'Where do we go from here? UP' is not only a document of a time period presented to you real and in a way that is raw but it also touches upon the fact that there are things within the room or within our lives that we don't see or hear and we can't always capture or document.
This is duality of 'Where do we go from here? UP'.
Because the songs are a narrative then the vocal is what leads the moment, or perhaps present the moment to you the listener and within in that itself it demanded that I did not mix the band parts too action packed or too loud. It is much more subtle and gentle than you would think, very quiet and very still no "big" bass or drum moments - we served these songs gently and connected to a very beautiful thing, that In a lot of respects sounds totally different to any record that I have ever heard.
These performances are not ashamed to be rough, to be raw, to be quiet and to even be underplayed sometimes. They are unashamed of what they are and as I said earlier as a producer I have had to raise my bar to a much more mature level and let go of thinking that everything has to blow away the listener in volume or be "Action packed". There is beauty in the stillness.
However what was there, sometimes within and sometimes around these performances was the Magic. The moments that were put on straight after the live take to quickly try and capture what ever was in the room with us that we could not hear.
I originally thought that this extra layer would feel more cartoon like, more Disney esque but in actuality and after much work they simply come across better by being treated more real and more like spirits or destiny or actual "Soul - Feelings" that too have actually been captured on tape.
So for instance there are many combinations though out the album that represent the difference between the "live band" take and the "Magic".
All of this surrounds the narrator as he tells you his tale of reconnecting with magic. In unfolds much like a story book and the "Magic" parts can be as subtle as a Guitar part that appears to be floating above the narrator symbolizing a future event - to a much more obvious, Harp and violin part that is coming from some fare off land and into the room.
The difference being that instead of these "Magic" parts tuning in from some nether world it is as if they ARE actually there in the room with the narrator as he tells you the story.
Friday, 21 August 2009
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 4 - Different to the opposite Producer
As you can imagine with this real "In the room" sound, 'Where do we go from here? UP' demanded that the performances not be manipulated in any way. They are real and true to themselves and do not live within the scope that most people make records under.
It is not about a nice sound. It just is what it is. A document. True.
As a producer this was a huge step for me to leave things raw and go with the moments and to not try to make things sound better. I have respected the moments that were recorded and that is all.
The top of my list is to respect the actual song - above all else. So everything has been created to serve the song THEN the moment because that is also how we record - to serve the song and through that we find the moment.
This is not a pop record, it is a document and any work that I have done as a producer on it, is to be see-through and to serve it for what it is. I have not come in here to manipulate it to be something that I would "like" or "wish" for it to sound like.
The only time that anything has been manipulated is if it was something that was a technical fault to the point of getting in the way of the listener listening to the song and/or moment. If there are any, what you could call musical or technical faults within the music itself then it has stayed in the finished record as a document unless it got in the way of the song or the moment.
It is not about a nice sound. It just is what it is. A document. True.
As a producer this was a huge step for me to leave things raw and go with the moments and to not try to make things sound better. I have respected the moments that were recorded and that is all.
The top of my list is to respect the actual song - above all else. So everything has been created to serve the song THEN the moment because that is also how we record - to serve the song and through that we find the moment.
This is not a pop record, it is a document and any work that I have done as a producer on it, is to be see-through and to serve it for what it is. I have not come in here to manipulate it to be something that I would "like" or "wish" for it to sound like.
The only time that anything has been manipulated is if it was something that was a technical fault to the point of getting in the way of the listener listening to the song and/or moment. If there are any, what you could call musical or technical faults within the music itself then it has stayed in the finished record as a document unless it got in the way of the song or the moment.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 3 - Panning with space
So with the individual instruments Eq'd in respect to themselves and to create the space between the players I was left to use the space of everything in between 100% left on a speaker and 100% right on a speaker.
To use the Vocal track as my example - I would now have a vocal that had been Eq'd to sound real just like it would have been there in the room on the day it was recorded. The EQ would also have determined how close to you (the listener) that the singer was.
Now If I just panned (moved) the vocal to the left speaker or right speaker (in varying degrees from 0% to 100%) to create where the singer is placed, then that would still not create the 3D space of the studio for you to hear and for you to feel like you was there with in the room. I needed something more.
What would this be?
Subtle delays.
Instead of panning the vocal (and all of the other instruments) to create it's space I would put a subtle delay created precisely to represent my studio, on to the vocal track. So the vocals needed to be placed at the fore front - to do this I would created subtle delayed replicas of the vocal track and place them behind it and use a blend of the delay either more in the left or more in the right speaker to create a 3D space within which the vocal would sit.
For example if the guitarist was sitting to the left and slightly behind the vocalist then the guitars EQ would be slightly thinner then I would put a subtle room delay onto the Guitars Right channel and not pan the guitar at all but by putting the delay in the right speaker it creates the illusion to you ear (because you are hearing a slightly late guitar in the right) that the guitar is over on the left.
