Mixing Like It's 1965

So, I'm recording a cover of "Spanish Harlem Incident" by The Byrds. It's really a cover of a cover, as their version is a rearrangement of a Bob Dylan song. With some covers, I like to give the song a little twist or take it in a new direction. Others are so perfect as they are that my goal is to faithfully reproduce them. For me, "Spanish Harlem Incident" falls into the latter camp.

Right off the top I was in a bit of trouble, as I don't own a Rickenbacker 360 electric 12-string, which is what Roger McGuinn plays on this track. I put my Takamine acoustic 12 through a Line 6 Pod to create a facsimile, but it's really not the same. (Until I can summon the 3,645 Canadian pesos it takes to purchase my dream guitar, I'll have to live with the electrified acoustic.) Fortunately, I can replicate pretty much everything else. Michael Clarke, especially in his early years, was a very paint-by-numbers sort of drummer and so am I, so programming his parts was easy. For David Crosby's rhythm guitar, I simply had to think 1965. There were no guitar effects yet, and if you wanted a little crunch you just turned your amp up. Crosby, I think, played a Gretsch of some sort; I used an Epiphone Les Paul. I created a custom preset on my Bass Pod to simulate Chris Hillman's tone: very warm and just a bit fuzzy. Chris played a Guild Starfire, and my Epiphone Jack Casady proved to be a perfect substitute.

So far, so good. But to really make it sound like 1965, I wanted to simulate the stereo panning they used, which by today's standards is nutty. McGuinn's guitar is alone, hard left. His vocal, along with Crosby's and Gene Clark's harmonies, is in the middle. Everything else is panned hard right: that would be the entire drum kit, bass, rhythm guitar and tambourine.

Why would anyone record (and pan) in this way? Well, consider that four-track machines were barely available in 1965. My guess is that The Byrds and producer Terry Melcher recorded the Mr. Tambourine Man LP on a three-track at Columbia Studios, Hollywood, in early 1965. So, the session for this song may have gone down something like this. For the backing track, McGuinn's guitar was recorded on Track 1 with the rest of the band on Track 2, likely all in the same take. That left only one track, Track 3, for the vocals, which would have been sung simultaneously and mixed on the fly. (And in this case "mixing" probably meant, "David, you're too loud. Can you stand back about six feet? No. Make it four. That's good.")

Panning in 1965 was also limited. You had your choice of three fixed positions: left, centre and right. Given all these recording and mixing limitations, the wacky panning scheme actually makes sense. You're stuck with all the instruments save McGuinn's guitar on one track not because you want it that way—there was simply no other way to record the whole band at once and give some prominence to the main instrument, the chiming 12-string.

Back here in 2020, I live in a world of 24 tracks, my recording studio is about half the size of a pillow and I can record a whole album in my bedroom. Recording 1965-style doesn't come naturally. For this song, I laid down each piece of the drum kit separately, later overdubbing the tambourine, bass and rhythm guitar. Nevertheless, I'm sticking the lot on the right side like The Byrds did, in a spirit of homage and as a fun mixing challenge. And let me tell you: when you've got kick drum, snare, hi-hat, three cymbals, floor tom, bass guitar, rhythm guitar and tambourine all in your right ear, it's quite difficult to tell what's too loud, too quiet and just right. Try it and you'll gain an appreciation for how brilliant some of these '60s producers and engineers really were.

Finger Issues

So, it's now been three months since I injured my left ring finger in a cycling accident. Getting proper medical attention in the midst of COVID-19 has been a challenge, but to date I've had one in-person doctor's appointment, an x-ray, an ultrasound and several phone appointments with my doctor. Diagnosis is progressing even if treatment isn't.

I still don't have an exact diagnosis—the ultrasound revealed some swelling and inflammation of the tendon, and that's it—but we know what it isn't: there's no fracture, dislocation or break. The next step is an appointment with a plastic surgeon to discuss whether or not I should have surgery, and it may take a good while to schedule said appointment.

Medical considerations aside, how is my finger? Well, it's bent and swollen, but it looks worse than it feels. There's no pain, and I can type as if nothing happened. (This is very good indeed, because I type for a living.) I've found no discernible impact on any of my daily activities but one, and it's a big one: playing my stringed instruments. Again, there's no pain. The problem is limited mobility. Certain chords, like F#m and any minor barre chord in that position right up the neck, are impossible to play; others, I can play but it takes several seconds to change to and from them. Sort of a "This finger goes here, and that one goes there, and then this one goes over here" approach. Yes, Gsus4, I'm talking 'bout you.

Fortunately, I can still record music and am doing so as we speak. I'm not the greatest guitarist to begin with, so I often stitch parts together on different tracks then bounce them to create a composite whole. The damaged finger only means there's more stitching than usual. I recently pieced together a pretty hot solo that sounds like a fluent guitarist who really knows what he's doing. It's all done with mirrors, and even more so than before. But that's okay. What matters is that the final product sounds good. I've yet to encounter anything I cannot play if I break it down into sufficiently small bits.

It's performing I'm increasingly concerned about. As it stands, I can't play several songs in my repertoire, including some of my own. At least not without the "Hey, folks, wait for five seconds till I can find the next chord" thing. Capos and alternate fingerings may yet offer viable workarounds, but still, it's disheartening. On the bright side, I suppose this is as good a time as any to be unable to perform, as most venues remain shuttered.

Anyway, until I chat with the surgeon I'm not sure what I'll do. Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to be improving on its own. But surgery brings its own concerns, not the least of which is how long I'll have to be the incredible one-handed typist.

