Overdub Session 4

Monday evening (the day after the Session 3), we get together with Liam to knock out his remaining guitar work. I bail from work a little early and arrive at the studio around 5PM.

When I walk in the door I’m greeted by the sounds of “Miss Yesterday” with some great sounding lead guitar. After I’d left the previous evening Matt had decided the Casino wasn’t the thing, switched to his main guitar, a beautiful playing Les Paul modified with a Bigsby. I didn’t even ask him how long he took to develop and record his part. It sounds great and another part is ticked off the list.

Liam walks in the doors shortly after me. As we’re setting up to track his guitar he tells us he’d spent a large chunk of his weekend carefully composing and rehearsing the lead guitar part on “Wrecking Ball” using the rough mix as a guide. I’ve described how cool his part is on the original recording in Tracking Day 2, but much like Matt’s original guitar on “Low Ebb,” it has enough rough edges on it that we agree recording it again makes sense. In addition Liam’s written some more great little phrases to flesh out his part.

There’s a very specific tone Liam wants to get on his guitar for “Wrecking Ball.” He puts on a recording of an Afro-pop tune that has what he has in mind and Matt and he set to work dialing in the sound. It takes a careful ear, and an intuitive understanding of the myriad different effects available to take the sound of a guitar on a 30 year old recording and translate that into a signal chain that will recreate it.

I’m going gear geek for moment because this is a fascinating example of the complexity of decisions that go into every aspect of recording. Here’s what they ultimately set up to get the sound Liam wanted:

I created this image so you can see each piece of gear and every knob and dial involved. Each one was a decision Liam and Matt had to consciously make to arrive at the final sound—and that’s for only one sound on one guitar track!

That done, Matt queues up the song and Liam digs in. He pretty much knows what he’s going to play; he just needs to get the right performance. Starting with the lead break, Liam records half a dozen takes. The last one we all agree is just about perfect. An opinion reinforced when we listen to the playback. Next, Liam takes a few passes through the entire song adding the lead guitar. I really love what he’s done on this tune. I purposefully wrote a very simple little pop song, but to hold the listener’s attention you need to compliment that simplicity with counterpoint and harmony. Liam’s lovely little guitar ornaments on this song achieve that beautifully.

Next up we completely switch gears to “Nothing but Skin and Bones.” This tune is a big, ballsy rocker. During the tracking sessions, Matt’s ear and Liam’s guitar basically rescued this song from my entirely unintentional prog rock leanings. It’s now more what I’d imagined: a riffy southern rock song with big vocals and bigger guitars. The guitar part Liam recorded during tracking doesn’t need to be redone, we just need to come back to add a couple things, the primary thing being his lead.

The guitar sound we want for this song is huge, sustained, overdriven, and distorted. I won’t go as deep as I did with “Wrecking Ball” but Matt and Liam did spend a fair amount of time trying different amps (we have five or six at our disposal in the studio) and overdrive combinations. Where they land is using Matt’s secret weapon—the Mark I–a $20 thrift store purchase. The amp was made in the 60s and sold through department stores, almost more a toy than serious professional amp, but because it pre-dated cheap solid state technology, it’s built using vacuum tubes and consequently does really cool things when you push hot signals into it. That plus a little hair from an Analogman modified TS9 and Liam proclaims he’s gotten two of the most rad guitar tones in his life during this one session.

I wish I’d made a video of Matt and Liam’s interaction on the recording of this lead. During the rehearsals leading up to tracking, I’d already told Liam I was looking for a big southern rock lead with lots of bent notes, sustain, and feedback. Less notes and more attitude. The first run through the lead section Liam does an admirable job reflecting my ideas, but he’s still feeling his way through it and figuring out the shape he wants. Matt takes the opportunity to be the Producer by basically pouring gasoline on a fire. With each successive run through of the lead Liam gets more animated and the lead more intense, and after each successive run through Matt eggs Liam to greater heights, “on this next one I want you to go OFF!” I forget exactly, but after something like five or six of these Liam’s wrung out and has in fact hurt his hand trying to bend the B string effectively off the top of the guitar’s neck…oh! but the results are worth it.

“On a Limb” opens with a sparse section of just me and my acoustic, but I wanted guitar feedback in the background foreshadowing where the song is going. Now creating guitar feedback is fairly straightforward: crank the signal going into the amp and crank the master volume on the app itself, and voila! You have feedback. Problem is we’d set up the Mark I, a very low amperage amplifier. Meaning you can’t get much volume out of it, and if you can’t get the volume you can’t get the amp to talk to the pickups on the guitar, which is what creates the feedback to begin with. We could have just set up one of the other amps more appropriate for generating feedback, but then the tone would have changed significantly. Instead Matt elects to use the studio to act as a second gain stage for the Mark I. Fancy talk for turning the studio monitors UP TO ELEVEN. We don earplugs and prepare for the onslaught.

