The album cover is a photo of one of my abstract paintings titled ‘Jazz Band’
Recording music has always been a passion for me. I was brought up in a recording studio. I remember that my father, Luciano Zotti, often took me to the studio, one of the best recording studios in the world at that time, The Fonorama. It was not uncommon to find artists like Lionel Hampton and Sarah Vaughan recording there and I met them personally even though I was only a six years old child.
In those days, although the mixing desk had 96 tracks, the recorder was a four channel Telefunken with a wide tape, an impressive machine. The studio had a few recording rooms and it was built specifically for recording music and equipped with two Steinway grand pianos and an Hammond B3 organ. A fully equipped state of the art studio. The sound that I felt as a child, coming from big orchestras that often recorded there, was an experience that I will carry with me till I die. My hole body vibrated and I remember the beautiful strings playing away and producing a beautiful rich sound. These were all professional musicians, some of the best in the world. I was exposed to all of that at an early age: arrangements, conductors, various instruments and being part of the life and culture of musicians and artists.
These experiences inspired me to record my own music once I got older. In the 70s I started with very modest equipment but with the coming of the computer things improved a lot. I slowly learned how to repair electronics and was so able to get broken down equipment, for next to nothing, and fix it. I got a 24.8 Mackie mixing desk that has been used by many famous bands (such as the Eagles) around the world to produce some great albums. I was the proud owner of one now that I got it when it was broken for something like 25 dollars and fixed it. It works perfectly now and it is in great shape. All that was wrong with the mixing desk was four faders and the main fuse in the power supply. When I got it, at the time, they were still selling for about $3000.
I slowly got some excellent equipment together, for very little money given that I fixed most of the broken equipment, and created my home studio. In this studio I have already made one Jazz album ‘Blast from the Past” with my band by the same name ‘Blast from the Past’ with Allan Nash on Drums, Frank Holdforth on Bass, Peter Brasche on Guitar, me on keyboards and Mark Bunyan on Saxophone. This was a trial CD that turned out really good, clean sound and good music.
With all of the money from the sales of these CDs that I made, I was able to make a donation to the Kidman Centre, about $800 and this gave me the idea of making a better CD and to market it more so that I could make more money for the Kidman Centre or at least I would try. This is how the idea for this new CD that I am making come about and I am glad because not only am I helping children and adolescents with mental illness, but I am also learning how to become a better musician and a better sound engineer and I also have the opportunity to listen to my originals tunes and songs and improve my songwriting skills. It is a journey, in a way, a journey that helps people in need. I cannot see anything better than using one’s art to improve the lives of disabled children.
I will include photos and information about the musicians that are part of this project, film clips of our struggles to record and some important information about the actual process of recording.
Below is a photo of my home studio where I do the final mixing. I will document some of the struggles with this particular recording as it may help other people of the music industry, including musicians and sound engineers.
I hope that people will follow this website so that they can come to understand how much efforts it takes to produce a CD and hopefully contribute by buying a copy so that together we can help our children here in Australia. I do not make a cent out of this and all expenses are paid by me. Fortunately, because I do everything on this project, with the help of my colleagues that are terrific musicians, the cost of production is minimal for me. The CDs will be sold for $5 each which is a very modest price to pay. I decided to charge $5 so that all people can contribute even those that are poor. $5 is the price of a cup of coffee so why not go without a cup of coffee to help our children? It is not too much to ask. Thank you and stay tuned.++
On this website I will include other pages for the following topics:
- Writing the charts
- Sound equipment, microphones, soundcard and techniques.
- Films of the actual recording
- Information about the tunes and songs.
- People involved in this project
- Information about the Kidman Centre
- About Professor Anthony Kidman
Leave a Reply