seaneldon
24 Sep 2009, 12:30
Bear with me, this WILL involve recording!
A couple-three years ago, I made the executive decision within to stop playing in bands, forever. It's just too much square ego trying to fit into a small round hole. Rarely does everyone in the band (or "collective", as my friend likes to call it) actually identify/follow their role in the group, touring gets very mentally/physically exhausting, it's too much fucking work for nowhere near enough pay, and it's not something I can just do "for fun" because I don't think being in a band is that fun in the first place.
Oh, and there are few things less enjoyable than band practice.
Since I've been at Mercenary, I have started writing and recording some stuff of my own...quite pretentious, masturbatory, undanceable dork rock. I like it. I overdub myself onto myself with drums, guitars, bass, keys, "singing", other noise-making things.
It comes out pretty good. My engineer brain and my musician brain don't really work well together, but I find some sort of miserable medium for them and can manage to "finish" songs. I am well aware that the result would be TREMENDOUSLY better if I wasn't playing/focusing on performance and emotion, or if I wasn't engineering/focusing on audio, which borders on being the same exact thing, and the COMPLETE FUCKING OPPOSITE.
But I do it anyway. Sue me. Please don't sue me. You'd probably win somehow.
Adam and I are planning to put out a split 10" or LP sometime in the near future. My ridiculous crap and his rather awesome instrumental/trippityhop/hash music. Rather than me on one side and him on the other, we're gonna scatter the songs into each other to make it the least cohesive release possible. Tentative release title, "SPECTACULARITY". Start begging your local records stores to preorder 25 copies.
So last night, my mission was to start recording my "side". I've been putting it off for about 3 weeks now and the ball'n'chain was working late last night. Didn't hurt that the shop's fridge was nicely stocked with a new Dogfish Head brew and a 12 pack of Smithwick's.
I want these recordings to feel and sound much different than the stuff I've done up to now. All the songs I did last year used different gear in different places and different instruments and different everything on different days, but they all have a VERY similar vibe to them. It sounds like I overdubbed all over myself. That's all it will ever sound like.
It's also a lot easier for me as an engineer when I can cut the entire band live, at once. I can immediately commit to sounds that compliment each other, I can record the room, I can use the good bleed to fill in holes sonically, and it just GELS better.
So this time around, I've decided that I will start the recording by doing all electric instruments direct with no click, then putting down the vocal. The music is EXTREMELY rhythm-based, a lot of start/stop, but the lack of drums at this stage isn't too big an issue. A lot of the rhythm is established by the other instruments, the drums just kind of follow along (because I'm not that great at the drums and I write most of the songs on a guitar or piano).
Upon completion of the "bed", I will set up a bunch of reamp lines to a bunch of amps set up near the drumkit...just like I would do if recording a regular band of 4 or 5 guys. Then I'll pipe the vocal through a small PA, and drum along with an entire "live" band without the need for headphones. I can't stand wearing headphones when I play music. Completely ruins it for me. I want to be SURROUNDED by the music, not have it darting into my brain at high speeds.
So last night, I decided to give this little experiment a shot.
I arrange the "band" in the Mercenary warehouse like I've done in the past. Guitar amps on either side of the kit and sort of facing outward, but not too much...gotta be able to hear them easily without turning them up too loud. I like working a bit under "stage volume" when doing a band in a single room. The dynamics between the players tends to be a bit better, everyone listens a little harder when it's quieter, all that good stuff.
The bass amp is behind the kit, facing the opposite direction, using the inventory shelves as hilariously good gobos. Mic the room, spot mics on the amps, drums with mono overhead and kick...7 mics all-in.
These are songs I've never "heard" before, save for single melodies or progressions in my head, or the beat, or the vocal. I'm pretty sure I have it arranged well, but then again...I've never heard everything going at once. It's very exciting that I'll be able to instantly hear this music in all its (lack of?) glory, have it surround me.
I set up pre-fader sends to three busses (MONO OUTPUTS! THANKS, APPLE!) for the DI tracks in Logic pull down their channel faders. Record-arm all of my mics, hit play, and run outside to the live room. It takes me about 4 minutes to get all of the amp tones working together, sounding really fucking good and with good level balances between them.
Go back to the control room, sit, have a listen...
The right side guitar amp is too far out front, it's overwhelming the balance in the stereo room mic that I don't want to move. Easy, push the amp back enough to not fill up the room mics, but still far enough from the drums so that the C12 over the kit doesn't hear more guitar spill than ride cymbal.