Life Under Lockdown

Just a quick update on how I'm coping with the current situation. Overall, I consider myself quite fortunate. As a card-carrying introvert, I'm well equipped to handle social isolation, physical distancing and so on. Like it or not, some version of this has been my reality for years anyway, so it's not been that dramatic an adjustment. I don't miss my full social calendar because I've never had one. I spent huge swaths of time alone before the pandemic, and very little has changed but for the fact that there are no social engagements to turn down.

As far as supporting myself goes, my freelance job, which I've not heretofore perceived as terribly stable, has been rock solid. I work in television broadcasting, and my industry has made the Ontario essential workplaces list, both the original and revised versions. Work has been steady and I've been able to transition quite well to working from home. I was concerned at the prospect of having to upgrade my home computer (i.e., buying a new one), but my only financial outlay was a mouse, full keyboard and wrist rest, which totalled under $40. Again, I'm grateful for my good fortune—which is blind luck, really, when I consider how many people with secure, full-time jobs are glumly sitting at home, hoping the CERB will cover their mortgage and car payments.

Of the adjustments I have had to make, some are rather humorous. I was overdue for a haircut and had booked an appointment just before the big shutdown in mid-March which, in a moment of prescience, my stylist cancelled. I'm not a fan of ponytails, and I abhor man buns. So, between repeated playings of CSNY's "Almost Cut My Hair," I've fashioned a homemade headband out of an old bed sheet. I'll look like a true Woodstock warrior until my next haircut, which will be who knows when. (Hey, Paul Kantner and Jack Casady wore headbands at Woodstock: good enough for me.)

On a more serious note, I had a cycling accident in mid-March. Bad timing. No car was involved; I rode headlong into a curb I did not see and went flying, landing on my face. For a day or two I looked like the Elephant Man, but the cuts on my face healed in short order. More worrisome is the ring finger on my left hand. Five weeks on, it's swollen and slightly bent, though not at all painful. After numerous failed attempts to receive medical attention, I finally got an x-ray this afternoon and am waiting to discuss next steps with my doctor.

Despite this I've managed to devote some time to my old standby, home recording. What better time to lay down some tracks in your home studio, right? Thing is, my finger has made playing any of my stringed instruments difficult, though not impossible. I've devised a couple of alternate-fingering workarounds, and compensated by recording my guitar and bass parts in even more pieces than usual. The finger has slowed me down, but I'm progressing with the cover tunes I set out to record in December. Anyway, I'm now on to mixing the latest, and this one has a lot going on so it'll take a good while. I'm hoping my finger will be back to full strength by the time I'm ready to record the next cover.

What else? Well, we've all had to learn how to video-conference in five minutes or less. My Zoom H1 (handy digital recorder) also works as a USB mic, and it's a significant upgrade over my laptop's built-in model, a tiny pinprick in the front console. I also have a decent USB webcam that provides high-quality visuals. The experiment continues, I guess, as long as COVID-19 keeps spreading. Me, I'm happy to live in a country whose guiding principle is "peace, order and good government." In my estimation our leaders, even those whose political stripes don't jibe with mine, have acted prudently and responsibly. Contrast our prime minister, premiers and mayors with that very stable genius to the south who openly ponders the benefits of shooting Lysol at his press briefings.

Adventures in Home Recording

Well, I've had a month and a half to get acquainted with the Zoom R24, and have two covers completed so far. Recording these has enabled me to appreciate the unit's features, come to terms with its quirks and learn a lot in the process. Once I've done about 12 or so covers, I'll post them as a free mp3 album and you can hear the results for yourselves.

First, the pleasant surprises:

• The R24 allows for unlimited virtual tracks (as many as your memory card can store).
• Its built-in mics are excellent and very convenient. I've recorded acoustic guitar and mandolin with them so far, and they sound better than my Apex 430 condenser (which admittedly isn't the crème de la crème of condenser microphones).
• The R24 has separate outs and volume controls for headphones and studio monitors.
• You can adjust the ratio of click track to song with the turn of a knob ... without having to dive into sub-menus.
• Files (tracks, loops, entire songs) can be backed up to a USB key: no computer required!
• The percussion loops included on the USB stick are high-quality samples that can easily be time-stretched to fit your project's tempo. Adjust the tempo, drop them in, and presto: it's like having your own Ray Cooper in your hip pocket. Very, very handy.
• You can loop any piece of audio and drop it into your song at various points. If, like me, you find it hard enough to play a part in time once, well, you only have to nail it once. And it doesn't matter where in the song you do that: you record your part to the click and it can be dropped in anywhere. Now, in conventional rock music, consider how many instruments play repetitive parts, though they may vary between sections. So far I've looped backing vocals, guitars, bass, individual drums, even a tin whistle. I can't fingerpick to save my life, yet I created two fingerstyle acoustic guitar parts by looping one chord at a time.
• My sampled Roland TD-11K drum kit sounds great, and by using a simple workaround I can set things up with, e.g., the snare on three adjacent pads for a better playing experience and more realistic feel. Judicious use of the quantize function helps keep my beats on the beat. Also, using the sampled kit instead of the built-in sounds allows for greater control and flexibility. Because each drum is on its own track, levels can be set independently and each piece of the kit can be panned, EQ'd and processed separately.
• I've not exhaustively auditioned the unit's effects yet, but some of the patches are terrific, and every patch is editable. (Some aren't so terrific ... see below.) Most of the send reverbs are quite good, and the "clean" section has some tasty guitar effects. A few of the mic preamp effects do wonders for vocals and acoustic instruments.
• The bounce function allows you to use a multitude of pre- and post-effects over the course of a song, and the unlimited virtual track feature means you can keep the dry tracks if you later decide to reprint the effects. Bounce is also great for stitching together composite parts to form a whole, which I do a lot of.
• Both hours/minutes/seconds/hundredths and bars/beats/ticks are shown on the display, unlike some units that force you to pick one or the other. And the "mark" function enables you to scroll to strategic points in the song, while the "stop/rewind" shortcut quickly gets you back to the start. Navigating through your tune is quick, easy and painless.
• The manual is surprisingly readable and useful, though the layout is a bit weird. I ended up creating a customized how-to-do-what index to help me find things more efficiently.

