Friday 8 February 2013
My thoughts on the casino
I really love this city. I was born here. I have lived here for most of my life. I went to school here. I got a university degree here. I bought a house here. And now, I own a recording studio in the downtown core and am working towards raising a family of my own in this community. I work hard to make my contribution to our community a feasible one. I’m not naive, this is not the best or most lucrative place around to make art or music. With that said, the pedigree of musicians that come from Hamilton is undeniably high. Hamilton is the place I call home, and I am proud to live here and face these challenges daily. I’m from Hamilton, I have thick skin.
So what is my opinion on the casino? Well, I do not want a casino in my community at all.
There have been many debates going on and I find them tiring to follow. My feeling, and this is not limited to the casino itself, is that this city is going through some growing pains while it passionately tries to reestablish itself as the great city that it was. But it is important we remember this is a slow, and very long process.
Over the last few years I have watched many small businesses take a crack at being something special that contributes to the rebuilding of our city. They come and go. We have watched some smaller businesses and ideas truly flourish, like many of those on James and Locke. We have seen many restaurants and shops open up in connection with Columbia College. We’ve watched McMaster establish itself as one of the best universities and medical brain trusts in the country. But we still get anxious, sometimes we really want fast change. But that’s natural. Real lasting change takes time. As the expression goes, “they didn’t build Rome in a day”. Growth is supposed to take time because it needs to be linked to something bigger, reliable and strong, often a resource and that used to be steel. So what happens when your resource or industry dies...the city tends to die too. But we have new resources in this city and they are connected to people, ideas and health. I think it’s really important to watch the cities largest and most relevant institutions like Mcmaster, Mohawk, Columbia and the medical Industry. We like to say that art is the new steel...that's a nice idea but far too romantic. Ideas and health are the new steel. Arts, music and culture, when working in harmony with these larger institutions, will continue to attract people and investment to our community. Together, the cultural industry, the medical industry and the education industry are re-branding this city into something I am truly proud of and believe will work....because it already is. This is no pipe dream. This is happening.
But, now “we” want to build a casino in the middle of something that has harmony and vision. Hamilton has been a poorer city historically. It is one that’s been considered the “armpit of the province”. But, it is going through a tremendous amount of positive rebranding. A brand that is defined as “the place where Torontonians are moving” and this new identity is being accepted and published nationally. This is something I believe will keep growing with these primary industries. What could be more out of step with this brand than a Casino? What else could possibly offer less to the momentum and ideas that are currently growing? I can’t think of anything.
So why am I against a casino? The casino to me will cloud this idea, this vision, this momentum and this progress. The casino is old Hamilton thinking. It is so ass backwards to put it in a city that has a “strained” public health care system as it is. It is so ass backwards to put a monument to vice and excess in a city with a positive striving medical institution. It is so ass backwards to put something so tacky and un-respected in a city known for its hardships. Hamilton needs some curb appeal, it needs a new identity and it needs some roots that will really last. We have a new steel industry, it’s education and medicine. We need to entice investment from businesses that fall into the truly symbiotic nature that those listed above do. We have to rally against the short sighted, insular business that a casino will be. Hamilton needs a real foundation. Not a quick fix, not something to cloud the vision, not a casino.
Michael Keire
Wednesday 13 April 2011
A week in Studio G with Joel Hamilton and The Pretty Lights
One of the things that makes being a part of the recording process so appealing to me is that there is no definitive way to do anything. There is no right or wrong, in fact, being dynamic, constantly evolving and challenging yourself is what separates recording/music from many of the other things I have been apart of in my life. Its what keeps things interesting. Like many of us in music I get bored when I am not building or learning. Being able to take the time to explore and learn is a big consideration right now as I develop Threshold Recording Studio and my new engineering/production existence. Vibewrangler was supposed to be a place where these sorts of things were constantly going on, however in retrospect, I realize that little-to-no planing in combination with an array of short comings was stifling creativity as opposed to encouraging it. This time around I wanted to make sure that I was able to spend the time needed to develop myself professionally, personally, creatively and to also meet new people.
About a month ago I emailed Joel Hamilton with a quick explanation about who I was and asked if he was cool with me coming down to Studio G in Brooklyn to pick his brain and sit in on some sessions...to my surprise he was excited about the request (he is a really positive guy) and was willing to admit me into his universe as a guest. Joel has made records with guys like the Black Keys, Talib Kwali, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello to name a few, and I mean a few....as eclectic a mix as that is, all of those artists are right up my alley, so a chance to see how things go down with Joel would be something I could identify with and would be totally inspiring. Step 1 was to figure out where I was going to stay. Luckily, my friend Jeff who is currently finishing up at NYU was willing to to let me crash on his couch....also, a round trip flight out of Buffalo only costs $160, give or take...so making this happen was definitely possible even though my studio was under construction and I would be missing a week of sessions.
The initial thing I noticed when I entered Studio G, was the couch that Pharoah Monche sat on while he was writing his verse in the Blakroc videos...and then I noticed the Neve console that Q-Tip and Dan Auerbach talk about in the same video. It was at this time that an overwhelming sensation started to settle in as I came to realize that I was in the same room, soaking in the same vibe as so many of my favorite artists. Thankfully/hopefully I was able to pull myself together enough to greet Joel, Francisco and Matt like a normal human being. I doubt they noticed anything though as I think they were trying to wrap their heads around the random Canadian with a ridiculous beard they had just let into the room! Canadian lumberjack satire?
