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.