Eddy Dyer – Far Be it From Me

This album was a treat to be a part of. It begin 13 years before I got involved. I’ll let Eddy tell the story:

“In 2003 my father died as I was traveling sacred pre-Christian sites in Ireland. Over the trip I wrote an album’s worth of songs dealing with loss, impermanence and grief. Started putting the album together and tracking in early 2004 then experienced a severe breakdown, and scrapped the project.

On Sunday, June 4th,2017, 14 years later, after losing both my brother Michael and my dear friend and longtime musical partner Brad Clarke earlier this year, I recorded the whole thing in one epic session; 13 songs altogether; 10 originals plus covers by my dearly missed friend Van Lawton, The Cure and PJ Harvey.”

Needless to say, this record has ghosts. We tracked the record in one day at The Halo Studios in Maine. We got Eddy’s guitar and vocal takes in about four hours, then spent another three or four recording tin whistle and backing vocals. There were a lot of room mics on this album, pretty much all the overdubs (whistle, backing vocals) were recording with ribbon room mics, where I had the performer stand in a different spot of the room for each overdub. For multiple takes, it sounds like a room full of musicians playing when you add them all together.

For the technically minded, this is the first album I’ve ever mixed using the Harrison Mixbus 32C DAW. This is a great mixing platform based on the open-source Ardour DAW, but with Harrison’s emulation of their famous 32C analog console bootstrapped on to it. I really like the workflow, and especially the sound, in mixing this way. I definitely plan to continue using Mixbus for mixing.

Eddy Dyer – Heart Of Your Rage

heartofyourrage-coverHeart Of Your Rage is the second single from Eddy’s forthcoming album, Love is At The Heart of This Thing, Right? We’ve been working on this album for several months and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Give a listen here:

Musically, there’s a lot going on here. Acoustic guitar and a single vocal take are the foundation of the song, with several layers of electric guitars (played by both Eddy and by Justin Spicer) coming in & out of focus as the song progresses. One of the more subtle guitar tracks was recorded at Battery Steele on Peaks Island, Maine, which was one of the most fun recording sessions I’ve ever been a part of. Eddy also played bass, and there is also cool synth drone that runs in the background throughout the song. There are drums (played by Chuck Greenwood and recorded by Bob Nash at Wonka Sound in Lowell, MA).  About 2:00 in you can hear a kid’s choir directed by Eddy & Seth Bailin. The song slowly builds all the way up to the climactic ending. After I dialed in the final mix, the song was mastered by Scott over at Old Colony Mastering, who will also be mastering the album when it’s finished.

All that is well and good, but the real story with this song is with the lyrics, which are quite timely in this world:

After our fight, I let the cedar wolf lead me deep inside
into the angry flesh of a tulip, partially capsized.
When we washed the blood from our faces at the heart of it all
we could see the bottomless well behind the cracks in the wall;

It said,
“Illuminate the love that resides within the heart of your rage
Illuminate the love that is hiding in the heart of your rage
because later or soon, there’ll be
none but the moon left to blame
so cast off what’s been burned in the fire,
keep what’s been forged in the flame.

Liberate the love that resides within the heart of your rage
Liberate the love that is hiding in the heart of your rage
because in sin or in grace, there’s but one face
that carries your name
so cast off what’s been burned in the fire,
keep what’s been forged in the flames

Watch the stars, they’re moving

Celebrate the love that resides within the heart of your rage
celebrate the love that is hiding in the heart of your rage
because in sin or in grace, there’s but one face
whose ways you can change
so cast off what’s been burned in the fire,
keep what’s been forged in the flames

and love.

Enjoy the song. If you really enjoy it, then support Eddy as we complete this album.

Eddy Dyer: Signal

I’m really happy to share this one! It is the first track from Eddy Dyer’s upcoming album, Love Is At The Heart Of This Thing, Right?

The drums were played by Charles Greenwood, and recorded at Wonka Sound by Bob Nash. Eddy played everything else, recording the synths and bass at home, and vocals and guitars with me. The guitars were fun…. there is a percussive acoustic guitar part doubling the bass line that gives great tonality and punch. The electric guitars, if I remember right, were a strat played through tube amps, possibly an old Gibson amp that I have. They sound really good, punchy but not like saturated, over-the-top distortion.

I then mixed the track, and had Scott at Old Colony Mastering put the finishing mastering touches on it. Cover art by Che Arrajj.

If you enjoy the sound of this song, then give Eddy some support, and contact me to help you get your music sounding good.

The Droimlins – And Then There’s Whiskey

The Droimlins
“There’s everything else in the world, and then there’s whiskey….”

Very happy this song from The Droimlins was released. This is probably my favorite track from the EP we did earlier this year. These are a bunch of great songs, but this one had something special in the performance. The Droimlins describe themselves thusly:

Multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Otis and songsmith Eddy Dyer, both formerly of The Reagan Babies have again joined forces to create The Droimlins, Lowell’s newest Celtic Gypsy Punk outfit; regaling you with songs of Drinking And Rebellion.

The recording was done very simply, in a small, untreated room. It was done live in one take to preserve the performance aspect of what they do. The arrangement on this song is fantastic, the interplay between the guitar and the accordion, with the vocals sitting right on top, is really good.

