COBB MOUNTAIN LIVE
The making of: depresleys: Live from Cobb Mtn.
“Live from Cobb Mountain” is basically a rehearsal performance of depresleys 10 song live set that was recorded 48 tracks and shot to HD-video.
The “Live from Cobb Mtn.” session happened on Oct 23, 2012, in the living-room of a big yellow house on Cobb Mtn. in Northern California, where our main recording studio is located.
The Cinematography, lighting and direction was by our good friend Michael Edo Keane.
There was one track lifted from an earlier rehearsal on Oct 22nd (Brother), and another from Oct 24th (Ocean Blue), other than those sessions, a couple of vocals and backgrounds that were re-recorded post-production to cut down on room noise, and one lead overdub, 80% of principal recording was done in one day.
The depresleys tour with our own house/monitor mixer and in-ear-monitors, and that rig is also a full-blown 120 track pro-grade portable studio, so we decided to record every performance and rehearsal in case some magic happened, and that is indeed what happened.
We had initially planned to shoot depresleys live set and stream live from a sound stage in Southern California, however we had a cancellation at the last minute, so our cinematographer Michael obligingly drove up from LA and shot the project “guerilla style” at our Cobb Mtn. rehearsal/recording space.
We honestly did not think that we had a full record, or a video in the can but when we over-dubbed a couple of the background vocals and did a rough mix, we were amazed by the quality of the recordings and the performances, and Michaels cameras had captured the magic.
After that it was a matter of post-production and mixing, which is no small task when you have 2 takes of 48 tracks and four to five cameras to wrangle. To put it into perspective, 80% of the principal recording and shooting was done by eight people in one day, but the post production edit and mix took 180 “man-days” plus.
Rick
Shlosser – drums
Bill
Sotelo – bass and vocals
Frank
Frazza – guitars and vocals
Jon
Ravneng – lead vocals
Geir
Weggersen – guitars and vocals
Paul D
Carlsen – engineer and producer
