SCIENCE!

SCIENCE!

Here at the Skyline we’re not just fans of the music, but how it’s made too. There’s something about both the process and the equipment involved that makes us all giddy like a wig in a wigwam. You’ll recall how last week, we caught up with Jay Crossley, who is in the process of putting the finishing touches on an album he recorded there. Last night, however, he added some reverb to some tracks using Frank Davis’ latest borderline mad scientist devices.

The device consists of an electromagnet (acquired from NASA, no less), and the back part of an upright piano that contains the plate, pin block and strings and a microphone An audio signal is routed into the magnet, causing the piano to vibrate and the strings to to resonate (and make noise) as their corresponding frequency is struck. The sound is then recorded back into the mix. SCIENCE! Here’s some pictures:

LOOK AT THAT FREAKY NASA MAGNET, LOOK!

RECORDING THE RESONANCE!

Jay also sent us over a track that uses the device (on the background vocals).  How sneaky of him.  The song is called “Men” and will be on his forthcoming release, Tiny Diamonds.



You can catch Jay playing in his non-solo project band Woozyhelmet Saturday night at Walter’s, with Ume and Bring Back the Guns on the bill. He’ll be doing a set of his solo stuff on February 12th, details to follow.

(PS: Jay is an old friend of the Skyline and he asked our own ADR to play bass on a few tracks, which he tells the rest of us was “totally dashekii saddle good times” and would do it again in spite of the massive conflict of interest in subsequently writing about it. Don’t worry, we’ll outsource the record review to India.)