To get the desired result Liam needs to get the guitar right up against monitor speakers—while holding the right note on the guitar—a bit of musical gymnastics that pays off after a couple practice attempts.

All of this experimentation and problem solving has eaten up the evening and Liam’s pretty much out of gas anyway; time to call the session. Over Sunday and Monday evenings we’ve put in a total of 12 hours in the studio. But it was a productive couple of sessions. As I’d hoped, we got through the bulk of the outstanding guitar tracking and have a clear path for scheduling the remaining instruments and finally laying down vocals.

Low Ebb

• Lead Vox
• Guitar Leads
• Lead Guitar
• Hammond

Miss Yesterday

• Lead Vox
• Rhythm Guitar
• Rhythm Lead in phrase
• Keys
• Lead Guitar
• Backing vox
• Horns

Nothing But Skin And Bones

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Hammond
• Bass
• Tambourine
• Lead guitar
  

On a Limb

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead guitar ideas
• Shaker
• Horns

Red Marker

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lap Steel
• Second Electric
  

The Jewel Fades

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Tambourine
• Backing vox

Wrecking Ball

• Acoustic Guita
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox

Cover Tune

• Acoustic Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox
• Fiddle
• Pedal Steel
• Second Guitar

Overdub Sessions 3

On Sunday I drove down to the studio at 1pm and we started off assessing where we’re at. I’d explored some production ideas for “On a Limb” on Saturday and produced a mocked up version based on the rough mix. We listened to it and started down a path to completely rethink the production on the song. A pretty big decision we want to mull over some more and come back to when we have a better view of how the current recording will (or won’t) work with the record as a whole. I’m working on another tune and maybe even another cover. If that comes together it would justify another day for tracking and exploring a new production for “On a Limb” would make more sense. If the other songs don’t come together it would be a big time and money commitment for a single song…unless we decide it’s make or break for the album.

Next, we set up for Matt to track his lead guitar for “Low Ebb.” We both loved a lot of the scratch track he’d laid down during tracking. But there were just enough rough edges on it for Matt to want to get a more intentional part recorded.

One way to think about there being no one ‘right’ way to record is the degree to which you use the recording process as a tool for composition. Back in the tape days, it was ridiculously expensive to rack up reels and reels of tape for a band to simply explore a song (though when I lived in Austin in the early 90s I’d heard Eric Johnson was famous for this). It was pretty much a luxury reserved for the top money making acts. Now, it’s common to use digital recording as an integral part of writing music. Matt’s a great example of this; probably because he’s also a great engineer and has tuned his ears for production. He prefers being able to listen closely to a passage, try an idea then progressively refine it until he has the final part. It’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. You have to have a good idea to begin with and know when it’s done. Matt’s amazing at listening to a part and knowing how to adjust to get “more of this” and “less of that” until it’s perfect.

So I sit back and let Matt do his thing on “Low Ebb” chiming in occasionally with a “…more of that” comment. We don’t rush it and it ultimately eats up five or six hours to record both his lead part that runs through the song plus his guitar lead. After a coffee break we come back and set up for me to put down my last bit of guitar work for the record, my lead on “Low Ebb.” The rhythm guitar part I put down during tracking we decide feels great even with a few rough edges so we decide to keep it. My lead was a different matter. I’d sketched out the shape of my lead during pre-production, but my over exuberance on the original recording led to a couple of ugly clams. It definitely needed to be redone. Taking it from sketch to final eats up a couple of hours as we explore a couple of ideas.

After a quick dinner break, Matt takes on the lead guitar on “Miss Yesterday.” This needs a laid back Swing Jazz feel, so Matt sets up his Epiphone Casino guitar. That’s a hollow body guitar made famous by the Beatles, but hollow bodies are also a standard pick for Jazz players. He starts with the improvised part on the original recording, but the more he tries to develop that idea the less we both like it.

Different types of music are like different languages, or dialects of languages. They have their own forms, patterns, and phrasing. There are plenty of examples of musicians who don’t really speak a musical language trying to mimic what they hear. Not surprisingly, to a trained ear these attempts often end up sounding like gibberish. Jazz is particularly tricky if you haven’t studied it and with the exception of Reade, none of us have really. I never intended “Miss Yesterday” to be a true Swing Jazz song, but we do want to tip our hat to that style, not create a parody of it.

