If anyone's curious, here's an update on that whole studio thingy:
It was a strange circumstance, as there had been ZERO rehearsals and I was playing with people whom I never met before. The composer/contractor/co-worker and I arrived at the studio sorta early and met the other players there: The composer's brother, who's 40, has been playing piano since age 13 and works in LA, and the drummer, a 50-something guy whose mother must have swallowed some drums around the time he was conceivied, becasue I swear he must have been born playing those things. Stop me if the imagery gets too surreal. In the middle of these two musical giants was I, the electric bass player who started playing upright last year. physically taller, but feeling like a dwarf.
After spending the better part of an hour getting a good drum sound (the legends were true!) the move on to me to get a bass sound. They plug a cord in my pickup and the cable (theirs) picks up RF interference. They then put this huge, expensive looking mic in front of my bass and we get a good sound. Later, we find out that the sound of the piano on my mic is very loud, as we're next to each other. So I get moved into another room. Now we're all isolated and I can't see the other players, only the control booth. Fine. We play the tunes and is sounds good, but I made plenty of clams. Fortunately, with all the takes we made, they have enough decent stuff to splice a decent version of the songs we played. It was a thrill. I hope I'll do it again soon although now I know why I have to do all this woodshedding...
Will C.
