I've been getting some emails recently with two questions that keep popping up in nearly every one of them; (1) why is the steel so loud and dominate in many of the songs? - and - (2) why is there so much in the way of effects on them?
Except for the recordings where it's an out front board mix, most of those recordings were done on a little portable recorder that I sat beneath my pack seat.
Question 1: Why is the steel so loud and dominate? This is because of the location of that little portable recorder. These were not recorded for "listening pleasure", but as critique tapes so that I could listen to them on the way home and identify all the parts that I needed to work on; you see, these were "first run" songs, meaning that it was the first time we, as a band, had played them on stage after learning the songs. They're rough and unpolished and, again, the purpose of the recording was for me to critique my steel parts. That is why the steel is so "out front" and often covers vocals and other instruments.
Question 2: Why is the steel so saturated with effects? The steel sounds a bit "over saturated" on a lot of the songs because I was running three amps (left stereo, right stereo and a center amp completely dry with no reverb to balance out the sound). In order to please the sound man, I'd often run the center dry amp at a much lower volume than the two effects amps which gave the sound man the ability to boost the dry amp out front; the end result was that it sounded great out front, but on stage my effects amps were a little strong and that's how the tape recorder picked them up.
The reason for the uploads is because my buddy wanted to be able to hear the steel parts very easily and use them to practice with. I'd put the links to them in another thread for his convenience and I guess he's not the only one that's been listening to some of them.
Anyway, for anyone who happens to pop in there for a listen, that's why the steel is so dominate on a lot of the songs and the effects often seem so saturated.