Studio G is an interesting place. It by no means looks like your traditional studio, it actually looks a little thrown together, which is something I really like. Ironically though, it has a gearlist that would bring most "professional" rooms to shame. It is not a big room, probably 1000 sq/ft. The studio is a control room/kitchen/record vault rolled into one and then there is a separate tracking room. The tracking room is covered with sporadically placed wood shingles and other wooden debris. The floors, much to my surprise, are a clay tile (i think). Everything about the layout made sense to me in a really intuitive way. Through out my time with Joel he mentioned that this studio truly evolved from close to nothing....a couple adats. Joels partner, Tony Maimone, lived in the studio originally...and over the years they built it up. Its a real success story and you can see that evolution in the room. It has a very logical flow to it that is built on a garage/workshop kinda vibe and even though they have recorded some serious records and collected some very serious gear, it has never strayed from that feel. It didnt become a institution...the infrastructure and routines have clearly never compromised the coolness of the place, which is something that I think a lot of studios do out of a fear that if they are not a certain way they wont get that big client. This is one of the perks that I have noticed in the increasing amount of production studios, these places are more specialized and idiosyncratic then their rather boring superfluous grandfathers. Studio G had a really interesting duality. For example, while in the control room I realized that I was sitting next to a twenty thousand dollar compressor and that it was juxtaposed by the back wall record collection/odds and ends shelving, instead of some "proper" treatment or L.A studio detailing. It really made me feel comfortable, like I wasn't in a place that was in the least too "precious". At the same time I observed a sense of purpose and an intensity in the room mixed with the passion within the people that ran it, the feeling was very honest and real. Definitely, something you don't get in bigger studios or many places in life as a whole...
Joel is a really really nice guy. He loves what he does and really cares about it. He doesn't take himself too seriously...he posses the same good qualities I notice in a lot of my musician friends....they are along for the ride so to speak. I realized right away why he has been so successful. With that said, as excited as I was about heading down there I was quite nervous about how welcomed I was going to feel. I had just freed up a week of my time, spent the money to go to NYC in the middle of my own studio construction, so things are tight, hoping that I would be made to feel welcome, meet some new people, expand my horizons and learn something new. A lot of people in the recording world are not the nicest...there can be a lot of attitude, bravado and bullshit talk...I didnt get that at all....not even a little. Matt and Francisco (the house assistant engineers) treated me with total respect, they were open to sharing ideas and thoughts and happily put up with my presence, observations, questions...they even showed "beard" love. In fact we had a lot in common both musically and philosophically. It was great to hang with them. They were two very humble, confident and together guys. This made me really appreciate where I was. Comfortable vibes but totally professional. It was very reassuring to see them operate and to see how well things were going because of it.....because even though the studio is a little unorthodox, a little piecemeal, the things that are really important are being done properly, possibly ideally.
I dont know the first thing about D.J's, the culture, sampling....I dont really get it. Generally, I like people playing instruments and singing. With that said I do love hip-hop. These days my ipod is toggling between Arcade fire, Fugazi and Kanye West and Jay-Z...so there is a grey area and being able to sit in while the Pretty lights made his record helped me to see this genre in a new way. A couple weeks before I got there Joel had worked with the pretty lights and a couple of his buddies for a week doing something that I thought was really innovative. Normally Derek (pretty lights guy) would be rummaging through crates to find music that he would put into an digital catalog and build songs from there. However, this time around he decided to make/record his own catalog. So for a week one of the coolest and most intense things I have heard of went down. The guys set up with drums, bass and one or two main melody instruments (there were a lot of call and response tunes)....and they laid down tracks while Joel mixed directly to 1/4 inch tape. So Derek would tell his guys that this was the riff idea...he would hum it out or whatever....then they would start finding the vibe...,maybe it was a slower chuggy rock track, or B3 with break beats....whatever...once the vibe was found they would jam it out for like 10 minutes and move on. Again, THIS WAS ALL BEING MIXED AND PRINTED LIVE. To top it off the sonics of the record had to have the right vibe. Sometimes Derek wanted it to sound like the 70's.... sometimes the 30's, so Joel have the difficult task of getting the vibe right on the fly. Its kinda insane...its definitely fucking cool as hell...so much commitment in such a short time. You gotta have the balls and chops to pull that off.
So when I showed up to Studio G I had no idea what was up. I remember getting a text from Joel the night before the session. He said something to the effect of, "we start at 9am doing god knows what". Awesome, Im up for the unknown....its why I am in Brooklyn and not Hamilton...to see people step out of the box. Well out of the box is definitely what I observed. I sat in on 3 days of Joel destroying, compressing and eqing the 2 mixes that he had created a couple weeks earlier. But this was no normal processing. I have never seen so much extreme manipulation of audio using parallel processing in my life. I dont want to spend forever talking about the details of this but often there would be 4 different versions of the mix being distorted and compressed in different ways and then all re-blended using another eq and comp...sometimes two more. Sometimes the left side was being treated differently then the right even. It was awesome and bold. Exactly why I came down. It was a healthy reminder that there are no rules....just make things sound as fucking cool as you can...however the hell you can. Punk rock meets electronic music. Dope. Fuck the squares. The most interesting technique that I saw during my entire time down there...and this one really opened my eyes and showed me a world of new possibilities was when Joel ran the mix through a pair of dbx 160s....he then says "people always say these things dont have a release or attack...thats bullshit" and then sends a DELAYED kick to the transient designer and into the sidechain feature of the dbx and digs in like fucking crazy. The awesome pumping sound was so weird, off time yet organic....when he started turing the attack and sustain on the TD the effect was even weirder and cooler. The contorted 2 mix was then blended back into the original to give the mix one of the most interesting pumping sounds Ive heard. I havent had a chance to ask yet but I am pretty sure I am hearing this on one of the Blakroc tracks. Im getting excited while I write this...because this shit is why I got into studio stuff....this is the feeling I got when I started on a cassette 8 track in my Moms basement...its just too bad that I didn't have Joel around then and instead had to rely on those lame home recording books.
