The Studio: Day Three

The Studio: Day Three (Tracing My Steps)

Today's session was dedicated solely to the production of what is to be the first single off the album: 

Tracing My Steps.

But first, we had to break down all of Ryan's drums and clear them out of the studio. It was a bittersweet moment removing all the microphones that Dave had spent so much time placing to perfection. We also had to take down Dave's bass drum microphone fort. Ryan's little car was, once again, packed to the rear-view mirror with snares, toms, and cymbals. I do have to say, though... tearing down the equipment was a lot less time-consuming than setting up, which was nice after a couple 10-hour days of recording. 

Onward and upward! 

An Old Song With A New Spin

I've been playing Tracing My Steps on the acoustic guitar for years, and I want to beef it up a little bit and give it some new flavor for the album. Not only are we adding more instruments, I've actually ADDED A CHORUS TO THE SONG. Seriously, for four years, the song had no chorus and I always felt like something was missing. It's about time.

In rehearsals with Ryan and Jason, we tried for many hours to lay down a fitting drum beat for the song, but nothing seemed to fit quite right. Frustrated and out of ideas, I decided to take the song into the studio and let Engineer/Producer Dave take a whack at it.

In one of the smaller studios, we begin another exciting journey.

Equipped with the vocal and guitar scratch track and his drum machine software, Dave pieced together sound upon sound with his computer and within two hours, he had a SICK drum groove constructed that was exactly what I had been looking for. You'll hear what I mean when the single is released...

It has almost a latin feel to it.

After a few more tweaks here and clicks there, Dave had the track where he wanted it. 

Here comes the cool part: 

Dave asked Ryan to bring his cajon to the studio today. For those who have never seen a cajon, it's a wooden box-like percussion instrument with metal snares inside that give it a distinct metallic buzz/snap  sound when you whack the side of the "box" ("cajon is Spanish for "box" or "crate")

...Okay, so we didn't have THIS guy recording with us, but I'm sure it would have been a great time. Next time we'll call that guy up to jam with us too...

Dave recorded Ryan playing on bongos, congas, and the newly acquired cajon. We eventually settled on a combination of live instrument recordings and computer-synthesized sounds. Mixed together, you get a realistic sound without the hassle of having to own every instrument under the sun. Computers are a great thing. Sometimes. Well. Most of the time.

Dave setting up the microphones for the cajon and bongos.

Done For The Week

After a few hours, we're ready to call it a night. 

NOW, we take the mixed track that Dave constructed this evening and we send it to Jason, who will put together a nice bass line for the song and we'll all get together to finalize the song arrangement. For now, it's time to take a little break to regroup and prepare for the next recording session dates.

What are my next steps? I will take the drums-and-bass versions of the songs and get together with my guitarist, my string arranger, and other instrumentalists to nail down what each of them will add to the mix in the coming recording sessions.

The next thing we'll be recording is Jason's upright bass and my acoustic guitar.

Until the next session,

Stay tuned!

The Studio: Day Two (The Blue Tape Massage Chair Sessions)

The Studio: Day Two

(otherwise known as the Blue Tape-Massage Chair Sessions)

ask me about my blue tape

Ryan, Jason, and I return to the studio refreshed and ready for round two. Today is going to be much like yesterday. We'll be recording drums and electric bass for the rest of songs on the album. We did the two hardest songs yesterday ("Fallen Hero" and "Body and Soul"), so today should be a breeze. 

Day Two partially brought to you by:

The Massage Chair

I can't believe this actually happened, but it did. Ryan brought his Shiatsu massage chair to the studio! Each time we took a break to eat or change up the equipment, we would take turns using the massage chair. As you will notice in the photo of Engineer Dave in the Day One blog post, Dave is blissfully taking advantage of this magical contraption. That's why he's smiling. I think this chair had a major hand in keeping us sane through the 10-hour days. 

Changing Up the Drums

Each song is different. Each song calls for a slightly different sound. To accommodate those differences, Ryan brought two sets of drums for us to work with (Dave also had about 10 kits worth of drums around the room as well). Today we decided that the more easy-going songs like "Busy Bee" and "Lady" would require a smaller, jazzier bass drum. I didn't dare get too close to the drum kit, in fear of knocking over microphones with my head.

This whole 'playing and singing over and over again' thing was beginning to wear on me as the day went on. Fortunately, during some of the songs, I did not have to play or sing at all. The week before, I had home-recorded a guitar-and-vocal "scratch track" for the drummer to play to. A scratch track is just a temporary, often lower-quality recording that is rhythmically accurate enough to be used as a reference for the recording musicians.  Dave played the scratch track over and over for Ryan's drum track recording. 

Jason the Bassist arrives

Jason arrives and warms up for a few minutes. Ryan takes a short break to eat and sit in the magical massage chair. Jason does amazing things with his instrument. You should see his fingers fly when we play live! 

We record the majority of the songs with Jason and Ryan and now it's time for additional auxiliary percussion like Conga drums and tambourines.

The night is closing in upon us...

It's not all set in stone

We spent about an hour experimenting with different drum sounds for "Sailing", one of my favorite songs on the album. It's such a peaceful song that I don't want to "rock the boat" with too much percussion. We tried shakers. We tried brushes. We even tried rubbing little pieces of paper together to get the perfect sound. We couldn't decide what to use on the spot, so we sampled all three and I took the samples home to let them stew in my mind for a while.

