The Return of Spring, Session 5

I feel as if I'm finally making up for lost time. Getting two solid sessions in this week has been a real blessing.

On August 2, 2007, I spent a whole day tracking acoustic guitars on "The Great Divide" and "Falling in Love Too Fast." Again, I used a mix-and-match approach to microphones, preamps, and technique.

"The Great Divide" is a tune that masquerades as an acoustic rock song. But, really, it could be played just as well with chunky electric guitars. It's hard to fight the urge to track an SG, just to see what it would be like. Being so, I played the "Main AG" as I would have played an electric part. I played chunky, palm muted power chords in the verses and slightly more open phrasing in the opening and recurring riffs. Playing power chords on an acoustic guitar took a little getting used to, but once I got it to fit with Dale, it worked well. The TLM-103 through the 8Pre worked great for this.

I left the main guitar out of the chorus to create a different texture. For this, I used a stereo, XY miking technique. This makes the chorus pop out and get wide when it makes its entrance. I used a matched pair of Audix 51 condensers through the 8Pre for this. The XY technique is almost the same as the mono technique with the acoustic guitar. The really important thing is to make sure the microphones form a perfect 45 degree angle and that the capsules are as close together as possible without touching. If you don't do this, you'll have some phasing problems.

I felt as if the song needed one additional strummy guitar in the riff section and the bridge. So I played some open chords in these sections. I tuned the guitar slightly differently to make sure all of the tones were diatonic: EADGAE...the ringing B didn't work for me. This tuning also prompted a happy accident. During the new breakdown section, I accidentally played a great alternate part. It kind of sounded like a sitar. I used a different pre and the Audix 51 mic in mono.

Next, I tracked acoustic guitars on "Falling in Love Too Fast." This tune is the only finger pick song of the batch. For this, the approach needed to be fairly simple, as the part itself is fairly difficult to perform. I used a simple mono set up. But, I also recorded the acoustic guitar's direct line. The part is quite percussive. Having a direct line (that doesn't pick up the hits on the strings as much) will probably be a good idea for other possibilities.

I have a five take rule. After five takes, I stop, and pick the best one. Then, if there are any edits that need to be made, I make them. But, by and large, if I don't have it by take five, I'm not going to have it at all. This one took five takes. Because this song is de-tuned, I noticed a bit of pitch-i-ness when I played the G on the E string. I may opt to retrack this with a different guitar if it's a problem. Under the microscope, sometimes, things aren't perfect. But, we don't listen to things under a microscope. We listen to them on iPods.

I spent the end of the day adding some organ parts to "The Great Divide." This helps make the chorus pop out even more. It was a good day's work.

The Return of Spring, Session 4

Finally, I got a chance to devote a full, eight hour studio day to this project. When I pulled up the tracks, they sounded exciting and fresh, even though they were only drum tracks.

August 1st ended up being a full day devoted to "Water & Wine," one of the songs I began tracking in late June. What was intended to be a full day of acoustic guitar tracking on all the songs, ended up being a focused day on one song.

My production philosophy is fairly straight forward. I like to create recordings that a pleasant to listen to (meaning, they are in-time and in-tune) and also hold a listener's attention. The two ways I try to keep a listener attentive to a song is by arranging a song with a sense of dynamics as well as varying the tones from section to section when possible. Dynamics are best achieved with a well oiled (er, ...competent) rhythm section (bass and drums). Tonal variance is best achieved by using different accompanying instruments in the right places.

My main accompanying instrument, for this album, is the acoustic guitar. I only have one acoustic guitar that's worthy of studio work, a Taylor 410. My red Guild is best suited for live stuff. Strumming the same acoustic guitar in the same way for an entire album would be really boring. So, I'm presented with a challenge that many project studio owners face: How do I make one guitar sound interesting enough to carry a whole album?

Affecting the signal chain is the answer. Although I have one acoustic guitar, I have three really good condenser microphones; two of which are a matched pair. I also have a really good class A tube pre-amp (the thing you plug the mic cable into) and twelve class A solid-state pre's. A mixing and matching of these elements is capable of producing dozens of different timbres, all with the same source.

A second way to get a different tones out of the same guitar is a lot cheaper than investing in mic's and pre's. Using different guitar picks can greatly affect the tone of a guitar. A thin pick produces more zing. A thick pick produces more tone. If you don't believe me, drop a $1.50 on different gauged picks at your local music store and try it yourself.

If you've heard "Water & Wine," it has three basic sections. There's a strummy, campfire riff that begins, middles, and ends the song. Then, there's the verses. And, there's a bridge. So, to give the song some tonal variance, I made the approach to each section a little different.

For the riff, I opted for a straight double, panned hard left and hard right. I used a large diaphragm condenser mic for the left guitar and a small diaphragm condenser for the right guitar. I used the tube pre (with a little 240 raised, to give it some more body) on both guitars. I used a thin pick to give it some zing. To get a really good mono acoustic guitar tone, all you have to do is point your condenser mic at where the neck meets the body of your guitar. Place it 8 inches away. Hit record. That's it. If your room sucks or if you have trouble performing the part, that's another issue. But, if you want to get the mic placement right, that's it.

For the verses and bridge, I used a solid state pre and a large diaphragm condenser. I also used a thicker pick. This helped compensate for two guitars disappearing into one when the verses kicked in. To make the parts different, I varied by picking style. I arpeggiated the first verse, lightly strummed the second verse, moderately strummed in the bridge, and did single down beat strums in the third verse. Upon play back, with all the guitars in, the song had a great sense of organization, dynamics, and variance. It sounded really full...even before the bass has been recorded.

While listening to the verses, I realized that some different sonic pads would be nice. For this, I charted out the basic chords on a program called Sibelius and then imported the files as a MIDI track. Pro Tools 7 has some really great MIDI (that's musical instrument digital interface) capabilities. I outputed the MIDI files to my vintage synth box, which has some great organ, electric piano, and mellotron samples. For all you Athenaeum fans out there, that's the box I use on "Away," "Frozen in Time," and "Damage" when we perform those songs live.

I selected four different tones for the various parts. For verse 1, I used a nice tremolo Wurlitzer patch. For verse 2 I used a perc organ...different, but still very nice. For the bridge I used a big ol' B3 patch that gives the song a big lift. For the third verse, I used a mellotron string patch.

All in all, the song sounds exciting, just with these three elements on it. I'm hearing a spot for a horn section in the bridge and in the "na-na" parts. It'll be interesting to see how that develops.