So that was my trip in a nutshell. Obviously I could get into more and more details about the people and the place....actually I would enjoy that considering how much I learned and appreciated being around that kind of positivity...but I dont think I could get it to translate right....this is just supposed to be a blog. But yeah, awesome stuff...Joel, Matt and Francisco are some wicked amazing people and I am so glad that I got a chance to check out what they are up to especially considering that the day that I left they bought a 8000 series ssl console and started construction on Studio G 2.0 which will be a 5000 sq/ft facility offering "what we always wanted" in Joels words....congrats guys 'cause you clearly deserve it.
About a month ago I emailed Joel Hamilton with a quick explanation about who I was and asked if he was cool with me coming down to Studio G in Brooklyn to pick his brain and sit in on some sessions...to my surprise he was excited about the request (he is a really positive guy) and was willing to admit me into his universe as a guest. Joel has made records with guys like the Black Keys, Talib Kwali, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello to name a few, and I mean a few....as eclectic a mix as that is, all of those artists are right up my alley, so a chance to see how things go down with Joel would be something I could identify with and would be totally inspiring. Step 1 was to figure out where I was going to stay. Luckily, my friend Jeff who is currently finishing up at NYU was willing to to let me crash on his couch....also, a round trip flight out of Buffalo only costs $160, give or take...so making this happen was definitely possible even though my studio was under construction and I would be missing a week of sessions.
The initial thing I noticed when I entered Studio G, was the couch that Pharoah Monche sat on while he was writing his verse in the Blakroc videos...and then I noticed the Neve console that Q-Tip and Dan Auerbach talk about in the same video. It was at this time that an overwhelming sensation started to settle in as I came to realize that I was in the same room, soaking in the same vibe as so many of my favorite artists. Thankfully/hopefully I was able to pull myself together enough to greet Joel, Francisco and Matt like a normal human being. I doubt they noticed anything though as I think they were trying to wrap their heads around the random Canadian with a ridiculous beard they had just let into the room! Canadian lumberjack satire?
Studio G is an interesting place. It by no means looks like your traditional studio, it actually looks a little thrown together, which is something I really like. Ironically though, it has a gearlist that would bring most "professional" rooms to shame. It is not a big room, probably 1000 sq/ft. The studio is a control room/kitchen/record vault rolled into one and then there is a separate tracking room. The tracking room is covered with sporadically placed wood shingles and other wooden debris. The floors, much to my surprise, are a clay tile (i think). Everything about the layout made sense to me in a really intuitive way. Through out my time with Joel he mentioned that this studio truly evolved from close to nothing....a couple adats. Joels partner, Tony Maimone, lived in the studio originally...and over the years they built it up. Its a real success story and you can see that evolution in the room. It has a very logical flow to it that is built on a garage/workshop kinda vibe and even though they have recorded some serious records and collected some very serious gear, it has never strayed from that feel. It didnt become a institution...the infrastructure and routines have clearly never compromised the coolness of the place, which is something that I think a lot of studios do out of a fear that if they are not a certain way they wont get that big client. This is one of the perks that I have noticed in the increasing amount of production studios, these places are more specialized and idiosyncratic then their rather boring superfluous grandfathers. Studio G had a really interesting duality. For example, while in the control room I realized that I was sitting next to a twenty thousand dollar compressor and that it was juxtaposed by the back wall record collection/odds and ends shelving, instead of some "proper" treatment or L.A studio detailing. It really made me feel comfortable, like I wasn't in a place that was in the least too "precious". At the same time I observed a sense of purpose and an intensity in the room mixed with the passion within the people that ran it, the feeling was very honest and real. Definitely, something you don't get in bigger studios or many places in life as a whole...
Joel is a really really nice guy. He loves what he does and really cares about it. He doesn't take himself too seriously...he posses the same good qualities I notice in a lot of my musician friends....they are along for the ride so to speak. I realized right away why he has been so successful. With that said, as excited as I was about heading down there I was quite nervous about how welcomed I was going to feel. I had just freed up a week of my time, spent the money to go to NYC in the middle of my own studio construction, so things are tight, hoping that I would be made to feel welcome, meet some new people, expand my horizons and learn something new. A lot of people in the recording world are not the nicest...there can be a lot of attitude, bravado and bullshit talk...I didnt get that at all....not even a little. Matt and Francisco (the house assistant engineers) treated me with total respect, they were open to sharing ideas and thoughts and happily put up with my presence, observations, questions...they even showed "beard" love. In fact we had a lot in common both musically and philosophically. It was great to hang with them. They were two very humble, confident and together guys. This made me really appreciate where I was. Comfortable vibes but totally professional. It was very reassuring to see them operate and to see how well things were going because of it.....because even though the studio is a little unorthodox, a little piecemeal, the things that are really important are being done properly, possibly ideally.
