[Audio far below]
Recording a new song brings lots of surprises, at least the way I go about it. The only instruments I know how to play are guitar, and to a much lesser extent, some stringéd things with frets: mandola, electric bass, mountain dulcimer, 4-string tenor guitar. When it comes to keyboards, I’m able to depress two or three keys at a time in a minimal but useful sequence. Given enough rope, I can come up with a reasonably taut bass line, but only if the song isn’t too complex. My inner clock is steady, so basic percussion is also possible. This desk, for example, sounds surprisingly good. A stack of books, the slatted top of a cheap plastic radiator, a small tape-measure: a room is full of percussion instruments.
Yesterday, casting about for a certain sound, I spied the Dr. Eloise piggybank my daughter left on a high shelf for safe keeping (this used to be her room). I was pleased to find it full of coins, not for any pecuniary interest, but because of their effect on the tone, both when struck and shaken. The sound can be altered by reducing or increasing the quantity of coins, like tuning a glass with more or less water. Incidentally, I did the math: there’s $1.23 more in the Dr. Eloise piggybank than I earned from Spotify in the past five years.
But back to recording. In addition to my dubious command of so many of the instruments lying around the room, I am completely illiterate when it comes to musical notation, arranging, theory and the rules of harmony. I do not know the names of things. I wouldn’t survive a day at Berklee College of Music, assuming they’d even admit me, which they wouldn’t.
I should make clear that I do not mean to hold up this lack of formal training as a virtue or a model to be followed. Education: good. Ignorance: not so good. Having said that, my lack of musical training has never much gotten in the way. Strike that. Of course it’s gotten in the way. But ignorance is precisely the thing that keeps me from knowing why or how or when! Bliss. In any case, once a song is in process, with a few basic tracks recorded, I start to hear things. In my head. Things that need to be added to the recording. By someone. Now. That’s how the “tape” rolls around here.
I pick up an instrument and spend some time trying to make it do the thing I hear in my head. If that doesn’t work, I try another, and so on. This might include virtual instruments and sounds. My hard drive is full of mellotrons, Wurlitzers, and lo-fi pianos; alarmingly accurate samples of orchestral instruments and drum kits; computer-generated guitar emulations if the real McCoy sounds too real; every analog or digital synthesizer ever made; kalimbas, sitars, duduks, and noises that correspond to no known thing in the universe. And don’t get me started on the synth. The possibilities are endless.
Add to this all of the “outboard” gear needed to process the signals so that everything comes out sounding right: compressors, limiters, effects, equalizers, aural exciters, deEssers, preamps, and filters. In professional recording studios, banks of these “hardware” units can occupy entire walls of a control room. They are expensive. They require maintenance. They sound great. They also look really cool. Blur your eyes in a dimly lit studio and they loom, twinkling like a small city at night. All of those knobs with their parameters, LED lights and VU meters: they convey a sense of silent, inscrutable mastery.
I’m sure we’ll end up in a big room at some point. My neighbors above and below may not appreciate the higher decibels put out by a full drum kit; there’s a place across town with a great sounding Steinway; and we’ll want to mix and master in proper environments. But until then, aside from microphones and instruments, what you see in the photo above is pretty much all I need, recording wise. In fact, the thing to the right (with all the knobs) might be overkill. What is not overkill is the piece of hardware between the speakers, underneath the computer monitor, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Dreyer.1 It’s a Great River Electronics MP-2NV (Mercenary Audio Edition), the only outboard preamp I own. And there’s a story behind it.
Circa 1999 I was looking for a gift for a guitar player friend. A good microphone seemed like the right thing, so I called up Mercenary in Foxboro, MA. The friendly person who answered the phone was both knowledgable and conscientious, steering me away from several mics costing far more than the one I finally settled on. Then came time to give my payment info. Number, billing address…
- Name? - Richard Shindell. - Did you say Richard Shindell? - I did. - From Port Washington? - Yup, that's me. - MOTHER FUCKER this is Fletcher!
I was speaking to none other than my old pal Craig Fletcher. We had been in a band together back when we were urchins. He was the other guitar player. We were terrible. But I remember how obsessed he was with gear, and how he tinkered at length with the Bogen amp that was going to power our PA if we ever got a gig. Alas (or thankfully) we never did. But that obsession led him to the world of high-end recording gear. Fletcher was the founder and owner of Mercenary Audio (in its original, long-lamented incarnation). So when it came time to buy a preamp, Fletcher’s seal of approval cinched the deal. It’s a glorious-sounding preamp. I called it “the Bogen”.
Fletcher will probably be horrified to know that the rest of my signal chain (aside from the interface) occurs “in the box” (inside the computer). This means plugins—the digital, algorithmically tuned versions of the kind of gear he used to sell. Do you see that gray thing (or image of a thing) on the left side of the monitor? It's a software version of the mighty Teletronix LA-2A compressor/limiter, a mainstay of the recording industry since the 60s. Pretty much every pop song you’ve ever heard had one or several of those things somewhere in the signal chain. But they weigh 13 lbs and cost a fortune. So some very clever people figured out how to make computer code do the same work. This goes for the just about every audio device, digital or analog, ever made. The possibilities are endless. Any instrument or sound, along with all manners of processing and manipulation, can be had for a modest yearly subscription. It’s overwhelming. The question becomes what not to use rather than what to use.
When I hear that thing in my head, I don’t want hundreds of alternatives. Three or four will suffice. Otherwise I’ll go nuts, or waste time searching. So I limit myself. For example, each night for the past few nights I’ve been staying up late, scrolling through all the presets in my favorite synthesizer. There are over 400 of them. That way madness lies. So a-winnowing I go. I listen closely to every sound, choosing the ones I like and removing the ones I don’t. It’s down to about 180. Clearly there’s still more limiting to be done.
There’s a parallel between my limitations on those instruments and this desire to reduce the possibilities in the digital audio realm. Speaking generally, limitation tosses the ball back to the person, to their particular kind of musicality. It is good. It makes things possible. It says: Here, this is what you have to work with. Now work with it. Be creative.
As for the Dr. Eloise piggybank, I think it’s going to be an important part of our work flow. In fact, I have a mind to sample it, to record it being played in various ways: with a traditional drumstick or brush, with fingers, with a spoon—whatever makes a good noise. Then I will shake it with varying quantities and denominations of the coinage inside. I will shake it like a polaroid picture. Finally, each sample will be edited, processed, organized, uploaded and sold online, for a modest yearly subscription.
Here’s where we are with Monochrome, the title track of the “record album” we’re working on. There have been some changes. The wonderful and hilarious Byron Isaacs added a bass, which we incorporated into the mix (running it through the “LA-2A”). I added some minimal acoustic guitar strums for emphasis here and there. Some other stuff was tinkered with, especially in the bridge. Enjoy.
I’ve deployed the Oxford comma in this sentence because I do not wish “Dreyer” to be modified by “fantastic”. That adjective should belong to Mr. Fox exclusively. Also, I am not a Godless savage.
I love your writing and I’m so, so happy to know you and Byron are making music together. Yay.
I enjoyed reading this and listening to the latest 'take' on the new album. What is the screen saver on your computer? Is is Mantegna? Its very cool.