Middle Brother

Post date: Sep 20, 2011 3:58:57 AM

One of the best bands from the Newport Folk Festival 2011 was Middle Brother.  Made up of members from Dawes, Deer Tick, and Delta Spirit they are pure country/folk rock.

I never really meant to record this track but decided to do it to work on the vocals (far from perfect...).  I ended up recording harmonies and a guitar solo as overdubs.  The clean guitar and vocals are recorded in one track with a Rode NT1 condenser mic.  The clean guitar is a telecaster on the middle setting (both pickups) through a Vox AC4TV (4W all tube) amplifier.  The guitar solo is a Gibson semi-hollow body played through a Fender Super Champ XD on the higher gain blackface setting.  With the guitars you can really hear the difference between the bright sound of the telecaster (single-coils) and the dark midrange-y sound of the Gibson (humbuckers).

EQing the harmonies was interesting... it didn't really sound right until I boosted the highs and lowered the mid/bass.  Otherwise it sounded way too similar to the main vocals.  There is some light pitch correction on the vocals but for the most part I still don't like what that sounds like plus it does weird things to the guitar in the background.

Daydreaming (MP3)