Technical

Last October, I posted about the experiences I was having at MorningStar Studios learning about recording vibes with ribbon mics and the surprisingly rich sound Glen was able to get with me sequestered in a vocal booth. Some things have changed here at home since then that I would like to share.

Glen rebuilt his drum booth. He put in all new acoustic treatment panels and gave me the old ones, so I now have a much more fully treated space in which to record that is much closer to the vocal booth experience.

I'm very particular about the recording and sound. I'm a novice at best for working Logic Pro and final cut but I do know that if I don't control the ricocheting acoustic sounds flying around the room, I'll be frustrated from the start.

In the past, I built expensive baffles and they worked okay but were very difficult to build and even more difficult to move if I want to take them to a new residence or even just move them to a different spot. If you move, you simply fold them up or use them as padding for furniture (win/win).

Machine Learning is everywhere, so it seems, including training for Fully Self Driving cars such as Tesla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucp0TTmvqOE

Music repair (thanks to Randy for introducing us to this),
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/rx/features.html

Some notes about the notes: At the very beginning, the piece starts with b9 interval played in the right hand and improvised stuff in the left. This to me creates a cold, alone, metalac feeling of depth under water. At 0:43 I rub and randomly "twinkle" the upper register with the top mallet. This is white water sound that was inspired by a young student who did that when he was just messing around on the instrument.

I think I have this totally figured out. Vibraphonist Carolyn Stallard came over and we experimented with the Late Night Mallets (click here for the mallets).

Here's the solo vibe piece that goes with the Misty Lesson. There are some serious challenges in it.