Tangy - the band, the music, the legend!

After 10 years, 12 band members, 2 cds, 5 EPs, and too many gigs to even count we have decided to hang it up for a bit.

Reason: lack of motivation and inspiration. Plus we all have very busy private lives with families and jobs that require alot of attention.
Since it's not fashionable to "break up" anymore we are officially
"on hiatus" until further notice.

We would like thank everyone who helped us along the way, whether it be ppl who bought the cds, went to the shows, and visited this website.

At some point we'll get around to posting pics, videos, and music from the past 10 years as a final statement on the band.

In the meantime we'll all be making music in someway, and hopefully we'll find the time and energy to make some together in the future.

Cheers,
Ken, Mike, and Michael

all media words, images, video, the name "Tangy", etc....is copyright of Tangymusic, LLC 1999-2010
Tangy publishing is represented by the band and registered with BMI.

I know you are probably thinking to yourself, "Self, I wonder what it is like to be at a real recording session where a real rock and roll record is being made."

Well, thanks to the wonders of modern video technology and the series of tubes we call teh Interwebz, you can now experience for yourself the excitement, glamour, and downright awesomeness that is a Tangy recording session. In this episode, our drummer, Mike "The Hammer" Pflieger pounds out a massive beat and Ken "The Maestro" LaBarre mans the controls of the mothership while I, Michael Patrick, work the camera.




RAWK!!!

So we are finally back at it. We spent the last session getting the drums mic'd up. We are using the "Glyn Johns micing method," which involves placing four mics around the kit. In our case, we are using a trusty Shure SM 57 on the snare, an Audio Technica ATM25 on the kick drum, a Shure KSM44 overhead, and an Audio Technica AT4040 on the floor tom.

The results have been impressive so far. Here's a little sampler... Keep in mind that this is with minimal mixing and EQ, I don't think there's even compression on it yet.

More as we progress. Maybe next time I'll even remember to bring a camera (although there are pics of mic'd up drums at the Glyn Johns link above if you can't wait). Stay tuned...

Just a quick update... For a variety of reasons, we haven't made any progress on the recording end. Looks like things are about to start happening again, so stay tuned...

And in other news... Our bass player, Jay, has left to pursue other opportunities. We wish him well in his future projects. In the meantime while we press on with recording, bass chores will be split by Ken and myself.

Cheers,

Michael Patrick

Just got word that Ken had to wipe the hard drive on the computer clean and re-load the operating system, so all of the demos we've done are history. Not a big deal, we can re-record 'em. I'm sure there was other stuff that was lost which will be a lot harder if not impossible to get back. Sigh...

We depend on these infernal contraptions more than we know, until something doesn't work and it is all brought home just how integral they have become. Kind of like significant others, can't live with them, can't live without 'em.

But I guess taking a shotgun to a computer probably isn't a felony...

MP

The theme of Thursday's session was summed up by Ken: "Ah, the glamorous life of audio production..."

Of course, that phrase was uttered while we waited for the computer to reboot for the 322nd time after ProTools crashed the system. So it was not the most productive session, but we did spend quality time shooting the breeze, just the boys in the band talking smack.

We did manage to have Jay record a bass track on one tune, "Mush." We then spent time hunting for the perfect amp model to drive the bass track home. I don't remember if we ever found it, but it was fun hearing the track run through all kinds of different amp sims. I think we may have copied the bass track onto a second track and applied a Bootsy Collins-style envelope follower to one of them to maintain the deep bass from the other.

As I mentioned previously, we have Guitar Rig and Amplitude Fender and SVX. The models in Amplitude just kill those in Guitar Rig. The one thing Guitar Rig has that Amplitude doesn't is lots of cool noise-making toys. So if you are looking for to chain together a whole bunch of echos and flangers and whatnot and want them to bounce all crazy around the stereo field, Guitar Rig has it. If you want a more realistic sounding amp and cab setup, Amplitude is the way to go.

We played around some more with different amp models for my guitar tracks on this tune. I think we settled on a tweed Deluxe model. I'm not convinced it sounds like a tweed Deluxe, but it was a reasonably happening sound. The one thing I noticed is that unlike a real tweed Deluxe, the amp sim just would not sag no matter how hard we slammed it. Where's the fun in that????

And then PT crashed again, and we decided to call it a night....

I guess you'd call the stage we are at "pre-production." We've rehearsed four or five tunes to get a feel of the arrangements. We recorded the rehearsals with just a few mics in the room and uploaded the files so that we could all listen to them to get an overall feel of the tune and to make suggestions on improvements. The sound quality on these recordings wasn't stellar, but they served their purpose.

We've done rough demos of a couple of these tunes. The demos have been done to a click track with the parts being built up one instrument at a time. Doing this really helps to nail down what parts work together and what parts conflict, much more so than when we are all banging away at the same time.

In addition to the songs we rehearsed, we've also done demos of a couple of other tunes. These were done mostly by Ken, with him playing guitar and bass and using the EZ Drummer drums. I've laid down guitar parts on a couple of these as well.

Speaking of guitar parts... On the demos, Ken has been doing most of his recording direct using the amp models in Amplitude and Guitar Rig. I've been splitting my signal, with one going to my amp and the other direct into the Digi rack where we run it through an amp model. The split signal gives us the flexibility to try different sounds (clean vs. dirty, etc), but I also like to hear a real amp.

Right now the only amp I have at the studio is a Soultone 1987PS and a Marshall 4x12, and we're micing it with a Shure SM57. The only axe I have over there is a Gibson SG Standard. Once we start recording for keeps, I'll load over most of my gear to have it available.