RECORDING October 2022 - 20

Daniel
Lanois
Player, Piano
Photo by Daniel Lanois
that are set up so they can always be sent
to their own channels on the multitrack.
That way, when we are lucky enough to hit
on something, that's cool. I just press record
and print my effects as I go along. I don't
wait for the mix because I do so many effects
passes. It's just too much to remember
for the final mix. And then I also do dubs.
Dubs?
Basically, I'll sample something in realtime
into one of the delay units, in this
case from the piano, and then I spit it
back into the performance at the relevant
harmonic points.
So you're using these delay
units as kind of a sampler?
Yeah, especially the Prime Time. It's
got a sampler built into it. One example
is the second track on the record, " Lighthouse. "
On that song, I played an organ
part that was pretty good, but it was a
little commonplace. When I sampled
it and started 'weirding' it up with the
VCO, I found something special.
Somehow I
arrived
at
this
Astor
Piazzolla effect. If you're unfamiliar with
Astor, he is a great squeeze-box player
from Argentina-one of the best. I would
drop that magic part into specific points
along with the piano performance.
Sometimes effects, like long echoes,
won't work over a chord change because
you will get smearing, like when a major
chord moves to a minor chord, or if one
20 RECORDING October 2022
note in a progression moves a semi-note
up. It will just be a train wreck when the
delay collides into the next chord. So what
I have to do is laboriously go through the
whole performance to punch in my echo
and my effects one chord at a time.
Where do the drum sounds
on Player, Piano come from? A
few remind me of the rhythms
built into an old home organ.
Yes, exactly! On " Lighthouse, " that's a
Suzuki Omnichord-just a little toy. The
Omnichord only has a single output, but my
brother modified this one. He tapped into
all the different sounds, and my Omnichord
has nine outputs. It also has an auto-bass
feature, just like the old 60s home organs
where you could hold down a triad and
sound like a genius. I love that. [laughs]
Am I also hearing live drums
in spots on the album?
Yeah, that's on a track called " Clinch. "
My good friend, photographer Danny
Clinch, is also a good singer, and he sent
me a track to put some steel guitar on. It had
a drum track on it played by Christopher
Thorn. I started screwing around with that
drum track, and I asked Danny and Christopher
if I could use it, and they were thrilled.
I chopped it up and added beaucoup
processing to the point where I came
up with an arrangement with a call response
of two piano parts on top. It's got
so many edits in it.
Photo by Marthe Vannebo
Do you edit and chop up
drums in Pro Tools?
I do it all in the RADAR. I got pretty
good editing on that machine.
So if I'm getting the process
right, you do not hear any
effects or treatments when
you play your initial piano or
instrumental parts. You add those
in multiple passes later and then
do the final mix from there.
I might have a little bit of echo when I
play the initial piano parts, just to 'juice'
me up in the cans, but it's pretty much as
you said. Once I've got a basic performance
that I like, then I'll go to town on
the processing one brick at a time-a
half bar here, half bar there. The crazier,
the better for me.
Since most of what you're hearing on
this record is an acoustic piano, just that in
itself changes things. The touch and phrasing
have a lot to do with it, and then there
are the fundamentals and harmonic ratios
to consider. If I play very lightly and crank
up the preamp, the harmonics become a
big part of the sound, and that causes me
to adjust my playing technique.
One of the big lessons for me on this
record was my phrasing. There's a little
bit of forgiveness with phrasing on the
guitar, but on a piano there is a specific
strike. When you hit the note, that's it.
On " Lighthouse, " for instance, to get
what I wanted, I recorded the left-hand
RECORDING October 2022

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