4 Track Central...well...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was definitely during one of the most creative periods of my life. I believe it was the Fall of 2003 to about May of 2004. I had a home studio that consisted of a Mackie 1402, a Tascam 488 cassette 8trk, Tascam DA32MKII and an old Teac quad ¼” deck that sounded super clean. I had limited mics (57 58 and an SM81) one dbx 166a and a Digitech effects processor. But in my opinion the limitations of my bedroom setup (along with a cocktail of mind altering chemicals were the catalyst for my creative bender
The Little Hitties Band
Bass and Drums...that is really all you need. as the foundation for our brand of schlep rock.
My childhood friend Eric Kinnie and I used to play in metal bands when we were teenagers. Eric moved to Seattle but every Xmas during the early 2000s he would come down to visit his parents...and when he wasn’t on family duty we would hold up in my bedroom studio and just play bass and drums. I always had a condenser (SM81) mic hung from hooks on the ceiling that served double duty as a room mic (for 2trk) or a drum overhead for multitracking. I had an EV R20 in front of the kick drum that was a permanent resident in my room and my GK400RB ran DI out into my 1402. With this system all I had to do to record any jam was to spool tape onto the TEAC deck or hit record on the DAT , cassette or CD decks and go hot mic. I was Johnny in the rathole and no moment (good or bad) was ever missed. I would daily check levels to the mixer so there was nothing to distract from jumping straight into the moment. It was the perfect lo-fi studio designed to capture the moment; at any moment. For the Little Hittes Band Eric and I would play bass and drum jams with no agenda. Then, I would lay down guitar tracks with a strat plugged straight into the mixer “Frusciante style” and surprise Eric with a CD around March or April. It was magical to approach recording. This was the Little Hitties Band. Enjoy!\
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