I recorded the accordion with 2 dynamic microphones that have excellent sound and fantastic rear rejection, so I could maximize separation from the guitar & Eddy’s voice. Accordions produce sounds from both ends, so you really need 2 mics to do it justice. I used a pair of ribbons to record Eddy’s acoustic guitar, along with a tube mic for Eddy’s vocals. These all gave really nice tones, despite the very far from perfect room, with lots of flexibility during the mix. Because there was significant bleed between everything, I didn’t bother recording room mics, and they weren’t needed in the mix.

In addition to this project, I am working with Eddy on his upcoming solo album. Please support him if you can, it’s going to be excellent.

Morgan Lindenschmidt – When The Words Fade, We Fade

Morgan Lindenschmidt - When The Words Fade We Fade - Cover

When The Words Fade, We Fade, the new EP by Morgan Lindenschmidt, is finally here. Check it out on her Bandcamp page:

This one was fun. The basic tracks were recorded in the same way as Rest Inside (her debut EP), using my recording rig. The first track (An Aftertaste) was recorded at home, with the rest of the tracks done over at Halo Studios’ live room. The performance of An Aftertaste on the home recording was just too good, so we kept it. All the songs basic tracks were six tracks total: stereo ribbon mics on the guitar, an AKG 414 on vocals, a pair of Gefell room mics, and a DI out of the guitar.

However, there was much more post production on this one. I used the DI output to reamp the guitar on several tracks, including Little Hoaxes/Little Hopes above, which is my personal favorite track on the album. This one has a lot more texture and sonic depth than the previous recording, and the growth of the artist as a songwriter and performer is apparent since her debut EP. I also did the mixing and mastering on this one.

 

Harper Meader: Honey

My good friend Harper Meader is an interesting guy. I learned to make mead from him. He built his own cordwood masonry home by hand. Turns out, he’s also a musician and a songwriter. After he had a particularly inspirational year he’d been writing a lot more songs, and wanted some help recording them.

I was happy to oblige. I’ve been wanting to record in Ironwood Hollow — the space he built by hand — because it has wonderful acoustics. It’s a good sized room with tall ceilings, no parallel surfaces, and remains the best mead hall I know.

Anyway, Harper had his songs well-arranged, polished, practiced, and even a few harmony and lead guitar lines. The result is a very fine debut EP. Check it out. You can even get a copy of the CD from Harper.

Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by James Lindenschmidt for Crafted Recordings.

Dark Follies

Last summer I had the pleasure of recording Dark Follies, an award winning vaudeville style variety show based in Portland, Maine.  Family friendly while still keeping an edge, Dark Follies  features the live music of the Dark Follies Rhythm Orchestra, dancing, juggling, side show acts, fire performers and more.

This session was over a year ago…. and the best news is, I’m going to record them again very soon. This time I’ll have a larger room, and my new mobile rig with my mic collection. To say that I’m looking forward to the next session is an understatement!

For the first session last year, the instrumentation was very interesting: violin, accordion, nylon string guitar, and 4 percussionists. We ended up booking an afternoon at Peapod Recordings to have a nice quiet spot to record, and they were well-practiced. We recorded all 4 songs in the same session, and the mixing was finished within another couple of weeks.

For this session I took advantage of having several ribbon mics available to me, utilizing both their old-school sound and their off-axis rejection properties to record the entire ensemble in one small room.

We recorded 4 songs that day: Uskadar, Rast Kars Lama, Jovano Jovanka, and Dobriden.

In the meantime, here is a playlist for their previous work. You can find them on Dark Follies Reverb Nation.

Recorded and Mixed by James Lindenschmidt for Crafted Recordings.

Still here

This site hasn’t been updated in a while. I have been doing more audio recording lately, but have not been updating the site. I’ll add a few entries as I get time.

These days my mobile production strategy has evolved and I have a nice portable rig for recording. I’ve downsized physically (less gear to haul) but my capabilities are more than ever.

In the coming days I’ll write about sessions I’ve had recently with Dark Follies, Harper Meader, Freakwitch, as well as some voiceover work for Studio Comic Kaze.

I will also have some audio samples as well, though you can hear some of the recordings I’ve done on Dark Follies and Harper Meader’s sites above. More samples (from Freakwitch) will be coming up soon.

Occupy Wall Street, Oct 22, 2011

I did some remote recording at Occupy Wall Street on Oct 22 when I was there. There were some drummers playing, and I got much of a talk about student loan debt refusal. Download the mp3 directly, or play it in the player below. Enjoy.

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

1476

Last summer, I had the pleasure of doing sound at a show in Unity, Maine. Among the performers was 1476, a band from Massachusetts that had a fantastic sound. The main thrust of the day was to do front of house sound for the show, but I also did a quick and dirty multitrack recording as well.

1476 played a great set, and contacted me afterwards wanting to get a copy of the gig. I listened, did some tweaking and a quick and dirty mix, and sent the set off to them. It was a great performance, they are a duo of an acoustic guitar/singer and a drummer and have a very full sound, good songs with great arrangements and a singer I believe (I’m notoriously picky about singers… heh).

Everything ended up working out well enough that they had the set pressed to CD, and gave a copy away with the first round of orders for their new EP. I just got my copy of it today, and it’s cool!

Here’s a sound sample, a track called “When The Curtain Falls”:

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!