Recording - September 2016 - 14

upright that I record with the stereo pair of
C414 mics. I have two really nice acoustic guitars that I also play, and a Höfner bass that I
played a lot of the bass tracks with.
There is also a sax player on the album,
and on one song there are 32 handclaps that
I recorded both in stereo with the 414s and in
mono with the TLM 107.
What about your vocals? Did you use the
AEA for most of that?
I used it on a bunch of tracks, but the only
song where it ended up as my keeper lead
vocal mic was the first track I sent Gary,
"You're A Hell of A Woman Mr Sanders", the
Broadway tune that's not on the album. For the
album I used a C414 for lead vocals.
It's a classic workhorse mic that's hard to go
wrong with. Who is the female vocalist on
the album?
That was Molly Mastrangelo. On her vocal I
wanted a bigger sound, so I rented a big studio room and took my RME Babyface with its
built-in preamp and one of the C414s, and she
sang into that.
On your end, Gary, what was it like being a
long-distance producer? How do you establish
a workflow?
GT: At first it wasn't an album project; it started out as a test-mixing...
JS: We were gonna do an EP. Like three or
four songs.
GT: I don't even think that Jack realized what
he had. I think initially he was thinking, "Well,
I'll just mix them and you'll master them."
JS: And that's one reason-if I may jump in-
why people like me need people like you.
Because otherwise I would not have an album. I
would have another fifteen songs done, and I
would still be saying, "When am I ever gonna
have a CD?" because I can't release anything.
I'm reluctant. I needed someone to push me to do
what I should have been doing. I needed someone with outside ears, somebody I could trust.
As Jack mentioned, even the mailman now
has a home recording setup and an album
out. How do you view the role of a producer
in that paradigm?
GT: Part of it is recognizing that the client
doesn't have my experience, so how can I
present it to them without alienating them,
because that's not my intention. My goal is:
how do I make it easy for them to complete
the project?
I really think that readers, clients, and
younger people need to realize that DIY has
become the norm, and that can be a good
thing, but at a certain point you realize: are
you going to be the best piano player you can
be, or the best singer that you can be...
...Or do you want to be a great recording
engineer, or do you want to be a great mastering engineer?
GT: You can't do it all, right?
JS: Not even Bowie did it all.
14

RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2016

GT: It's about recognizing that point when you hit a wall and it's time for
assistance.
Tell me about the technical process... I assume you sent Gary stems of each
individual track?
JS: Yeah, exactly.
GT: He also included the MIDI stuff so I could re-imagine something if I
thought it didn't work. He sent all the audio tracks dry.
So, Gary, you added all the cool effects like the delays, and the doubling, and...
GT: Yeah. Except, here's one thing I will mention. If you are in love with a
particular effect on a track that you are sending to a producer or mix engineer, print it on a separate track and send it along with the dry one.
JS: That's a good idea.
GT: There was one song that Jack had an echo on, and what I did was
replace it with a better effect in the mix, but I replicated his idea.
There is a very subtle but cool use of "ear candy" on the record, like the
vocal doubling effect on "My Dinosaur".
JS: I had no idea Gary was going to do that.
GT: That was probably the hardest vocal part to work with on the album. I
contacted Jack and I said "What the hell did you do to the vocals on
'Dinosaur'? There is no way that is a raw track!" And he goes...

Jack Spann's New York studio
Uh-oh, I think I see where this is going!
GT: Yeah. He said, "No, I didn't do anything!" I said, "You have a compressor on there and I can't uncompress the compressor." Well, we ended up
keeping that track 'cos he couldn't get me anything else at the time, and it
was so hard to come up with a scheme to make that vocal work.
JS: That is so funny, because it was right after I bought the LA-610. I had
never used that compressor before! First song I ever used it on. Sent it to Gary,
and then it was too late!
Well call it a happy accident because it turned out great in the end. What
delays and effects did you use. Do you have any favorites?
GT: Absolutely. I would say the SoundToys stuff is hard to beat.
What about other processing? Do you stick mainly to Pro Tools' own EQs
and compressors, do you have any favorites that you prefer?
GT: The list is huge, but my favorite tools du jour are from McDSP.
Earlier, you were telling me a cool story about how you un-quantized the
quantized drums on the album.
GT: On one song Jack said, "I've got this [MIDI] drum part that I put down,
but it doesn't sound right." So instead of the MIDI files, I told him to render out
the individual drum tracks as WAV files.
JS: I think I was using the Kontakt Abbey Road drums... I used the late Beatles one.

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