Today's recording project - Last Forgiveness (2008) + mastering work in progress

The latest recording to surface from depths of the studio is Last Forgiveness, which (if memory serves me correctly) is the first song I brought to the table in Necessary Distraction. This is a slightly modified version... while it begins (laid back) and ends (gratuitous solo) similar to the original arrangement, the second verse has been re-worked with a new heavier guitar riff--in retrospect, I don't know how we managed to play the song for close to 2 years without that riff!

Enough reading... start listening: Last Forgiveness 2008

Here's the breakdown of the gear used on the recording:
- Left rhythm guitar - PRS McCarty Korina into Mesa Recto preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp
- Right rhythm guitar - G&L ASAT Classic into Egnater JTM45 head

- Lead guitar - PRS Standard 24 into Fulltone Clyde Deluxe wah + Mesa Studio preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp

- Slide guitar - Hamer Eclipse into Hughes & Kettner Edition Tube 20 combo

- All of the above - through V30-loaded Randall R212C cabinet mic'd with Cascade Fat Head ribbon and Blue "The Ball" dynamic into Presonus DigiMax FS

- Acoustic guitars - Guild F47M-CE and Takamine EF-385 12-string mic'd with Kel Audio HM-1 and Audio Technica AT2020 condensers into Presonus DigiMax FS

- Bass guitar - G&L Tribute L-2500 direct into Line 6 GearBox

- Keys - Fatar Studiologic SL990-XP into Korg Triton rackmount

- Vocals - Studio Projects C1 condenser into DigiMax FS
- Drums - Drums on Demand

Once we finished recording this one, I made a few edits & mix changes to the other tracks and started the mastering process. I loaded all the .WAV files into Cakewalk Pyro, fixed the fade-outs, adjusted the timing between tracks, and then discovered that Pyro didn't support the plug-in I wanted to use for mastering. Ugh! So I loaded the .WAV files back into Sonar, applied the plug-ins I needed (VintageChannel for light EQ and iZotope Ozone for loudness maximization & such), exported new .WAV files, and loaded those .WAV's into Pyro (once again) to fix the fade-outs and adjust timing between tracks. It took a few hours to finish (a couple more hours than I originally estimated). Now I've got a couple of CD's that I can listen to in the car, at work, etc. I'm giving one of the copies a test run on the home stereo now, and it sounds pretty good... just a touch louder and brighter than the original mixes. Of course I've already found a handful of things that need to be fixed, but for a first attempt, not too bad. I probably won't get around to tweaking things until after the holiday, but at least it sounds good enough as-is to make copies for folks as stocking stuffers.

--B