© 2003 Michael A. Bedrosian ℗ 2003 Plutonian Music (ASCAP)
Links
The Left Hand Set
- Michael Bedrosian – Vocals, Instruments
Songs
- Dust Devil
- Crazy Brave Star
- Down on the Ground
- Two Shades of Blue
- Bakelite Radio
- Drink This Song
- 1972
- Avenue A
- Route 75
- Into the Darkness
Recording
- Room – Montier Road
- Multitrack – HD24 (16 tracks)
- Mixer – Allen & Heath GL2200
- Stereo Mix – Lynx L22
- Mastering – Bob Katz (Digital Domain)
Notes
My reaction to September 11, 2001. Deeply felt, badly executed. I’d worked in the South Tower for six or seven years, and it took me a long time just to believe it was gone. I went to the site a week after it happened, and I will never forget what I saw, heard and smelled there.
The effect on my music was powerful. I found that I didn’t care how I played, and often couldn’t bring myself to do retakes or even to correct mistakes. The same applied to recording. I had replaced the ADATs with the HD24, making it easy to do sixteen tracks; I used the extra tracks to keep multiple sloppy takes of the same guitar parts. The GL2200 had more knobs and faders, and more inputs; I never mastered these features. The mixes were simultaneously overworked and ungelled, cold and somewhat lifeless. I would listen to a track that sounded wrong (drum overheads, especially) but make no effort to change the mic or its position for another take. I now think that I should have retracked many of the songs from scratch, rather than trying to fix them in the mix, but I know I didn’t have the energy at the time.
The shame of it all, for me, is that I really like the writing on this project – the sadness, the attempt to be brave, the love letters to New York. I think the spirit of this time in my life is present in the songs, but only appears in moments. I guess that’s better than nailing a performance and not feeling anything, but there could have been so much more.
The outtakes on this page are remixes, done with my current (2021) gear. I can get back some high end and dynamics, but I can’t fix the badly recorded drum overheads past a certain point. The vocals are early (or first) takes, done with an old ribbon mic through my home-built pre. They’ve got hair on them, for sure. For Crazy Brave Star, my favorite, I’ve included a remix of the final version. It’s a little faster, has different guitar interplay, and has the happy afterthought: violin.