Matt and I talk about it for a while, until we look up and it’s after 10PM. I need to get to work early in the morning so I pack up to head home and leave it for another day.

We keep chipping away!

Low Ebb

• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Lead Guitar
• Hammond

Miss Yesterday

• Lead Vox
• Rhythm Guitar
• Rhythm Lead in phrase
• Keys
• Lead Guitar
• Backing vox
• Horns

Nothing But Skin And Bones

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Hammond
• Bass
• Tambourine
• Lead guitar

On a Limb

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead guitar ideas
• Shaker
• Horns

Red Marker

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lap Steel
• Second Electric
  

The Jewel Fades

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Tambourine
• Backing vox

Wrecking Ball

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox

Cover Tune

• Acoustic Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox
• Fiddle
• Pedal Steel
• Second Guitar

Overdub Session 2

I got a reminder today how elusive the creative process can be. We had a solid chunk of time today to make progress on the record. I planned a half day of work and headed over to the studio at lunch. Liam put in some extra time at his job yesterday so he could bail early today. Tracy also came along to handle engineering duties. Despite that and lots of effort from everyone we just couldn’t find that “place” today. Matt was starting to come down with a cold, and though he battled like a champ through the day, he couldn’t get in the groove so we set aside recording any of his parts. We told him to just sit back on the studio couch and be Producer. After we all engaged in a round of the obligatory, predictably tasteless Mixerman quotes about aloof, drug-toting producers, he settled back with a cup of hot tea and directed things admirably…yeah, the Caddy Desert rolls pretty wicked.

We didn’t completely strikeout. Matt and I both had another round of feedback on the rough mixes to talk through, and that resulted in some changes. Off the bat Liam spent a fair amount of time dialing in a second electric part for “Red Marker.” He came up with another cool little riff and was trying to land a complimentary rhythmic chord idea to switch between. As these things often go, once he’d built up the full part, we talked it over and promptly started deconstructing the part back down to its essence. We got it down to something really nice that in turn inspired Matt on his Lap Steel part.

The bass part for the cover tune is the last outstanding bass line that Liam’s responsible for. We’d had to break so quickly on the final day of tracking that we took his part as is, but on closer listen it needed to be re-recorded. It wasn’t quite as tight as it could have been and he also had some ideas for changing his bass tone on the track. I ask Liam to knock that out next. He gamely dives in but now he’s fighting what Matt refers to as, “going to a dark place,” where you can’t seem to make your hands or head work right. He decides it’s nothing that a walk down to PCC, some food and—most importantly—a bottle of red, can’t solve.

Matt sets up the bench from the Hammond B3 as our dinner table and Liam puts on the Congolese legend Franco & OK Jazz, for a little mood music.

By the time the dregs of the wine are shared across our coffee cups, Liam jumps up sufficiently inspired to take on the bass line and dials in a mean, punchy tone on the amp. Planting himself in front of the console with the monitors turned up loud he—wait for it—nails it on the second take. Matt, Tracy and I get the hell out of the way.

I am beginning to divine what makes Mr. Blodgett tick.

All that, a couple coffee and food breaks, and it’s pushing midnight. We agree that until we can land the rest of the guitar parts, getting to next steps with the songs is effectively on hold. We all furiously poke around on our phones comparing schedules and tentatively block out Saturday or Sunday next week for the next session. Everyone agrees to spend more time with the tunes and have better formed ideas for their parts.

Couple of new strikethroughs today:

Low Ebb

• Lead Vox
• Guitar Leads
• Lead Guitar
• Hammond

Miss Yesterday

• Lead Vox
• Rhythm Guitar
• Rhythm Lead in phrase
• Keys
• Lead Guitar
• Backing vox
• Horns

Nothing But Skin And Bones

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Hammond
• Tambourine

On a Limb

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead guitar ideas
• Shaker
• Horns

Red Marker

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lap Steel
• Second Electric
  

The Jewel Fades

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Tambourine
• Backing vox

Wrecking Ball

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox

Cover Tune

• Acoustic Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox
• Fiddle
• Pedal Steel
• Second Guitar

Overdub Session 1

It’s Tuesday morning and I get to be a musician all day!

I’ve planned months in advance to reserve some vacation days this year for recording. I don’t mind so much moonlighting as a musician. My day job’s engaging and challenging and, more importantly, is far more effective at keeping me in the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. The whole food and a roof over your head thing. But when it comes time to create doing it part-time doesn’t work for me. I like to be able to walk into the studio without any of the day job baggage and focus completely on making music. Also, in an era where most musicians have to work day jobs, having flexibility to record during working hours simplifies scheduling and can sometimes score you a cheaper rate.

