My First Music Demo, 1988
October 26th, 2010 by marshalserna
These are my very first 4-track recordings. I made them in the spring of 1988, then dubbed and distributed a bunch of demo cassettes under the name M. Scott.
Me, sometime around 1987-88
Eden in the Rain
Predestination
The Rush of My Heart
You Deny
Story and recording geekiness after the jump….
Equipment used:
Roland Jupiter-6 : all the “analog” sounding stuff. Strings and bass, though these were often layered or accentuated with samples from the FZ-1. I still have this synth, but it needs a little work.
Casio FZ-1 : Drums plus all the “digital” sounding stuff. A few of the samples were my own, but I did use some library disks and steal a couple of things. This was the first *affordable* 16bit sampler, and it was quite cool.
Alesis MMT-8 : I LOVED THIS SEQUENCER. Until the buttons became completely unusable, then I kinda hated it. I don’t know how many times I popped it open to clean the contacts. Kinda wish I still had it.
Electrovoice N/D 457 microphone : vocals and a few samples. Sounded great for a few years, but didn’t last.
These were recorded at the end of my first year at Mt. Hood Community College. I’d graduated from High School the previous spring, and worked all that summer to purchase a sampling keyboard. There were not many on the market in 1987, and they were not cheap. I had a decent summer job (driving a forklift while I wore a hardhat on which I’d stamped the lyric “Frankly Mr. Shankly.”) I did not have a drum machine, but had recently picked up a sequencer. At some point in there I also acquired a broken heart.
I was a music student (voice) at MHCC, which at the time was highly regarded as a Jazz school even though it’s just a community college. I played some piano and sax in high school, but once I saw the level the other instrumental students were playing at I figured voice was my best bet. Compared to those jazz cats I was just messing around. I played a bit part in a spring theater production, and that’s how I gained access to the reel-to-reel 4-track. In exchange for a the use of an amplifier I owned, the theater department let me “borrow” a Tascam 34 – (an open reel, 1/4″ 15ips machine) they had been using for sound effect cues. I put “borrow” in quotes because it was understood that I would not move the machine – I would move my (quite heavy) keyboards and sequencer up to the little, darkened control booth located above the last, highest row of the schools new theater.
Now, the music department had a “nice” studio, with a dedicated control room based around a Tascam 388 (1/4″ 7.5ips 8-track with a built in mixer), the first 8-track “Portastudio.” They also had several pieces of outboard gear, a Tascam 32 (1/4″ 15ips 2-track) and some nice AKG 414 mics. I would have LOVED to have 8 tracks to work with, and a 414 for vocals… But it was my first year, and the department was predominantly jazz. I was making music inspired by what I was hearing in Portland’s under-age dance clubs. There was little to no chance of doing my project there. At the time I had no idea that the 34, running at twice the speed and with twice the track width, was a much better sounding machine. The preamps in the M-208 mixer up in the theater booth were also superior to the those built-in to the 388. So technically I think things worked out better. I had no one to help me figure stuff out, but I had good gear and no one watching over my shoulder.
Once I had my tracks all recorded I convinced the music department’s tech guru to come and check out what I’d been doing. I think he was surprised. He pulled some strings to bring the 34 down from the booth and into the music department studio so I could do a more proper mixdown. We used the mixer on the 338, added a little reverb (Yamaha REV-7) to my double-tracked vocals and mixed it down to the 1/4″ 2-track. From that I dubbed a few cassettes, which I selectively handed out to people I thought seemed cool. I think Iran Johnson still has one.
The mp3s on this page were digitally transfered from a cassette tape around 2000. Nothing fancy equipment wise, and I probably added too much compression and noise reduction at the time. But I think the character still comes out.
4 Tracks.
Sync tone on track 4 until the last passes.
1st pass: Bass and a couple small things on track 3.
2nd pass: Sequencer sync’ed to track 4, Drums, remaining sounds and track 3 bounced to tracks 1 & 2.
Remaining passes: vocals on 3 & 4.
At least that’s how I remember it.
Tags: archive, demo, m scott, recording
Posted in facebook, journal, music, studio | Comments (1)
November 8th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Marshal, Great photo by your Dad. Cool cut, and “Rush of My Heart” is definitely cool… Bring it back!