Week 9 - Monday 5/6/1991

Recording "Ali Akbar". The Styrofoam incident.

The session began at 11:00. After listening to playbacks of our work from Friday, we decided to record the basic tracks for Ali Akbar with a faster tempo. Puig, ever the experimenter, stuck a 12 inch speaker in front of the bass cabinet to act as a transducer, but the results were too flabby sounding. He returned to the usual Church mic setup for the bass. I lowered the volume of the Vox head and backed off the presence control on the Hiwatt amp to create a punchier bass tone.

Winegar employed one of his favorite drum miking techniques, aiming a Sennheiser 421 at the underside of the snare from a few feet away. When Puig ran the recorded signal through an Alesis Microlimiter, Winegar was thrilled with the results.

We played take after take until 1:00 p.m., by which time we had a good one in the can. Winegar and I spent the next two hours performing corrective punch-ins.

Winegar doubled the rhythm guitar track using a Vibrolux amp, followed by lead guitar parts with his Strat into the old Masco amp. We used a Shure SM 56 mic to record his solos, aimed between the center and cone of the Masco's 8 inch speaker. I overdubbed some riffs for the outro section using my Les Paul into a Vox AC15.

When the time came for recording the Hammond organ, there was no question that Berg would be performing the parts. The rest of us gathered in the control room and amused ourselves by drawing little cartoon faces on Styrofoam cups, poking pinholes in the eyes and mouths, filling the cups with water and watching our creations appear to drool and cry. Above the hysterical laughter in the room, I could hear Berg calling to us from the studio room. He repeatedly asked for Winegar and Gates to work on the organ parts with him, but the happy twosome ignored his sincere pleas for help. For the next two hours, we goofed around in the control room while Berg slaved away at the organ. From time to time he'd call out for help, but nobody so much as acknowledged him. Berg was extremely angry with us by the time he returned to the control room. He stood in front of the seated Winegar, glowering and fuming. Smiling triumphantly up at Berg, Winegar lifted his dripping Styrofoam cup and said, "Look at him drooool!"