I recorded my record with a friend of mine at she and her husband's studio, Limestone Vale in Delaware, Ohio. The recording studio is run in conjunction with Brian Lucey's Magic Garden Mastering operation. Brian is a demanding audiophile so his studio is chock full of high end analog audio gear. In the rack on the left is the awesome Tubetech tube compressor and at the bottom the Shadow Hills 8 channel tube pre. Just an amazing piece of gear. We did most of my vocals through a Korby mic with a 251 capsule in to the Shadow Hills. It had just the right balance of air and richness for my voice.We recorded to 2" tape which is an anomaly in this day and age of cheap and plentiful digital recording. I haven't recorded to 2" tape since the mid-nineties when everyone was switching from analog tape to ADAT. Remember that? I have a ProTools setup in my home studio so recording to analog tape requires a bit more patience and preparation. There is a linearity to the process that many people new to the analog recording process might not take to very easily.
And to be honest, it took me a few days to get used to it again. I'm so used to having multiple takes and virtual tracks galore. But the beauty of analog recording is that there is an organic quality that has nothing to do with "magnetic distortion" or any other finely audible esoteric quality that analog studiophiles may be inclined to pontificate about. As a musician and performer in the analog studio, I have to work just a little harder, focus my artistic energy for this particular take because the result is always somehow more magical.
Thank goodness I just finished this record. I was thinking about what I'm going to do on the next one. It may very well be on analog again. Magic is addictive.
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