The Disquiet Junto prompt this week is to record with improvised percussion, like a shaker.
It brought to mind a line from a studio owner about leaving percussion lying around as a way to generate business.
Their reasoning was that everyone knows percussion improves recordings, but not everyone understood the skill of great percussionists so it'd end up creating time in the studio to create a satisfactory result.
It's a kind of shrewd understanding of human nature that makes me feel like consumers of music are pathetic and maybe I can't help buying stuff.
Anyway, I have an ample supply of percussion and indulged the Junto prompt by improvising with a matchbox.
I gave it two takes and then thought to record with some commercial percussion I had at hand.
Then I mixed the percussion with a guitar track that I recorded the day before yesterday using the gated effects.
It took a little while to export the video, so I ended up having a late night and working until 10pm.
Now it's morning and the Disquiet email has arrived with the instructions and I'm reminded to annotate my process and reflect.
One observation is how the matchbox recordings are lost in the mix, while the canned percussion (a Christmas gift from my sister) can still be heard.
It's funny how things change in mixdown, particularly mixes at the end of the day.
