That stage should'a made you some Good-Time Money..
Absolutely. The only down side -- upside in a way -- was that I was the sound engineer. I played drums as a guest occasionally on a few songs, but the band's drummer was perfect for what they were doing (he's playing my drums on the tape though - the same ones I use the far tones stuff). All of them were naturals at that stuff. I did play in a reggae band for about two years with the bass player - that explains his bass tone a little.
The upside was that I could hang out behind the sound board all night long and drink. Of course packing up after hanging out behind the sound board all night long and drinking is not my idea of a fun party.
I think a lot of that lead to my need to stop drinking...period.
Another thing I really miss when recording is having the recording studio and control room isolated. That old house because of the plaster walls and physical layout may doing that easy. There was a hall between the living room and a bed room that was being used as the control room. The hall had been blocked off and made into two closets. I know this is hard to visualize, but that put and huge airspace with no doors between the two room. Since the whole house was so solid (and very hard/densely constructed) there was virtually no sound leakage between the rooms. I was able to set the mics while the band played.
That made all the difference when mixdown came, since there was virtually no "fix-it-in-the-mix" needed, except for the bleed from the bass into the drums.
The way most of us record these days we don't have that luxury. We do it all ourselves in one room, doing the engineering and playing. We also get lazy because it's so easy to fix some things in the mix these days.
For example, those tracks were taken from a cassette that's probably 18 or 19 years old, yet there are sounds on it that sound better than anything I've done recently. It's a struggle to get that fat tone in general or the smoothness in the vocals. I'm not suggesting those are great sounding recording - I know how much effort went into what's there and how much it takes to get similar sounds now. How much is that is because it went to tape and how much is because of the room or the recording setup I don't know.
I'm using the same speakers in a different room with a different amp. That stuff sounds the way I remember it sounding. I miss the fatness. It's not there without cranking up the lows now, but that puts a bump in the EQ that isn't there in the old recordings.
Sorry...I was just musing about the past again.