This took me months to get right.
So imagine that - with all of the recorded tracks combined and you can start to imagine the 3D space and "in the room" sound that I have managed to put across.
To use the Vocal track as my example - I would now have a vocal that had been Eq'd to sound real just like it would have been there in the room on the day it was recorded. The EQ would also have determined how close to you (the listener) that the singer was.
Now If I just panned (moved) the vocal to the left speaker or right speaker (in varying degrees from 0% to 100%) to create where the singer is placed, then that would still not create the 3D space of the studio for you to hear and for you to feel like you was there with in the room. I needed something more.
What would this be?
Subtle delays.
Instead of panning the vocal (and all of the other instruments) to create it's space I would put a subtle delay created precisely to represent my studio, on to the vocal track. So the vocals needed to be placed at the fore front - to do this I would created subtle delayed replicas of the vocal track and place them behind it and use a blend of the delay either more in the left or more in the right speaker to create a 3D space within which the vocal would sit.
For example if the guitarist was sitting to the left and slightly behind the vocalist then the guitars EQ would be slightly thinner then I would put a subtle room delay onto the Guitars Right channel and not pan the guitar at all but by putting the delay in the right speaker it creates the illusion to you ear (because you are hearing a slightly late guitar in the right) that the guitar is over on the left.
This took me months to get right.
So imagine that - with all of the recorded tracks combined and you can start to imagine the 3D space and "in the room" sound that I have managed to put across.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 2 - 3D EQ
The 3D album
As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.
Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.
This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".
So I went back to basics.
I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.
Creating the 3D space
First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.
I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.
Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.
Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.
In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.
This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.
EQ - Removing Microphones
I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.
Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.
Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.
Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.
So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.
This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.
Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.
This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.
As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.
Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.
This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".
So I went back to basics.
I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.
Creating the 3D space
First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.
I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.
Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.
Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.
In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.
This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.
EQ - Removing Microphones
I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.
Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.
Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.
Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.
So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.
This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.
Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.
This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.
Monday, 17 August 2009
Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 1 - Recording
One of my greatest moments of listening to any form of music was about five years ago whilst listening to Robert Johnson.
Robert Johnson is a delta blues player from the 1930's and is in my opinion the master.
However what struck me to my core was nothing musical. It was the sound recording, it was the legend of the recordings. When putting this music on I felt like I was listening in to a moment in time some Seventy years ago. On these recordings you can hear this, at the time unknown musician, putting his songs down on tape with one microphone, I felt like I was there with him in the room.
He was saying to me "This is not an art form Richard, this is a document of me in the 1930's recording my songs and you are now here with me whilst I play them".
It was spine chilling.
It was then that I fully realized what had been trying to come through me for about a decade - Music does not have to be presented in some 'Spectacular' way or polished or in a way that we perceive to be perfect. It can literally be a document of a time period and can be true unto itself - just on that level.
But I wanted to take this further, I wanted 'Where do we go from here? UP' to acknowledge itself as a document and not be ashamed or manipulated in any way that would take it away from it truly is. What I also wanted though was to serve the songs and to recognize what this time period actually was - because on a higher level the actual songs themselves are also 'Diary' songs - as in documents of moments of my life. So you could say "Why not just record them on one microphone?"
Well that in itself would be creating something that would come of as "artistic" over the fact of it being "true". I did not want an "Artistic" record but I wanted a true document. That would mean true on every possible level. A true document of the Vocals - Pianos - Drums - Guitars and Bass not only unto themselves but as a whole a true document of the whole band in that particular moment in this particular room.
True foremost to the place that these songs were coming from. Let the narrator tell his tale and let the moment in the room strengthen that.
They are not made up. They are moments of true magic that actually happened.
So with each instrument being given its own microphone(s) we would be ready to go.
Keep in mind that all of the songs are recorded live i.e everyone playing at the same time - just like you would see a live band, real and raw. To push the stakes even further as a producer I try to demand that we record no more than 5/6 takes of each song because usually anything further than that creates a more "thought out" piece which does not sound like an document of time but starts to sound more like a "Record".
"Record" as in what "Records" have evolved into since Robert Johnson - which is a manipulation of sound to either earn money or to please an audiophile ear very rare is it that you get to hear a real moment.
When I was writing 'Where do we go from here? UP' I was writing many songs a day and trying to catch just one each day in the net, then I would put that song down on my dictaphone and forget about it.
After having maybe 50 songs in a 30 day period I had no-idea what we really did have, I was just following the journey.
A couple of months later the band and I came in to record these songs. I would listen to a song from my dictaphone on the morning - once - then when the band came in I would play it to them - live on the piano - tell them the chords, give them maybe 10 - 15 minutes to read the lyrics and think to themselves and that was it. Press record and try to capture the song and the moment as quickly as possible before it became a "thought out" record.