I dont know the first thing about D.J's, the culture, sampling....I dont really get it. Generally, I like people playing instruments and singing. With that said I do love hip-hop. These days my ipod is toggling between Arcade fire, Fugazi and Kanye West and Jay-Z...so there is a grey area and being able to sit in while the Pretty lights made his record helped me to see this genre in a new way. A couple weeks before I got there Joel had worked with the pretty lights and a couple of his buddies for a week doing something that I thought was really innovative. Normally Derek (pretty lights guy) would be rummaging through crates to find music that he would put into an digital catalog and build songs from there. However, this time around he decided to make/record his own catalog. So for a week one of the coolest and most intense things I have heard of went down. The guys set up with drums, bass and one or two main melody instruments (there were a lot of call and response tunes)....and they laid down tracks while Joel mixed directly to 1/4 inch tape. So Derek would tell his guys that this was the riff idea...he would hum it out or whatever....then they would start finding the vibe...,maybe it was a slower chuggy rock track, or B3 with break beats....whatever...once the vibe was found they would jam it out for like 10 minutes and move on. Again, THIS WAS ALL BEING MIXED AND PRINTED LIVE. To top it off the sonics of the record had to have the right vibe. Sometimes Derek wanted it to sound like the 70's.... sometimes the 30's, so Joel have the difficult task of getting the vibe right on the fly. Its kinda insane...its definitely fucking cool as hell...so much commitment in such a short time. You gotta have the balls and chops to pull that off.
So when I showed up to Studio G I had no idea what was up. I remember getting a text from Joel the night before the session. He said something to the effect of, "we start at 9am doing god knows what". Awesome, Im up for the unknown....its why I am in Brooklyn and not Hamilton...to see people step out of the box. Well out of the box is definitely what I observed. I sat in on 3 days of Joel destroying, compressing and eqing the 2 mixes that he had created a couple weeks earlier. But this was no normal processing. I have never seen so much extreme manipulation of audio using parallel processing in my life. I dont want to spend forever talking about the details of this but often there would be 4 different versions of the mix being distorted and compressed in different ways and then all re-blended using another eq and comp...sometimes two more. Sometimes the left side was being treated differently then the right even. It was awesome and bold. Exactly why I came down. It was a healthy reminder that there are no rules....just make things sound as fucking cool as you can...however the hell you can. Punk rock meets electronic music. Dope. Fuck the squares. The most interesting technique that I saw during my entire time down there...and this one really opened my eyes and showed me a world of new possibilities was when Joel ran the mix through a pair of dbx 160s....he then says "people always say these things dont have a release or attack...thats bullshit" and then sends a DELAYED kick to the transient designer and into the sidechain feature of the dbx and digs in like fucking crazy. The awesome pumping sound was so weird, off time yet organic....when he started turing the attack and sustain on the TD the effect was even weirder and cooler. The contorted 2 mix was then blended back into the original to give the mix one of the most interesting pumping sounds Ive heard. I havent had a chance to ask yet but I am pretty sure I am hearing this on one of the Blakroc tracks. Im getting excited while I write this...because this shit is why I got into studio stuff....this is the feeling I got when I started on a cassette 8 track in my Moms basement...its just too bad that I didn't have Joel around then and instead had to rely on those lame home recording books.
So that was my trip in a nutshell. Obviously I could get into more and more details about the people and the place....actually I would enjoy that considering how much I learned and appreciated being around that kind of positivity...but I dont think I could get it to translate right....this is just supposed to be a blog. But yeah, awesome stuff...Joel, Matt and Francisco are some wicked amazing people and I am so glad that I got a chance to check out what they are up to especially considering that the day that I left they bought a 8000 series ssl console and started construction on Studio G 2.0 which will be a 5000 sq/ft facility offering "what we always wanted" in Joels words....congrats guys 'cause you clearly deserve it.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Producing Matt Paxtons record, How the land Lies
I first worked with Matt about 5 years ago. My old partner Glen and myself had just left Catherine North and had found ourselves working out of a real shit-hole in the North end of the city between Barton and Burlington St. It was definitely a memorable spot. Bob Lanois had a great name for it...maybe it was shithole...anyway, you couldn't grab lunch without passing a prostitute, a pile of ashes from someones attempt at an insurance scam and the Hells Angles compound, which was ironically across the street from the Brinks security headquarters. As shitty as it was though, we were surrounded by other artists and the spot was fairly well priced, kinda, not really... it was a start.
While making Matt's record Glen and I moved to yet another studio. Things at Shithole had gotten unbearable and promise after promise had been broken. This is no slight on the artists that had been trying to organize the building...it was the landlord. No air conditioning was bad enough...then the installment of a transformer in our actual studio was the tree trunk that broke the camels back, Ill never forget walking in and seeing the electrician working without any notice. Try making records with a constant buZZZZZZZZZZ going on. We left and created Vibewrangler studio...my favorite part of this story was when the landlord hit us up for a cleaning charge after we moved out, what a guy. I told him we would be happy to pay if he was interested in giving us a couple thousand for the loss of work, the inconvenience and whatever else I could think of at the time.
Vibewrangler was a fresh start. It was a huge room and there was a great buzz of positive energy from everyone involved. Over the course of several months we had a bunch of great musicians come in and play on Matt's record. Tone Valcic and Bill Dillon to mention a couple. This early part of the Vibewrangler thing was definitely the best time for it. We had a lot of great parties, made some cool records and really bonded with a lot of people in the Hamilton Music scene. The problems, limitations and realities of the Vibewrangler situation didn't have room to settle in yet because everyone was having such a great time.
So that all started five years ago. Since then Matt has become a good friend of mine. We have spent many nights stumbling through Hamilton together, usually laughing at something ridiculous. He is really good at making seemingly normal experiences have a cartoon-ish and surreal quality to them. Matt was one of the guys in my bachelor party, I will never forget being at the roulette table with him and winning $600 on the first spin...I wont get into details but we had an epic night, not Sheen epic, but epic none the less. I have gotten to know his family quite well and he has an opinion that I really respect.