Now, some sources of vexation:

• Editing, trimming and silencing audio on the R24 is difficult and in some cases, impossible. It's easier to trim silence at the start or end of a song than, say, a stutter in your guitar solo two minutes in. There may be a way of doing that, but it's by no means obvious. I've figured out how to erase, e.g., unwanted amp hum before the guitar enters by recording "nothing" in that spot using the auto-punch feature. It works, but it's awfully cumbersome.
• You can't normalize the level of your mix using the R24. Nor can you measure peak amplitude, see what the overall waveform looks like, and so on. A crude waveform view is available by using, for instance, File->Divide, but all told it's easier and more accurate to import the audio into Audacity and examine it there.
• Trying to assign the same sample to multiple pads results in an "Already Exist!" error message. I had to "fool" the R24 into placing the same sample onto adjacent pads by creating duplicates and triplicates. So, I now have SNARE.WAV, SNARE1.WAV, SNARE2.WAV in my sample library, all of which are the same sound. It's a doable workaround and indeed, a necessary one; without it, I couldn't really "play" the drums like a real drummer would. But it's a pain to have to go to such lengths.
• The built-in drum sounds aren't studio quality. A few were barely passable; the rest sounded like my first drum machine from 1982. If you're going for that retro crappola-drum-machine sound, great! There are only 10 (lousy) kits, not customizable, and you can't mix and match. Worse, the drums are assigned to a stereo pair of tracks, and you can only EQ, pan, level and process the entire kit, not individual drums. This again limits their utility.
• Many effects aren't usable in their current form. The "distortion" section in particular makes your guitar sound like it's turned up not to 11 but 111. If you're some speed-metal shred-head, the distortion effects are your wet dream, I suppose. But for the rest of us who want just a touch of fuzz on our guitars, they're woeful. Deep editing, which I've yet to do, may yet salvage some of them. We'll see as I journey farther down the road.
• Some of the effects are gimmicky and fall into the who-would-ever-use-this category, like the vocal preset "Hangul" which the manual says "makes Japanese sound like Korean."
• If you want to apply simple stomp-box effects—delay, tremolo, phaser, wah-wah or compressor, for instance—they do exist, but you have to disentangle them from some patch that uses them in combination. It's hard to find them in isolation. Some quite useful effects, like a Leslie speaker emulation, are missing entirely.
• The mastering presets are disappointing. They're subtle as a sledgehammer, and 90% of them are useless. See, mastering is supposed to do two things: bring the level of your mix to a professional standard and and give it a glossy sheen by sparingly applying EQ and compression, kind of like the icing on a cake. The R24's presets alter the sound of your mix beyond recognition. I've achieved reasonable results by editing the "Maximzr" preset, which in its pure form adds 7,000 tonnes of compression, to saner levels, but even that has been massively frustrating. Sure, you can edit the parameters, but it's complete trial and error because you don't know what you're editing. Case in point: the aforementioned preset has parameters like "Sense Hi" which the manual says "adjusts high-range compressor sensitivity." Meaning what? Threshold? Ratio? Gain? We'll never know, and there's no way to adjust the compressor via these standard parameters. Similarly, that preset's three-band EQ lets me adjust bass, middle and treble. What specific frequencies I'd be adjusting and at what bandwidth, no idea.

My bottom line? With a modicum of additional equipment and a dash of savvy and patience, you can produce high-quality recordings with the Zoom R24. You'll be the judge when I unveil my "covers" album, but two songs in I'm quite happy with the results. And I haven't yet explored integrating the Zoom with a DAW, specifically the included Cubase LE. I'm about to transition to a new computer and am unsure which one I want to install it on, so I've held off on the download for now. Presumably this will further extend the unit's capabilities once I navigate Cubase's learning curve.

Zooming Towards My Next Album

Over the past two years, I've been saving my loonies and toonies to get my home studio up to scratch and start recording my next album. Linden Tree near the Water was recorded entirely in Audacity on a creaky Dell desktop running Windows XP. That desktop has since died, and my current computer lacks the firepower needed to run a DAW (digital audio workstation). So, I've gone old school and bought a standalone 24-track recorder. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Zoom R24.

I say "standalone," but really, it's only so if you want it to be. The R24 is also a sampler, drum machine, DAW control surface (a Cubase LE download is included) and computer audio interface. It comes with built-in condenser mics, a metronome and a chromatic tuner. Oh, and it's a powerful effects processor to boot. And did I mention the included USB stick and its 1.5GB of drum loops? That's an incredible array of features packed into a unit that's maybe 15 inches across.