During the recording was where problem No.1 came in. With my studio being so small and the band having to be within a very close vicinity to each other every body's microphone(s) would be picking up each others sound.
So to get around this I had to mic everything very close and this would contradict the "moment in the room" sound. We ended up with a very "Dry" recording. The exact opposite of the room sound. Ultimately I would have had some microphones just dotted around the room to capture the room sound however as I said - in a room as small as my studio this would have just created technical buzz and bleeps that would actually go against the "moment in the room" and would present it as something that it was not.
This was to be a doccument as if you was there in the room not a doccumnet of anything you want.
So with the album recorded I had raw takes, real moments captured on tape. What I did not previously consider though was that I was re-connecting with a feeling that I now call 'Magic' and I knew that this was there in the room with us as we recorded -
How could I capture this?
We would be allowed to 'overdub' (record over the top) the live recordings, the moments and add the magic that we felt was in the room with us. Creating a real moment containing the hidden things that we don't always tune into in life - like spirits or love or destiny.
Robert Johnson is a delta blues player from the 1930's and is in my opinion the master.
However what struck me to my core was nothing musical. It was the sound recording, it was the legend of the recordings. When putting this music on I felt like I was listening in to a moment in time some Seventy years ago. On these recordings you can hear this, at the time unknown musician, putting his songs down on tape with one microphone, I felt like I was there with him in the room.
He was saying to me "This is not an art form Richard, this is a document of me in the 1930's recording my songs and you are now here with me whilst I play them".
It was spine chilling.
It was then that I fully realized what had been trying to come through me for about a decade - Music does not have to be presented in some 'Spectacular' way or polished or in a way that we perceive to be perfect. It can literally be a document of a time period and can be true unto itself - just on that level.
But I wanted to take this further, I wanted 'Where do we go from here? UP' to acknowledge itself as a document and not be ashamed or manipulated in any way that would take it away from it truly is. What I also wanted though was to serve the songs and to recognize what this time period actually was - because on a higher level the actual songs themselves are also 'Diary' songs - as in documents of moments of my life. So you could say "Why not just record them on one microphone?"
Well that in itself would be creating something that would come of as "artistic" over the fact of it being "true". I did not want an "Artistic" record but I wanted a true document. That would mean true on every possible level. A true document of the Vocals - Pianos - Drums - Guitars and Bass not only unto themselves but as a whole a true document of the whole band in that particular moment in this particular room.
True foremost to the place that these songs were coming from. Let the narrator tell his tale and let the moment in the room strengthen that.
They are not made up. They are moments of true magic that actually happened.
So with each instrument being given its own microphone(s) we would be ready to go.
Keep in mind that all of the songs are recorded live i.e everyone playing at the same time - just like you would see a live band, real and raw. To push the stakes even further as a producer I try to demand that we record no more than 5/6 takes of each song because usually anything further than that creates a more "thought out" piece which does not sound like an document of time but starts to sound more like a "Record".
"Record" as in what "Records" have evolved into since Robert Johnson - which is a manipulation of sound to either earn money or to please an audiophile ear very rare is it that you get to hear a real moment.
When I was writing 'Where do we go from here? UP' I was writing many songs a day and trying to catch just one each day in the net, then I would put that song down on my dictaphone and forget about it.
After having maybe 50 songs in a 30 day period I had no-idea what we really did have, I was just following the journey.
A couple of months later the band and I came in to record these songs. I would listen to a song from my dictaphone on the morning - once - then when the band came in I would play it to them - live on the piano - tell them the chords, give them maybe 10 - 15 minutes to read the lyrics and think to themselves and that was it. Press record and try to capture the song and the moment as quickly as possible before it became a "thought out" record.
During the recording was where problem No.1 came in. With my studio being so small and the band having to be within a very close vicinity to each other every body's microphone(s) would be picking up each others sound.
So to get around this I had to mic everything very close and this would contradict the "moment in the room" sound. We ended up with a very "Dry" recording. The exact opposite of the room sound. Ultimately I would have had some microphones just dotted around the room to capture the room sound however as I said - in a room as small as my studio this would have just created technical buzz and bleeps that would actually go against the "moment in the room" and would present it as something that it was not.
This was to be a doccument as if you was there in the room not a doccumnet of anything you want.
So with the album recorded I had raw takes, real moments captured on tape. What I did not previously consider though was that I was re-connecting with a feeling that I now call 'Magic' and I knew that this was there in the room with us as we recorded -
How could I capture this?
We would be allowed to 'overdub' (record over the top) the live recordings, the moments and add the magic that we felt was in the room with us. Creating a real moment containing the hidden things that we don't always tune into in life - like spirits or love or destiny.
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