For the third installment of my tribute videos to my hero, the late, great Neil Peart, I decided to tackle what most musicians consider the Mount Everest of Rush songs, La Villa Strangiato, aka An Exercise In Self-Indulgence, from the 1978 album Hemispheres. An extremely long, complicated song, with a great number of tempo and feel changes, the real challenge with this one for me was locking to the bass and guitar with no external clock or metronome of any kind. It was even harder than with the other two Rush videos I did, because the feel of this tune is so much looser and more open. The look of sheer concentration you see on my face is me trying to listen to and lock to the bass. Playing the song when I'm setting the pace is much less daunting a task, but either way you look at it, it's a monster piece of music for every instrument, and I think any musician could feel good about themselves if they were able to play it evenly remotely accurately. :)
I acquired the multitrack stems for the bass, guitar and keyboards off of the internet, from some random samaritan. So thanks to them for that.
The kit was a Trick Percussion AL13 aluminum, in 20", 10", 12", 14", 16" with a 14x7" snare. The kick pedal was a Trick Bigfoot Pro1V. The timbale is an early '80's Tama Artstar 14x8" snare rebuilt into a timbale.
Cymbals were:
21" Zildjian Z Custom Mega Bell Ride
20" Sabian Paragon Chinese - Brilliant
21" Sabian HHX Ride (rightmost crash)
20" Sabian HHX Vanguard Ride (middle crash)
20" Sabian Paragon Crash (leftmost crash)
14" Zildjian A Custom Mastersound Hats (left)
14" Zildjian Z Custom Mastersound Hats (right)
10" Zildjian ZBT Splash
Mics used were:
Kick - Sennheiser E901, internal
Snare - Shure Beta 57 and Sennheiser E914 on top, Audio-Technica Pro37A on bottom
Toms - Shure Beta 56
Timbale - Audio-Technica Pro37A
Overheads - Blue Baby Bottle, spaced pair
Rooms - Cascade Vin/Jet matched pair, Blumlein
Everything was tracked into Pro Tools HD through my Soundcraft MH3 console, and mixed through a Burl Audio B32 Vancouver.
Please enjoy and feel free to comment!
19 сен 2024
