Sam Thacker is a musician & teacher from Brooklyn,NY and was traveling through New Mexico for a week. He joined us at Studio C for a day to record his original material. Sam came in with a very straight forward goal, and in the ten hours we accomplished more than we expected. Five songs is hard to accomplish in one day, even if three of them were just vocals and acoustic guitar. This was a great project that included Max tracking drums live with Sam on a couple tracks, and Dave overdubbed some Rhodes Organ. All of the acoustic songs were done live in one take. The drums and acoustic guitar were done live for the other songs with overdubs to fill in everything else. We even got Rita O’Connell to come join us to add some background vocals on a couple of songs. Thanks to Nicolas Greiff for the photos.
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Recording Specifics
The Acoustic Setup
For Sam’s acoustic songs, we wanted to capture the full live sound. We setup two mics in a classic Blumlein formation as well as plugging his Martin into a Fender Princeton amp.
- Voice – AKG C12a > API 312 > NEVE 2254e
- Guitar – Blue Kiwi > Neve 511 > NEVE 2254e
- Guitar Amp – SM57 > API 312
Drum Setup
This has to be my favorite easy to mix drum sound. When we are in a time crunch, this work perfectly to capture a great sound without sacrificing anything. This setup relies on the drummer making it sound good more than the post production.
- Kit – AKG 414’s setup in a Glyn Johns formation > API 312c > Neve 2254e
- Kick – AKG D112 > API 312
- Snare – Beta 57 > API 312
Other Instruments
- Bass – Fender Bass > Music Man Amp > Blue Kiwi > Neve 511 > Pheonix N90
- Electric Guitar – Fender Stratocaster > Princeton Amp > API 312 > Neve 2254e or ADR Compex Compressor
- Rhodes – DI Telefunken v72 > ADR Compex Compressor
- Acoustic Guitar – Blue Kiwi > Neve 511 > Pheonix N90
- Piano – Neumann km53 > Telefunken v72
- Lead Vocal Overdub – AKG C12a > API 312 > NEVE 2254e
- Background Vocals – Neumann km53 > Telefunken v72 > NEVE 2254e