That’s Chris Gunderson playing his saxophone for me last night in his studio. We had a great evening eating chili, listening to jazz, shooting some film… but this was the highlight of the night.

Transfering my gear into road cases

So we made it happen and it was a somewhat calculated effort. I was able to grab up a few road cases, label, pack and move everything down to Old Lyme; about 45 minutes away. It took us about three car loads to get instruments, amps, and recording equipment there — an exhausting effort but certainly worth it. Babwe offered us residence in his wood shop, a red barn he raised next to his beautiful colonial house. Despite an abundance of sawdust, the room was perfect for recording: spacious and open, high ceilings, well diffused. Not to mention we had a US Army barracks wood stove right next to our cozy recording spot keeping us plenty warm.

Ultimately some of our best work, discussion and screwing around would take place in the barn in the month of January. While it is difficult to paraphrase the events, I will do my best to recall some of the more memorable events.

A new R101 for the occasion

As soon as the Christmas shuffle was done we went at it. Actually, our first session was December 27th and 28th but it all feels the same to me. We set up for the first time, things looked beautiful and sounded all the same. With everything labelled and organized well, I was able to setup quickly with no real technical difficulties (although I did almost fry my preamps). Jon and I move constantly but at different paces. Some days we’re motivated, moving faster than I can set up microphones. Some nights it’s best to reflect on what we’ve created alongside the work of others.

Our first task, like all the work we do, came out of complete spontaneity and we decided to re-record the song Castle. I’m not even sure we opened the version done over the summer. Honestly, I think we both just knew it needed another attempt. The night we started turned out to be perfect for Castle: a suspiciously warm, windy, and rainy January night. The shop door creaked open as a gust of air through the barn frenzied our fire, glowing in the wood stove. We recorded guitar parts with a Telecaster through a Vox AC15; what a beautiful sounding combination that turned out to be. At some point, Jon suggested we record the wind so I jostled a few KM184s over to the door and did just that. I believe the song was completed that night. It turned out sincere, honest, emotional. We wrapped up around 2am. What a great way to kick off a month of spontaneous recording.

I remember the first night having a little tension — not dramatic tension but working tension. Let me tell you a little about Jon. Jon works spontaneously and this is evident in his personality. We might do a few takes at the most and then it’s time to move on. This works well for two reasons: Jon knows his music better than any other musician I’ve met and he also has the capacity to write additional parts on the spot. Having been away from Jon for a few months, I overlooked our spontaneous music by invention methodology and took to a more regimented, “let me get you the results you want” approach. It took less than two hours before Jon was agitated enough to let me know where we were going wrong. This was very important feedback. Important enough to underline. We (I) adjusted and everything, in my opinion, went well from then on.

The next morning we started right into a song titled Vincent Van Gogh. This one was a lot of fun, I got to lay in some drums and it’s always a worthy challenge writing drums on the spot that will suit the mood of the song (and hit the pocket — Jon’s music isn’t done in time). This song is oddly anti-climactic, or maybe that isn’t really the best way to describe it. It goes through several quirky, Sufjan Stevens drum inspired transitions and lands on a broad, mellow ending. I often use “crescendo” to describe Jon’s music and this song is no exception but rather than a powerful, story-ending resolution, the lattice work of instrumentation and soft harmonies sustain a brief, albeit profound listening experience. And so with that in mind, I can suggest how overwhelming it was to sit in front of the song as each added layer exposed or further emphasized the purpose.

Maybe this is why I record music. Between the hustle of shoving microphones into amps, wrestling stands and cables, dialing in levels, I am able to listen. Just listen.

It took an entire day to create Vincent Van Gogh and by the end I was exhausted and feeling accomplished about both songs we had recorded. At this time, it was already Wednesday and I unfortunately had to return to the 9-5 routine the next day. We packed everything up and I got home late that night. In three day’s time, we’d be in for another very interesting two days of recording.

Jon plays his guitar in the barn

Our working space for the next few weeks

The whole idea that you could capture the world as it exists in a recording

I’m not going to review this plug-in, I am no professional reviewer and anyone can get a demo and try it out on their own. But! I do have an A/B comparison and I do think the plug-in is pretty awesome. It doesn’t work in all situations. It seems to work really well on tracks and mixes that need the low end to sound more realistic. I have a hard time explaining this but it’s really a feeling when it comes to low end.

Here’s a little background on the A/B. This track was recorded entirely through my TEAC 3340s 4 track deck. I can’t remember if it was at 7.5 ips or 15 ips at the time but I would place my bet on 7.5 ips. It’s a crummy little machine but I am fascinated by it. You’ll hear some image shifts and I had to run it through a de-noiser which affected the hi-hat ever so slightly.

Slate claims that this plug-in recreates the analog non-linearity sound of a console which I would imagine introduces some pleasant sounding harmonic distortion. I think that is why it worked very well with these tape tracks which already have a fair amount of analog vibe.