The goal for today is knock out as much of the guitar work I have to do for the record as possible. When I get to the studio Matt’s contemplating how he wants to mic my acoustic guitar. He settles on recording it in stereo with a couple of AKG C414s set up in an X/Y array*. Recording in stereo will give him a fuller sound and a few more options at mix time.

Matt queued up the first song and we basically worked our way through everything that I play acoustic on. Very little voiceover to provide as most tracks went off without a hitch. A couple, “On a Limb,” and “Nothing But Skin and Bones,” were a little more problematic. On the former, my strumming pattern was too heavy-handed and wasn’t going to work sit right in the mix so Matt and I worked on a version with a lighter touch on my part. The later song has a couple of vocal queues that my guitar doubles and they were tricky to get the timing right on. Typically Reade would mark time with the high-hat or cross stick but that wouldn’t work on this song due to the way it’s structured.

While we had each song up in Pro Tools Matt also wanted to record an updated scratch vocal track. This isn’t something we did on the last record, but Matt wanted to take the opportunity to audition some different signal chain (or path) combinations for tracking final vocals. Given the importance of vocals, and the fact we have access to more gear at the Track Shack, this was our opportunity to discover the best possible microphone, pre-amp, compressor combination for my voice. It differs dramatically from one singer to the next and from one song to another. I’ve recorded final vocals on a $5K Neumann microphone, all the way to a $60 Shure SM57.

Vocals are one of the most dramatic examples, but signal chain decisions have to be made for every sound source that gets recorded. And each instrument has its own particular characteristics that engineers have to learn to know what will work and what won’t. You begin to understand why audio engineering has a lot of art to it.

After that we still have a little time before I need to head out, so we set up my electric and I record the rhythm guitar for “Miss Yesterday.” There are a couple of guitar lead-ins that I play on the song and it takes me a little while to get the timing right.

It’s been another successful day in the studio today. We completed all of the acoustic guitar and half the electric guitar I’m responsible for. On top of that we’ve learned a lot about how we’ll approach tracking final vocals, and have gotten stronger scratch vocals for the rough mixes in the bargain.

The next session we talk about will be another one focused on guitar. It will be primarily a job for Matt and Liam, but I have a little more left to do, and regardless, I always want to be in attendance at the sessions. We tentatively agree on a week from Friday, 4.15, pending confirmation that Liam can do it. In the meantime Matt will also start getting the availability for other players we want for the tracks.

Strikethroughs indicate what we knocked off today:

Low Ebb

• Guitar Lead
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Lead Guitar
• Hammond

Miss Yesterday

• Lead Vox
• Rhythm Guitar
• Rhythm Lead in phrase
• Keys
• Lead Guitar
• Backing vox
• Horns

Nothing But Skin And Bones

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Hammond
• Tamborine

On a Limb

• Acoustic Guitar
  
• Lead Vox
• Lead guitar ideas
• Shaker
• Horns

Red Marker

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lap Steel
• Second Electric

The Jewel Fades

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Tamborine
• Backing vox

Wrecking Ball

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox

 

*I’m not going to get into the habit of describing the blow-by-blow of every piece of gear we’re using. It’s an arcane subject unto itself and gets to be kind of dry reading if you’re not a gear head. I will occasionally drop in some gear details just to give you a flavor for the decision making that happens at this level of the recording process.

Post Tracking Production Session

The day after we complete basic tracking, Matt and I get together to review the results. The first task is for Matt to quickly mix each track and bounce out a rough mix. Rough Mixes are an early working version of a song used to evaluate the quality of everyone’s performance. Matt maybe spends an average of 10 minutes bringing up a rough mix, whereas he will take several hours, sometimes remixing multiple times, to achieve a final mix. We need rough mixes to start to glean where the song wants to go directionally so we can start thinking about what other sessions and players need to be brought in to fully realize the production.

Matt and I carefully listen to each song, stopping the playback frequently to discuss a part we’re hearing, or potential problem—either performance or production. The good news is that the drums sound great. If you recall from my post, Tracking Day 1, drums are the one instrument that can’t be overdubbed after the fact (some people try it, usually with marginal results). If we’d found a problem there we’d have to scrap the entire song and schedule another basic tracking day. Everything else can be fixed through overdubs.

