The Incoherant Ramblings of a Poetic Compulsive: Creswell In Studio

This is as unbiased as I can make it. These several pieces of literature on my experiences in the studio will not be an “all good” nor will they have an “all bad” slant. But they will be as honest and as fair as I can make them.

Creswell’s lead singer and band leader was contacted back in late Spring of this year (2005) via email (I want to say Myspace) by Kyle Mitchell and Kyle (“Zig”) Zeigler, both ex-members of the Christian rock band Kutless. It seems shortly after leaving the band, they started up a studio and were offering a great introductory rate for production, engineering and many other services at their studio, The Verb. They were contacting independent bands and signed bands alike notifying them of the services they can provide and, at the introductory rate, it was quite literally “a steal”. Prior to getting their email we were considering our options, at there at the top of the pile for consideration was Barry Blair, ex-guitarist and a founding member of Audio Adrenaline, as producer. We’d met with him during GMA week in Nashville after our showcase performance at The Muse. At any rate, we were and still are very excited about the possibility of working with Barry in the future, on this very album in I hope, but the offer from ex-Kutless bassist and drummer was too good to pass up since they were a little less expensive, they were local, and uber flexible because they lived so close. One of the outstanding benefits to this was that we did not have to leave our families for days or weeks and I did not even have to take a single day off of work (just a couple hours here and there).

The studio itself resides in the basement of Kyle Mitchell’s home in the Rosemere section of Vancouver, WA. As you walk down the concrete exterior steps to the door, you feel the energy and artistic vibe that radiates from the underbelly of this fantastic early 20th century home. A black and white cat greets you with a cry and an eager brush against your feet and ankles. And while Zig and Mitchell continue to feed her, she’s not affiliated with the studio. The neighbor (let's call him "Randy"), ‘works’ in his yard next door. He’s holding some variety of long-handled gardening tool and probably not using it quite the way it was intended. He gives a glance, maybe a smile and a nod as we head down. Something about his demeanor tells me he finds the whole idea of a recording studio in the basement of his neighbor’s house just a little comical. Or maybe he just finds me a little comical. Seeing bands go before where we dared to trod was obviously a common occurrence and it was probably becoming pretty obvious from the typical wardrobe, hairstyles, accessories, etc who was here for business and who was here for pleasure (the line between the two in this business is blurred more often than not though). Something about "Randy" reminds me of the neighborly dynamic of Mr. & Mrs. Morgan with dc Talk. I reach the bottom of the staircase, give a brief knock, and let myself in. I’m the last to arrive at 2pm after having worked a full day. I walk in, say hi, and try to settle in to the comfort level of the others who have been present already for awhile, though just how long I’m not sure.

I’ve scanned the gear in the studio before when we came down to talk to them a few weeks prior. They’ve got a computer, a board, and a couple of racks mostly full of some great gizmos. For this recording at The Verb, we’re going to utilizing the pleasantries of Pro Tools LE, a software utility our last producer was not thrilled about. I also see a pair of Presonus VXP mic preamps, a Digi 002 board, Audix i5 instrument microphones among others, a Mesa Recording Preamp, a Mesa Rectifier Stereo 2:One Hundred power amp, a rackmount Line 6 Bass Pod (not XT), and a beautiful brand new Fender SRV Stratocaster purchased just a couple days before at Guitar Center of Hillsboro. Zig and Kyle have already appropriately named her, “Sophia Rosa Verb”. I’ve brought my Gibson Nighthawk, my Yamaha Pacifica 112 and my Yamaha acoustic from the late 70’s all with me, but I won’t actually wind up using any of them. I did not bring my Peavey 50 Classic because I was already pretty sure I would not be using it. The first thing we do is sit down and have a little discussion about what we sound like, and what we’d like to sound like. It’s hard to quantify such a broad concept like that in to terms, so we went around the room sharing what bands and albums influence us that we’d like to capture the essence of within for elements of our own album. Or in this case, the two singles we’re recording this week. I wanted to say Jet, but I couldn’t think of it at the time. A lot of stuff was thrown out as we went around the room. We came away from the discussion with some of the more recent Green Day work meets Weezer’s blue album kind of a feel. All agreeing that, given our make up and the style we tend to write and arrange in, that Weezer-esque kinds of sounds just might be an achievable attribute. Except maybe for Lee whom I’m not really sure if he knows Weezer and only sited Geddy Lee as his own influence. It’s a hard question to answer, and one that, frankly, I hate answering. It’s one that producers unfamiliar with your work will almost always ask though. It’s like the question, “who do you sound like”. Well, we sound like us. Like Creswell. Which of course is of no help to the person asking because they’ve obviously never heard you or they wouldn’t be asking.

