Inside The Belly Of The Whale: Session 6

Ed. Note: I'm sorry this session blog is delayed. I've docked my own pay, and have received a stern warning! :)

Night of The Cranfill

In our last session, we focused on adding Cranfill's guitar parts to the tracks I'd worked on the previous week. The focus was on acoustic guitars for Long Dark Night and Leviathan, and electric parts on Leviathan. For the acoustic tracks, Cranfill borrowed a lovely Guild acoustic from our friend Scott Austin. This thing tracks like a million bucks. I used a Shure KSM32 (my go-to mic for acoustic instruments, vocals and guitar cabs alongside a SM57). Positioning the mic is key for a great acoustic song. If i'm using a stereo pair, i like small-diaphragm condensers placed about 18" away from the guitar in an x pattern. The center of the X is at the neck joint (about the 15th fret), with one mic pointing at the neck and the other at the sound hole. I then take these mics and pan then hard left and right. The product is a spacious, clear and full acoustic sound. When using one mic, i usually place it about the 12th fret and then face it slightly towards the sound hole. I wasn't gaming for a large spacious acoustic sound, more for a familiar, intimate sound. I think we got it here.

Long Dark Night

We also added this same sound to the bridge of Leviathan, accompanied by Cranfill's electric part. For the electric sounds on Leviathan, we used two tones. The verse and bridge tones were courtesy of an AC30.. bright, jangly with a little grit. I then applied a bit of internal reverb and a subtle tape echo. The chorus part was a little harder to nail down. We used a few Racontours tones as our benchmark. Essentially, the tone is a JTM45 on about 7 with a ton of mids. The bass was on about 3 and the treble up the middle... presence rolled off. Cranfill tracked the part with an ash tele on the bridge pickup, tone rolled half way off. This gives it a slightly muffled thud. My guitars are decently bright and provide note definition. Cranfill provides the thud!!!!

Leviathan

Next Up: Keys and more guitars!!!!!!