Ross Ryan and a Zoom H4 at Capers

The things you can do with your toys eh? Back in July, I wrote a review of my Zoom H4’s first outing which also featured Ross Ryan entitled “Ross Ryan/Spectrum/MFI and A Zoom H4”. Well last Saturday night it was just Ross and friends (Ken Stephenson and Roy Zedras) at local venue Capers and it was a great night. We got two brackets of old stuff and really really new stuff. And best of all a couple of killer versions of some of my favourite songs.

Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee) [audio:LosGatos.mp3]

Ross does a great version of this Woodie Guthrie Classic, I honestly prefer the way Ross interprets this as opposed to the Springsteen version from the “Til We Outnumber Em‘” live concert back in 2000. We have Ross on guitar and vocals, Ken is playing mandolin on this one and Roy supplies bass, backing vocals and foot stomping.

Pancho and Lefty [audio:PanchoLefty.mp3]

This is another song that Ross introduced me to a long long time ago. It’s one of those “how the hell did I miss this one” jobs. It was penned by the late Townes Van Zandt and is a classic western tale of bandits, the chase, the bad ending. The whole thing in three minutes. It’s a classic. Everytime I hear Ross play this one all I can see is Butch and Sundance standing on the edge and the immortal “the falls gonna kill you” line. We have Ross on guitar and vocals, Ken is playing slide guitar thingy and some backing vocals and Roy supplies bass, backing vocals and foot stomping. Coming Up: Just as soon as I find time to edit them and convert them to MP3 Ross does a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” and a Ross original from One Person Queue… yet to be decided.

Boring Tech Stuff:

The Zoom H4 recorded in Stereo @ 44.1kHz/16 bit. Our table was 3-4 metres back from Ross on stage and we were directly centre, the PA was flown overhead. I angled the Zoom at about a 45 degree angle to more or less point at Ross and crossed my fingers. The gain settings were on M The recording was edited in Sound Forge and all I did was cut out below 30Hz and add a bit of compression to help the MP3 along.

Note to the Zoom people, a battery meter would have been such a useful addition, I lost the last two songs because the batteries died. Yes I should have had a spare battery pack,,,

Also see – http://duggup.com.au/2007/06/24/ross-ryan-and-spectrum-at-the-trades-hall-bar/

UPDATE: Ross has put a video up at his site http://coathanger.com.au/av/index.html of “A Town This Size”, with the promise of more to come.

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Categorized as Music

1 comment

  1. I want one (of those recorders !) – I have heard less quality coming straight off the direct mix output of a PA mixer in larger pro bands !!
    Amazing stuff for a little gadget – well done,Count Thatchula ..

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