The Return of Spring, Session 2

Since I didn't have a lot of time over the past two weeks, I split up my session time into three, three hour blocks. The next logical step in the project was to edit and grid the percussion that Dale tracked two weeks before.

Early in the production process, it's a good idea to decide if you want to use a "grid" for your songs. A "gridded" song is one that has it's measures, bars, and beats synced up to a tempo map. Most digital audio workstations have this function. The benefit to gridding a song is that the rhythm section, by default, has to be fairly tight to a consistent metronome. The drawback to gridding is that it can make a song sound a little stiff and metronomic. As with everything, the appropriateness of gridding depends on the context and musical style.

For each of these six songs, it made since to use track to a click and have a grid in place. Since I would be bringing in different musicians at different times to play on the project, the click track makes the best reference point. The real question was, "How much to the grid should the drums be?"

The great thing about working with a great drummer like Dale (www.dalebakerdrummer.com) is that, right out of the box, he's about 95% with the click at all times. The other 4% of the time, when he's not, it's because of an intentional inflection. The other 1% is a human element; I won't use the word error.

Of the six songs, the two that I envision syncing up MIDI applications and other rhythmic tools are "The Original Pullman Palace Car Dream" and "Falling in Love Too Fast." For that reason, it made sense to grid the drums & percussion heavily. By that, I used a great tool called beat detective. This allows me to quantize the drums to a specific groove. "Pullman" has a sixteenth "train" beat to it that sounds a bit erratic if it's even the least bit off. Beat detective smoothed this out greatly. And, now I can add some different gridded elements to the tracking if I choose. "Falling" has an odd, off tempo on the "4 &." For the same purpose, beat detective provided a smoothing effect.

I prefer to use beat detective to "looping." In the days of tape, recordists used to literally cut a loop of tape and run it around a free mic stand. On this looped tape, they would place a two to four bar drum pattern that, quite literally, loops and repeats. Looping creates somewhat of a sterile effect. Beat detective allows for rhythmic and tonal variation; you can set the amount of correction to a percentage, rather than an absolute. The result is organic and true to the percussionist's performance. Beat detective is very difficult to use, so if you have any questions please feel free to email me.

The other four songs have a great "live" feel to them. They were played to a click track, but they sway in the way that they should. For that reason, I didn't do much editing to the best take for each. "The Great Divide" and "Water & Wine" are straight up acoustic rock tunes. "On My Way" reprises the "train" beat, but does it a little looser; I plan to just add acoustic guitar and vocal to this one. "Out of My Mind" has a great primal, world beat feel to it.

So, the rhythm tracks are now ready for overdubs. The next step will be recording acoustic guitar tracks for the six songs. I should be able to get 60% of those done next week. All in all, things are sounding great.