How the land lies started about a month before a single mic was set up. Matt sent me track listings and lyrics through email and would explain the inspiration for the tunes. He told me what he was listening to and we bounced around many different ideas for how this would recording unfold. This is a fairly personal record for Matt, its incredibly sincere and honest and Matt wanted to make sure that was properly represented. When we originally spoke about the kind of band and accompaniment that would be used we were going over board. "we can have this girl sing here, and that guy play trumpet there" Then I got an email from Matt that made the most sense, "I want this to feel like I am jamming in my buddies garage with friends...actually I only want close friends to be involved in this record and I want to do everything in your studio, not at another". I have designed my current studio to be extremely comfortable and focused.... so that is exactly what happened.
Before we laid down the beds Matt and I spent a couple evenings having drinks and getting comfortable. Really it was 70% hanging out and 30% recording. You can't force honest music...especially when you want to do it right the first time. So we talked, brainstormed and came up with a plan.
We recorded the beds for 6 songs in one day. The main reason that we were able to do this was because Steve Mckay (Bruce Peninsula) and Billy Holmes (Dark Mean) are two of the most talented musicians that I know and not only that but we have all known each other for years. I remember being in grade 5 and going over to Steve's house after school and eating peanut putter and celery while playing some computer game. I haven't known Billy for nearly as long, but I have spent more time in the studio with him than anyone else, well, aside from Jon Daly. Additionally, Billy, Steve and Matt all went to the same high school and recorded Matt's first record together. So yeah, good people and good communication...things go easily.
For the recording I rented 4 1272's preamps from Tristan Miller. Tristan is a young Hamilton guy that has a gift for electronics and a passion for audio. He has designed a very faithful reproduction of the Neve 1272. The pres were used to cover the drums. For overheads I used my Neumann KM184s. The front of kit mic was a vintage Neumann 87 that went into an aggressive 1176. The hi-hat was a beyer m160, high tom had a 421, low tom a sm7 and the kik was a German d12. And last a 57 on the snare.
The drums were a mix between my beat up Yamaha stage custom and an Ayotte floor tom. The cymbals were all K darks. It sounded as far as you could get from an L.A drum sound, perfect. The bass went direct into my Chandler tg-2...it is my modded Fender jazz bass. Matt normally plays a Fender acoustic however, for recording his buddy Chris Houston lent him an old '63 Harmony. It has a beautiful sound and is a true classic. You can't really get a better guitar.
The rest of the record went in a completely logical yet totally unorthodox way. Every musician has their own preferred method of working and a big part of producing is being able to recognize these things and to adapt. Matt is very sensitive to the tone/vibe of a session and recording. Its gotta have the right mood. But, I dont want to give you the wrong impression...this isn't some eccentric pretentious thing, he doesn't need the right incense or only red m&ms in order to work. He usually just needs to "bless the room", have a coffee and when he puts on the phones hear a mix that takes him to the right place. That can be a challenge when your making a record because your only working with whatever pieces of the puzzle you have created up until that point, and when your working with a three piece....half the pieces are missing. So his portion of the recording was combined with the mixing process. That way when he was cutting the vocals and guitar...the band sounded as happening as I could get it at the time and he could let go.
Mixing, if your not into tech talk you might as well skip this paragraph. ...lets start with the drums. As usual the first thing to do was to throw away half of the mics. I use the kik/snare/toms/and overheads. The hat and FOK 87 really didnt help anything. Although, if this was a mono recording I could have probably gotten away with only having the 87 and kik. Anyway, like the Dirty Nil, the overhead sound is the overstayer and the airfield. Because this is a folk record I wasn't as aggressive with the compression however, there is still a fair amount. The snare ran through the transient designer and the distressor. Most of the time I was using the TD to add sustain to the drums, however in a couple songs I wanted it to be tighter and dryer. We had a lot of fun with delay on the drums. I used the soundtoys echo plug in to create modulating repeats or sometimes a subtle shuffle in the background
The bass went through the massive passive and 1176. I had boosted a lot of lows originally when tracking....most of which has been completely rolled off by now.
My goal was to find a sound that would allow for the playing to really speak. We wanted effects but definitely didnt want to hide the sublties of what everyone was bringing to the table. To put it into more specific references I wanted to hear the things that I hear on my favorite Paul Simon records...like every little ghost note of Steve Gadds playing....but also, use verb and effects to create a oneness to the record, to take you to a diffrerent place even though you will never notice it and to pull everything together in a professional way. As raw as the mixes are there is some extremely tripy things going on with effects that were being triggered by the acoustic.
There are still a couple little tweaks that I have in mind...but the record is pretty much done and just needs to be mastered. I wouldn't normally consider mastering my own stuff but for this one I am... Ill probably call in a second set of ears to help me...but thats still to be decided.
Matt is a crazy and ambitious bastard. However, all things consider it went extremely well and smoothly...I actually think Matt struggled a little bit to realize that things were rolling along so easily. Throughout the making of this record I have really wanted to make it the right thing out of respect for the fact that this guy is a one man show thats going to be troubadour-ing his way across North America for the next year and this recording is going to be a large part of what defines him as an artist. Its was an privilege to be working with all these guys and to be responsible for documenting it for others to experience.
.
