5 things you didn’t know about… 8th Day

 1. Bentzi plays guitar bass and drums

2. Shmuel wrote two children’s books (The Beadle and Ballad of the Yarmulke Kid) and a book of poems and short stories about his experiences in Ukraine (Chicken Kiev)

3. “8th Day” refers to Shemini Atzeres (and it’s also Shmuel’s birthday)

4. Before 8th Day Bentzi sang backup vocals on his uncle Avraham Fried’s albums

5. Shmuel’s wife grew up together with MBD’s family

 Eli Gerstner’s Perfect Mix

“Right now I’m mixing the latest HASC concert” says composer-turned-producer Eli Gerstner whose most ambitious project to date is producing this show an annual tradition. “The recording has well over 100 tracks. Today each element of the music is recorded separately — the 16 musicians the kick drum the snare drum the hi-hat each and every vocalist. Each of these tracks has to be perfected to its best advantage so that they can all be heard in the mix. Keep in mind that I can only view 20 tracks at a time on my computer screen and you’ll get an idea of how complex this is.”

A lot of people think that the mixing of tracks is unique to the digital music age but the truth is that even analog music had multiple tracks: first two then four tracks then eight. The tracks were recorded separately on huge tape reels then synced together.

“My own first album had 24 tracks ” remembers Gerstner “but now in the digital age the sky’s the limit. HASC 31 is a three-hour show with over 100 tracks so just the audio version — sans video — is almost 200 gigabytes. That’s huge.”

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Since his last solo album in 2010 (Kumzitz — The Early Years a listening fest of old kumzitz favorites) Shloime Dachs has been busy with his orchestra. But he’ll soon be releasing a new single in which he sings together with his son Dovid appropriately titled “Kabeid es Avicha.”

“We were at a Pesach hotel when we met Leiby Fruchter ” says Dachs. “He told me he’d like us to sing a new song he had composed. As soon as I heard the tune I loved it and we recorded it right before Dovid’s voice broke.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 673)