[Matt Grondin]

Hi folks, here's another rough from record I'm working on for the band Sensei here in Jacksonville, FL. I'm trying a bunch of roughs just to give the band an idea of what I'm hearing, so they can in turn tell me what they hear... I think it will faciliate the process come real mix time... there's still no vox, but I'd appreciate the input anyway. Here's a copy of an email I sent to my engineer friend explaining some of the issues I'm having trouble with and what's bothering me. Thanks.

" Ok, here's a rough I did in about an hour of a song we're working on... all in all I don't think it's bad... the snare might be a bit loud, but it's hard to tell without a vocal yet. Also, the snare just sounds so roomy... I can't figure out why... I have the room mic pretty low, so I think it must be from the OH's being a little far off the kit...plus my room was carpeted when we did this so it didn't sound as good as it does now. But, it does kind of work for this music... they want a bit of an old school sound, ala Abbey Road or something along those lines (that's alot to live up to you know).

I think the floor tom kind of sucks... it's a little metally sounding, but it wasn't a very good sounding floor tom to begin with so what are you going to do. I need some advice on how to get the rim job (that's what I call it) sounding good... the same EQ setting as the snare doesn't seem to work... do I need to put it on another track maybe? I'ml still dicking around with some reverb settings... can you give me some pointers on finding a good sound... pre-delay, time, plate, chamber, room, etc... all the crap. Ok, thanks again.... words cannot even describe how nice it will be to get an outside perspective on this... as much as I respect the musicians who are playing on this, they think everything sounds good so I can't trust their opinion sometimes. Later."