I'd been researching multi-track recorders for well over a year, and I chose the R24 for a few reasons: one, its staggering versatility; two, the number and variety of onboard effects (267, with room for 123 custom patches); and three, I've sampled the Roland TD-11K drums I used for my last project and can play and record this kit on the R24. No other recorder will let me do that save for the Zoom R8, my unit's bare-bones cousin.

The R24's bundle of goodies is, frankly, a steal at $670 Cdn ($500 US). Now, think about that. Especially if, like me, you've been recording at home since the early '80s. My first Tascam 4-track cost well over $800, I believe, and we're talking 1983 dollars. Its recording medium was cassette tape—cutting-edge at the time—and the "effects" section consisted of a few EQ knobs. These days, the quality of recordings you can produce on the cheap is astounding. If your budget is seriously limited, for instance, the R8 retails for $400 Cdn ($300 US) and shares essentially the same architecture as the R24.

I bought my unit a couple of weeks ago but am keeping it under wraps till Christmas Day. It's been a tough year, and I want to cap it off with the ultimate present to myself. In the meantime I've been doing my homework, watching online tutorials, reading the manual and generally getting a leg up before I begin in earnest.

The plan is to record 10 covers to start with. Covers are more fun, and I've chosen an eclectic bunch that should acquaint me with most of the R24's capabilities. And I figure that by the time I've recorded, mixed and mastered those, I'll (hopefully) have made all the mistakes it's possible to make and can apply that learning to my own material.

If Less Is More, Think How Much More MORE Would Be

If that's not the first rule of rock 'n' roll, what is? It certainly came to mind as I was finishing up a song last month. I'd just laid down an electric guitar solo—not the easiest task for someone who's really a rhythm guitarist—but on playback it was clear a little reinforcement was called for. I decided to double the part by overdubbing the same solo with a different sound, panning the two guitars left and right. The result sounded better and a bit "thicker" as we say in the music biz, but still, something was lacking. So, following our first law, what's the logical next step? Double the double, of course! This was strictly a copy-and-paste job; playing it twice was hard enough, never mind four times. Anyway, now I have both guitars wailing away on the left and right.

We'll see how the quadruple-guitar onslaught sits in the mix or indeed, if it will. Sometimes, less really is more, and I'm pleased to say that I put that dictum into operation a few times while making the album as well: one song has a solitary vocal—no double, no harmonies—with no reverb. (Those of you who, like me, came of age in the '80s know how drastic that feels. I'm truly proud.) Or, as my faux-doc compatriots in Spinal Tap would say, "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever." Maybe that's the second rule of rock 'n' roll.

The Thrill of a First Mix

I finished recording last Friday and am now on to mixing. I've started with a few of the easy ones: songs that I'd previously mixed where I had only replaced, say, one keyboard part. The process for these is pretty simple. I fly in the new part and solo it along with the old one, temporarily panning the parts hard left and right, and listen to match volume levels. Once that's done I remix the song, compare the new mix to the last one I did, and nine times out of ten that's that and I'm done. It's kind of like having an old friend in for tea—there's a pleasant familiarity in which things run smoothly and you know what to expect.

A first mix, on the other hand, is something like a first kiss with someone you already know you're quite fond of. Take "Lady Air," for instance. (She is lovely, you know.) For a couple of months I've been adding parts incrementally, shaping the song and arrangement one piece at a time. You'll recall from my previous post that I started with just a click track, lone guitar and me humming. That was back in November. The completed song has drums, tambourine, shaker, handclaps, bass, two acoustic guitars, 12-string guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, organ, piano, harmonica, keyboard tin whistle, doubled lead vocal and two backing vocals ... plus various and sundry reverbs. But because of (a) the limitations of my XP computer, which sputters in the face of too many tracks and (b) the nature of an additive recording process, all I could really hear to this point was a growing collection of individual parts.

That is, until tonight and that sumptuous first mix. Now I hear a song. Sure, I can still "zoom in" and focus on how the individual parts sound, which I'll need to do to create a better mix on the second pass. (Aside: how many mixes till you hit on "the one"? Depends on the song. I think the fewest I've done is four. With the more complex songs, I've made it into the thirties.) But finally, I can now hear the whole and discern what's happening in the big picture. Examples: how does the build work coming out of the quiet chorus? How do the vocals blend, with each other and with the instrumentation? Is the rhythm section in balance?

So, welcome to the party, "Lady Air," and thanks for the heady first-mix experience. I have two more songs that have never been mixed to look forward to as well, plus remixes of this one and four more. All in the space of a few short weeks as I prep for the real mixing with Dave in early June.

Almost Finished, Sort Of

Having just replaced 71 (!) keyboard parts, I'm nearing the end of my recording. By my count, I have between 12 and 15 tracks left to record and once they're done, I'll be finished. Right?

Well, kind of. Really, one finishes a full-length recording three times: once when the last note is laid down, once more when the album is mixed, and the true finish line—mastering, cover design and CD duplication.

Thanks to a grant from FACTOR, I'll soon be ready for Phase II: mixing sessions with David MacKinnon, producer extraordinaire and all-around good guy. The fact that I've created preliminary mixes here at The Grinning Zone means we won't be starting from scratch. I'm anticipating this next stage already, but before that, about those 12 to 15 tracks. What's left? Here's the list:

• "Nest for Little Bird" - acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, harmonica, lead vocal, possible violin
• "Lady Air" - 12-string guitar, mandolin, harmonica, lead vocal, doubled lead vocal, backing vocal(s), possible recorder

Not too daunting, huh? Well, there's more to it than meets the eye. Both songs still need words. The lyrics for "NFLB" are about a third written, while "Lady Air" at this point consists of little more than the title. (More on that in a bit.) Now, in order to overdub all the above plus what I've already done (drums and percussion, bass, keyboards, some guitar) I needed something resembling a lead vocal. Not only is it arguably the most important part of a song, it kind of needs to be there so you can arrange the supporting cast around it.

