(The) First Day of My Life

Post date: Dec 31, 2011 7:25:47 PM

Whatever happened to Conor Oberst anyway?  I know he is in Monsters of Folk (which I don't particularly like) but he was an indie music poster child back in 2004/05 and hasn't done much since.  Anyway, this is from his band Bright Eyes from that era which you'll probably recognize from numerous TV shows (or rather the last 5 minutes of many TV shows which seem to have evolved into music videos).

I never meant to record this song.  It originally was just a sound demo to test a new feature on my Zoom H1 (portable recorder).  The new feature allows you to use the device as an audio interface.  As you can tell from the results and some of my previous recordings, it sounds amazing.  Given these are around $100 right now this is my recommendation for all those wanting to get into to recording.  Of course it doesn't sound as good as my dedicated audio interface, preamp, and large diaphragm condenser mic (especially the transients in vocals) but it's a fraction of the cost and fits in the palm of your hand!  Whereas my previous mixes have largely been in mono (out of laziness), this is in stereo as the H1 has two mics and makes it simple to get a half decent stereo mix.  As an interesting comparison, I recorded the spoken word at the beginning of the track using an Shure SM57 as an overdub.. it sure sounds better but the mic alone costs as much as the H1 unit.

I managed to get this put together in two takes.  It's actually parts of both takes spliced together.  Can you tell where the splicing was done?  I don't think it's very obvious.  There isn't too much in terms of processing done on the track.  One of the beauties of modern technology is the ability to add real-time effects.  This allowed me to do the splicing on the raw audio and add it to the same channel when processing so all the same effects (tube modeled compressor, studio reverb, and parametric EQ) are used while editing and monitoring the track.

The guitar used was my go to acoustic (Larrivee L03).  Lastly this is dedicated to Duncan and Sally... congrats!

First Day of My Life (MP3)