Caramel by glomu
Caramel must have been the longest ever recording project of mine. I heard the original song by Suzanne Vega first in 2003 and not long after that I felt I really wanted to create my own version , with a smooth jazz, bossa-nova approach to it. The initial recordings were done in 2004 and consisted of the followings:
Caramel must have been the longest ever recording project of mine. I heard the original song by Suzanne Vega first in 2003 and not long after that I felt I really wanted to create my own version , with a smooth jazz, bossa-nova approach to it. The initial recordings were done in 2004 and consisted of the followings:
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| Yamaha PSR 290 |
Drum track
It is not difficult to see that the drum is provided by a drum machine in the song. It was done by using 2-3 variations of the same style / pattern. My old Yamaha PSR 290 was used to generate the stereo drum track and fair play to him, I am pleased with the results, knowing especially the limitations of cheap digital keyboards. The only real issue with the drum track is that it was not recorded in stereo. At that time, I was heavily using a Zoom MRS4 machine, a great little 4 track recording device, but lacking real stereo capabilities. This results in a somewhat mono, somewhat pseudo stereo sounding drum track in the song.
Organ
The organ track was provided a sound bank called Click organ (if I remember well) also coming from the Yamaha PSR 295. It can be perceived as being a bit overtly cheesy, but I am happy with the sound overall. I am not happy though with the mono outcome, this track suffers from the same recording device limitation as the drum track. The only difference is that being panned to the right, you do not really feel the loss of a true stereo sound in the case of the organ track.
Bass
Originally, just to have as much of the backing track ready as possible, I used the bass sounds of the Yamaha PSR 290, but they sounded really MIDI and fake, so in 2007 I re-recorded the bass using a Peavey Millenium BXP-5 going through a Zoom B1. The sound quality of this recording really needed some cosmetics, especially on the EQs.
Guitar
At the time of the recording I had a cheap Les Paul copy named Apollo with a Zoom 707II multieffect. I on purpose wanted to create a very simple guitar track, though I have to admit that my jazz playing skills also were very basic at that time (and they have not improved :-)). Also, something I was less worried about in 2004, the Zoom 707II guitar multieffect is a bit noisy, which is easy to treat, once you pay attention to it. This is something I have not done in 2004, obviously.
Throughout 2007-2008, the song had a number of different versions which included piano solos, accordion tracks, long sustain Slash like solos and even a weird bass solo, but none of them really worked. Between 2008 and 2010 I did not really work on the song, up until I gave the old backing track to Michelle to give it a try and see how she likes the song. From there on, thing sped up and in March, 2011, we recorded the voice. Michelle's voice beautifully complemented the already existing track and set well upon the minimalistic but thick jazz guitar / organ combo.
In 2010, I met Saverio, a genius flute player who can do wonders with his flute in a number of different styles and genres by adding magical licks and solos to the song flow. The final song features his 3rd recording take, he was so much into the song that there was no need for any further retakes.
Technical details:
The main hassle here was caused by the Zoom MRS4 multi-track recording device. I recorded most of the tracks in mono and in 32KHZ only. This means that once I started editing them on the computer, I had to re sample all tracks, which, obviously, did not improve anything on the quality. However, it allowed further recordings in industry standard qualities to take place.
Once we had the voice and the flute (both recorded in a noisy office room), noise reduction, psudeo stereo widening, compression, reverb and other cosmetics were used to put the somewhat limited source files into acceptable shapes.
So here we are with the results for the longest ever recording project of mine.
Caramel by glomu
It is not difficult to see that the drum is provided by a drum machine in the song. It was done by using 2-3 variations of the same style / pattern. My old Yamaha PSR 290 was used to generate the stereo drum track and fair play to him, I am pleased with the results, knowing especially the limitations of cheap digital keyboards. The only real issue with the drum track is that it was not recorded in stereo. At that time, I was heavily using a Zoom MRS4 machine, a great little 4 track recording device, but lacking real stereo capabilities. This results in a somewhat mono, somewhat pseudo stereo sounding drum track in the song.
Organ
The organ track was provided a sound bank called Click organ (if I remember well) also coming from the Yamaha PSR 295. It can be perceived as being a bit overtly cheesy, but I am happy with the sound overall. I am not happy though with the mono outcome, this track suffers from the same recording device limitation as the drum track. The only difference is that being panned to the right, you do not really feel the loss of a true stereo sound in the case of the organ track.
Bass
 |
| Peavey Millenium BXP 5 |
Guitar
At the time of the recording I had a cheap Les Paul copy named Apollo with a Zoom 707II multieffect. I on purpose wanted to create a very simple guitar track, though I have to admit that my jazz playing skills also were very basic at that time (and they have not improved :-)). Also, something I was less worried about in 2004, the Zoom 707II guitar multieffect is a bit noisy, which is easy to treat, once you pay attention to it. This is something I have not done in 2004, obviously.
Throughout 2007-2008, the song had a number of different versions which included piano solos, accordion tracks, long sustain Slash like solos and even a weird bass solo, but none of them really worked. Between 2008 and 2010 I did not really work on the song, up until I gave the old backing track to Michelle to give it a try and see how she likes the song. From there on, thing sped up and in March, 2011, we recorded the voice. Michelle's voice beautifully complemented the already existing track and set well upon the minimalistic but thick jazz guitar / organ combo.
In 2010, I met Saverio, a genius flute player who can do wonders with his flute in a number of different styles and genres by adding magical licks and solos to the song flow. The final song features his 3rd recording take, he was so much into the song that there was no need for any further retakes.
Technical details:
 |
| ZOOM MRS-4 |
The main hassle here was caused by the Zoom MRS4 multi-track recording device. I recorded most of the tracks in mono and in 32KHZ only. This means that once I started editing them on the computer, I had to re sample all tracks, which, obviously, did not improve anything on the quality. However, it allowed further recordings in industry standard qualities to take place.
Once we had the voice and the flute (both recorded in a noisy office room), noise reduction, psudeo stereo widening, compression, reverb and other cosmetics were used to put the somewhat limited source files into acceptable shapes.
So here we are with the results for the longest ever recording project of mine.
Caramel by glomu
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