The phone at The Verb studio rings incessantly. It rarely stops. And it’s never trivial either, it’s always something rather important that needs to be addressed concurrently. It didn’t really bother me though for some reason. Probably because there was always two of them there and while one was on the phone the other was usually helping progress the process. They played us some clips of the kinds of material that had left their studio or was about to. They’d specifically site each for the drums, vocals, bass or guitar work that could be accomplished. It was a most impressive collection, but I remember somebody telling me that “everything sounds good on studio control room speakers”. But it game me a sense of real excitement as what I was hearing was very good indeed (not the least of which, I should add, was a clip or two from Falling Up’s new album that they were working on).

We went through each of the songs for them with me just playing an acoustic with really poor action and Will singing. As we went from song to song, it became clear that I was not giving a very good representation of the songs themselves. Verses particularly, I’m not just shrang-ing out chords when we play these songs live, but instead I’m adding texture, feel, nuance to the verse while the rhythm section drives it. Playing the subtle nuances don’t help the producers though, who need to know how the song sounds, and in several cases I didn’t even know all the chords (stands to reason, since I don’t play them). So I kind of feel that some of the songs that might have been better candidates than the two that we picked, kind of got short changed because I wasn’t prepared to give a good representation on acoustic guitar. Kyle and Zig picked Ananias and Immigrant. So that pretty much set the mood for me. I was irritated and displeased with my ability to play them on acoustic, which I’d never tried, was slightly out of tune, I was using an acoustic that was somewhat hard to play on, especially barre chords around the 9th fret, etc and I felt that the producers had probably already made up their minds about the quality of guitarist I was and might even be considering the possibility of needing to play the parts themselves.

I put it behind me. We immediately started scratch tracks. The brought out the highly acclaimed Sophia, plugged her into the Mesa preamp amp on a clean channel, and used the control room speakers as monitors and for me to hear the click track. They decided to not track the vocals for scratches, which may or may not have been a mistake. Because of this I would lose my place several times while tracking them. My nervousness increased. The decision was made by the producers to change Immigrant’s chorus. The problem with making a change like that without the vocals is that you don’t really know how it will impact the flow of the lyrics, which turned out to be a bit of an issue for Will later on. I finished the scratches eventually, with the usual occasional flaw in them as is typical for scratches.

The drum kit we would use for the singles was Kyle’s when he played with Kutless. I’m not sure of the brand but it was custom made by a company out of L.A. It was already setup but we needed to spend some time tuning the heads, micing everything, and adjusting for optimal tonal qualities, etc so we got just the sound we wanted from every piece. What we lacked in snare tone we were sure we’d make up for when it was sent to the mixer, as they apparently have the ability to further EQ and bring out some of the better tonal qualities in the mix. We mic’d both the bottom and the top of the snare, which apparently is a trick of the trade commonly used in our style of rock music. One which I wish we’d known about for our last album. Mentally, as we proceed, I’m taking notes of everything they do different from our last trip to a different studio with a different producer. I’m impressed. What I’m hearing is sounding great. As they day turns to evening, Adam begins to track drums against the scratches playing both in his headphones and in the control room monitors. Adam’s become a really great drummer. He was slightly fill-happy, but it was always good stuff. He played flawlessly to the click track and Kyle, a drummer himself for a pro-caliber band, noted several times to me that it was nice to have a drummer that can really sync up with the click.

Adam was banging away on Immigrant and was pretty much finished with it when it hit about 10pm. I was pretty tired and welcomed sleep as I drove home uncertain of what was to come next. I would not be needed for another day or two I knew which gave me some time to think about what I wanted to hear from my guitars and from the singles as a whole.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 1:19 PM

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Sunday, September 11, 2005

Creswell In Studio - Day 1

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