While making Matt's record Glen and I moved to yet another studio. Things at Shithole had gotten unbearable and promise after promise had been broken. This is no slight on the artists that had been trying to organize the building...it was the landlord. No air conditioning was bad enough...then the installment of a transformer in our actual studio was the tree trunk that broke the camels back, Ill never forget walking in and seeing the electrician working without any notice. Try making records with a constant buZZZZZZZZZZ going on. We left and created Vibewrangler studio...my favorite part of this story was when the landlord hit us up for a cleaning charge after we moved out, what a guy. I told him we would be happy to pay if he was interested in giving us a couple thousand for the loss of work, the inconvenience and whatever else I could think of at the time.
Vibewrangler was a fresh start. It was a huge room and there was a great buzz of positive energy from everyone involved. Over the course of several months we had a bunch of great musicians come in and play on Matt's record. Tone Valcic and Bill Dillon to mention a couple. This early part of the Vibewrangler thing was definitely the best time for it. We had a lot of great parties, made some cool records and really bonded with a lot of people in the Hamilton Music scene. The problems, limitations and realities of the Vibewrangler situation didn't have room to settle in yet because everyone was having such a great time.
So that all started five years ago. Since then Matt has become a good friend of mine. We have spent many nights stumbling through Hamilton together, usually laughing at something ridiculous. He is really good at making seemingly normal experiences have a cartoon-ish and surreal quality to them. Matt was one of the guys in my bachelor party, I will never forget being at the roulette table with him and winning $600 on the first spin...I wont get into details but we had an epic night, not Sheen epic, but epic none the less. I have gotten to know his family quite well and he has an opinion that I really respect.
How the land lies started about a month before a single mic was set up. Matt sent me track listings and lyrics through email and would explain the inspiration for the tunes. He told me what he was listening to and we bounced around many different ideas for how this would recording unfold. This is a fairly personal record for Matt, its incredibly sincere and honest and Matt wanted to make sure that was properly represented. When we originally spoke about the kind of band and accompaniment that would be used we were going over board. "we can have this girl sing here, and that guy play trumpet there" Then I got an email from Matt that made the most sense, "I want this to feel like I am jamming in my buddies garage with friends...actually I only want close friends to be involved in this record and I want to do everything in your studio, not at another". I have designed my current studio to be extremely comfortable and focused.... so that is exactly what happened.
Before we laid down the beds Matt and I spent a couple evenings having drinks and getting comfortable. Really it was 70% hanging out and 30% recording. You can't force honest music...especially when you want to do it right the first time. So we talked, brainstormed and came up with a plan.
We recorded the beds for 6 songs in one day. The main reason that we were able to do this was because Steve Mckay (Bruce Peninsula) and Billy Holmes (Dark Mean) are two of the most talented musicians that I know and not only that but we have all known each other for years. I remember being in grade 5 and going over to Steve's house after school and eating peanut putter and celery while playing some computer game. I haven't known Billy for nearly as long, but I have spent more time in the studio with him than anyone else, well, aside from Jon Daly. Additionally, Billy, Steve and Matt all went to the same high school and recorded Matt's first record together. So yeah, good people and good communication...things go easily.
For the recording I rented 4 1272's preamps from Tristan Miller. Tristan is a young Hamilton guy that has a gift for electronics and a passion for audio. He has designed a very faithful reproduction of the Neve 1272. The pres were used to cover the drums. For overheads I used my Neumann KM184s. The front of kit mic was a vintage Neumann 87 that went into an aggressive 1176. The hi-hat was a beyer m160, high tom had a 421, low tom a sm7 and the kik was a German d12. And last a 57 on the snare.
The drums were a mix between my beat up Yamaha stage custom and an Ayotte floor tom. The cymbals were all K darks. It sounded as far as you could get from an L.A drum sound, perfect. The bass went direct into my Chandler tg-2...it is my modded Fender jazz bass. Matt normally plays a Fender acoustic however, for recording his buddy Chris Houston lent him an old '63 Harmony. It has a beautiful sound and is a true classic. You can't really get a better guitar.
The rest of the record went in a completely logical yet totally unorthodox way. Every musician has their own preferred method of working and a big part of producing is being able to recognize these things and to adapt. Matt is very sensitive to the tone/vibe of a session and recording. Its gotta have the right mood. But, I dont want to give you the wrong impression...this isn't some eccentric pretentious thing, he doesn't need the right incense or only red m&ms in order to work. He usually just needs to "bless the room", have a coffee and when he puts on the phones hear a mix that takes him to the right place. That can be a challenge when your making a record because your only working with whatever pieces of the puzzle you have created up until that point, and when your working with a three piece....half the pieces are missing. So his portion of the recording was combined with the mixing process. That way when he was cutting the vocals and guitar...the band sounded as happening as I could get it at the time and he could let go.
Mixing, if your not into tech talk you might as well skip this paragraph. ...lets start with the drums. As usual the first thing to do was to throw away half of the mics. I use the kik/snare/toms/and overheads. The hat and FOK 87 really didnt help anything. Although, if this was a mono recording I could have probably gotten away with only having the 87 and kik. Anyway, like the Dirty Nil, the overhead sound is the overstayer and the airfield. Because this is a folk record I wasn't as aggressive with the compression however, there is still a fair amount. The snare ran through the transient designer and the distressor. Most of the time I was using the TD to add sustain to the drums, however in a couple songs I wanted it to be tighter and dryer. We had a lot of fun with delay on the drums. I used the soundtoys echo plug in to create modulating repeats or sometimes a subtle shuffle in the background
The bass went through the massive passive and 1176. I had boosted a lot of lows originally when tracking....most of which has been completely rolled off by now.