Luckily, I do have a complete melody line for both songs, so I've put that down in basic form and proceeded from there. "Lady Air," for instance, started life as just a click track, a guitar, and me humming "la-da-da-da" for three and a half minutes; I've hung everything I've recorded since around that. For "NFLB" I laid down what I call a muzak lead vocal: the melody line played on a keyboard oboe patch. The long and the short of is that I needn't have words in order to record the remaining instrumentation.

Now, about the origin of "Lady Air." Song titles can spring out of strange places, but this takes the cake ... or the cereal, as it were. Several years ago I was eating a bowl of Alpha-Bits when I looked down at the spoon and there she was, swimming in milk: LADYAIR. I've heard of reading the tea leaves, but reading the Alpha-Bits? Come on. Anyway, I filed it under must-use-someday, and now her time has come.

Oh, Baby, I Got the Piedmont Blues

I've added another slice of exotica to my instrumental palette: the good old harmonica. I recently wrote a song that was begging for one, so I bought a Hohner Special 20 in the key of D, along with a cheap seven-piece Piedmont Blues set so I could experiment with different keys. For the curious, the set's keys are G, A, Bb, C, D, E and F. The Special 20 is a professional-grade instrument with a warm, reedy, classic sound and is truly a joy to play. The Piedmont Blues? Well, they're okay for goofing around or casual jam sessions, maybe, but I wouldn't record with them. When you blow you get too much air (some notes are especially wheezy) and the tuning is questionable in spots. That said, I'll use them for my live shows once I learn how to play guitar and harmonica together. If these things get battered and bruised, I can afford to replace them. By the way, you do gain a handsome case with the Piedmont set and from what I can gather, some enthusiasts buy the set for the case alone.

It's funny. I last tried a harmonica several years ago and was convinced I couldn't play it because I didn't know how to get single notes. All I could do was blurt out one monster chord on the exhale (blow) and another on the inhale (draw). The fact that I can't whistle at all led me to believe that I'd forever be harmonica-challenged. But with a little practice and a few online tips here I am, blowing and drawing one note at a time. I'm still very much a beginner who can't bend notes, but that's okay. I learned rather quickly that there are purveyors of blues harmonica—who are more than likely to call it a "harp"—and folk harmonica. Guess which camp I fall into? I lack the technique to play da blooze and fortunately, I also have zero interest in doing so. The vibe I'm after is more Bob Dylan-John Lennon-Neil Young, which was doable after a day of messing about.

In other news, I've begun to tackle the rather daunting fiddle part in my quasi-bluegrass number, "Year of No Tomorrow." Make that two parts, as I'm doing what a real player would call double stops (playing on two strings simultaneously) on separate tracks. Truth be told I still can't play the thing, at least not in a linear, real-time way. But I'm a world-beater if I go one or two notes at a time ... which is about all I'm able to do. Adding to my difficulty is the key of the song (Bb). No open strings here, kids. You can't really capo a violin—yes, I tried—and tuning it up a half-step you'd risk breaking a string or messing up the bridge. I didn't try slowing the whole song down a semitone and recording the part in A, as I was concerned I'd compromise the sonic integrity of the song and/or the fiddles once I sped it back up.

Ironically, I've just completed the high fiddle and it's pretty good, not at all scratchy. In fact, it's sounding a little too sweet for this setting and I might have to add some grit using EQ and other such trickery. But that's okay; if it were too scratchy, no processing known to humanity could make it sound sweeter. And in any event it sounds much better than the cheesy keyboard patch it's replacing.

Oh, and I'm still digging the Coltrane quote. You'll know what I mean when the song comes out—for now, just picture me sawing away at the opening bars of A Love Supreme in the midst of a knee-slappin' bluegrass tune. (Yes, really. Among other things this song features not one but two tracks of me slapping my knees. With reverb! Can't get more down-home than that, y'all.)

Drumming at the Edge of Madness ...

... to playfully misquote a real drummer, Mickey Hart. I did it: 60 individual drum tracks in total were laboriously recorded, and in the process I gained a new-found respect for those pound the skins simultaneously, in perfect time, with style and flair to boot. You won't hear any drummer jokes coming from this corner.

Oddly enough, after meticulous time-correcting, mixing and panning, my tracks do sound like a real drummer playing a full kit. Not a great one, mind, but he's solid in a no-frills, meat-and-potatoes way and might on occasion impress with an offbeat cymbal or nifty little fill. In one song, I pasted a chorus in the wrong place and accidentally wound up with bizarre little snare accent I decided to keep. Another tune somehow acquired a mid-'70s L.A. feel, sounding like a Jackson Browne or Carole King outtake. Move over, Russ Kunkel!

Next comes adding reverb to the new drum tracks. Oh, and remixing the eight songs I'd previously considered done. Ah, well. But this month of intensive work that nearly drove me mad was worth it. My drums, and as a result my songs, sound a whole lot better now.

I'm Not a Drummer, But I Do Play One on TV

Last week's epiphany: my drum tracks are terrible. No, not my playing; that's fine. It's the sounds themselves, the 20-plus-year-old keyboard patches I'm using, that are causing the problem.

