Thunderbolt Pagoda LP now available

Ralph, I received my copy and have been listening to it tonight. Thank you and your compatriots for making this available. I loved every minute of it!

Can you share a bit more about how it was recorded and mastered? Looks like you got Kevin Gray to do the mastering at Acoustech if I'm reading the deadwax correctly -- with very nice results.

Congratulations!

Hi Rushton, one thing we tried really hard at was to play everything at the same time. Getting the mics set properly was a challenge, as the drum mics wanted to pick up everything else. We had to keep different channels though, to create the right balance of instruments after the fact.

The drums were recorded with a pair of Neumann U67s. The natural presentation they had made it a lot easier to integrate the drums into the final mix.

Thus everything was recorded onto an Otari 1" 8-channel machine in real-time. The other members of the band were really happy to work with analog, so I did not have to push all that hard to keep the standards up. The only thing we ran into is that the drummer was **really** picky about his drum sound, and the others didn't want to hear him complaining about it after the project was done, so the only tampering with the signal was on his tracks. I picked up a top-of-the-line set of Grados so that the studio monitors would not mess with his ears.

The final mix was on to a Studer, running at 15 i.p.s. You surmised the LP mastering correctly.

Thanks, Ralph. The whole record sounds superb. You guys did a great job. And, the packaging is both unique and of high quality. This is a nice treasure in my record collection.

BTW, I did finally find a copy of "Canto General," Atma-Sphere 3-001. Another great recording from your efforts that has been long out of print.

Cheers,

Just ordered mine

Our second LP has been issued on New Ruins Records, available through Mutant Music and Chicago Independent Records.

Again it is an all-analog recording, 150gr vinyl mastered at RTI. We used refurbished Western-Electric mic preamps run direct into the tape machines. Its safe to say that we got a lot better sound on this LP than the first (in particular the drum sound on side two came off really well). The package is a die-cut jacket that opens to the top. It too is hand-screened.