no I lay thee down to rest

fortunately and unfortunatley, the guitars are finished for the new thistle album. while we haven't been keeping a day-by-day account of our studio activity, a lot has been going on.
over the course of the last two months we've completed all the bass tracks and now all the guitar tracks. today, saturday, saw the last notes comitted to tape, so unless we hear something that sucks later down the road, we'll move on to vocals and percussion and other ancillary noodlings.
the songs for today were "conifer", "in multiples", "the departure" and "send the owls." I did some electrics on "send the owls" which were actuclly the only ones done on that tune to this point. the typical set up is a les paul through a marshall jmp 100 through a fender 2 X12 cabinet, miced with a combination of a sennheiser 421 and a shure 57 or beta 57 depending on the tune, bussed together to one track. I usually run them through the vintech 1272's then through the empirical labs fatso compressor then to two line inputs on the console so I can blend or eq or whatever before bussing them to one track on the tape machine. I also sometimes mix in a shure ksm 44 which is a little further back in the room if I want a little more 'space' in the sound. for a double I'll hook up a telecaster through the same amp/mic set up. it usually gets the sound I'm looking for.
in addition to the guitars and amps there's any variety of pedals to go through. from the classic standby big muff to the tech 21 xxl distortion pedal to wahs and tremelos and delays and flangers and the super secret prescription electronics experience pedal (the hidden weapon).

quite an arsenal, I'll agree, but it's necessary to achieve a variety of tones from song to song.
today the good doctor and I also ran his martin acoustic guitar through an amp and combined that miced sound with a di from the acoustic's pre amp to do the beginning of "conifer", "the departure" and the break in "in multiples".
somehow, despite our relatively late start, we got a lot done. the dosctor left around 6pm and I listened through to each of the tunes and did a little mock mixing to make sure I had enough stuff to whittle down for the final product. I think we're there.
I apologize for the hap-hazzard ordering of the words on this page, but my head is too full of notes and ringing to make much more sense at this point.
tonight we ride, as always.
-mike