Solution: rent a decent electronic drum kit and redo all the drums. After trying it out in the store, I opted for the Roland TD-11K, a solid mid-level apparatus with just about everything I need. Day 1 consisted of lugging the thing home on public transit. Day 2, putting it together. Day 3, choosing sounds and customizing my own kit, which I called "Folk/Rock Dry." And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am playing the drums ... kind of.

See, I'm really a bassist. I've learned to impersonate a guitarist, keyboardist, mandolin player and what have you, but drums are a different animal. I can play them adequately, as long as I record one piece at a time. For a typical song, that requires nine passes on nine tracks: kick, snare, hi-hat, two rack toms, floor tom, ride, crash and splash cymbals.

How real drummers play all these simultaneously, in time, I've no idea. To me, coordinating two hands and two feet is like patting your head, rubbing your stomach and twitching your leg while reciting pi to 700 digits. But even though I can't play like a drummer, I know how to think like one. That's where my bass-playing pedigree comes in, because the bass—generally; not always—locks in with the kick and sometimes the snare, and I've spent years doing that. And for any given song, if you can figure out what the kick and snare do, the rest of the kit easily falls into place.

Now, this Roland kit plays and feels a lot like real drums. This is not necessarily an advantage for someone who's used to "drumming" on a keyboard. I'm not bad with my hands—other than the fills, which I have to do in pieces if they're too fast—but getting the kick pedal down has taken a healthy dose of (gasp) practice.

Anyway, once I've recorded the tracks I compare them to my previous parts which, hideous sounds aside, were in time. A little cut here, a little paste there and I can make the new tracks match. I'm happy to report that my timing, though not flawless, is reasonably decent. I actually have quite a few sections that are dead-on with the existing track.

The TD-11K has 25 preset kits, and in the hunt for sounds I realized that each kit—not each sound within it—comes with its own processing (reverb and EQ). Most of their kits sounded great, but when creating my own I ditched all the processing, because had I recorded the drums wet the processing couldn't be removed if I decided later I didn't like it or there was too much of it. Hence the "dry" appellation for my Folk/Rock custom kit. Reverb and EQ, if necessary, will be applied during mixdown.

In the quest to approximate real drums, two more considerations were in play. First, I stuck with one kit despite the plethora of sounds available. Why? Well, real drummers in real bands don't say, "Oh, we're recording a ballad today? Let me run home and get my ballad kit." One kit, one drummer, one sound is the way it's done. Any variance is accomplished stylistically, by the way the drummer plays. I'm not that sophisticated, but I can at least get half the equation right by playing just the one kit. Second, I'm hoping to simulate the manner in which real drums are recorded. Standard practice entails using separate mics for the snare, kick, each tom and possibly hi-hat, with two overhead mics to capture the cymbals and overall kit. Obviously with real drums, sound from the entire set bleeds into each mic, and that I can't simulate as I'm recording direct. But I'm hoping that slapping a nice room reverb onto a stereo mix of the drums—with the dry signal mixed out—will create a passable version of the two overheads.

Yes, slogging my way through these tracks has brought home that I am most definitely not a drummer, and at times this causes vexation and insecurity. But you know what? I remain mindful of the fact that I'm a singer-songwriter making a folk/rock album, not Buddy Rich Plays His Hottest Licks at Lightning Speed, and that eases my stress.

Double Your Pleasure

Not that I know the first thing about painting, but I imagine recording is its sonic equivalent: one can create texture by layering. In music, layering is accomplished by, for example, blending voices or instruments which play complementary lines to the main theme, or by doubling existing parts, thereby emphasizing or reinforcing them. It's the latter I'll touch on in today's post.

Doubling lead vocals adds that little bit of "oomph" you want for arguably the most important track on any given song. Listen carefully to almost any Beatles recording and you'll see what I mean. The process is straightforward: you sing it once, then overdub yourself singing it again. It's not always easy to mimic your own phrasing, but with practice I've gotten better at it.

I usually double my rhythm guitars, which for this album are predominantly acoustic. Since I find it harder to replicate a guitar track, I often cheat by taking the original, copying and pasting into a new track, then time-shifting the second track forward just a touch. The time-shift has two functions: it obviates phasing problems and allows you to create a nice stereo image by panning the original hard left and the double hard right. This kind of double is more a photocopy than a redo.

A more textural approach—and one that isn't always possible—is to record a second track playing the same chords in different inversions. For me anyway, this requires the deft use of a capo. The song I'm working on now, "This Magnificent Dare," is in Bb. So, for the original rhythm track I used Capo 3, enabling me to play easy-strum G, C and D chords in the verse. (I like easy chords. They're eminently playable and they sound great.) For the double I wanted something different, and after a couple of failed experiments I settled on Capo 8. A little high up the neck, but I managed because lo and behold, here I could strum another set of easy chords: D, G and A.

Though capoing appears to create different chords, it doesn't. All these are simply inversions of the same chord. So, at Capo 3, when I play what looks like a G it's really a Bb. Similarly, playing what looks like a D at Capo 8 is also a Bb, albeit a third inversion of it. The actual chords I'm playing in this verse are Bb, Eb and F, but because of the capo at no time do I play them in first position. And this is no accident: not only are they harder to play there, but being barre chords they lack that open-string resonance made possible by the capo.