As we’re talking through the rough mixes, I keep a running list of tracks that need either fixups, need to be completely re-recorded, or are new parts for the song. When we’re done we have our first look at all the instrument tracking that we want done before we go to mix the record. We will certainly find additional things we want as we progress, and it may be that some of the material recorded won’t make the final mix, but it’s exciting to see things starting to take on shape.

We end the session scheduling me to come back tomorrow and start knocking off the guitar tracks from the list I’m responsible for.

Here’s what that list ended up looking like:

Low Ebb

• Guitar Lead
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Lead Guitar
• Hammond

Miss Yesterday

• Lead Vox
• Rhythm Guitar
• Rhythm Lead in phrase
• Keys
• Lead Guitar
• backing vox
• Horns

Nothing But Skin And Bones

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Guitar Lead
• Hammond
• Tamborine

On a Limb

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead guitar ideas
• Shaker
• Horns

Red Marker

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lap Steel
• Second Electric

The Jewel Fades

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Tamborine
• Backing vox

Wrecking Ball

• Acoustic Guitar
• Lead Vox
• Lead Guitar
• Bass
• Backing Vox

Tracking Day 3

Sunday 11:00AM

The studio where we’re recording is the Track Shack. It’s located down in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle and really is a great place to make music. I’ve recorded in both bigger and much smaller studios but I find that this one hits the sweet spot. It’s beautifully outfitted with some great gear, and the rooms are set up to get really good sounds. Just as importantly though, is that its size is such that a band can really move in and make the place comfortable during the session. Being relaxed and at home where you’re recording is one of those intangible things that can make a big difference in the quality of the final product.

This is the last day scheduled for basic tracking and we need to cut it short since tomorrow’s a work day for some of the band. The good news is that we only have one more song of mine for the record. But there are a few more things we want to try before we break everything down so we’ll still need to keep an eye on the clock.

The last song we’ve prepared for the record is “The Jewel Fades.” I wrote this one to be the classic country track for the record, and about as straight ahead a song as I can write. We definitely want to get a classic sound as well, so in keeping with that, Liam’s using a muted string bass technique made famous by the hugely influential Carol Kaye. That, and Reade’s steady two-steppin’ back beat, provides just the right foil to the lyric I’ve written. We record a couple of takes and can’t find a thing wrong with them. And with that, all the original material for the record has basic tracks.

Now, Matt’s been after me for some time to find a cover tune to record. Cover tunes are a great way to expose new people to your music. You’re taking a piece of music that’s already well-known and, if you do the job right, bringing your own sound to it. It’s this taking of something familiar and making it fresh again, that provides listeners a short mental jump to understand what you’re about. There are a number of amazing examples of this, but two immediately jump to mind. José González’s solo singer-songwriter version of the electronica hit “Teardrop” by Massive Attack, and more in my genre, Dwight Yoakham’s version of the classic Cheap Trick song “I Want You to Want Me:”

Now I’m going to be a sneaky bastard and not tell you the cover we recorded…that’d cheat you out of the surprise of it. And you know I do love me some surprises. Suffice it to say we spent an hour or so learning the song, then rehearsed for a while until we found somewhere interesting to take it. I think we succeeded, but if the finished product doesn’t do justice to what is already a great song from one of my favorite bands, we won’t release it.

The last two things we wanted to work on were alternate productions for “Wrecking Ball” and “On a Limb.” Kind of like the above. I won’t go into too much detail, other than to say we had some other ideas for how to best realize these songs and wanted options as we get into the next phases of the recording process. As the shape of the record comes into focus we’ll decide which of these different productions will get used.

By the time we’d worked up the ideas and gotten some solid takes recorded the day was gone. Basic tracking was done for the record and we would now move into the overdubbing phase.

Day 3: 7 hours, 3 songs

In a total, we put in 32 hours of studio time and tracked 10 songs, two of which were alternate versions. So really we have 8 songs to move forward with. Matt and I feel like we might need another song or two to round out the record, but we’re both satisfied with the results of the session. In fact I think everyone had a great time. We were productive, got some really great sounds, and we end the weekend (pardon the pun) on a high note.

Tracking Day 2

Saturday morning, 11:30AM.

We reconvene at the studio. On the drive down, I’m running scenarios in my head where we don’t get basics done by end of the day tomorrow. Not helpful.

When I walk in the door Matt makes my day by saying that on re-listening this morning, he’s satisfied with one of the takes for “Red Marker.” Whew! One of my nightmare scenarios is that we end up struggling with this tune for a big chunk of the day. Now we can start fresh with a new song and a new challenge. Everyone is much happier.

