Dani Paige Band: Blog

Everyone knows the music industry is in upheaval right now. Almost everything is changing, and there's endless talk about what it all means, so allow me to contribute to the endlessness.
Because of the growth of online digital sales of music, more and more people are opting to buy individual songs rather than entire albums. Bob Lefsetz opines that albums as a concept are on their way out; you can read his thoughts on the subject here. I halfway disagree, so I wrote him back, and my response is below.
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I agree, the new technology has allowed us to take a hard look at the album model. And at the moment it looks like you're right, most people don't want albums, especially because most artists can't come up with more than one really great track.  
But I don't see the album completely disappearing because there's nothing wrong with the concept, and it has a lot to offer devoted music fans.  If you really like an artist or band and they're able to produce 45 minutes of great material, [...]

So we're getting ready to make a new album, and I've decided to do most or all of the tracking myself. We'll probably hire a mixing engineer at the end, because we really like the guy we worked with last time (shout-out to Chris Chase/Chasesounds).
I did some of the tracking for our last project with the equipment that I had at the time, and the results were fine but there was definitely room for improvement in the mic and preamp department. Since then I've upgraded that stuff, and like any good gearhead in 2010, I'm now on to worrying about converters.  Currently I have a Presonus Firepod, which I suppose is regarded as the Honda Accord of 8-channel Firewire interfaces: Presonus sold a bazillion of them, they get the job done, and at the time of release it was an unbelievable value. (Obviously there's more competition now.)
In considering whether I'll wish I had better converters after the project is done, naturally one possible course of action is to buy a couple of other units and [...]

Okay, this is some crummy hand-held footage, but Dani and Jesse were at this show and it was freakin awesome! It was at The Independent in San Francisco -- the same stage on which we opened for Leon Russell. Looks like you have to click on the title of this blog entry to see the video.

A while back, one of my favorite musician friends sent me this email: "I'm interested in your ideas regarding the use of tube amps for guitar. I was hoping you could give me further insight as to your preference for tubes over using solid state or modeling amps." Since I had a bunch of work to do that I wasn't particularly excited about, I procrastinated by writing the following answer:  I guess there are a few reasons. First off, the kinds of electric guitar tones I'm into all have a certain amount of distortion. You've heard me play a lot so you know I don't go for the ultra-saturated or fuzzed out or overly compressed sounds (unless I'm playing a part in a cover song that demands it). In fact, most of the time I'm playing with a tone that the average guitar player wouldn't even call distorted at all. But the distortion is there: it smooths out some of the harshness and thickens up the natural sound of an electric guitar. As I'm sure you've found, if you plug an electric guitar into [...]