Now, the E-minor I was hitting in the bridge in Capo 3 had become a B-minor at Capo 8, which I found pretty much unplayable. But not to fret, if you'll pardon the pun, since up at Capo 10 I could play it as an A-minor, a much easier formation. So, I left a space in the part where that chord was and punched it in on a separate track.

The result is quite lovely and rich, especially when paired with the dulcimer that serves as the song's main rhythm.

Cleanup Time

My album is now about three-quarters complete, and before I move on to the last trio of songs I'm cleaning up some earlier recordings. In some cases this simply involves remixing; in others, I'm revisiting songs I recorded as far as two years back and redoing parts that didn't pass muster. I've also added a few embellishments to one song that needed a bit more fleshing out.

Make no mistake: recording an album by yourself, though great fun, is hard work. One of those "simple" remixes took 19 tries and much cutting and pasting of drums and percussion before it finally came together. All the while, I'm slowly gaining basic proficiency on the new instruments in my palette—dulcimer, violin and recorder.

Adventures in New Instruments

The latest addition to the family is this mountain dulcimer, lovingly handcrafted by Hugh Hunter of Rockwood, Ontario.

Mine is a bit darker than the model pictured here (the wood is cedar instead of spruce) and has a couple of extra sound holes as well. It looks great, feels great and sounds great, and because it's diatonically tuned you almost can't play a wrong note. In fact, I learned my first song by accident in less than five minutes: The Rolling Stones' "2000 Man." If you capo a dulcimer—and you need a specialized capo; guitar capos won't fit—the tuning and mode change. At Capo 1, for instance, you suddenly find yourself in a minor key. Standard tuning for the four strings is DAdd, the latter two being an identical "melody" pair. It's a haunting, mellifluous instrument and I'm blessed to be a proud owner.

Meanwhile, the fine folks at The Twelfth Fret were setting up and repairing my Nonno's Strad-O-Lin (mandolin), and they did a fabulous job. It's now eminently playable: I just recorded with it today, and even capoing at the 4th fret didn't throw off the intonation one bit. The repairman estimated the instrument to be of 1950s vintage, and though the tuning pegs are still rather stiff, it sings like a bell.

And finally, remember the violin I bought last October? I made my first recording with it today, and with help, my playing is approaching musicality. By "help" I mean that through the marvel of multitrack recording, I stitched together a nice-sounding accompaniment by playing only a few notes at a time, all on the same string. Huzzah! The fact that the song was in B certainly didn't make things easier, I'll tell you that. As you may know, learning the violin can be tough sledding. Tone, pitch, timbre and to a lesser extent timing are all hit-or-miss propositions for me at this point, and to get a decent take I have to nail all four simultaneously. Sometimes, I can do it ... for a few notes at a time.

Oh, and I've recently posted some sample music on my web site: studio recordings, an open stage appearance, plus a live-off-the-floor living room session recorded a few weeks ago. Come have a listen!

Fiddler on the Goof

You'll recall my quasi-bluegrass tune, "Year of No Tomorrow," in which I quoted the opening bars of Coltrane's A Love Supreme on my virtual keyboard fiddle. Upon further reflection I loved the part, but the tonal qualities of the patch were wanting. In short, it sounded like a cheesy keyboard fiddle. I tried EQ'ing and remixing, but no avail. So, guess who's bought himself a fiddle for his birthday? Yup. Mine is the blue one:

It's a Stentor student violin, it cost me under $200, and no, I don't know how to play it. Yet. But I'm confident I will eventually. You see, many birthdays ago, circa Grade 8, I played violin in school, and I recall that after the initial screechy period I was able to produce some quite musical sounds. As for how I'll learn, I won't be entirely on my own because these days, all the violin lessons a beginner could want are available online for free (hooray for YouTube; pity the out-of-work violin teachers).

Sure, I could have hauled in a professional to play the part, but I'd rather do it myself. It's a bit of a goof, a lark, a fun challenge. My neighbours will hate me, but hey, a practice mute should mollify them. And I don't envision my fiddle as a one-shot deal: I have my eyes on a dulcimer next, and armed with a dulcimer and  fiddle I'm seeing some lovely British folk music in my future.

Orchestral Manoeuvres

No, not those British guys with skinny ties and blip-beep synthesizers. I really ought to cool it on the punning post titles. Anyway, I've just recorded a song with an orchestra (virtual, not real—thanks, Korg X3) and it's been a trip, not only in terms of mixing the sounds but figuring out where to put them.

I'll start with the main body of the song, for which the pans are fairly straightforward:

• L acoustic guitar
• 60L tambourine
• 20L piano (left hand)
• C lead vocal +  reverb
• 20R piano (right hand)
• 60R tambourine reverb
• R acoustic guitar double

You might recall from a previous post my pan-the-reverb-mirror-image trick, which I used on the tambourine. At this point there appears to be ample space in the stereo field with which to work.

Enter the 22-piece orchestra. For my first attempt, I followed this panning chart (as best I could; as far as I know Audacity pans must be multiples of 10). Yet for all its visual elegance, when translated to sound these placements made little sense to my ears. I then tried panning the orchestra in clusters: percussion 60-80L, woodwinds 30-50L, strings 30-50R, brass 60-80R. Though this separated the sections of the orchestra nicely, within those sections instruments blurred into one another.

