Notes
Journal
12 Steps
Born On Tuesday
Aegis I
Blind Orchid
Aegis II

Born On Tuesday was my first documentation of solo work. My involvement with electronics had sparked my interest in changing sounds and different grains of sound, and a lot of this recording is about the production, my experiments with extended miking techniques and the use of different rooms to acheive different possibilities. The record went through several different stages, with different ideas changing as material was recorded. In general there were three main sessions, each are listed below with thoughts on recording and setups-

For the first session, we recorded several electro-acoustic pieces at Palomar College. These pieces are born on tuesday, student studies (for Danlee Mitchell) and azungu sa ndi tsitsi. The setup was my red Tama kit (10" tom, 14" floor, 18" kick) with a 14" Ayotte snare, 13" K hihats, a 18" flatride, a 18" K crash/ride, a 20" Paiste tam tam, my percussion box, frame 1 and a sampler. We recorded the kit with three different mic setups, first (using an ADAT recorder) we placed four mics on the kit (kick, two overheads and a middle mic) and a mic and DI on the amplifier. Second (using a DAT recorder) we placed two 57s in coffee cans in front of the kit, and third, Nate Atwood was walking around the space with a minidisc attached to a lo-fi mic. Later, we mixed the ADAT tracks, lined up the coffee cans and lo-fi recordings and dub mixed the material. The possibilities allowed for a hi-fi sound (the ADAT), a slightly ring-modulated sound with very strange resonance (the coffee cans) and a grainy lo-fi sound (the minidisc).

For the second group of sessions, i recorded several pieces in my house directly to DAT. I recorded a short improvisation using a table of junk (miked with stereo overheads) that was later used in the piece turn the tide of the tale. The piece enabler was recorded using frame 1 and 2, a sampler (using samples from MCHS and my prepared piano) and an echoplex. The piece voice in the machine (for Harold Hubbard) was recorded by contact miking a junk kit (an old head for a bass drum, a gretch floor tom, a snare drum with beads in the shell, a garbage can lid, an 18" china and a broken 18" ride for hihats + a small bell cymbal for bowing) and running this kit through a chain of processors. The piece 5/25 was recorded using my 28" Leedy bass drum and a 8' by 4' thundersheet, strung from the roof and contact miked. Later, i setup a small drumkit, two DAT recorders and a PA in my living room, and miked both the drumkit and PA. After muffling the kit with towels and sheets of polyester, i recorded voice in the machine II by recording the four bar loop for five minutes. i then recorded the DAT tape being played thru the PA while i playing along with it. i recorded eight times with muffling and then four times without muffling. The source material for gate 6 was also recorded that afternoon, using the drumkit, a snare drum filled with wooden beads, various percussion and several graduated pipes. This material was later put in Greg Buhlerts IMac and put together over several months.

The third session was recorded at DHCC (the first recording there), now using my modified kit (16" Ludwig kick, 14" Gretch floor tom, junior conga, small 6" PVC tom, two small cymbals + hihats and various mounted blocks and metal stuff), frame 1, a sampler, a drum machine and several processors, including an echoplex. This session was recorded to DAT and includes the pieces turn the tide of the tale, the gift and in the year of the dragon.