The
“Out of the Past” CD was recorded and mixed
at Mark Doyle’s home using a Mac G-4 running
Digital Performer 2.72 software and the Mark
of the Unicorn 2408 Mk II hard disk recorder.
Various vintage keyboards were painstakingly
sampled into an E-MU E-6400 Ultra Sampler,
including an Optigan, Wurlitzer electric piano,
Chamberlain, Mellotron, Theremin, Vox Continental
organ, etc. Guitars included a 1954 Fender
Strat, a 1968 Gibson SG, a Takamine acoustic
guitar, a Tama Papoose acoustic guitar, and
a Guild B-301 bass guitar. Electric guitars
were played through a 1963 Vox AC-30, a small
Peavey Audition, or directly through a Line
6 Pod or a Digitech GSP-21. When the Pod was
used, the signal chain was: electric guitar
into an ART tube mic preamp, then into the
Pod, then out of the Pod into a Joe Meek SC2.2
Photo-Optical compressor. Acoustic guitars
and the vocals on Still I’m Sad were recorded
with an Alessis AM-61 tube mic. The Guild
bass was plugged into a DBX 161 compressor,
which was then plugged into the Joe Meek compressor.
Drums and percussion
were recorded by Richard Mendelson at Toxic Audio and Newbury
Sound in Boston, MA and then looped. The majority of the drumming
is by Keith Harris, although the more rock and roll stuff (“Moonlight
Drive” and “Paint It Black/Eleanor Rigby”) is by the late Chris
Yeoman. Ibrahima Camara plays a battery of Senegalese percussion.
“Out of the Past”, “Politician”, “The Crystal Ship” and “Little
Niles” have drums that were programmed by Mark, with occasional
spots overlayed with some of Richard’s loops.
The record was mixed using
Digital Performer automation and a Yamaha 01V digital board. Native
DP plug-ins and the Waves Native Gold bundle were used (especially
the Waves Renaissance EQ, Renaissance Compressor, Super-Tap Delay,
and C-4) as well as the 01V on-board effects. The DAT mixes (of
the original bit-stream from the 01V) were then transferred to
BASF SM-900 ½ “ tape at M-Works in Cambridge, MA using state-of-the-art
D/A converters, and subsequently mastered by Jonathan Wyner using
the HDCD process. |
