"The show and the recording went flawlessly," reports D:Fuse from his project studio in Austin, Texas where he is recording and mixing the chill disc that will accompany the live performance set on the two-CD album. The album is due for released in September on Moist Music, through Sony's RED distribution wing.
The Xone:62 was a critical component of the live performance, he continues. "That's the mixer that I've used for years and I'm really comfortable with it - the filter effect is the most important thing for me." For the studio-produced CD, he says: "I'm using the Xone:62 mixer and the VF-1 filters, plus an outboard effects unit and the cymbals from my Roland V-Drum kit."
The 80-minute recording at Mighty featured the DJ's signature live congas, bongos, tablas, timbales, tom toms and cymbals - all played on Roland V-Drum and Handsonic electronic percussion - together with Hiratzka on guitar, bass, and keyboards, and Austin's MC Flint on vocals.
"There was a VF-1 on the DJ rig, mostly to get the valve overdrive. We all really like the warmth is adds to the sound," says Hiratzka. "I was creating textural washes on the guitar to add something a little bit different and I ran the outputs from my guitar pedals into the other VF-1, then into my guitar preamp, to add some cool filter effects. It's wicked!"
Hiratzka continues: "We ran everything on stage through the GL2400, then we ran a stereo feed out to the sound system. The board worked great and the sound quality for the whole show was awesome."
The GL2400 provided a crucial interface to the recorder, he says. "We ran the direct outs of the board to a Pro Tools HD3 192 kHz rig so that we could record everything multi-track. The direct outputs on the board are perfect for recording-it's all pre-fader, pre-EQ, so we got a really nice, dry signal for the recording. We returned the Pro Tools rig back into the board, so our recording engineer could monitor it."
Outputs included D:Fuse's three channels of electronic drums, plus five channels of guitar, keyboard and bass submixed through a small mixer, a microphone on the guitar speaker cabinet, the DJ mixer output, two vocal mics, and two mics on the crowd.
(Lee Baldock)