I mull over what song to do next. It needs to be one using Reade’s Gretsch kit (breaking down and setting up another kit will take a long time) and needs to be kind to my voice. It’s not particularly good for the voice to start your day by singing at the top of your lungs for several hours.

I take a gamble and pick “Low Ebb.” This is a big, dark, brooding, Neil Young-esque rock tune. I sing the thing pretty low in my register and it’s on Reade’s kit so it fits the bill, but it’s a gamble because it’s an epic tune and needs great performances all around to work. I tell everyone we’ll run the song and if we’re not feeling it we can come back to it later.

Apparently everyone brought their mojo this morning.

After a couple of false starts, the engine kicks over and we rumble through the first take with the kinetic energy of Jake and Elwood’s ’74 Dodge Monaco. Reade and Liam are dialed in, Matt’s guitar is a force of nature and my vocal take and rhythm guitar hang on for dear life. Sonic mayhem served up just the way I like it.

When you’re recording, you have to learn to keep perfectly still and quiet as the long tail of the last note dies out. Otherwise you risk destroying the recording by having noise where there’s supposed to be perfect silence. On a great take, it’s during this handful of seconds that everyone’s looking around the room at each other saying with their expression, “That was IT for me! Don’t tell me you need another take for your part.” That was tracking “Low Ebb.”

Yesterday we made the mistake of eating lunch at 4PM and pushing our dinner out so late that it was impossible to be productive afterward. So at 1PM we stop for lunch.

After a good break and we’re settled back into our respective stations in the studio, I pick another rock tune, “Nothing but Skin and Bones.” This song has undergone a pretty significant transformation as part of our pre-production rehearsals. When I wrote the song I envisioned a kind of classic southern rock sound. But the strumming pattern I was employing on the verse and bridge sections just didn’t work for Matt. And while he’s been pretty game to stretch his playing to my rootsy sound, he also felt the song was far enough outside his comfort zone that Liam would be better suited to the guitar part, so they switch roles. I’m incredibly fortunate to have two great guitar players with very different styles in the band. Matt does the big, sweeping, evocative effect driven soundscape thing like no one I’ve ever played with. Liam brings great melodic note playing and a physical style informed by his love of African guitar, Soul, and Rhythm & Blues.

Matt really showed his producer chops on this tune. Rather than stick with a more straight southern rock thing, he wanted to change the song to a darker swamp rock vamp. Liam and Reade oblige nicely. Liam comes up with a cool guitar riff, and Reade moves away from the higher toned rack tom on his kit and comes up with a floor tom dominated pattern. To put the final touch on the new sound, Reade switches out the snare to an awesome old Gretsch snare he owns that has the same late sixties head on it as when he saved it from a friend’s storage unit years ago. Then we find the darkest, deepest floor tom available out of the three kits in the studio. The result is a much cooler, gritty, bluesy sound that works great with the vocal. It takes a little time to dial in the new sound but when we do, we quickly get a take everyone feels great about.

The next song we track is “Wrecking Ball.” Originally Matt also played guitar on this tune. But as the song developed, Matt decided Liam could bring more to the tune and handed over guitar duties. “Wrecking Ball” isn’t that demanding from arrangement standpoint, but there are a couple cool ‘moments’ that need to be just so. Liam delivers a beautiful guitar performance. Seamlessly marrying Americana and African notes and phrasing with some truly remarkable passages during those ‘moments.’

Photo: Lord Fotog                      (left to right: Tracy Winjum, Liam Blodgett, Reade Whitwell, Matt Brown)

Because of the stellar stuff I’ve just heard come out of Liam I figure he’s earned the Tequila he’s been making noises about. Since we’re now ready to switch drum sets, he and I take off to find a liquor store and by the time we’re back everyone’s ready for some dinner.

Recharged from dinner, I choose “Miss Yesterday” to track next. This is meant to be a Jazz Standards/Western Swing sendup. I have an old ’68 Slingerland kit we use for rehearsals that Reade’s tuned up beautifully. He wants to play this kit to get a period ‘brushes’ sound. Reade’s exceptional in a number of ways. He has enormous experience—in Rock, Jazz, Country. He’s also got great feel and the technique to pull off sick drum fills. But he has that rarest of qualities for a drummer. He loves songs, melodies, and most importantly for a singer-songwriter—words. I’ve not met many drummers that stop rehearsal to ask what the line is you’re singing to inform what he’s going to play. That’s Reade.