My goal was to find a sound that would allow for the playing to really speak. We wanted effects but definitely didnt want to hide the sublties of what everyone was bringing to the table. To put it into more specific references I wanted to hear the things that I hear on my favorite Paul Simon records...like every little ghost note of Steve Gadds playing....but also, use verb and effects to create a oneness to the record, to take you to a diffrerent place even though you will never notice it and to pull everything together in a professional way. As raw as the mixes are there is some extremely tripy things going on with effects that were being triggered by the acoustic.
There are still a couple little tweaks that I have in mind...but the record is pretty much done and just needs to be mastered. I wouldn't normally consider mastering my own stuff but for this one I am... Ill probably call in a second set of ears to help me...but thats still to be decided.
Matt is a crazy and ambitious bastard. However, all things consider it went extremely well and smoothly...I actually think Matt struggled a little bit to realize that things were rolling along so easily. Throughout the making of this record I have really wanted to make it the right thing out of respect for the fact that this guy is a one man show thats going to be troubadour-ing his way across North America for the next year and this recording is going to be a large part of what defines him as an artist. Its was an privilege to be working with all these guys and to be responsible for documenting it for others to experience.
.
Thursday 3 March 2011
Mixing The Dirty Nil
I love rock, in all its glorious forms.
When I was a teenager I was listening to bands like Beastie Boys, Fugazi, Bad Religion, Dino Jr, Helmet and Nirvana. Pretty much anything with guitars, aggressive drums and attitude.
Last week I had the absolute pleasure mixing a record for a local Hamilton Band called, The Dirty Nil. They are three younger guys, 20ish, inspired by the 90's (and everything before it) like I was by the punk movements of the 80s. It is awesome and innovative stuff.
The record was recorded with a buddy of theirs up at a cottage drinking beers and rocking the hell out. They armed themselves with a stack of fuzz pedals, some big ass amps, bags of chicken fingers and a remote controlled vaporizer with a built in alarm clock.
The beds were tracked live off the floor. Now, for those of you who don't spend much time in the studio, with a band this young getting great takes off the floor is next to impossible. But that is clearly not a problem with these guys, check out the tracks Bruto, Verona Lung and Fucking Up Young to hear what I am talking about.
We met about a month ago to go over some of the rough mixes, break out the tracks on the console and to see if things clicked between us. The first couple meetings with an artist or a band are really important to me and to the overall process, because that is when I get to listen to the ideas being shared, get into a bands artistic mindset and start to figure out how I can get them what they want, how to develop a plan and if I am lucky come up with a couple surprises. The first thing that caught my attention was the rawness of the tunes, the fucking huge guitar and bass sounds mixed with Luke's raspy/aggressive yet musical sounding voice and the pop sensible arrangements. So after a few hours of talking and listening everyone felt good about the project and booked off a week to mix.
It took three days to pass through the album and complete the first round mixes. Normally when you are mixing a record the key to fidelity is to not allow for the mix to "go into the red". What that means is this. All Professional recording equipment is designed to work within certain tolerances, and sometimes they are built to be abused. Many people in this business care about these things greatly and these people should be avoided at all costs. As far as I am concerned this attitude is making conservative and boring records, especially in time period where digital is king and is inherently clean sounding. Fuck the squares! So I had no problem overloading the console, it was fun to push it actually. The master fader was down ten db and the meters were almost pinned. It gave everything a pleasing and aggressive sound....it sounded like a rock record, duh, winning.
The drums were the biggest obstacle with this mix. They were very lifeless and slightly boxy. The first step was to ditch the room mics, they revealed the fact that it was recorded in a cottage too much. The overheads sounded fine and took to compression quite well. I ran them through my overstayer and airfield liminator. The overstayer gave them a really gritty American rock sound that had a great splat sound on snare hits. With the use of the attack and blend controls I was able to dial in something aggressive and usable. The airfield helped to give the OH's a polish and pumping sound. The snare was the biggest problem. Normally I would replace it with samples but lately I have been avoiding them like the plague. There is nothing wrong with using them, but I have recently discovered some other techniques that present results that I like more....ok back to it. The snare sounded pretty shitty and out of tune. I used the transient designer to remove most of the sustain and the distressor to keep it under control and to add some mojo. But I was still stuck with a weird and small snare sound. After playing around with some different options I found a great solution. I used a software reverb and bused to it ITB (in the box) from the snare channel. This verb room sound was then brought up on a new channel where I cranked the trim up on the console and completely over-drove it creating a really fucking badass sound and because the snare was such an odd duck to begin with...it sounded completely original. Never assume anything. Sometimes the snare sounded like it was a shotgun going off in an oiltanker....wicked, bi-win!
The bass was a breeze...I ran it through my 1176 with about 4 db of compression...only kicking in when it needed too. The consoles eq sounded great on it...I always enjoy the low end sound it has. I think it was a mic'd cabinet with a 421 on it. The guitars were also a breeze...I ran them through the api 2500 and eq'd using the board.
The vocals had a great sound coming in that I cant take any credit for. The engineer that tracked the session had taken the time to send every vocal through a shitty old tascam 4 track cassette machine. It was really distorted...but was clearly tape. The only trick to them was pulling out the unusable frequencies that were mucking things up and making the words unintelligible. Luke writes some great lyrics that would be a shame to be missed.
After that i broke out all the stems and spent the next couple days combing through everything adding verb here and there and just nudging all the songs to get some continuity. At this point the ideas had been recognized and developed, so had all the sounds, now it was really just about the surgical/detailing shit. It is this time that makes a recording sound like a real record. The only effects on the album are the sound toys echo and decapitator(yes sometimes we wanted even more distortion). Most of the verb was either d-verb or the UAD 140.