The bass mic, a new ELA M251E in figure-of-eight, needs to come a bit closer to the speaker (a 15 in a dual 15 cabinet) so as to further pronounce the deep-bass stuff with the proximity effect of the mic.
Left side guitar is glorious. It's a chain I've used a million times before with a speaker that seems to only get sweeter with age. I love when things like this exist.
Okay, now I'm really excited. I hit record on the machine and mosey out to the traps. I don't expect this to be keeper-level at all, because its the FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER PLAYED THIS SONG ON THE DRUMS...but it doesn't hurt to record it. It's digital. I have infinite erase, undo, and redo.
The right guitar counts off the song and I get into it. Bass comes in after a few bars, along with the other guitar. This feels fucking CRAZY. I feel like I'm the drummer in a band, only this band is really smart and isn't playing louder than they need to, the "singer" can apparently hear himself very well and hits every note without a problem, the guitars are playing with great precision and the bass thumps along in the background without being too busy.
"This is a pretty good fucking band! And only one of us is drunk!"
I pound through the song a couple times before I decide that I'm definitely struggling with it. The material is very complex and challenging, and sort of suffers from ADHD as far as structure. I start cycling individual sections of the song and trying really hard to adapt to the bed tracks and fit the drums in nicely. I don't record any of this...just working it out...
Then, it hits me.
THIS IS BAND PRACTICE. I just sucked myself into band practice, only this band doesn't ever stop and will not budge on the parts they play! NIGHTMARE.
But I can hear past my percussive mistakes, through all of the pauses, and I can sense that the FEEL is there. In SPADES. A million times more than recording all in overdubs.
I practice the tune for about 30 minutes, and then decide it's time to call it a night. There is simply no way I'm going to nail a take down tonight. No big deal, there's not many mics to put away and I can do it in the morning.
I learned a few things, for sure. I learned that I need to practice the drums more. I learned that despite that fact, I'm a lot better at the drums than I thought I was. I learned that there is nothing better than playing music alone, but not by myself.
I also learned that the MBTA did away with the 11:15pm train back to Browntown, so I cracked open another beer and prepared to sleep at the shop. Great.
When I ACTUALLY record this stuff, I'll be sure to take you all through the process with pictures and audio and all that jazz. I simply didn't accomplish anything last night.
A couple-three years ago, I made the executive decision within to stop playing in bands, forever. It's just too much square ego trying to fit into a small round hole. Rarely does everyone in the band (or "collective", as my friend likes to call it) actually identify/follow their role in the group, touring gets very mentally/physically exhausting, it's too much fucking work for nowhere near enough pay, and it's not something I can just do "for fun" because I don't think being in a band is that fun in the first place.
Oh, and there are few things less enjoyable than band practice.
Since I've been at Mercenary, I have started writing and recording some stuff of my own...quite pretentious, masturbatory, undanceable dork rock. I like it. I overdub myself onto myself with drums, guitars, bass, keys, "singing", other noise-making things.
It comes out pretty good. My engineer brain and my musician brain don't really work well together, but I find some sort of miserable medium for them and can manage to "finish" songs. I am well aware that the result would be TREMENDOUSLY better if I wasn't playing/focusing on performance and emotion, or if I wasn't engineering/focusing on audio, which borders on being the same exact thing, and the COMPLETE FUCKING OPPOSITE.
But I do it anyway. Sue me. Please don't sue me. You'd probably win somehow.
Adam and I are planning to put out a split 10" or LP sometime in the near future. My ridiculous crap and his rather awesome instrumental/trippityhop/hash music. Rather than me on one side and him on the other, we're gonna scatter the songs into each other to make it the least cohesive release possible. Tentative release title, "SPECTACULARITY". Start begging your local records stores to preorder 25 copies.
So last night, my mission was to start recording my "side". I've been putting it off for about 3 weeks now and the ball'n'chain was working late last night. Didn't hurt that the shop's fridge was nicely stocked with a new Dogfish Head brew and a 12 pack of Smithwick's.
I want these recordings to feel and sound much different than the stuff I've done up to now. All the songs I did last year used different gear in different places and different instruments and different everything on different days, but they all have a VERY similar vibe to them. It sounds like I overdubbed all over myself. That's all it will ever sound like.
It's also a lot easier for me as an engineer when I can cut the entire band live, at once. I can immediately commit to sounds that compliment each other, I can record the room, I can use the good bleed to fill in holes sonically, and it just GELS better.