The first half of “Miss Yesterday” is laid back, but the second half kicks up a notch or two. It took us few cycles of track, stop, listen, to get the feel right on both halves without it feeling forced, but we eventually nail it. As soon as the recording is stopped, I know it’s time to knock off for the night. We’ve gotten through four songs, and it’s getting late. Everyone’s feeling pretty good though so we all stick around for another hour listening to some music and hanging out.

Day 2: 13 hours and 4 songs

Tracking Day 1

Last night I took the band out for dinner. It gave us an opportunity to be together as a group outside of rehearsal or a gig, and share some food and beers to get our heads in the right place for our Friday, Saturday, Sunday recording session. Afterwards we headed over to the studio to do some of the set up. We broke at about 11:30 and decided to convene at 11 this morning. I was anxious to get going faster so I suggested we start earlier, around 10-10:30. That was roundly rejected as requiring an inhumane hour for waking up. I’m used to early mornings because of the day job, but Matt and Reade live musician hours—11 it was.

So here we are. The core band: Liam, Matt, and Reade, along with Tracy who’s engineering. Tracy was assistant engineer on my first record. But for this session he’s really co-engineering so Matt can have the freedom and mental space he needs to focus on recording his parts. It’s now 1PM; drum levels are set and we’re just starting to get bass sounds. You might be thinking, “Why the hell is he typing this while he’s supposed to be recording?” Recording is very much a hurry-up-and-wait exercise. There are long passages of down time while other instruments are getting set up. You bring something to read and keep patient…or you write your blog.

But let me back up and give you an overview of how we’re recording. As I said in the last post, there are damn near an infinite ways to record. How we’re doing it is a fairly standard approach. Get the band together in the studio and setup to record each instrument to one or more separate tracks. Drums have the most, typically anywhere from four to fifteen mics, depending on the size of the kit and the recording technique. Because of this complexity (not only from the number of mics, but also from the complex sound made by the all drums and cymbals interacting with each other), it’s basically impossible to either ‘punch-in‘or ‘comp.’* This is why—aside from the fact that bass and drums are the foundation you build on top of—the priority for the initial tracking is to deliver great Drum and Bass performances for all the songs. The recording benefits from having a great ensemble performance from the rhythm section. You can overdub bass again later, or punch-in, or comp parts, but best case those two guys are in the pocket together on the recording, start to finish.

Everything else is gravy. While the other instruments are is mic’ed and recorded, it’s just done in case there’s magic that happens. One of the cardinal sins of recording is to not be recording when a musician delivers an extraordinary performance.

In pop music vocals are the money, so they’re treated slightly differently. Since great care is taken when tracking the vocals you hear on the finished product, the tracks recorded during this part of the process are what are referred to as the scratch vocal; used as a guide for overdubbing the other parts. Final vocals are typically the last thing laid down.

Back to Day 1. It was 3PM by the time all the levels were set and we were ready to start tracking. But first we needed food. Two rules about pacing recording sessions are, 1) keeping fueled up, and 2) keeping a lid on session lengths. The law of diminishing returns kicks in if people are either working hungry or sleep deprived. You can’t perform and your judgment and decision making is impaired to the point that you can’t make progress. So we went out for a late lunch and it really was 5PM before we started laying down takes.

We’ve set up Reade’s beautiful Gretsch drums, so the tracks where we want that sound are up first. I decide to start with “On a Limb.” The vocals aren’t too demanding on my voice, which allows me to loosen up, and the arrangement is reasonably straightforward.

The order of events for tracking goes like this: run through the song until you’ve got a couple of good takes. Then everyone puts down their instruments and gathers around the console to listen and talk through each. If everyone agrees you have a keeper you move on. If there are problems, you make whatever adjustments you need and try again.

The initial takes of “On a Limb” are good, but owing to everyone’s initial excitement, the tempo’s a little fast. We spend some time with a metronome dialing in the right tempo then record a few more takes. After a listen, we agree we had what we need and move on to the next song: “Red Marker.”

This one is the newest song of the bunch, and while we worked up an arrangement to perform at the Tractor, when we record it that way, Matt’s not convinced its right. We discuss how to best modify the arrangement to make it work and land on a solution to bookend the song using the first half of the first verse. It cuts a significant amount of unnecessary repetition of the verse chord progression and gets the song back to pop song length. We also discuss whether the lead guitar part Matt’s written is sitting in the right place. He’s not feeling great about it. I’ve been looking for opportunities to suggest he pull out his lap steel, so I suggest that as an alternative. He digs the idea. After a few rehearsal takes we record a couple good versions. The lap steel adds the right mood to the song. On playback however, everyone’s worried we may be rushing the tempo here as well. We look up and it’s now 10PM. We make a quick run to PCCs deli for food with the idea that we’ll come back and try a few more takes. But when we settle in, all our blood is in our stomachs digesting and it’s after 11PM. We’ve hit the wall and decide to call it for the evening.

