The Driscoll Brothers "Unplugged" Album 2003
The new Driscoll Brothers album may (or may not) be called "Almost Unplugged". For this album we are recording new versions of songs from the first four albums in a largely acoustic style. We also plan to have a couple of new songs and aim is to record all the performances "live" with no overdubs. This is very different to the way we usually record where I build up the performances within a sequencer and play or program most of the instruments myself. We are using several different combinations of musicians.

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On Saturday 7th June we recorded three songs with Tim Hoareward (Guitar) John Wilson (Bass) and Glen Harris (Drums) of The Carpet Sharks. We recorded at Pease Pottage Rehearsal Studios and I played Mandolin and Guitar while Darren sung. The songs were: She Wants It All, Jane and All Right Now. Tim played electric guitar on all three songs and John played an electric bass guitar - hence Almost Unplugged.

To see more pictures from this recording session click on this link here.

Free MP3s!

When recording we do a few takes of each song. We will be using the 1st take of "Jane" but this is the 2nd take we recorded straight afterwards to give us another version to use if approriate. We decided the first version had a little more "finesse" but this version was still pretty good. This is a rough "reference" mix made just after recording. The final version of take 1 will be balanced a lot better. "Only In my Dreams" is from 16th August, the take before the final take.

jane.mp3 (3.19 mb)

only in my dreams.mp3 (3.52mb)

On Wednesday 18th June we recorded a piano and vocal version of To Whom It May Concern, the song which closed the "Made In The 21st Century" album. We used the Grand Piano in the recital hall at Hurstpierpoint College - a very nice Yamaha which had been tuned the week before. It took about half an hour to set the whole thing up - not much longer that we actually took recording it.

As always we did a few takes to find the best one. We ended up using the first half of take 3 and the end of take 4 - okay, so maybe we are taking a little poetic license with the live thing! (But the Beatles did it all the time..)

On Wednesday 13th August Darren and I recorded a new song called "Feel" (no relation to the Robbie Williams song) with guitar, vocal and Darren whistling. We also recorded a 12-string guitar and vocal version of "My Girl" from the Y2K album..

On Saturday 16th we recorded three more songs with The Carpet Sharks. Tim played acoustic this time and I played guitar ("How Many Hearts Did You Break Today"), banjo ("Seaside Sal") and mandolin ("Only In My Dreams"). Darren and I both played kazoo on "Seaside Sal". Click here for more pictures.

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