So this time around, I've decided that I will start the recording by doing all electric instruments direct with no click, then putting down the vocal. The music is EXTREMELY rhythm-based, a lot of start/stop, but the lack of drums at this stage isn't too big an issue. A lot of the rhythm is established by the other instruments, the drums just kind of follow along (because I'm not that great at the drums and I write most of the songs on a guitar or piano).
Upon completion of the "bed", I will set up a bunch of reamp lines to a bunch of amps set up near the drumkit...just like I would do if recording a regular band of 4 or 5 guys. Then I'll pipe the vocal through a small PA, and drum along with an entire "live" band without the need for headphones. I can't stand wearing headphones when I play music. Completely ruins it for me. I want to be SURROUNDED by the music, not have it darting into my brain at high speeds.
So last night, I decided to give this little experiment a shot.
I arrange the "band" in the Mercenary warehouse like I've done in the past. Guitar amps on either side of the kit and sort of facing outward, but not too much...gotta be able to hear them easily without turning them up too loud. I like working a bit under "stage volume" when doing a band in a single room. The dynamics between the players tends to be a bit better, everyone listens a little harder when it's quieter, all that good stuff.
The bass amp is behind the kit, facing the opposite direction, using the inventory shelves as hilariously good gobos. Mic the room, spot mics on the amps, drums with mono overhead and kick...7 mics all-in.
These are songs I've never "heard" before, save for single melodies or progressions in my head, or the beat, or the vocal. I'm pretty sure I have it arranged well, but then again...I've never heard everything going at once. It's very exciting that I'll be able to instantly hear this music in all its (lack of?) glory, have it surround me.
I set up pre-fader sends to three busses (MONO OUTPUTS! THANKS, APPLE!) for the DI tracks in Logic pull down their channel faders. Record-arm all of my mics, hit play, and run outside to the live room. It takes me about 4 minutes to get all of the amp tones working together, sounding really fucking good and with good level balances between them.
Go back to the control room, sit, have a listen...
The right side guitar amp is too far out front, it's overwhelming the balance in the stereo room mic that I don't want to move. Easy, push the amp back enough to not fill up the room mics, but still far enough from the drums so that the C12 over the kit doesn't hear more guitar spill than ride cymbal.
The bass mic, a new ELA M251E in figure-of-eight, needs to come a bit closer to the speaker (a 15 in a dual 15 cabinet) so as to further pronounce the deep-bass stuff with the proximity effect of the mic.
Left side guitar is glorious. It's a chain I've used a million times before with a speaker that seems to only get sweeter with age. I love when things like this exist.
Okay, now I'm really excited. I hit record on the machine and mosey out to the traps. I don't expect this to be keeper-level at all, because its the FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER PLAYED THIS SONG ON THE DRUMS...but it doesn't hurt to record it. It's digital. I have infinite erase, undo, and redo.
The right guitar counts off the song and I get into it. Bass comes in after a few bars, along with the other guitar. This feels fucking CRAZY. I feel like I'm the drummer in a band, only this band is really smart and isn't playing louder than they need to, the "singer" can apparently hear himself very well and hits every note without a problem, the guitars are playing with great precision and the bass thumps along in the background without being too busy.
"This is a pretty good fucking band! And only one of us is drunk!"
I pound through the song a couple times before I decide that I'm definitely struggling with it. The material is very complex and challenging, and sort of suffers from ADHD as far as structure. I start cycling individual sections of the song and trying really hard to adapt to the bed tracks and fit the drums in nicely. I don't record any of this...just working it out...
Then, it hits me.
THIS IS BAND PRACTICE. I just sucked myself into band practice, only this band doesn't ever stop and will not budge on the parts they play! NIGHTMARE.
But I can hear past my percussive mistakes, through all of the pauses, and I can sense that the FEEL is there. In SPADES. A million times more than recording all in overdubs.
I practice the tune for about 30 minutes, and then decide it's time to call it a night. There is simply no way I'm going to nail a take down tonight. No big deal, there's not many mics to put away and I can do it in the morning.
I learned a few things, for sure. I learned that I need to practice the drums more. I learned that despite that fact, I'm a lot better at the drums than I thought I was. I learned that there is nothing better than playing music alone, but not by myself.
I also learned that the MBTA did away with the 11:15pm train back to Browntown, so I cracked open another beer and prepared to sleep at the shop. Great.
When I ACTUALLY record this stuff, I'll be sure to take you all through the process with pictures and audio and all that jazz. I simply didn't accomplish anything last night.