I finished the mastering for my new CD with the Jason Parker Quartet and I couldn’t be happier! I spent two afternoons with Mark Guenther of Seattle Disc Mastering watching him tweak dials and push buttons and still know next to nothing about the process. What I do know is that the disc sounds amazing! The instruments seem more balanced, the songs are all at the same level, and it sounds more like a band and less like 4 instruments playing at the same time.
And through it all we talked about Daniel Levitin, Eckhart Tolle, Shunryu Suzuki and quantum physics. I felt like I had found a kindred spirit in Mark which made the process that much more enjoyable.
Here is a sneak-peek at one of the mastered tracks. This is a tune called “Mance’s Dance” written by my friend and fellow Seattle trumpet player Tatum Greenblatt. It features my regular band, Josh Rawlings on piano, Evan Flory-Barnes on bass and D’Vonne Lewis on drums, plus our special guest Cynthia Mullis on tenor sax. I hope you dig it!
Mance’s Dance:
[audio: mancesdance.mp3]
subscribe to my RSS Feed
follow me on Twitter
Great stuff Jason! As a fellow jazz trumpet player and singer/songwriter working on a CD myself, I glad to have stumbled on your blog…thanks for sharing your gift and insights!
Thanks, Matt! Glad you stumbled in. I just went to check out your site and love the “Anatomy of an Album” idea. I just pitched in a few bucks, and can’t wait to hear the results!
Good luck with the rest of the project. Hope to see you in Seattle one day.
Nice track, Jason!
Sounds great Jason, what mic set up did you use?
Thanks Ashely!
I’m ignorant when it comes to mics…that’s why I hire a professional! But I do know that he used both a condenser and a dynamic mic and we monkeyed with the mix until we thought it sounded good. If you want mic specs I can get them for you.
Looking forward to hearing your new music!
The reason I ask is that I’m in the process of putting together a small studio at home and I’m after something really warm, perhaps a tube or maybe even a ribbon.
Although the majority of the album is going to be recorded in a live room that we found a few months ago, a great place that has two grand pianos and plenty of room, there is at least one solo trumpet piece that I might decide to do completely, and literally, in house.
And, having a studio set up at home, even with a simple but clean two track Apogee Duet running straight into Logic, would be really useful.
The writing is taking longer than I planned. I’ll explain more on my blog in the next few days.
I will ask my engineer what mics he used and let you know, Ashley.
{ 1 trackback }