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"TomCar
Studios
Tom
talks and the world listens ...
...
Xcept Carissia ... hmmm ... go figure!
Words from T-Byrd (Tom):
Carissia and Company’s latest CD project, “Too Wild For the Blues” was
conceived and executed totally at TomCar Studio in the Upper Cumberland
Plateau area of Tennessee. The 15-song CD was mastered by Michael St. Leon
at Switchyard Studio in Nashville, TN. Several of the songs feature the bass
playing virtuosity of Regi Wooten.
There are three "live", un-retouched, cuts on this CD. "No More" and "Living
for the Road" were recorded live in 1999 at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie
Club in Nashville, Tennessee on their system. The theme song for educational
program, "Live Music in America," was recorded in 2002 at the now defunct,
Mars Music Store also located in Nashville, Tennessee by their technical
staff. These three cuts were taken directly to Michael in two track stereo
form, and he just bumped them up a little bit and equalized them to fit in
the format of the CD.
TomCar Studio is actually Carissia's and Tom’s rehearsal space nestled in
the Upper Cumberland of Tennessee. When we finally decided to record these
14 original songs, we set up two long folding tables, and loaded them up
with pieces of our “live” gear. The one exception is “Dr. Zoom” aided by
his/her hip-hop partner, Zoom SB-246, which belonged to our daughter,
Kristin Nicole. Kristin identified our operation as "a real caveman
operation" teetering on the edges of “backward recording”. But, she provided
us her blessings and a musical beat track for "Only You."
The heart and soul of “Too Wild for the Blues” is our great and forgiving
friend, Dr Zoom, a Zoom HD-8 hard disc recorder, with 8 tracks, but you can
only record a max of two at a time. Once Carissia and I had settled on the
lyrics, melody, and chord progression (and sometimes that was a painful
metamorphosis) then it was one by one except for “Where Were You” and “Real
Love” where we had to put down the opening or closing guitar/vocal line at
the same time.
The next, and perhaps the most critical step, was to take a long piece of
blank white paper and make a chart of the song, a chart not as in the
Nashville Number System or in traditional notation, but containing a small,
separate block for each and every measure of the song which I then numbered
from 1 to the last measure. Inside each block along with its number was the
chord to be played and the number of the drum pattern used for that
particular measure.
The basis of the tracks was the sampled drum patterns gleaned either
internally from the HD-8, or from the Zoom SB-246, or in some cases, from
both. I “used” these tools as impersonating “live” drummers as opposed to
cycling drum loops. These patterns were then painstakingly pieced together,
notated on the chart, and then entered one by one into the HD-8.
Next, I usually put down the principal rhythm guitar, because this was the
most cohesive harmonic sound of the song that I was familiar with. (If
Carissia and I were doing a duo, this would be the main part I would play on
guitar). Contrary to current guitar recording lore, I didn’t use an
amplifier and went straight through a Korg AX-100G, a Zoom 505II, and a
Digitech RP-80 into the HD-8. All guitar parts are electric and were played
with either a Warmouth Strat with Dimarzio and Bill Lawrence pickups, a Cort
Matt Murphy with Dimarzio and Ibanez pickups, an Epiphone Joe Pass with
Gibson pickups, or a Daion 335 with 3 Tom Holmes pickups.
The electric bass was the hardest track to lay down for me since I’m not a
“real” bass player. I used an old Peavy Precision copy I’ve had laying
around for years, and I played with a pick and hoped for the best (those 4
strings are mighty damn big and painful after a while). Sometimes I spent
the whole day sweating out a bass part to one of the songs. I plugged the
Peavey directly into the HD-8 unprocessed. On two tracks, "Too Wild for the
Blues" and "Riding That Bass", I put down the bass tracks, but since the
material required a lot more than I could give it, we packed up Dr. Zoom and
took it down to a real pro, our friend, Regi Wooten. After setting it up in
his rehearsal area and letting him hear the tracks a couple of times --
about two times to be exact, Regi proceeded to masterfully burn while being
prodded on by Carissia. The end result was so hot, that I had to slink back
up to TomCar Studio and re-group on a couple of guitar parts to even fit in
the final mix. Thank you so much, Mr. Wooten for doing your usual great
thing and anointing two of our best cuts.
After these three things were put down ,it was time for a try at the vocal,
and if what Carissia heard at this point didn’t please "The Empress", it was
totally back to the drawing board. If we agreed enough to make a run at it,
she put on the headphones and sang her part into an Audio-Technica AT2020
that we talked our daughter out of and plugged it directly into the HD-8.
The end result of all this direct business was that we ended up with 8
totally clean tracks with no bleed and no outside noise.
Although she loves to listen to recorded music, Carissia is not a fan of
recording studios -- not at all. She is truly a one or maybe two, but no
more than three "recording take" artist. Carissia studies her words for
feeling. Then she gives three chances for the engineer (me) to get it down,
and that is it. So precision on getting the mechanics and the music down is
a must....Seriously, Carissia will not do more. Her words, "let's
go...Cool...I am through!"
If all of this was a success, then I went back and laid down secondary
rhythm guitar tracks, sometimes using an “organ” patch, and finally the lead
guitar track which was usually call and response with the vocal.
When we finally finished all 8 tracks on all 12 tunes plus the 3 live
tracks, we made a DVD of the whole thing and shipped it to Michael St. Leon
at Switchyard Studio, and we think he did an amazing job cleaning up and
bringing out the various music tracks. (It ,of course, helped that he
himself is an excellent guitar player).
So what’s up in the future for TomCar Studio? Well, for starters, between
Carissia and myself, we have probably 20 or 30 more originals in various
stages of completion. Hey, who knows? If we have some taste of financial
success with "Too Wild for the Blues/Live Music in America", we might be
able to introduce Dr. Zoom to his big brother, the HD-16. Then, we could
actually put down 16 tracks at once! That would be dangerous to unleash on
the general public!
Presently, we are back at it trying to clean up our act in the studio moving
stuff around so the place looks more like an actual stage so we can make a
decent video of the dueling duo in action (I often wondered what happened to
just hitting the Chitlin' Circuit -- those were the days). Also we are
working on a dynamite new song entitled "Music" which is our first foray
into the all out Santana sound. Our daughter also repossessed her beat
machine, so now we have to look for another SB-246 or possibly a Boss. We're
open to suggestions.
Tune in later for updates on the happenings at TomCar Studio emanating from
the Upper Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee via directly through online
ventures. You can reach Tom or Carissia at tom@carissiaandcompany.com.
Contact ...
Carissia & Company
P. O. Box 2156
Cookeville, TN 38502
615-351-9622
Email:
Carissia@CarissiaandCompany.com
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