This is also the most extreme example possible of the plug-in. The settings in this screen shot are the settings I used in the session. Input (not pictured) and Drive were set to +6 dB (max) using the Brit N model console which Slate states to be ” known for a rich, fat, and warm sound.” The Brit N model sounded the best on this mix by a long shot and the more it was driven it the better it sounded.

I am looking forward to trying it more. Here is my A/B comparison. Download the 48kHz 24-bit sample files here and here.

My friend Chris once posed a question: Would you rather live a short life creating music reaching millions of ears or a long life creating music that is never heard? Again, a different answer from everyone. I answered his question instinctively but I reflected on it for many weeks after. It was this question that helped me understand why I record. Yet my question remains. Why do we record?

I subscribe to Bob Dylan’s theory on recording music. This Dylan quote is from Tape Op’s interview with Chris Shaw: “A record is just a recording of what you were doing that day.” Simple. Beautiful. Even better, I can wrap my mind around this mantra and take it with me as I record. I have to admit that out of all the great wisdom sought from all the great recorders, this one insignificant quote seems to shortcut all good advice straight to the core of why we record.

How humbling to know we merely capture a brief moment in time. How conceited to think we do anything more.

Is this the answer to why we record? Probably not, but it’s good enough for me. I find a certain amount of satisfaction knowing we capture zeitgeist through recording. Art, photography, film, literature, doctrines, and music are all a part of what makes us human. As a recorder, we are nothing more than a conduit into the archives of humanity. Every vinyl, every cassette, every CD, every mp3 yields information about our culture and our world. Mankind may collectively shrink the importance of music in society but that does not minimize the importance of recording.

“So many of the sounds in today’s recording studios come out of little boxes that merely imitate the sonic innovations of the past. The range of choices is vast but, in unimaginative hands, it seems to create fewer surprises.”

An opening quote, written by Elvis Costello, sets the tone for the story to come. In the 1960s, Geoff Emerick along with George Martin, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr would set in motion some of the most popular recording techniques used today. Close miking, tape loops, sampling, even kick drum dampening were all pioneered by Geoff Emerick and the Beatles. Their work would change recording history.

Think about this with me for a second. This man is responsible for recording techniques fifty years later that go almost unnoticed. When was the last time you saw a kick drum used anywhere that didn’t have some sort of dampening? When I was a kid and my parents got me a kit the first thing I did was stuff blankets inside the kick drum! Now, if you were to have asked me why I did this prior, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

What’s more, Here, There and Everywhere contains a plethora of wisdom that is the psychology of working with musicians. Again, this to me is yet another overlooked facet in the art of recording today. Yes, there are plenty of pages written about the stress Geoff faced with the Beatles’ in their later years. But even before that, Geoff Emerick finds fascinating ways to work with each Beatle as each of their personalities were different. Lennon, for example, hated the sound of his own voice and often made requests in an abstract manner. Paul knew what he wanted and sought perfection. George Harrison was the ‘little brother’ yet he became more confident in his music. And believe it or not, Ringo was picky with drum sounds.

The subject of this book might be misconstrued as nostalgia but that just isn’t the case, at least not entirely. Here, There and Everywhere is like sitting at the back of EMI Abbey Road on the first week on your way to becoming an engineer.

Jon and I spent a lot of time recording together this summer despite his week long trip to North Carolina, month long trip to Italy, drive across the country, and an interruption from hurricane Irene. Somehow between all of that we were very productive — recording occasionally on weeknights and on weekends for most likely twelve to fourteen hours at a time. A lot of the recording we did this summer was very experimental. We did a lot of work outdoors, we used an old TEAC 4 track, Jon played wine glasses and his sister’s Cello, we used a lot of first takes, and recorded vocals on the couch amongst many other things.

It was damn muggy this summer but that didn't stop us from making music

We work fast. Well, I have to work fast or else Jon gets bored. But a lot of what we recorded has already been through years of finessing with some songs having been around even before recording the first Murder Over Madison album in 2008. So it doesn’t take much for Jon to put down a great recording especially when we do things as naturally as possible: no headphones, guitar in hand, sitting on a stool, microphones out of the way. This makes Jon comfortable and in return we can move fast. Everything we did focused on capturing the mood, the quiet, and the intense. But honestly a lot of it becomes a blur until we slow down at the end of the day and listen to what we have done.

Castle was no exception to this process other than involving no acoustic guitar. I can’t recall everything about recording this song but I do remember Jon sitting on the couch with a Telecaster and singing very softly. We found a wonderful addition to this song in the EVP88 Electric Piano from Logic. I brought up the darkest sounding cymbal I owned and we overdubbed that to raise the intensity. The bass line and the harmonies were already well sorted from Jon’s original recording of this song many years ago so those went in easily.