Day 1 nets out to 12 hours and 1 ½ songs…we’re gonna have to get our mojo on tomorrow.

*Just so there’s no speculation, I’m using Sweetwater’s recording glossary because after looking around the Internet it was by far the most comprehensive. There’s no business relationship.

How Many Hats Do You Really Need?

There are literally as many ways to record and put out an album today as there are people doing it. That’s a pretty big statement when you think about it. The spectrum runs from the increasingly rare major label, large budget effort to a couple of teenagers with a $50 USB mic huddled around a laptop. From a band tracking live as a unit in a room with no care about mic bleed (when the mic on the guitar amp also picks up the sound of the drums), all the way to meticulously isolated tracking of each instrument. More than ever before, there truly isn’t any one, right way to record and release music.

I’ve done my share of experimentation with many of these approaches. A few years back I took the bait of the “for the price of paying someone else to make a record you can build your own studio and make as many records as you want!” I bought some gear and jumped in with both feet to record an EP for one of my earlier bands. I engineered, mixed, played and sang. The result was, in my opinion, just okay. But the lessons I took from that were (almost) worth the dollars I put into the gear and the hours I spent struggling to become competent with it. Anyone can stick a mic in front of a sound source and document the sound. Not just anyone can capture the
music. Believe me, there’s a huge difference. I also learned that while I could, if I dedicated myself to it, get better at engineering and mixing, it would come at a cost.

It’s these kinds of tradeoffs that are absent from the indie musician sites. In fact what I see more often is an assertion that to be successful you have to ‘wear a lot of hats.’ That’s pretty much a given. But based on my experience I would advise carefully considering what hats you want wear. I became increasingly conscious that every hour I spent screwing around with levels on a pre-amp or dialing in a compressor were hours I could have spent honing my songwriting. I’ll direct you to my previous post for my feelings on that: It’s About the Songs!

Added to this was my realization that the happiest, most inspirational moments I’ve had recording was when I was behind the microphone and someone with real engineering skills was on the other side, completely focused on getting the performance.

Matt Brown was that guy on the last record, and I’m thrilled that he’s engineering and producing again this time.

I’m not going to argue that the DIY movement powered by reasonable quality, inexpensive recording gear is a horrible thing. It’s introduced many, many more people to creating and recording music over the last decade than was possible during the previous 50 years. I suspect we may see a real flowering of music in the next few years as some of these kids come of age. On the other hand, it’s been troubling to see so many inspired recording professionals struggle to make ends meet and so many iconic recording studios close their doors.

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The last couple of posts I’ve been trying to give you a little insight into how I think about the recording process. Hopefully you’ve found it moderately entertaining. I’m happy to report that my posts will begin to focus more on the actual work happening on the record. The studio dates are scheduled and we’re now putting the final touches on preparations.

It’s About The Songs!

How do you go about making a record? I’ve released a couple of EPs in addition to the full-length solo record, and I always find it useful to go back to square one to ask myself this basic question. I’m a pretty distracted person by nature and there are so many big, and little, tasks that go into getting the job done that you can easily lose sight of the ultimate goal: to produce a piece of art. Is it also a commercial, marketing and PR statement? Well, sure. But if the thing you’ve created isn’t compelling on its own, without packaging, messaging, advertising, performing, then it’s kind of an empty exercise.

My first solo record benefited from being able to draw on all the songs I’d written over the previous ten years. I knew going into producing this, my sophomore effort, it was going to be a taller mountain to climb. I was determined not to wait another ten years to release something and I wanted it to be better than my last. A lot of that pressure is self-imposed, but I view it as a healthy desire to be productive. I few years back I read “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now.” I was struck by how, even in the earliest days of their writing partnership, Paul and John valued being productive. When they sat down they almost always came away with a finished song. Now I’m not putting myself anywhere near their league, but I do share their view that one of the characteristics of successful artists is that they make art. In the realm of pop music, that is generally viewed as releasing some kind of artistic statement every 1-3 years (there are varying opinions whether this is still the case that I won’t go into here, nor why I still believe it is).

That’s why last summer, about a year after “Truth and Love,” I made a conscious decision to dial back the number of shows we played so I could focus on writing. I confess my original intention was to finishing writing songs over the summer, record in the fall and release this spring. Reality got in the way of that plan and it’s taken up to now to complete the songs that will make up the record.