Mercy Train Sessions Begin

Tomorrow begins the first session for Mercy Train. We are doing bed tracks tomorrow and I still have a significant amount of pre-work to get the studio ready.

We are set to track drums, bass and guide tracks for acoustic guitar and voice for six songs. I am using the following to track the beds:

Kick – Audix D4
Snare – Shure SM57
HiHat – Neumann KM130
Toms (upper and mid) – 4 x Shure SM57
Toms (floor) – Sennheiser MD421
Overheads – 2 x Neumann KM184 (spaced pair)
Ride – Neumann KM140
Rooms – 2 x CAD e100
Bass – Radial JDI (direct)
Acoustic Guitar – AKG C4000
Vocal – Soundelux U195

To prepare the ProTools files for each song takes about 6 – 8 hours. I set up the tracking, cues, channel assignments and effects. I document each channel including things like microphones and patchbay routing. And, I have to test all the mic sources and do a preliminary level prior to the talent coming in.

So, last night, I am hard at work trying to get all of this preparation work finished. I get through two songs and I am working on the third. And, I am really, really thirsty. I have a bottle of water beside me in the control room. Now, for whatever reason, some water bottles are filled to the very top of the bottle cap. If you exert enough energy to remove the cap, water can sometimes come rushing out.

Which is exactly what happened. All over the Apple keyboard. I have actually washed keyboards before, although always disconnected from the computer. Sadly, I was not disconnected. And the keyboard died. At 9:00pm.

Looks like a long night tonight. Replacement keyboard on the way today.