Dave certainly has some great ideas in his head. I sit and watch these ideas unfold as we record. It's really amazing to hear what he sees in his head. Each time I listen to a previous take, I get more and more excited for the album to be done.

Ryan plays the conga drums like a champ. If you don't believe me, you will once you hear the album.

Words with Friends is a great way to kill time while you're waiting for your turn to record. Jason tells me that when he was a kid, he had a huge comic book collection. He found all his comic books in digital form on his iPad and and he now relives his childhood years during studio downtime.

Day Two Finished!

With another day done, we're all completely exhausted, but we're satisfied. We have finished recording all of the drum tracks and about three quarters of the bass tracks. Tomorrow, we'll disassemble the drum kit and work on one of the most difficult songs to perfect-- "Tracing My Steps". For months, Ryan, Jason, and I struggled to find a fitting drum kit groove for this song, as it's so acoustically driven. The parts we came up with in rehearsal always seemed to BIG or too boring. Tomorrow we will see what Dave can do to help.

Good Night. 

-Tim Ruff

The Studio: Day One (Treelady? what's a Treelady?)

The Studio: Day One

With band rehearsals behind us, we packed all of the gear Ryan The Drummer would need for three days in the studio into his small, small car. The look on my face and the huge drum in my lap will tell you how much room we had to spare after packing.

Treelady Studios

(I have yet to ask where the name "Treelady" came from)

Not many people get to see what it's like inside a professional recording studio, so I'm going to do my best to give you an insider view. 

Upon arrival, we were greeted by Engineer/Producer Dave Hidek. He's a really great guy to work with. Patient, calm, yet relentless in getting the BEST recording he can.

Studio A

Their "Studio A" is their main studio area where they do most of their recording, especially for drums. Our first day, our goal was to get the drums set up and get a good start on the drum and bass guitar tracks. Here are some shots of Studio A:

Guitars!

This is just part of their collection of instruments. We have access to every instrument on their wall!

Thankfully we've got almost all our instrumentation planned out. We'd be having a field day picking out other instruments. 

Here is a picture of the studio sauna. Just kidding...this is where the naughty musicians go when they can't behave--in solitary confinement. just kidding again. Actually, it's the isolation booth: a separate recording room sealed off from the rest of the room so that multiple instruments can be recorded at the same time, without the risk of unwanted sounds "bleeding" into the microphones. I spent most of my day in there, playing and singing songs over and over and over until we got some good takes of the drums. 

Here is the view from inside the isolation both. If you look to the bottom left, you spy Jason laying down the bass tracks while Ryan is playing drums. 

Drum Kit Microphones

Setting microphones for a full drum set might not seem too difficult, but it's actually one of the most time-consuming parts of recording. Each of the nineteen drum microphones needs to be set in exactly the right position to get the desired sound. Check out the army of microphones waiting for us as we entered the room!

 Drum tent :)

Dave set this tent up with sound partitions and a sound blanket to isolate the bass drum's microphones from the rest of the kit. I think Dave just likes building forts.







Dave carefully chooses each microphone from their HUGE selection. Each microphone is picked for it's special qualities in recording each different drum sound.

The finished product - It looks like somebody got a hold of the silly string... NOW to RECORD!

Recording Time

There is more than one way to record an album. 

You can record the whole band simultaneously, you can record each instrument one at a time, OR you can synthesize the instruments on a computer. I decided that since I want the sounds to be as real as possible for the listener, I wanted real instruments. Though, recording the whole band at once is time-consuming (especially for a newly formed band that hasn't been practicing for years and years). We decided to record each live instrument one at a time.

Recording happens very quickly-- it must happen as quickly as possible and in a planned fashion, because everything is billed by the hour. That's why the band and I spent hours and hours rehearsing and perfecting the songs so that once we get in the studio, we can get in a get out to keep things cost-efficient. Although we move quickly, we have to keep a steady pace, allowing for breaks. Recording can be mentally and physically tiresome. Things have to be executed perfectly if they're to be crystallized onto a cd.

Day One Finished!

After a LOOONG 10-hour day, we managed to get the drums set up, record three of the most difficult drum songs, and record the corresponding electric bass tracks. It's been an exciting day today, and I look forward to more of this tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll be doing the same thing, but with more songs!  More to come soon.

-Tim Ruff

Pre-Production: Scratch Tracks

Pre-Production: Scratch Tracks

It's a friday night. I'm sitting in my apartment. alone. with my guitar. and a tiny little microphone.

The first step in the recording process, especially when you're recording instruments separately, is to record scratch tracks of all the songs.

For the rest of the band who will be recording one at a time (more or less), having a guitar-vocal track to play to is critical in keeping the timing/rhythm of the song.


My job tonight is to record ALL my songs with solo guitar and voice while a "click track" is playing in my headphones. I record the songs in time with the click track so the band will have the right tempo to play to. This saves a lot of time and editing in the post-production phase of the project.

I'm recording with a small USB microphone called the Snowflake by Blue Microphones. It's small and startlingly inexpensive, but it does the job perfectly.

It's hot in here.

Now it's time to take these scratch tracks and send them to my band and to the studio! Woohoo!