Cartoon Food - Tales From the Ghostwood

[henry5]

Hope it's ok to post this here. If not, feel free to move or delete. I've also posted in the Recordings section, just in case.

My band, Cartoon Food, recently completed our first album, Tales From The Ghostwood. We're essentially acoustic (acoustic guitars, mandolin and cajon), 3 part harmonies and me on 1972 Ric 4001 bass.

I wrote 3 of the tracks of the 9 tracks on the album and co-wrote another. This is one of the tracks I wrote (I also sing lead and some backing, play 12 string and Ric bass on it. Plenty of Ric bass action from about half way through).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxUe-_g9nQo


The rest of the album - all Ric bass from start to finish - is available on all streaming platforms, including Youtube as above.


Our first video from the album:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8NdeTY0nk0

[ram]

thanks for sharing! you all have a really nice sound. Loved both videos!

[jps]

Those were excellent, Shaun! Great writing, playing, singing, mixing, tone etc. all around.

I couldn't see very well what 12 string guitar you have. What is it?

How do we get the CD on this side of the pond?

[henry5]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, really appreciate it. It's taken me years to get a sound I'm happy with in the studio, all due to issues with engineers who seem to think you shouldn't have a sound like that.

Jeff, the 12 string was the same Vintage Gordon Giltrap I've mentioned before. Fairly budget-friendly but I love it. I'll PM you about the cd.

For those who are interested, the recording was done at Blueprint Studios in Salford near Manchester, England (I'm in the UK). All done via Protools. Most of the vocals and guitars I believe were Neumann mics, with processing and eq via various plugins. Cajon was multi-mic-d. Bass was my 1972 pre-skunk 4001 with Rotosound stainless strings, 400-100. IIRC I used a Dunlop Jazz pick, either that or a Gibson heavy. Bass went through my Tech21 VT500 head with a line from that to the desk. The only exception was The Weathermonger, which was direct, no amp. For the amp sound, the bite switch was in, treble about 2 o'clock, bass about 12, middle about 1, character between 12 and 1, drive at 11 or 12, blend all the way on. The upper frequencies then had a bit more grit added at the desk and a bit of eq in the upper mids and the lower frequencies were also quite heavily eq-d. For most of the bass I had the vols on full with the tones about 3/4; a couple of times I backed the tones off a fair bit (Whisper a Dream) and the end of Watershed (and possibly all of Belly) had the tones full up. There was a bit more drive on the end of Watershed too, one of the other album tracks.

[Kiddwad57]

Great music and performance. The back drop was beautiful too. It's great to get a document of a performance with good production values. Being able to do post eq makes such a difference in the quality of sound, especially for vocals and bass. I love the fact that you guys use a cajon!

[henry5]

Great music and performance. The back drop was beautiful too. It's great to get a document of a performance with good production values. Being able to do post eq makes such a difference in the quality of sound, especially for vocals and bass. I love the fact that you guys use a cajon!

Hi Nathan, just to be clear, the video is, as such things generally are, mimed to the recorded performance, although to be fair, I think we would have nailed it . We did actually record live footage too but a problem with the recording process meant that most of the footage - or rather the audio, as the camerawork was fine - turned out to be unusable, which was a major disappointment considering the time - and money - spent. The backdrop is a well known, old and pretty prestigious local theatre. A beautiful place.

[jps]

...We did actually record live footage too but a problem with the recording process meant that most of the footage - or rather the audio, as the camerawork was fine - turned out to be unusable, which was a major disappointment considering the time - and money - spent...

In August 1984 I was a sound assistant/mic boom operator in a fairly low budget film that was shot on location in various places around Central California (Fresno, Selma, Delano) and in a high school in Ontario, California. We did as well as we could to capture the audio but there were several scenes that needed re-recording due to "unruly" ambient sounds/noises. You guys did a great job with the miming, actually.

[Kiddwad57]

What the? Well, good job with the miming then! I figured there was touching up to a main run through. Best of success with your excellent project!

[ram]

I thought mimes were silent..... hmmmm need to think on that one. Regardless the video and audio were top notch, great sounding and looking and I enjoyed them! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Mater of fact I'm going to enjoy them again this morning (afternoon for you UKers).

[henry5]

What the? Well, good job with the miming then! I figured there was touching up to a main run through. Best of success with your excellent project!

I must admit I didn’t think we did that good a job! It’s only the second time we’ve ever done it, and although a necessary evil for promo videos, isn’t my favourite thing (although playing in that beautiful place was a real buzz). It caught me rather by surprise that it wasn’t obvious to everybody. We were just very disappointed the live stuff didn’t come out (some issue with the desk). Maybe next time. FWIW most of the parts on the recording were first take anyway.

[henry5]

I thought mimes were silent..... hmmmm need to think on that one. Regardless the video and audio were top notch, great sounding and looking and I enjoyed them! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Mater of fact I'm going to enjoy them again this morning (afternoon for you UKers).

Thanks Tom, appreciate that.

[henry5]

The cajon was actually one of the first things that fell into place in the band. My old band had just split (Jez, the cajon player, was the singer in that; he still sings most of my songs live, simply because it’s easier) and we were at a loose end. Ian, the other singer and songwriter, was trying to get a band together to play his acoustic stuff. We were all best friends and had been in bands together for many years prior, so we suggested having a jam to see how it went. Jez initially tried drums, which didn’t work at all, and Pete, our first guitarist, was struggling to get anything working. We went away a bit downhearted, shortly before Christmas a few years back. We turned up again after Christmas and Jez’s girlfriend had bought him a cajon and Pete’s dad had bought him a cheap mandolin. Suddenly everything clicked and away we went. Mike, our 2nd guitarist/mandolin player (Pete left due to health reasons) didn’t actually play mandolin when he joined and still learned the set in about a week! I wasn’t actually using the Rics at first but as soon as I did I knew it was the right choice.

[callofcthulhu]

Killer bass lines.

[henry5]

Killer bass lines.

Thanks very much, that’s very kind.

[berth]

Nice bass melodies on Manualitho's death song. (Just started listening the album via spotify.)