Overview of Dragonfly Taxi Recording Project
The Winter of 2008-9 Matt bought a drumset and has since become OBSESSED! So much so that he’s started a new, all originals, recording project called “Dragonfly Taxi,” named after one of his most killer tunes. It’s a home studio project where Matt is also the engineer, working with a Laptop and some some decent mic’s and a whole lotta experimentation. First step for each tune is for Matt to make an electronic backing track using a couple of synths, making sure they are super in the pocket. Next he figures out a drum part, then records it. Then he sings the lead vocal parts and replaces the electronic backing track keyboard parts with ‘real’ keyboards. After that it’s on to bartering with his close musical bredren to come in and replace bass, guitar, horn, percussion and back up vocal parts. Once all the tracking is done it’s off to a pro studio for mixing and mastering. No release date is scheduled. Soon come! Stay tuned for blog and video blog updates.
So far I’ve got these titles in the works (all originals except where noted):
1: Dragonfly Taxi (more of a rap than a song, based on Hendrix’s Spanish Castle Magic)
2: Liquid Shiva (lyrics and vibe based on the Bhagavad Gita) Here’s an excerpt:
3: Dub Jumper (trippy and SLOW reggae original). Here’s an excerpt:
4: Sure (a rap tune I wrote years ago and dug out of the vaults.). Here’s an excerpt:
5: Fake That (great little reggae riff I wrote some years ago and gots to complete it)
6: War (my funk/neo-soul arrangement of the Marley classic)
7: Your First Million (a tune about the expectation that certain people feel in the US, if not the world, that they are entitled to making millions)
8: Nag Champa (an aggressive rock/reggae instrumental)
Musicians on the recording, so far, (besides Matt on drumset, keyboards and vocals)…..
– Danny Mo – bass
– Kudisan Kai – vocals
–Jeff Cressman – trombone solo: Dub Jumper
–Steve Hogan – human beat box
–Maroghini – hand percussion
Dragonfly Taxi Recording Project update
My gigging schedule has slowed down as the Fall approaches, and this combined with the semester at Berklee now up and running, has left me with some much needed free time to work on my own projects. To this end, I’ve built up quite a head of steam on my Dragonfly Taxi recording project. Considering the home project nature of the project, I’ve finally dialed in some damn good drum sounds, with some key advice given by a couple of my colleagues who really know their shit about recording. Thanks to Mike Carrera (always!!), Carl Beatty and Stephen Webber. One thing I’m learning (or re-learning perhaps): if your instrument doesn’t sound good, no matter what you do to beef up the sound with mics, pre-amps, mic placement, won’t make much difference. I really want a deadly CRACKING snare drum sound and the two snare drums I had weren’t doing me justice, so I happened upon a used Pearl free floating 14′ piccolo snare at a local music store. Now I got the SOUND! Before when I was laying down tracks, I felt the need to immediately start messing around with EQ, gating, limiting, compressing just to get a 1/2 decent sound, but now I don’t have to do much at all to get a full sound on play back. I would say this is ultimately the true test revealing if you got it right. Now, when I got to mix, I know I really have something to work with.
Recently Jeff Cressman (awesome sound engineer and great trombonist [been with Santana for a number of years now] was staying at my house along with the amazing body percussionist, Keith Terry. They were in town from the SF area to do a couple of gigs in Boston. (I met these great musicians at Jazz Camp West last summer.) I was able to get a couple of hours free with Jeff and set up my portable studio in my living room and got him to play a GREAT solo on my tune, Dub Jumper. Check out this excerpt:
Go to the Dragonfly Taxi recording project page to hear a couple more excerpts.
I also found the time to lay down Fender Rhodes and Hammond organ tracks (yup, the REAL THING baby!), borrowing a friends Rhodes and finding a quiet couple of hours Sunday morning to record the organ at Berklee.
Next, it’s time to finish ALL the drum tracks and keyboard tracks, then choose the right guitar players to lay down lead and riddim tracks. And after that, to get the horns done (flute, trumpet, tenor, bone) and then the back up vocals. I’ll complete all the lead vocals at various points along the way.