I finally came up with a symmetrical pan:

• 90L oboe
• 80L trumpet 1
• 70L violin 1
• 60L tubular bells L
• 50L kettle drum, viola
• 40L French horn
• 30L snare drum, cor anglais
• 10L glockenspiel, tuba
• 10R bassoon, double bass
• 30R timpani, clarinet
• 40R trombone
• 50R cymbal, cello
• 60R tubular bells R
• 70R violin 2, violin 3
• 80R trumpet 2
• 90R flute

Everything is panned mirror image, and I've scored the composition such that an instrument and its mirror are usually playing the same line, either in harmony or in unison.

"Score"? How do you score if you don't read or write music? Very carefully. Take one section at a time (the order I chose was brass, strings, percussion, woodwinds), and in each section, start with the lead instrument. That's generally the part that will jump out at your ear first. From there, you're essentially scoring (and recording) in pairs, for once you have any instrument you also have its mirror image. Occasionally, i.e., with the French horn/trombone and of course the percussion, I strayed from the harmony/unison approach and created contrapuntal lines to spice things up a little.

How do you mix an orchestra? Very carefully. The first step is to mute the entire orchestra and mix the main body of the song. I'll then mute the song and mix the first orchestral section, let's say brass, on its own. Repeat with strings, percussion and woodwinds, mixing each in isolation. From here, I'll try out different combinations of orchestral sections to see how they're playing off each other. Once you're satisfied that any two sections are in balance, listen to the full orchestra and recheck levels. It's one of those paradoxical situations where everything should be audible but nothing should stand out. The final test, naturally, is to bring in the song, tweaking its level vis-à-vis that of the orchestra as a whole.

And voila: follow these steps and at bare minimum you'll have a decent rough mix.

One for the Designers

A friend recently donated a Vostro1000 notebook (thanks, Dan!), and it's given me enough hard-drive space to enable me to make more music. I've yet to record on it but have completed several rough mixes of a new song, "After You," and so far it's performing superbly.

Here's where the design kudos come in: the laptop has a line in and line out jack, side by side. I had a devil of a time with these on my desktop because they were too close together. I needed to use at least one mini-to-1/4" adapter in order to monitor using headphones while singing, banging on a tambourine or what have you, and had to seriously wiggle one of the plugs to get them both to fit. Recording direct and monitoring through headphones proved impossible, as that would require two adapters side by side.

Today I tested the latter scenario on the laptop and was able to plug in said adapters without having to wiggle anything, leading me to suspect that the ample space isn't accidental. Yes, folks, some designer actually sussed out that end users might use mini-to-1/4" adapters—maybe even two at the same time—so perhaps we should allow sufficient space for that when we design the jacks. Huzzah!

By the way, "After You" is the fourth song completed for what will be my solo album, recorded right here at Grinning Zone Studios (my apartment).

Reverb, Panning and Space

Though I consider myself a neophyte audio engineer, my recent foray into home recording has given me a few new insights. In other words, I'm learning on the fly.

The latest revelation: instead of adding reverb directly to, for example, a vocal track, copy and paste the vocal onto a new track. Set the original aside and apply reverb to the new track only, making it completely "wet"—in other words, all reverb, zero original signal. (When you solo the wet track, don't be surprised if it sounds like a distant voice howling from ten miles inside a cave.) You now have two pieces of flexibility at your disposal, neither of which would be available had you smothered the vocal track directly. First, you can adjust the gain (volume) of the reverb without affecting the original vocal. Second, the reverb can be placed elsewhere in the stereo field; it needn't sit with the dry vocal track.

How does this work in practice? I've just finished a song featuring seven tracks, four of which have reverb applied. The acoustic guitar is panned 70% left, with its reverb over on the other side at 90% right. The lead vocal is panned 20% right; its reverb mirrors that of the acoustic at 90% left. Now, it's often been said that with reverb—or indeed, effects in general—a little goes a long way, and this also pertains to the technique I've outlined above. Hence for the two remaining tracks, backing vocal (20% left) and tambourine (50% right), a touch of reverb was added directly; in other words, I didn't create two more reverb-only tracks, as an overabundance of these can quickly clutter up a mix. But I find that having just the two drenched-in-'verb tracks, panned opposite and away from their dry counterparts, lends a subtle spaciousness to the finished recording.

If you're an auditory type like me, you might want to hear what I'm talking about, at which point it will all make sense. Listen closely to the beginning, which features only guitar, vocal and their respective reverbs ... but do enjoy the rest of the tune as well. (This is my version of "Morningtown Ride," an old lullaby written by Malvina Reynolds.)

Mixing

No, this post has nothing to do with socializing or, for that matter, baking. Sorry to disappoint. I'm raving about that glorious moment in the recording process where Benvereens producer/engineer/co-conspirator Dave uploads preliminary mixes for our upcoming album. So far we have just five songs ready for mixdown; the rest require a few vocal touches that we hope to complete next weekend.

It's best to evaluate mixes on equipment you're familiar with ... i.e., you know its sonic quirks and what your favourite music generally sounds like on it. After a worrisome first listen, I came to realize that the muddiness I was hearing was not in the mixes themselves but the skewed equalization profile of my computer speakers. This was borne out by a second go on my mp3 player, with earbuds. Hardly an audiophile's wet dream, but it's how I listen to most of my music these days.

And the verdict? A few minor issues aside, all five sound great. We have an eclectic batch of material, to be sure—from country ballads to Cajun folk-pop to near-psychedelia—so it's hard to compare one mix to the next. I do wonder how we'll craft the final product into a unified whole, but that's a challenge I relish.

Love this band, love working with Dave ... and can't wait to show off the results to you all—early summer, I'm hoping.