Recording - March 2012 - 48

What’s more, I had painted (played?) myself into a corner, because the bassist had already played his parts to the programmed drums—more about those bass parts in a moment. So, I had to practice the song over and over again until I felt comfortable and felt like I was grooving with the bass. I didn’t copy the original drum part note for note, but definitely tried to match the overall vibe. CJ did help me with getting the right drum sound so I could eventually relax and just concentrate on my playing. I sent him pictures showing the positions of the mics, and I sent him a drum take for him to listen to a particular mic setup, and he would respond with messages like these:

Contributing players Having CJ in Nashville again proved advantageous, as he was able to recruit multi-instrumentalist Jake Clayton who added violin, fiddle, cello, acoustic guitar and pedal steel on some of the songs, contributing a cool modern-Country vibe to the arrangements. I was fortunate to have Marcelo Berestovoy (a mainstay of the Latin Pop session and touring scene) and Marc Mann (guitar and keyboard session master and film composer Danny Elfman’s orchestrator and MIDI programmer of choice) record guitars to complement the parts I played. Marcelo used a Gibson Les Paul through a Peavey Classic 20 tube amp, which I miked with a Shure SM57 (I used the same setup with the same Les Paul and a Fender Strat). Marc brought in a full-bodied Martin Tom Petty model, which I miked with an AT4050 (a true revelation!). He also brought a black Stratocaster with a GK-series pickup and a VG-8 modeling synthesizer/processor, both from Roland. One thing I learned having Marc in the studio was that you should always have really good lead sheets of the songs written up (which I did) in case the players request them, and also

“I might move the kick mic out a little further so the tip only crosses the threshold of the front head, but it is likely fine where it is. Try to center the snare in the overheads (unless it pushes the cymbals off balance in a weird way). If you measure from the center of the snare to one overhead it should be the same distance to the other from the same point on the snare.” Recording my own drums confirmed how drum overheads are crucial to the drum sound. Since I was tracking in a standard bedroom with not much acoustical treatment (see the photos), CJ recommended I place the mics above my head in an XY pattern so they would more accurately capture the kit’s sound the way my ears perceived it. This technique also helped reduce the sound of any reflection from the walls, and worked well when collapsing the stereo image into mono (something engineers do to make sure any potential phase problems are addressed). CJ saved my bacon when it turned out that a 12-string guitar part I’d recorded for “Pobre Corazón” (track 6 on the album) had some nasty clipping—I’d over-saturated the signal. CJ had a session player in Nashville record two passes of the same acoustic guitar, one with capo and one without, to recreate the sound of the 12-string. The result was quite good. Which brings me to the next stage, that of—
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RECORDING MARCH 2012

have section markers for the song previously organized in your recording software (which I did not...). These two elements save a lot of time and many headaches! Bass guru Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, John Lennon, Paul Simon, King Crimson) recorded all final fretted and fretless bass parts, as well as Chapman Stick, in his studio in Upstate New York. He asked me to send him various tracks, all starting with a click count-off: drums, music—meaning all the other instruments, such as keyboards and guitars—with scratch bass, music without bass, and vocals. For some tunes, I sent Levin certain ideas via email, in which I referenced legendary tracks he had recorded on, for example: “Sube al carrusel” is sort of a trippy tune in 7/4; I was thinking maybe a double stop part à la “Don’t Give Up” could sound cool, at least in the A sections of the song. There is a lot of space without vocals to experiment on in this one. This is another ’60s-ish sort of thing... I’d love the bass to have some bounce, i.e., not be so rooted on the downbeats (nor on the root!) like the part I have there now. I’ve always loved what you played on John Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels”, how you left space and used the upbeats... Anyway, as always, do what you think works best, of course. For another song, “Falling Down”, he played lines that were very similar to mine for the verses, and quite different ones for

Recording - March 2012

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