demo sound

02 Nov 2005

Immaculate Machine has a few MP3s up at their music page. Amanda and I both like

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quite a bit. But she observed that they were better live, and I agree. And I also think I know why. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d be willing to bet a hefty sum that the majority components of this song were not recorded at the same time.

In my previous life as a musician, we did a fair bit of recording. Recording on a budget like ours meant using a four or 8-track and a limited array of mics. We often recorded parts separately and overdubbed on top of them. I remember being stymied by the total loss of energy that was crucial to our sound as a pop rock band because of the fact that we were not playing together. There’s a lot of unspoken communication between musicians – cues, nods, and “AWW YEAH WE’RE ROCKIN NOW” looks – all of which are lost if you’re just layin down a track on top of someone else on tape.

I think maybe there’s some of that going on with their demo.