Jim Alfredson

If you look up "rag" in the dictionary, I think there's a picture of the latest USAToday. Whenever I see it outside my door at a hotel, I don't even bother to pick it up. Horseshit.

You and me both.

The last organissimo record didn't crack into the Top 40 on JazzWeek and, though I may be a bit biased, I think it's a far more energetic and original set of music. That's kinda what bums me out. I mean, I'm happy for these guys and any success they have, but I just find their recorded output to be, on the whole, very predictable. And I hate saying that because as I mentioned I respect them all as great players (and even better people... really sweet, down to earth guys). It's like Joey D. I love the guy, he's the baddest organist out there, but I want to sit him down and say "Man, do SOMETHING! Go crazy! Make a record that is completely wild!" I don't want to hear re-hashed Jimmy Smith licks for 60+ minutes. That's why I love Dr. Lonnie Smith. His last record didn't always work, but he's taking risks, trying new things, stretching the format. And there's always a fire underneath his music.

I just received this album in the mail. I'll preface my comments by saying that I respect all the players involved, especially organist Chris Foreman who is is fantastic player. That said, the record is not really doing anything for me. There's nothing wrong with it but that's kind of the problem; it's extremely standard fare. No risks being taken, no twists or turns, no surprises and the playing, while fine, frankly seems a bit uninspired. I can't really see myself listening to it more than once. I didn't care for their last records either, so maybe the problem is a failure to transfer their live presence to CD. I have seen them live several times and thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. The fact that it is #2 on the JazzWeek charts is a little disheartening to me, to be honest. But such is the state of jazz and blues radio today.

I had a long reply typed up and lost it. D'oh! I've recorded to tape but most of my recording is done digitally. The beauty of digital is the expense (it's cheap), convenience, editing capabilities, and the fact that what you put in is what you get out. And lately I find that's the best way of working; get a nice, warm, analog sound up front and then track it digitally. The reason this is best for me right now is due to the enormously high cost of tape coupled with the lack of reliable sources for that tape. I've also found in my experience that how you capture material matters much more than on what format the material is captured. Mic selection, mic placement, room placement, the sound of the room, the quality of preamps, compressors, and EQs, whether or not the musicians are tracking in the same room together or separated by iso booths, whether their amps and instruments are isolated or not, how much bleed there is between instruments in the mics, etc; all have a dramatic effect on the captured sound. Whether that sound is on tape or not definitely matters but if you have the rest covered in the best way possible for the music at hand, the decision to use tape or digital is one of pure aesthetics and either one is valid. For example, on organissimo's "Groovadelphia" album, I tracked the trio in the same room with all our instruments and their respective amps in the room, too. Each individual instrument mic had bleed from the other instruments, some more than others. I took a lot of care to place the mics in order to minimize bleed and thus phase incoherence, but there's only so much you can do. We recorded to Cubase through some very nice preamps with lots of big transformers in them, using good mics, and spread out over about 22 tracks. A handful of those tracks were ambient mics to capture the room. I also did a lot of room treatments in my little space to get it sounding as good as I think it can. Even though we recorded digitally, I think there is a vibe to that CD that is directly linked to the recording process itself. The process was to record two to three takes of each tune and pick the best one. Some of the cuts on the CD wound up being composites of two or more takes (literally the first half of the song is take 1 the second is take 2) but most were complete, unedited takes. We did a couple overdubs but those were adding parts rather than fixing mistakes; with the bleed present in the mics there was no way to do overdubs to fix musicianship problems. I really like how that CD turned out. It sounds like an organ trio playing together in a room. On organissimo's "This Is The Place", we tracked at my friend's professional studio. We did some tests before actual tracking to compare tape vs. ProTools and decided with ProTools. Tape sounded great, but for what we were doing, ProTools was crisper, cleaner, and had better separation between instruments. It also had better attack transients on the drums (especially the cymbals). On Root Doctor's first CD, we decided the opposite; we tracked to tape because for that music, it sounded best. I use Cubase as a glorified tape machine for most of my work but I'm always thankful for the ease of use when it comes to editing parts. I own a 16 track 2" Scully tape machine which is almost fully working (still need to rebuild the bias circuit) and I'd love to use it, but in the meantime I'm very satisfied with imposing my own limits of the limitless potential of digital in order to force myself to come up with creative solutions. Limits inspire creativity in many cases and that's the real trick with digital. For organissimo's next CD, which we're almost done tracking here at my home studio, we have more isolation (the Leslie speaker and guitar amp are in separate rooms) but even so we're still doing full takes and not relying on overdubs or editing to fix our own musicianship issues. If it ain't right, track it again. I wanted to separate the instruments this time to get a cleaner, more defined sound. You can hear the results here: http://organissimo.o...y%20Goodbye.mp3

Just got word from Glenn that the disc is being pressed right now. Should be here by early next week and I'll get them shipped out pronto. Sorry for all the delays.

The song doesn't bother me but I got a few complaints about it. It's just fine to link to it but I see no need to post the lyrics here. If people want to explore it, they can do so on their own.

Interesting discussion. I tidied some things up. Let's keep it clean. Thanks.

Dan, Either the Nord or the Hammond will definitely be an improvement over what you have now. The SK2 has several advantages over the Nord, however. These include: 1) A better organ sound engine. Not only is the Hammond engine better sounding, it is more tweakable. That means if you spend time to customize it, you can coax your own personal "ideal Hammond" sound out of it. I have not played the SK2, but I have played the SK1 and the organ is awesome. It's the same engine as the XK3c but with improved percussion, improved chorus/vibrato, and an improved Leslie sim. 2) The "extra" sounds. The SK2 has really good acoustic piano, electric piano, clavinet, accordion, pipe organ, and other sounds. And you can easily assign them to the top or bottom manual. 3) Better keyboard action. I have never been a big fan of the feel of the keyboard on Nord's products. The SK1/2 use a really great feeling keyboard made by Fatar. It's the same one in the Hammond XK1 and most prefer it even over the action in the XK3 and XK3c. 4) The preset management is much better on the SK2. On the Nord, it is really time consuming to change presets. 5) And finally and most importantly: REAL DRAWBARS! The buttons on the Nord suck. The SK2 has real drawbars. If you're playing organ, you need drawbars. If I were you, I'd call Hammond directly and ask them who the closest dealer is that has an SK2. There's gotta be someone within a few hours of you that has one. Hope that helps.

Michael, sent you an email.