Recording - March 2012 - 18

When I talked to Jason he referred to it eloquently as a “Sonic Thumbprint”. Do you remember what that was for this record? JJ: I think the idea on Emmy’s record was how we were gonna track it... the trio. GR: I definitely think in conversations it was a “less is more” approach rather than an overdubfest. We wanted ear candy but we wanted to hear it and not over-layer it. Jay, do you alter your approach from artist to artist, or with singer/songwriters vs. an actual band like, say, Cage The Elephant? JJ: I never do two records they same way. I mean, obviously my studio is the same, but the approach I try to do differently on every record. I am about to get into a record now where we don’t even know what we are recording—we’re gonna get in there, start making some grooves and see what happens! On other records, we spend a year going through 60 songs to find the 12 best songs. Even the tracking, I don’t think we have done a record like we did with Emmy ever before, so it’s always different, whether it’s a singer-songwriter or a band. Is there anything you do the same every time? JJ: One way I like to work typically on every record is to do a song a day. No matter how good or bad you are, there is no reason why you can’t get a great track and finish it that day. If you do it that way you are making a story, you’re making an album, you’re making a film. I have never been a fan of, “We are doing guitars this week, next week we are doing vocals”. A singer sings differently every time they sing, so I want to get them every day. I want to get it now and build a whole song! GR: It’s a lot more of a fun way to work and less of an assembly line. It creates more of a team effort and everyone stays inspired. It helps keep the project focused, because when you are starting the third and the fourth song, you already know what the first and the second ones sound like. To wind this down, any advice for young engineers starting out? JJ: I would say: Get in a band. Be in a band for like 4–5 years, so you can learn how to work with people. I came from bands first and had to learn how to deal with egos and personalities and what battles to fight and not to. That’s the problem I see with a lot of young people coming up—they want to be producers or engineers but they have never gotten into a situation where, for a long period of time, they had to deal with egos. Dealing with people is something that’s really important and completely overlooked in schools. I mean, anyone can make music on their computer in their bedroom, but the real magic happens when you are with people, and that’s what it’s all about. Any advice on gear choice? JJ: For me, the older I get, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you record—if it’s magical. I have done records on a 4track cassette that were every bit as good as a full-on recording studio. A lot of people think making a great record is about working, but in my opinion it’s about getting lucky and taking a great photograph.
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RECORDING MARCH 2012

Sure I am a bit of a gear nut, but I try not to get bogged down in that anymore. Put a mic up and get a great performance, that’s the hard part. You run a U47 through a Neve into a nice LA-2A and you can’t go wrong, no matter what you put it on— again, if what you record is magical. GR: You need to know yourself, and be inspired by the gear even if it does not have the best specs. It’s a balance of gear that’s cool, and getting the gear that works for you. Also, you don’t need to buy it all at once, it can be overwhelming, it’s better to learn one piece at a time.

Jason Hall
As the tracking engineer, what can you tell me about recording Hard Bargain?

Jason Hall, Emmylou Harris, and Jay Joyce Jason Hall: The main thing for us early on was to establish a “Sonic Thumbprint” for the record. One way we facilitated that was by keeping the band small, with the same musicians on every song. What was the setup like? From an engineering standpoint, one thing we wanted to try and do was figure out how to get live performances, but make it seem like a bigger band than it actually was. So one thing we would do was to make sure we had a really great acoustic/vocal setup going and still maintain a tracking energy and vibe, with Giles on keyboard or drums and Jay on guitar or bass. What was Emmylou’s vocal mic? She was singing on a Neumann U69 which is a stereo U67, and we were just recording one side of it for the most part. Sometimes we would point the other capsule away from her and get some ambience, but I am not sure if that actually made it to the record. How about acoustic guitar? We had to try and capture the acoustic guitar and the vocal without an unusable amount of bleed between the two. So we played around with miking the acoustic guitar with mics with figure-8 patterns. We used a Royer R-121, or an old AKG C12 which sounds fantastic on an acoustic. The reason we used the figure-8 pattern was because the null point is exaggerated ; we could get better isolation than with a typical cardioid condenser mic. We tried to aim the null point of the mic to where her mouth was. We also had to be careful to have the two mics on the same plane for phase issues.

Recording - March 2012

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