My first soundtrack... "Tour De Donut - 2006"

[tZer]

Here is another piece for your listening pleasure - the story is below, if you are interested.
Tour De Donut - Full-Band mix

Tour De what?
The "Tour De Donut" - An annual bike race where people of all walks of life compete in a 30 mile bicycle race in Staunton, Il. The interesting thing about this race is that there are two stops along the way where the cyclists times are recorded and donuts are provided. For every donut a cyclist eats, five minutes is take off of their time. The donut factor adds a playing field leveling component to the strategy. You could be an excellent cyclist and ride like the wind to achieve the best time possible only to be beaten by a moderate rider who was able to pack away the donuts.

We did the soundtrack last night
James Ibur, my friend and long-time music collaborator, was asked to provide a piece of music to be used as the soundtrack for this documentary. He wrote this really great, "Zeppelin-esque" acoustic guitar piece and asked me to play bass and produce, which I happily agreed to do.

We went to Manley Feinberg's basement studio (Separate Reality Productions) last night (Monday, July 3rd) for a slam-dunk session to get this thing recorded. The session went amazingly well! Jim nailed his parts that included, in the standard Jimmy Page school of studio recording, multiple acoustic guitar tracks, A couple of electric guitar tracks and a jaw harp part. I laid down a very simple bass line over our 'stomp-clap' drum/click-track and added some audio samples taken of Manley's mountain bike for atmosphere.

We finished six different mixes that included a full-band mix, acoustic guitar alone, no percussion, one without the main acoustic part and a variety of effect and atmosphere mixes for the film editors to cut into their film. They are not only going to make this film available at this year's race, but they are also going to be shopping it to film festival around the country. Hopefully it will get some attention and we will get more opportunities to do amazingly cool projects like this!

Jim was swampped with other projects and had to put this one off until the last minute - but we really pulled it off! We were very pleased with the fact that we were able to nail it so well and in only about five hours. I love producing Jim's stuff! I can hear so many possiblities for interpretation and we have very compatible tastes and styles.

Here is the full-band mix for your listening pleasure! I would love to know what everyone thinks!

Tour De Donut - Full-Band mix

More about the Tour De Donut

--Tony Z

[Bluez Dawg]

Woah wish I could play this good. Very cool job dude.

[tZer]

Thanks, man - and I am sure you would have no trouble with a song like this. It is really very straight forward - and your mixolydian exercises should have you very prepared to take it on! Just picture walkin' down a country lane, singin' a song and callin' her name...

[tZer]

Update and a good excuse for a 'bump'

Quick overview of the timeline:
1. We had one night (Monday) to get the project completed
2. The film makers have to be finished editing their final cut by tonight (Wednesday)
3. The first screening is Friday.

What we produced:
1. A main theme - full-band mix with bike sounds and all that
2. 5 alternate mixes with various combinations of instrumentation.
3. Some sound effects
4. Bundled it all up on a nicely annotated CD

Total time in the studio - ~6 hours.

All they wanted was a little music they could use that was better the the canned, stock stuff they had - Along with the excellent song Jim wrote I had a feeling they would really appreciate all the extra stuff - the alternate mixes and sound effects - hey, if your gonna be there mixing for 4 hours, might as well go for six and really deliver, right?

OK - the update:
The film maker was at Jim's house bright and early Tuesday morning - Jim played him the primary theme and he said he really liked it. Took the CD and left.

A few hours go by and he calls Jim to say they absolutely LOVED everything! He was blown away by what we produced! He could not believe that we handed him so much material that was so on the money and useful to their project!

Man, am I happy! Hopefully this can be a the beginning of many such interesting and fulfilling projects!

I just had to share... Oh, yeah, "bump"

--tz

[Bluez Dawg]

I like I like.