studio time again

i once attended the annual AES convention in LA about 7 years ago and went to a panel discussion with some great engineers and producers. the biggest thing i remember from that discussion was Jack Joseph Puig talking about always trying new things and never slipping into a mindset where you're running on auto-pilot. you should never just be following a formula. so every new project that i start i'm always trying something different. every time i record drums i try a new mic or a new position. i've really started getting the hang of getting a good drum sound out of the B room at darkhorse studios in nashville, but i still continue to try different things.

last thursday i started a project with a singer/songwriter from North Carolina named Esther Faith. she has an amazing voice and writes surprisingly good songs considering her young age. a lot of the bands i work with are some sort of fast paced rock so we usually record every instrument separate so that we can edit and polish so that when we layer everything we come out with a shiny piece of sonic ear candy. but with esther we were going for a more chill, organic vibe. i've recorded a whole band before , but this project was the first time that i've done the whole deal and hired great musicians, worked up charts and done it right.

joey sanchez locked the beat down on drums. his feel was so good that there's no need to beat detective the drums to the grid. my buddy who plays with me for stephanie smith, nathan thomas, played bass and my good friend Adam Smith from the glorious unseen played piano and wurlitzer while Micah Tawlks handled acoustic guitar.

there's something about getting a bunch of good musicians together and capturing their first impressions that's kinda magical. and i don't mean magical in the douchy ipad sort of way. when you throw some charts at good musicians, you're trusting them to come up with something that has their stamp on it instead of you dictating piece by piece what every instrument should sound like. and although i definitely gave direction on where the song should go, it was really cool to have them all throw in ideas that i never would have thought of.

engineering and producing a band at the same time used to be a two man job, but the way the music business is now, i have to cover both. it's definitely a lot to handle but we somehow got through it with smiles on our faces. and what's great about it is that a majority of the project was completed in one day. we're now in the process of doing vocals and a few other overdubs. we've got a ton of time to focus on what suits the song best and how not to over-produce something that should sound natural and organic.

and that brings up another new aspect of this project - a different approach. you see, with a lot of the rock bands i work with, it's all about stacking guitars and adding tons of layers. i love it. i've done it so much now that it kinda comes easily. but when dealing with a project like esther where the goal is simplicity and feel, it's 10 times harder with about a tenth of the parts. i still have no problem coming up with parts to play. what's hard is finding one or two parts the really stand on their own instead of stacking 16 guitar tracks to build a wall of sound. quantity over quality.

and on another note, go check out a CD that i mixed a few months ago by a band called Act As If. we took a long time on the mixes and really got it right. i've really got to commend singer Peter Verdell for having the courage to not be another sucker in the loudness war. we decided the mixes should not have bus compression in the mix stage. we left them very dynamic even if they weren't as loud as whatever the latest and greatest major label record is. we then hired Troy Glessner to master it. troy has done a lot of work for everybody from tooth and nail hardcore bands to Death Cab For Cutie. troy did an amazing job of using a bit of light bus compression to warm up the mix, get the level up to an acceptable range without utterly smashing the final product. i love the fact that when i put the CD into my car i can listen at a pretty loud level and my ears do no feel fatigued. anyway, the CD is titled "There's A Light" and it's by Act As If and can be found on itunes or ordered from their myspace page.