Hearing those 1986 mixes whet my appetite to hear what other "outtakes" there might be. So I dubbed all the raw tracks from our various demos!
Today is the August 1987 4-track demo we did in our office space. The finished product had (much-needed but tasteful) echo, here you can hear what a good job we did achieving separation! I seem to remember Ted being chief engineer on this one, at least in microphone placement and what was going to tape. The drums are on track one, the bass track two - it might have been a blend from one of the two extra ins we had on my Tascam! (see below - I told you it was the perfect machine!) - the guitar is on track three, with a slight bit of leakage on the drum track....and then on track 4, we overdubbed the vocals on one microphone, one track.
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| It's four tracks - but there's six faders! 5 & 6 could be assigned to one of the other four tracks. We probably had two microphones on the drums (going to track 1), and a microphone/direct-in blend for the bass going to track 2. |
Not much to say, basically we did many takes of "Wintertime", but nailed "Is It Safe?" and "Easier Said Than Done" in two takes apiece. Then we came back and did a couple more "Wintertime". In fact, we say..."let's do one more!", and that's the take.
Hearing us talk, I now remember, we had some kind of baffling, I was cut off from the other guys, and we couldn't really see each other. Or at least I couldn't see them, that's what I'm talking about on the tape. And I probably couldn't hear them very well either, we didn't have any good headphone mixes, and everything was as isolated as could be. This is why sometimes it sounds like Hubie & Ted are connecting tight (they were standing next to each other), and I'm....somewhere else!
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| Ted & Hubie in the office space, autumn 1987 |
You can definitely do some LOOB karaoke with these tracks. As I said, these are just the dry tracks, no echo added, and I barely did a mix on this, I just put got some levels and dubbed the tape. But I must say, we got some great sounds on the guitar, bass, and drums! Or I should say Ted did!
It's also nice to hear the vocals up close and dry. I totally blew "Is It Safe?", aaaargh, makes me cringe!!!! Soon after this, I ditched my initial instructions from Ted and just sang along with the "na-na-nas" at the end (as opposed to going crazy like Otis Redding, which I could never do. On this recording, I just sang "whoahs" over the guys since I wasn't feeling like I could pull off the Otis thing.......aaaaargh, makes me cringe!)
After the session, Ted and I went to his house, and mixed the demo through the night in that downstairs TV room, on the floor. My memory is of doing it with the lights out! What probably happened is that we listened to it at the end with the lights out. I remember us being really tired at, like, 4 in the morning, when we were finally done. Maybe that's why the finished demo has such a "nighttime" feel to it. We used my effects rack (which got stolen out of my door room later that year) and the reverb we put on made it all sound moody and gave the tracks the cohesion they needed. All in all, it went according to plan! Except for the gig we were trying to get! They probably heard me on "Is It Safe" and said "no"!
You can hear how we did with the mix by clicking here! That's the way these tracks ultimately should be heard. But after you do that, have fun with these rough tracks.
Raw tracks, 4-track demo, Suffolk Office, 8/87
Wintertime (take 1)Wintertime (false starts)
Wintertime (take 2)
Wintertime (take 3)
Wintertime (take 4)
Wintertime (take 5)
Is It Safe? (take 1)
Is It Safe? (take 2)
Easier Said Than Done (take 1)
Easier Said Than Done (take 2)
Wintertime (take 6)
Wintertime (take 7)
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocals
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocals
Michael Goodman - drums, vocals
recorded on a Tascam Porta-two cassette 4-track at the Suffolk Office, mixed at Ted's house
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/u9dxq1d26gnvwfw/1987-08+raw+tracks+for+demo.zip
or if you prefer Dropbox, this link will be up for a week or so:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnmvrbimm1hlisd/1987-08%20raw%20tracks%20for%20demo.zip?dl=0
