Editing session at Quantamleap Studios.
On the 28 July 2023 Paul Cheneour (the band’s flautist) took me to a music editing session at Quantamleap Studios in the heart of the beautiful Kent countryside. There were six sessions over two years ….from July 2021 to April 2023.
First of all overcoming a studio computer problem. Young Marcus sorted it out by dragging tracks.
One track is the mallet kat. Track two is the bass…and three and four are the flutes. It was decided stacking tracks on the monitor made more sense. The colour codes of some of the files were changed…the problem of recording live is the tracks are not a hundred per cent clean.
The levels on the first flute tracks were adjusted ,to get a rounder sound without removing the soul. The mallet kat was using a loop ,but that was soon sorted out. Next the bass was adjusted to a more full sound…like “..a kind of blue intro.” It was decided to start the first track with the bass intro. The flute finding its way over the rhythm…reverb was added…launching the flute into skyspace.
The problem that could not be overcome is that the mallet kat was originally recorded in mono…after the fade out it was decided this was track number one. There was so much good material on all six sessions. It is a case of sorting out all the tracks and selecting the best.
Mallet kat Tjader like…the flute like multi coloured neon explosions. This was track two. There was a big picture of an African sunrise …then the bass comes in….a Quincy Jones “Gula Matari” feel…like an African village dance.
A recording has to be more precicise than a live performance. Track three it is.An Art Blakey drum rhythm..flute improvistations in the spirit of Roland Kirk and Hubert Laws…funky mallet kat in the spirit of Bobby Hutchinson.
This is track four. Paul talked about recording at the Beatles’ Abbey Road studios…a worry about fragmenting here..an Afro-cuban rhythm…samba street dance.
Track five it is. A vocal track rhythmatic like the scatman…over Indian rhythms ala The Beatles “Norwegian wood”.
Track six. Again mallet kat ala Tjader…adusting the rhythm…drums,vibes,and cello together sounding crowded…Ian Anderson flute in an Indian rhythm.
Track seven. Trumpet sound like Miles Davis…leading to woven flute music …touching on Central Asia,The Andes mountains …and Roland Kirk.
Track eight. Paul scats over,out,and around over a Billy Cobham drum rhythm..bass big underneath ….an Indian rhythm complicated in timing…adjusting it together on the desk. Track nine completed.
An hour and a half show is condensed down to just over an hour. It takes over four hours in the studio to do this.
GT
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