The “Julottan Trio” test made me want to do some more recording, but I need a better recording setup. The first requirement is probably a decent microphone – so I set to some web research to find something. After quite a lot of reading I decided that the sE X1 series ought to be fine – so I ordered an X1 A from Gear for Music. It arrived at our local corner shop (very handy for collection) a day or two later.
Very handily I had Malcolm around as guitarist and sound consultant, and we did a recording of John McCusker’s “The Shetland Molecule” as a first test. We had played a version of this a few years ago for the annual Yule session, and also to the folks in Canada on a Facebook video Christmas chat, but Malcolm did a new and rather more jazzy version this time which I really like.
Here it is on Soundcloud:
This was just recorded on Audacity using the laptop, with a cheap mixer to provide the phantom power for the microphone and set the levels for the laptop audio input. A bit crude but it worked. The microphone was positioned to pick up both the fiddle and guitar on a single track, so background noise is audible in places.
So – now ready for the next step – getting the gear to do overdubbing.