Artist Name: Last Stand Blues Band Title: You’re a Long Gone Woman Genre: Rock Rating:
Equipment
Shure SM7B, PreSonus AudioBox interface, DW Fearn VT-1 Preamp, PreSonus Studio One, Audacity, Korg Triton, VSTi by Toontrack and Native Instruments, plugins by Eventide, Lexicon, Plugin Alliance, PreSonus, Waves, and Sanford Sound Design, PreSonus HP4 headphone amp, Audio-Technica ATH-M50x and Sony MDR-V6 headphones, PreSonus Eris E5 monitors and Behritone 50A reference monitors.
Music
“You’re a Long Gone Woman” is a male vocal blues track. Leo Valentino engineered and co-produced it with Mark Minassian. Mark handled the lead and background vocals, electric guitars and bass guitar, John Mikowychok played organ, horns, wrote the horn arrangement and sang background vocals. Tony D’Addono played lead electric guitar, Carolyn Asti sang background vocals, and Mark Minassian and Leo Valentino did the drum sequencing. The entire band shares the writing credits.
Reviewed By Marty Peters
This is a fantastic group effort that harkens back to the legendary sounds of the late 60’s group The Electric Flag. The band has achieved a roomy, open sound on the recording thanks to judicious panning and frequency control. Starting with the rhythm section, the programmed drum arrangement is basic, but Mark and Leo chose quality tones, particularly the snappy kick drum. The bass is well recorded and holds things down nicely. The vocals are equally well tracked; the Shure SM7B has become a go-to mic for many of us, and with good reason! [check out the review in last month’s issue] While we dig John’s horn arrangement, the horns’ placement in the mix minimizes the impact, resulting in a rather small footprint to our ears. However, the Kong Triton-derived faux Hammond organ has a very convincing sound. In this case, its right-center position seems to ideally suit the mix. The star of the show is Tony’s fantastic electric lead guitar. Killer tone, and what a performance! In our decades at the helm of this column, we’ve rarely heard a better pure blues combination. Tony is obviously a student of the genre, and his talent shines throughout the track—Mike Bloomfield would be proud! Kudos to Leo for capturing and presenting the guitar in such a pristine manner—it’s a beautiful thing.
Suggestions
Not a lot to complain about here—things are certainly on the plus side of the margin. That said, we’d love to hear the energy that a live drummer could bring to the proceedings, and though it may be a matter of taste, we would urge Leo to experiment with the placement of the horn section to give it more width in the stereo field.
Summary
Solid effort all around.
Contact
Mark Minassian, [email protected]