Great Dividing Range

Post date: Apr 02, 2012 3:49:57 AM

Over the past few weeks I've been pondering what new artists I can cover on this blog.  Everything I'm currently playing is from an artist I've already featured here!  Maybe my musical taste is not nearly as diverse as I think it is.  Of the bands that I haven't covered, my favourite is probably The Lucksmiths.  Hailing from Australia, they mix clever word play (e.g. a somersault in a winter coat... get it?) with an incredible sense of melody.  Unfortunately they broke up a few years ago and we missed our only chance to see them (when we were in NYC) by mere hours.  They look interesting live; the drummer is also the lead singer and plays standing up at the front of the stage.

I've only ever recorded demos of their songs in the past since they are difficult to record.  This is due to the fact that they use multiple guitars and complex bass lines.  This is one of their simpler, more contemplative songs called "Great Dividing Range", apparently a mountain range found in Australia.  Since I don't have a bass guitar I've substituted piano for the bass line.  Except for the intro sequence the bass line here is completely improvised.  The original song has strings (which I also don't have), so in order to create a nice rich texture I've instead used electric guitar (a nice Rickenbacker jangle similar to one the band uses), acoustic guitar, and mandolin.

Production notes: this is the first recording I've done with the new DAW software, Cockos Reaper.  It's an amazingly flexible tool.  The first two tracks down were vocals and electric guitar.  The electric guitar was a Rickenbacker ran through a MXR Dyna comp on modest settings (the suggested setting of the dials pointed together) into a Dr. Z Maz 18 Jr. set very clean and mic'd with a Rode NT1 on axis.  The original vocal track was dumped and all vocals were redone as overdubs using an AT4040.  Guitar (D35) and mandolin were recorded through the AT4040 as well.  The piano is a VST instrument (CVpiano) recorded using a MIDI keyboard.  The acoustic guitar and mandolin are panned 30% right and the electric guitar is panned 30% left to create more space in the mix.  Everything else is centered.  Most tracks had some light EQ and reverb.  The vocal has a small amount of autotune, EQ, compression and reverb applied.

Great Dividing Range (MP3)