The Incoherant Ramblings of a Poetic Compulsive: Creswell in Studio

If you haven’t read day 1, I’d highly recommend starting at the beginning. Everything will make more sense. :)

So if my memory serves me right then Wednesday, day 2, was the day of the computer crash. It’s my understanding that shortly after tracking the remainder of drums on Immigrant, the second single, they had a problem with a USB drive. I didn’t go to the studio that day but instead met the band at Lee’s house (a stone’s throw from the studio). We hung out for awhile, Lee and I went to the bank and a pawn shop after discovering that my 94 Ford Ranger wouldn’t start. Three days and $185 later I’ll discover there was a problem with a relay in the fuel line. I did eventually make it home and spent the day with the ‘fam. Time well spent.

Kyle and Zig did eventually manage to resolve the issues with the USB drive and Will, Lee & Adam did eventually head back to the studio and make some progress from what was left of the evening before retiring for the day. I believe they got most of the bass part tracked for one of the songs.

The next day was Thursday and I was looking forward to tracking some guitars in the studio having completely put my sub-par performance on scratch tracks behind me. My car was in the shop now so Lee came and picked me up about 2pm or so from work. As I enter the studio some of the conversations we had on day one begin to revisit my memory. There were several ways a producer can approach working with a band. They can approach it from the rather “hands-off” method which allows the band member’s creativity to more or less run the direction we go with the project, or they can very much hold the reigns. Cut, paste, modify, add and remove as they feel is necessary. And there are of course varying degrees between the two extremes. There was mixed emotions amongst at least one of the members, but in general, we agreed to let Kyle and Zig have full control. It was, after all, their creative input we were paying for in part, and we wanted to take full advantage of how Creswell could sound on record in the hands of capable producers doing what they do best in an uninhibited fashion. So I quickly disabled whatever preconceived notions I had about how I would be playing these parts.

Zig in particular was quite certain that Lee’s 5-string Soundgear bass (Ibanez, essentially) was not going to sound all that great and made a veto attempt early in the process. I thought it a little premature since he hadn’t even heard the thing, but he said he used to own one and wasn’t pleased at all how it sounded. Lee had two, and loves them above all other basses. I wasn’t there when they tracked the bass parts so I don’t know how that discussion went down when it came time to track it, but Lee did wind up using one of his Soundgears and his Ashdown amp, which he’s also quite attached to (neither Zig nor Lee seemed very impressed with the already-racked bass Pod). I’m a pretty big fan of MusicMan Stingray basses myself, and Zig must’ve been too because there were 2 or 3 hanging around the live room as well as a sweet looking older Fender Jazz. Had I been a bass player myself I wouldn’t have even bothered bringing my gear to the studio in favor of Zig’s collection. I thought it primo and was almost a little disheartened to hear they were decided against for the recording, but that all went away when I heard it. It sounded just fine. Lee’s bass gear was not the only thing that received vetoes. Both my Peavey 50 Classic and Lee’s solid state Crate GX1200H and matching 412 cabinet which I’m currently borrowing for live shows. My Peavey was summarily rejected on the grounds of a “No Peaveys allowed” in-house rule. My Gibson Nighthawk did not receive a veto, so much as it was just never even considered in the shadow of “Sophia”, the brand new SRV strat that even I was excited to play and hear. I didn’t mind so much. But I did expect more from the Mesa amp that was there and was very optimistic about those possibilities.

Kyle, Zig and I all sat down and plugged Sophia into the Mesa amp setup racked in the control room with a Mesa 212 in the “live room” with several microphones snugged up to it at several angles and distances, going to a VXP and monitored through the control room speakers. We fiddled with the knobs and buttons, tried all the channels and every combination of settings we could, but unfortunately, we just weren’t getting the sound that we wanted. We wanted a sharper, crisper, crunchier kind of distortion. After hearing some clips from other bands who utilized a studio guitarist that sometimes does work at The Verb, I decided that what I really wanted was that layered Fender Hot Rod DeVille sound. Man, it was beautiful. Exactly what I hear in my head and exactly what I want for the album. So we called the guy that occasionally does guitar work there to see if we could borrow it for a day or two. Or at least try it out. When we finally got a hold of him though he apparently had it with him doing a show or something out of Medford and he would not get back in to town until 7 or 8pm that night, and Zig or somebody would probably have to meet in Salem. So there was no way we’d get anything done that evening even if we could get it that night. We started calling stores all over asking if they rented out amps, and many do. Ape Over Music, Beacocks Music, River City Music, Showcase Music, Apple Music, and of course Guitar Center, who does not “rent” them but does have a 30-day money back return policy. Zig and I climbed in his car and went to Ape Over Music because it was just down the street a ways. I called many of the other places from my cell phone. Nobody had any Fender DeVilles. Showcase had four that had just been loaded up in a truck and left for a festival in Sisters, OR just 15 minutes before I called. It became clear that we were not going to get the amp that we wanted today, so as we approached the five o’clock hour we called Will, who was running some errands with Adam around town, and told him we were going to jump ahead to tracking vocals.

Will started with Immigrant and it seemed like he was struggling a little bit, which wasn’t an enormous surprise considering the conditions under which he had to work. There’s a mental game that goes on with a vocalist I think and preparation is typically a key ingredient to playing that game effectively. To call him up an hour before he’s about to track vocals was a bit of a blindside I think. Plus the songs were a little different. Small parts had been cut from Immigrant that we were now realizing completely changed how the lyrics of the chorus flowed and how the melody resolves. Add to that he was singing to crummy scratch guitars with mistakes and all instead of a pristine powerful wall of guitars like he’s used to and like he expected. Oh, and there’s one other thing that I have to mention. Zig and Kyle setup several mic stands surrounding the stand that actually held the microphone for Will. They used those stands to drape a canopy of blankets around where Will would be standing. This did a couple of things. It created an additional sound dampener that made for a good effect, but it also made that already stifling hot room (due to the lighting primarily), that much hotter for Will who had to stand within this blanket cave. As he sang and did more and more takes of the vocals it started sounding better and better with each take, probably as his comfort level came up. It was sounding pretty darn good by about 6pm when I decided to head home. Again tired, drained, exhausted, and feeling like I hadn’t contributed much of anything as of yet, Adam drove me home and I was more or less on auto-pilot. I crashed when I got home with one fleeting thought in my head: just how different is the Fender DeVille from my 50 Classic? I would soon plead a case for my amp, prove myself and my ability to identify good tone, as well as abolish a carte blanc prejudicial rule about Peaveys.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 12:58 PM

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Monday, September 12, 2005

Creswell in Studio - Days 2 & 3

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