Mike Mods and the Persistence of Memory

The Oktava MC-012 pair that I've used for the first two CD's have just been mod'd by Michael Joly at OktavaMod. While they were in his shop it's been a fun couple of weeks with the B45-12 Gibson with the Sunrise pickup, and I will be listening to some of the test recordings I did with that setup (mixed with a channel from an MXL 1006 LD Condenser) later to see if that combo really sounded as good as first hearing. But I've spent the last few days checking out the upgraded mics by comparing them with some earlier recordings.

3am, the mother of invention

I woke up at 3 am thinking about how Track-Stand should be recorded. It is based on a Bach re-working of a Vivaldi piece. It is very grand and static, like a giant cathedral, and difficult to detail the two lines that alternate in a dramatic and stately manner. Other things were spinning around also, like how to do a video for this piece. But first things first.

I always heard this piece as a duet of screaming electric guitars. It is so slow that it needs a lot more sustain than an acoustic 12-string guitar can provide. So I got the old Gibson B45 out and mounted the Sunrise pickup and recorded a sample. Using ecasound to record, the pickup and the mic are panned hard right and left, and they should be blended, so I looked around the Internets in vain for a Jack mixer. No joy! Seems they were all alpha or had been pulled from the web. What to do?

Jack Rack - a nice fit with LADSPA

The new microphone positions, spaced with omni capsules, sounds a lot closer to what I want the 12-string guitar to sound like. While using omnis, though, I've had to surround the recording position with acoustic absorbers to limit room echoes. The resulting recordings sound very close and detailed...perhaps too close. Compared to Leo Kottke's guitar, which sounds nicely placed about 3 feet behind the speakers, mine sounds about 1 inch behind the speaker and there is no space around it. I think some reverb might help, but what kind? Well, I'm a Linux fan, and I've used the LADSPA plugins in the past, including FreeVerb and GVerb, but the TAP set of plugins, Tom's Audio Plugins written by Tom Szilagyi are very impressive. His Reverberator plugin has 39 presets, each preset can be modified with wet/dry and delay. For the adventurous, he provides a Reverberator editor, so you can add as many presets as you want.