Once everything was over we got together and passed all the tunes through the chandler tg-2 (reissue preamps built on the EMI console the beatles used), airfield liminator and the api 2500...there isnt too much compression going on at this time...really i am just trying to get the songs to have a sound of their own. I really wanted the record to sound like its own thing.
Aside from that technical stuff we spent a week drinking a lot of coffee, eating coma inducing amounts of granddads donuts (I had four in one sitting) and hanging out talking about music. The guys will be coming in some time in a couple weeks and we will go over whatever loose ends we didnt catch and that should be it....I cant wait for people to hear it.
Michael Keire
When I was a teenager I was listening to bands like Beastie Boys, Fugazi, Bad Religion, Dino Jr, Helmet and Nirvana. Pretty much anything with guitars, aggressive drums and attitude.
Last week I had the absolute pleasure mixing a record for a local Hamilton Band called, The Dirty Nil. They are three younger guys, 20ish, inspired by the 90's (and everything before it) like I was by the punk movements of the 80s. It is awesome and innovative stuff.
The record was recorded with a buddy of theirs up at a cottage drinking beers and rocking the hell out. They armed themselves with a stack of fuzz pedals, some big ass amps, bags of chicken fingers and a remote controlled vaporizer with a built in alarm clock.
The beds were tracked live off the floor. Now, for those of you who don't spend much time in the studio, with a band this young getting great takes off the floor is next to impossible. But that is clearly not a problem with these guys, check out the tracks Bruto, Verona Lung and Fucking Up Young to hear what I am talking about.
We met about a month ago to go over some of the rough mixes, break out the tracks on the console and to see if things clicked between us. The first couple meetings with an artist or a band are really important to me and to the overall process, because that is when I get to listen to the ideas being shared, get into a bands artistic mindset and start to figure out how I can get them what they want, how to develop a plan and if I am lucky come up with a couple surprises. The first thing that caught my attention was the rawness of the tunes, the fucking huge guitar and bass sounds mixed with Luke's raspy/aggressive yet musical sounding voice and the pop sensible arrangements. So after a few hours of talking and listening everyone felt good about the project and booked off a week to mix.
It took three days to pass through the album and complete the first round mixes. Normally when you are mixing a record the key to fidelity is to not allow for the mix to "go into the red". What that means is this. All Professional recording equipment is designed to work within certain tolerances, and sometimes they are built to be abused. Many people in this business care about these things greatly and these people should be avoided at all costs. As far as I am concerned this attitude is making conservative and boring records, especially in time period where digital is king and is inherently clean sounding. Fuck the squares! So I had no problem overloading the console, it was fun to push it actually. The master fader was down ten db and the meters were almost pinned. It gave everything a pleasing and aggressive sound....it sounded like a rock record, duh, winning.
The drums were the biggest obstacle with this mix. They were very lifeless and slightly boxy. The first step was to ditch the room mics, they revealed the fact that it was recorded in a cottage too much. The overheads sounded fine and took to compression quite well. I ran them through my overstayer and airfield liminator. The overstayer gave them a really gritty American rock sound that had a great splat sound on snare hits. With the use of the attack and blend controls I was able to dial in something aggressive and usable. The airfield helped to give the OH's a polish and pumping sound. The snare was the biggest problem. Normally I would replace it with samples but lately I have been avoiding them like the plague. There is nothing wrong with using them, but I have recently discovered some other techniques that present results that I like more....ok back to it. The snare sounded pretty shitty and out of tune. I used the transient designer to remove most of the sustain and the distressor to keep it under control and to add some mojo. But I was still stuck with a weird and small snare sound. After playing around with some different options I found a great solution. I used a software reverb and bused to it ITB (in the box) from the snare channel. This verb room sound was then brought up on a new channel where I cranked the trim up on the console and completely over-drove it creating a really fucking badass sound and because the snare was such an odd duck to begin with...it sounded completely original. Never assume anything. Sometimes the snare sounded like it was a shotgun going off in an oiltanker....wicked, bi-win!
The bass was a breeze...I ran it through my 1176 with about 4 db of compression...only kicking in when it needed too. The consoles eq sounded great on it...I always enjoy the low end sound it has. I think it was a mic'd cabinet with a 421 on it. The guitars were also a breeze...I ran them through the api 2500 and eq'd using the board.
The vocals had a great sound coming in that I cant take any credit for. The engineer that tracked the session had taken the time to send every vocal through a shitty old tascam 4 track cassette machine. It was really distorted...but was clearly tape. The only trick to them was pulling out the unusable frequencies that were mucking things up and making the words unintelligible. Luke writes some great lyrics that would be a shame to be missed.
After that i broke out all the stems and spent the next couple days combing through everything adding verb here and there and just nudging all the songs to get some continuity. At this point the ideas had been recognized and developed, so had all the sounds, now it was really just about the surgical/detailing shit. It is this time that makes a recording sound like a real record. The only effects on the album are the sound toys echo and decapitator(yes sometimes we wanted even more distortion). Most of the verb was either d-verb or the UAD 140.
Once everything was over we got together and passed all the tunes through the chandler tg-2 (reissue preamps built on the EMI console the beatles used), airfield liminator and the api 2500...there isnt too much compression going on at this time...really i am just trying to get the songs to have a sound of their own. I really wanted the record to sound like its own thing.
Aside from that technical stuff we spent a week drinking a lot of coffee, eating coma inducing amounts of granddads donuts (I had four in one sitting) and hanging out talking about music. The guys will be coming in some time in a couple weeks and we will go over whatever loose ends we didnt catch and that should be it....I cant wait for people to hear it.
Michael Keire
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