Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 2 Bad Habit

Bad Habit is a basement tape.
Terry Gilbert recorded it on 4-track tape in his basement
where we used to rehearse as Blue Metro.
We built it track by track using a scratch drum track to lay down
the vocals and rhythm guitars.  Terry played the bass track,
Leo played the drum track, then we added the lead guitars.
Terry's lead guitar solo is the one after the third verse.

I recorded a stereo mix from DAT to my computer. 
I removed the noise from the audio file and restored the gain
to a section of it.  Then I used Ableton Live and Ozone to master it.

I also made an edited for radio version of Bad Habit and a new
version with the compression removed from the original 48KHz mix,
similar to the operation I performed on Evil Evil.  The result is a song
file that is not quite as loud, but has more dynamic range.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Bad Habit by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - lead and rhythm guitars, vocals;
Terry Gilbert - rhythm and lead guitars, bass;
Leo Marshall - drums

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 1 Evil Evil

Evil Evil was recorded at Colorado Sound recording studio.
It is a live recording of the band Blue Metro.  Only the vocals,
lead guitar, and sax solo are overdubbed.

A stereo mix was transferred from tape to Digital Audio Tape,
and from DAT to my computer.  I used some audio manipulation
software to sample and remove the noise and tape hiss from the
stereo mix. Then I brought it into my recording program for mastering.

Later on, I made a shorter version of Evil Evil to make it a little more
radio friendly.  The original is over 5 minutes, and the edited version
is about 3 and a half minutes.

In 2013 I released a newly mastered version of Evil Evil - radio edit
based on some feedback from an audio engineer.  I removed the
compression from the mix and reduced the loudness maximizer on
the master.  The result is a song file that is not quite as loud,
but has more dynamic range.


Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Evil Evil by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - guitar, vocals; Terry Gilbert - guitar, backing vocals; 
Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums;  Gary McNear - keyboards;
Mary McCrimmon - backing vocals;  Billy Warren - sax

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, Intro

The songs on Some Kind Of Blues were recorded in a
variety of methods and places.

A few were done in recording studios.  They are either
live band recordings or mostly live with few overdubs.

Most of the songs were recorded in my home studio
on my computer.  I interface to the computer through
an ART Tube preamp and an MAudio Delta 1010LT
soundcard.

My main instruments are Fender Strats, a Guild
mahogany D-25, a Taylor acoustic, a '68 Fender
Telecaster bass, an Alesis QS8.1 synthesizer,
and a Fender Hotrod Deluxe guitar amp.

My recording software is Ableton Live with Ozone 3
as the mastering plugin.
On all the songs, I used Ableton to create a 48KHz mix
which was then mastered to 44.1KHz for CD with Ozone.

Some Kind Of Blues is a labor of love, the result of many
years of work, and an attempt to get as good a recording
as possible of each of the songs with limited resources. 

It has garnered favorable reviews and fans all over the world.

You can listen to the songs, watch videos, and
get a free download at my web site,
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Some Kind of Blues
Pat Carr

All songs by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Tracks 1, 13 recorded at Colorado Sound:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocals; 

       Terry Gilbert - guitar, backing vocals;  Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums;  Gary McNear - keyboards;  Mary McCrimmon - backing vocals;  Billy Warren - sax
Track 2 recorded at Blue Metro Productions:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocals;

       Terry Gilbert - guitar, bass;  Leo Marshall - drums
Tracks 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 recorded at Carr Tunes:  Pat Carr - all instruments and vocals
Tracks 4, 8  recorded at Carr Tunes:  Pat Carr - all instruments and vocals;  Audree Rundell - backing vocals
Track 12 recorded at Sundown Sound:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocal;  Terry Gilbert - lead guitar;  Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums