s scratch tracks on the fly—completely devoid of any hint of the click. Thanks to Digital Performer’s adjust beats function, I was able to go in afterwards and manually adjust the bars and beats to sync up with Peter’s performance. All of his tempo fluctuations (that’s a good thing), meter changes (even the accidental ones), and the feel of his performances are now perfectly aligned to the sequence grid—without sacrificing any of them. I love adjust beats.

FYI, this post comes to your directly from the dentint’s chair… waiting to get numb. Hmm. Sounds like a song title.