The Dailies: Day 1
Posted: August 15th, 2006 | Author: michael | Filed under: art and culture, audio, current events, miscellany | Tags: art and culture, audio, Bedingfield, current events, John-Mayer, Neve, OutKast, recording, Sheryl-Crowe, studio, The-Dailies | 9 Comments »Chad tagged me to blog today’s session. It’s late, and I’m ready to sleep, but since he’s my boss this week, I’m sitting here dutifully tapping out my thoughts.
Day one of a recording session is usually not very productive. You’re firing up all the gear for the first time, chasing down hums and buzzes in the signal, figuring out why headphone mixes don’t work how you think they should, and getting microphones placed around the instruments. Just getting the mics placed on the drum kit, and getting them all positioned correctly, can take half a day (which is not all that long when you realize that Rosy’s kit has 18 mics on it – at 10 minutes a mic, you do the math).
All that to say, I had been putting a bug in Chad’s ear for the last few weeks to be patient, not to expect things to ramp up to full speed right away. He came in ready to go through the boot camp of first day, and decided he would be happy if we got the primary tracks of even one song done.
We left at 1:30 in the morning, and have 2 songs completed, with fixed and overdubs. This thing is cranked up to full speed in a hurry.
The difference has a lot to do with a guy named Chris Steffen. Chris is engineering the project. He’s good. He’s reeeeeeeeally good. And really, really fast.
First of all, he’s a musician. He thinks in terms of beats, measures, chord changes, arrangements. Engineering is not just a technial art, it’s a musical craft, just as much as playing bass or singing BGVs. Chris approaches the songs like he’s part of the band.
He also has that great, ellusive skill that makes the differnce between somebody who’s good, and somebody who’s really great at engineering – he anticipates. By the time the band decides we need to go back and punch in on a section of the song, he already knows where we need to go, and he’s cued up ready to go. He mixes the control room monitors on the fly so that we can hear the things that need to be tweaked, before we even know what we’re listening for. He drops edits into place between passes, so that by the time we’re back up and listening to the song again, three small things have been fixed that we didn’t even know needed fixing.
He’s also a very laid back guy, with a great sense of humor. One of the things that made today fun was pulling his leg. Chad and I have had just enough experience behind the board to be a little dangerous, and more than enough to know the things that drive engineers insane. I would lean over during playback and pass along to Chris some little piece of “engineering wisdom” that even a first day intern in a hick town like Sacramento would know, and he would just hang there for a split second, pretty sure I was kidding, but not wanting to offend me by laughing if I wasn’t. I would suggest some way of mic’ing something that I had clearly read off the back cover of “Hobby Studio Magazine”, and he would struggle to find some gracious way to let me know that he was probably going to do it a different way, like the way he mic’ed it on the last platinum record he engineered. We think all of this is very hilarious. Chris either agrees, or thinks we’re all jackasses, and he’s just humouring us until Sunday, when he gets to go back to his real world.
So, we’re all pretty much Christ Steffan Fanboys. We bought the T-shirt. We got him to sign it. Chris Steffen – appearing soon on a Dailies record near you!
Now, I’m off to bed. More tomorrow.
OK OK OK.
It’s 11pm. I just heard the following comments that must be published . . .
“Fantastic. Fantastic. I’m gonna stop using that word.” – Corey
“Great tune, Chad.” – Mike
“I’m really sleepy.” -Chad
“I will rip this tune a new @ss-hole!” – Rosy
I learned so much today. First, I learned that I need to give my freakin ego a rest. I came into this project limping a bit after 30 days of work in a row. I was pretty full of myself and feeling mighty successful. I caught myself a couple of times pretending to be unimpressed and acting like this whole studio thing was old hat to me. After all, I’ve owned my own studio for almost 2 years now . . .
All of which is of course complete horsecrap. This place is the bomb. I’m not even a Mexican firecracker.
The best thing about this project for me is the re-realization that my great friends are great musicians. I’ve been slinging so much crap with Mike for so many years that I forgot what a beautiful player he is, especially in his element. And I’ve never seen him more in his element.
The next 5 days are going to be much more productive if I shut my trap and open myself up the beauty around me. And I ain’t talking about the alley in the back where we grab a breath of semi-fresh air between cuts.
Other (less important) stuff I learned today:
1. A big rooom makes a big difference, especially when it comes to drum sounds.
2. So do $3 million in gear.
3. Sometimes, the freshness and excitement that happen on the first pass through a track outweigh the sloppiness contained therein.
4. Sometimes, cleanliness outweighs chopsy-ness.
5. Apparently, in the heat of the moment, just after a successful take, I am prone to say something into the mics that would make a great soundbite.
6. I’m not as good as I think I am. Few of us are.
7. I’m no slouch either. None of us are.
8. This project, and life in general, is not about me. But I can’t help filtering life through my eyes.
9. Tomorrow’s another day!!!!!
If there’s such a thing as a Freudian misprint, I think Mike just made it with the phrase “Christ Steffen.” This guy really is reaaalllllllly good.
I’m just sitting here drinking it all in, grinning like a proud mom…oh yeah, I AM a proud mom…oh yeah.
By the way, the tunes we tracked were “God of my Future” and “Unplug”. If Chad’s cool with it, maybe I’ll try to get board mixes today to post up here.
Yes, please!! Board mixes: good.
I only asked you to do it because I have a forty minute drive home, and you have a four. :) That… and… you know.. blogging skillz.
It was indeed a great day. I’m bringing my laptop today in an attempt to get some pictures going for ya’ll. I dunno about board mixes. One, for sure. I’m still a little protective of my children.
I enjoyed your account of the 1st day of recording. My own experience with that activity has been limited, but it brought to mind one very exciting weekend at Warner Brothers recording studio in Arcadia (I think). My APU singing group (all six of us) got a full day of recording with Al Clift’s brother who was the engineer there. What an awesome experience. Thinking back though, there were no computers, just huge mixer boards and really big tape. Amazingly, I still have that tape!
BTW how do you do this when you have students to prepare for in the classroom?
I distract the students from my lack of preparation by wearing skin-tight clothing and setting things on fire.
So you’re gioing to be just like all the other APU profs. Oh, well.