colin Owen.com

Fable

Fable were a local band in Wolverhampton when I lived there. I would describe them as, a melodic rock band. You'll here for yourself when you play the demos.

These recordings were made in my flat, with the band set up in the bedroom and me in the lounge. I don't remember how many mics I had, but they were all vocal mics from my band's PA system. The mixer was a Laney 6 input PA mixer amp. I remember having to lay a speaker face down on the floor as a dummy load. Valve amps didn't like running into no load.

Tracks were built up by ping ponging from upper to lower track and back again. This was done via an Eagle passive mixer with 4 inputs. Hence, all of these recordings are mono. Each time a new take was added, I had to plug everything into the other track. I can't recall how many takes were used in making these demos, but at least 2.

On one of the songs, you'll hear a repeat echo in a gap. This was a happy accident as I didn't have an echo device of any kind. The vocals were recorded whilst the track was played back through a 4x12 speaker placed on the bed. Somehow, the voice got back through the speaker and looped in perfect time. The band were amazed and thought I'd done it deliberately..

The surviving tape is a copy, I must have given the master to the band, and is a little distorted, but hey, it is over 30 years old