space echo

The return of the Space Echo

Another recording session for the new album the other day. Unexpectedly productive - by means of recording some long improvisations from Mike, we ended up with the basis of at least three tracks, I'd say. Never mind that Mike ended up playing in a totally different key to the backing track that we were supposed to be overdubbing on.

As is becoming traditional, here's a photo of Mike's pedal selection for this occasion.

There was a new toy this time - in celebration of our recent BBC gig Mike had splashed out on the new Space Echo re-issue. It has an interesting sound - it's supposed to be an accurate recreation of the vintage Space Echo, but not having used one I couldn't say. It sounded a little digital to me. It also has a slightly redundant Knight Rider-eque red light on the front, which is probably supposed to indicate the progress of the 'tape', but wasn't obviously useful.

We also tried mic'ing up the fretboard of a fretless bass (do fretless basses have fretboards?). If that's useful, which it may not be, it will be for a Talk Talk-style "record a string quartet and only keep the sound of someone dropping his bow" effect.

os, Feb 2008