Jon returned to Montserrat late August so we tucked the unfinished album away to let it age. But I wasn’t ready to let go of Castle just yet. It’s a beautiful song and over Jon’s trip to Italy I spent some time mixing a few songs to get a better sense of what we had. Castle was one of these songs but I couldn’t get it right. I struggled with it for awhile before I had to let it go, convincing myself that it would be better to have Jon with me for this one. In October I brought up Castle again knowing that several months away from the song would give me a new perspective. I stripped the tracks bare and listened to what we had recorded with no artificial reverb or EQ or plug-ins to cover anything up. Listening with everything in its innocence and dead center, I began to understand and really listen to this song.

I first took the liberty of muting excessive parts. Jon and I have a habit of over-recording which I certainly don’t see as a bad thing; I would rather have more to work with, but it does warrant a decision making process. In this case, removing parts actually strengthened the song by creating contrast. That’s when it became apparent to me that this song was greatly about contrast. The fact of the matter is a lot of Jon’s music is about contrast so this will probably be a common trait throughout the rest of our work together.

Roland Space Echo

So from then on I knew what I wanted to expose and emphasize. The most important aspect of this song was in its extraordinary dynamic range. I wanted contrast, lots of contrast. I wanted ‘real’ reverb and I wanted things to sound raw and, of course, analogue. So my first thought was try a Space Echo on the EVP88 Electric Piano which sounds more like bells so it seems stupid to call it a piano. It sounded beautiful! And it set the tone for the rest of the song. I dug out an old Holy Grail guitar pedal and used it for an aux reverb. I sent guitars and vocals to it with varying degrees of intensity which helped to create this dense atmosphere over an ambient, vintage tape reverb. Wow. I loved how it sounded. The mood was just so dark and dense in the build-ups and I could pull it back in spots that needed to sound fragile and small. This was my contrast. It took awhile to make things sound big but not overwhelmingly wet. It also took awhile to wrestle the bass line into a comfortable spot and this proved essential to the song being the entire low end of the mix.

Another important discovery was rolling off the top end on vocals and the entire mix. It took away the digital and added this nice lo-fi quality (I’m sorry for abusing the term ‘lo-fi’ here). It really made the vocals, as they were sounding somewhat harsh having been intentionally recorded with a really cheap microphone that sounds nice with Jon’s voice but has some really crappy top end, unfortunately. It was a bit of a balancing act keeping the song from sounding too dull and giving enough presence to the vocals in the dense sections.

The Holy Grail reverb pedal set to "stun"

Anyways, it felt really good to have overcome my struggle with this song. I would love to post the entire song but the fact is this probably will not be the final mix. So why post it or even bother mixing it at all? Well, I am proud of it and want to share my work. And although Jon and I have talked about trying additional parts it won’t change the concept. Or maybe it will be the final mix. We won’t know until we get together again and resume our work.

Edit: I decided to upload the entire song.

http://www.davidschobermusic.com/

Save the digital frustration, this article is a good jab at the “nobody commits to anything” era of recording — or maybe life overall.

Burl Audio – Vance Powell

I highly respect and admire Vance Powell not only for his work with Jack White but his humble personality, passion for music, and his outlook. Not to mention his interview in Tape Op #82 is a great read. Well look at that… three interviews instead of two.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

I immediately drew parallels in the realm of recording. The obvious one being a common pitfall: the never ending quest for better equipment, more plugins, more compressors, more anything that will improve the mix. Well it won’t. At least that’s what my experience has been thus far. Having a large amount of options turns the mixing process into an endless shootout — a dull, boring, stressful process. I see no room in this scenario for creativity and I can understand why it would make anyone want to give up. The other downside of having more options easily being that not enough time is ever given to learning an individual piece of a equipment. More confusing options, less understanding of these options, frustration ensues. Could the paradox of choice also be a reason why some engineers with massive amounts of equipment at their disposal dial in one setting and then never change it?

On a more theoretical line of thought, what about less is more in the mix. Zen & The Art of Mixing taught me to love the mute button. I will often record way more than the song needs: double vocals, double harmonies, instrument overdubs, the animals outside, you name it. I don’t see ‘over-recording’ as problematic and in most cases I am happy to have a plethora of sound to work with come time to mix. However, I tend to find the reduction process to be the most satisfying part of mixing as it can be a refreshing way to hear a song that has been drilled into my brain. Oftentimes I will find myself becoming more pleased as the emotion of the song presents itself in a much more raw manner once all the fluff has been trimmed away. This might not be the approach for every song but it’s worth a shot.

So that leads me into my final thought: working with limitations. I was originally turned onto this concept by Jack White and Joe Chiccarelli. 16 tracks instead of 24 (or infinite which really sucks), a mono piano track, printing compression and effects, mixing in mono. Quite frankly, the best thing I ever did for myself in regards to vocal recording was to stop being a bitch and start printing with an LA2A rather than inserting it “just in case.” Sure, it’s tying your hands to an extent but it can also be a ceiling, a boundary, and most importantly a goal to reach. Less is more. Have fun with it.