Sunday 18 August 2013

More about "A Taste of The Magnificent AK47"

Disappearing fast!
The previous post made claim that we would tell more about the genesis of "A Taste of The Magnificent AK47" and being honourable blokes, here we are, true to our word, with some more info on how things came about and how they happened.

Hopefully we can explain a little more about why this is technically our first "proper(ish)" CD but not necessarily our first proper album. This is not just to create nerdy Pub Quiz Questions but to split a couple of hairs and explain why things are as they are.

Everyone who has ever been in a band or musical performing group of any kind will probably have fantasized about recording their first album, and, despite appearances, we in The Magnificent AK47 are no different.  However, we do pride ourselves on doing things a little differently, so we have.  

The idea of going into a proper recording studio was hatched back in 2012 and formally ratified as an approved objective by The Inner Circle.  All this might make it sound very organized, but don't be misled by this outward appearance of competence and foresight.  Having said that, a date was set many months hence and used as a target / reward for the first half of 2013.

May passed with many tremendous and Magnificent activities, such as our inaugural Wold Tour and returning to the Chippenham Folk Festival, then June loomed into view with more gigs and finished off with the recording session.  Safe to say, it was the first time most of the blokes had been in a recording studio and it proved to be a very interesting experience all round.

Attuned as we are to performing live, in the raw in front of an unsuspecting audience, it was unfamiliar to be in a room full of microphones and not much else, and no one to appreciate our range of hats - not that we had any on. Despite being highly honed vocal athletes we found it decidedly hard work actually getting all the words right, with all the right notes, without too much coughing and grunting in the wrong moments. 

Keeping us all in line was our beloved ChoirMeister, Monseigneur Chris Samuel, who gallantly managed to coax out the best performance possible on the day.  The material was then given an initial "rush" mix that was reviewed by a few knowledgeable members of the group and a number of comments made to tweak things.  These amendments were duly made to include pastoral sounds of England at the very beginning of the CD which just precedes the spoken word before being rudely interrupted by "The Vly".  This words are taken from the writing of Alfred Williams, The Hammerman Poet (more in later posts) and beautifully read by our very own DR Sweeney.

Further tweaks were suggested and reverb added or taken away, vocals panned one way or the other and the whole thing was glued back together in double quick time.  This was primarily because we wanted to get the CD ready for the Spooky Men's Chorale gig in the middle of July, which did not leave a lot of time to produce artwork, press CDs and other things that go on behind the scenes. Hence this is one of the reasons that we decided to go with the MixPixie service to produce the actual CDs and covers.

So, it was decided that as there was only around 24 minutes of material on the CD that we would consider this very much a taster of the group singing in the studio and build on the experience and come back later in the year to polish off a few tracks that we didn't have time to record.  Also, given this initial foray into the world of high tech recording we will be forearmed for the next time and look forward to adding favourites such as our version of "Tsmidao" and the much requested "Duct Tape Madrigal".
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More next time, but if you would like to hear a sampler of our Taster then have a listen at 
https://soundcloud.com/the-magnificent-ak47/a-taster-of-a-taste-of-the and if you would like your very own copy then on to our special website page at http://www.makingmusicmix.org.uk/group-designs/the-magnificent-ak47 and add to your basket and follow the usual sort of instructions from there.

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