How much to record an orchestra in LA in 1991?
V - No one took any pictures? Me - I don’t think so. It wasn’t a thing back then.
I can't believe I just (2020) found this in amongst the lyrics, and recording notes.
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I'm revisiting this post to share a conversation I had on email today with my friends Vince and Fred Maher.
V - I want to know is the process. Did you make demos first and someone wrote out the orchestration and they did that first ,then you did your stuff on top of it?.... Or you did a sparse recording first which was then fleshed out... And... Did you have any input like oh I want bassoons on the chorus?
Me - All the orchestral tracks bar one were extensively demoed and Buckmaster made them work for orchestra adding a little here and there but most of the parts are based on what Blair and I wrote. the exception is the last track - what he doesn’t know - Paul orchestrated that from scratch. 4 of the orchestrations were recorded on top of existing backing tracks we had made but There For Her and Margo’s Waltz the whole tracks were recorded live including drums and bass
V - Wow...so, forgive me but this interests me . We're you playing as well during live stuff?...
Me - See attachment (that's the photo here).
This doesn’t include Buckmaster’s fee, drums or bass or the studio fee.
I’m guessing the total was between 50 and 60k
V - Wow .. that's impressive... Must have been very stressful
Fred - No wonder I was so fucking nervous.
Did we go with the French horns? Don't think there were flutes.
RE: Gear - I don't have a clue what mics were used, but there was a shit-ton of them.
And plenty of them were vintage, I'm sure - It being THE Capitol Records studio and all...
One thing I do remember vividly was that when Lee Sklar plugged in his bass and it was brought
up on the console (1Mic on his very small amp + 1Di) it instantly sounded perfect. No EQ, no nothing, just perfect.
Me - Plus Leland was awesome.
That session was awesome.
The only thing not awesome was I had gastroentiritus so almost couldn’t fly to LA.
I certainly couldn’t sing, which I had wanted to do, live with orchestra like Frank.
I sat in the live room (which was actually the live rooms from the two studios combined - they did that for large orchestras) on a chair next to Paul conducting. I knew the material, I didn’t need to hear the backing tracks.
I think we did go with the French Horns - the mellow playout on 1/2 of everything sounds like FHs.
V - No one took any pictures?
Me - I don’t think so.
It wasn’t a thing back then.
Fred - We didn’t walk around all the time with cameras like we do now. It’s too bad. Record company should have sent one over to capture it.
Me - Indeed.
It’s not like they were worried about budget.
Originally posted at Patreon July 9, 2020