Even though we were "live" we each had individual vocal and instrument mics and we were arranged in a big circle, which enabled very good separation of the sound. Each mic was on a separate track, and during the mixing process we were able to boost or reduce the volume of each one, thus balancing it the way we wanted and fixing places that were too loud or too soft. We were also able to fix the occasional bad note by re-recording another track (in a later session) while listening to the originals and then patching the good note in at the right spot in the mix. We were also able to add a track to make our fiddler sound like two fiddlers on Connecticut Waltz. A good sound engineer (Phil) can perform all these miracles.

The only problem I had with recording live was the dead sound of the room while recording. This was apparently necessary to get all the sound clean into the mics.

Sorry to get off on a tangent (or continue the tangent?) but it was an interesting experience that I hope to repeat. Our program at NOMAD is all Civil War songs, and I'm planning a new recording (some day in 2004) of these and additional songs from the Civil War era. I would do it again "live" for sure.