Recording - July 2012 - 13

How do you avoid phase problems? RMB: I’m very old school, so I still know how to look at phase in an oscilloscope; it’s also something I am aware of, and I can just hear it right away. Frank, there were tunes where you were playing behind the vocal, in some instances doing a kind of “call and response”. How did you manage, conceptually, to have the vocal up front, and still have the guitar sound so clear? FG: Boca and I certainly tussled on that, and if I was getting in her way she would say so, and I would try not to step on her toes. But I did a lot of the lead guitar last–that’s my favorite part–when all the other elements are done. She would do a scratch vocal first so I could weave in and out, and this was easier since I wrote a lot of the music and knew the melodies well. There are quite a variety of guitar tones on the album. Can you tell us a bit about how you obtained some of them? FG: Bob always says that the less there is between the signal and the recording medium the better, and I’ve been an adopter of that idea too. For a clean jazz tone, I’ve always felt that the best sound is obtained going direct; I’ve tried miking amplifiers, but there’s always a lot of hair in the tone, it’s a bit fuzzed up. So I just went direct through a Grace Design mic pre. For “Love Set Me Free,” I used an old Ibanez George Benson GB-10, to the Grace, and then direct to Pro Tools, nothing else! The guitar sounds fantastic by itself. It’s like a good bass; most bass players just go through a mic pre and straight in; no adulterations, no change. I think a similar thing happens for jazz guitar. That’s fascinating, because I was trying to imagine what amp could possibly sound that clean. FG: The answer is, no amp! [laughs]

What about for “Open Your Mind” and “Save Me From Myself” which have yet a beautiful, full jazz sound? FG: For those tunes I used a very old arch-top, a ’60s Gibson Johnny Smith, going direct; it has a very sweet tone. “All in the Game of Life” has quite a few different tones; the rhythm part sounded like you triggered a Roland-type modeled sound. FG: You have very good ears, man! What I used was a Roland VG-99. It’s a patch modeling a 12-string, and, if you listen closely, you’ll hear there is a second octave in that rhythm guitar part. I just used a Strat straight into that, then into the Grace preamp, and then into the 003. It had a real processed sound, and I wanted it real “spanky.” What can you share about the funkier “Live Your Dream”? FG: I miked the larger amp for that one and used the middle pickup on the Strat, making it as dry as possible for that funk sound. Can you share something about Victor Wooten’s involvement? FG: We worked together with Chick Corea and that’s how I got to know him. He just sent me his tracks; I did all the original bass lines, and there were some very specific lines, but you can tell where I gave him more freedom. So the basic idea for the bass line on track is 10 yours? It’s so funky!

Interviews by Beto Hale

How did you obtain some of the more aggressive sounds? FG: I went through an amp. I have yet to find a plug-and-go direct box that has a distortion I can even live with. There’s something about the air around a speaker and a microphone, and I like to use two mics: a close mic, usually an SM58, and a room mic, like a KSM32 10 or 15 feet away if I can do it, up in the air so I get a slight delay. This thickens the sound, and I always get great tones this way. Mic placement is a critical factor and the close mic is really critical; I usually place it at the edge of the speaker, nowhere near the center. Which amps did you use for this distorted sound? FG: I’m using a line I helped design from an Italian company called DV Mark (www.dvmark.it). On this recording I used their 12-inch combo a lot. It’s a simple little 1x12 but boy, it’s mighty! For some of the stuff I also used a 4x12 speaker from DV Mark, and a Carvin preamp I designed called Tone Navigator, which is no longer available, going through a DV Mark 1000-Watt solid-state power amp. And which guitar did you use? FG: That was my Carvin FG1, which has a nice, thick hollow-body sound. I love the small-body hollow-bodies’ sound for distortion, because large guitars like the Gibson ES335 were too big for me, which is why I designed this one.

FG: Yeah, it’s my basic part; he put his own spin and inflection on it. Can you describe the room you recorded the guitars in for the album? FG: It’s just a large room in my house, with very little soundproofing. I have some curtains, and some carpet on the floor under the piano, and I’ll just place a mic in the opposite end of the room where the close mic is and I’ll mix the two together. Bob, which other techniques can you share? RMB: In previous projects with Frank, I’d use a U67 or a U87 no more than two feet back; or sometimes TLM170s, or the old silver AKG C414 EB. I have a pair of Shure KSM32s. In the case of stereo cabs the left side would face the left and the right side to the right for more separation and about four to five feet apart. Other times it was a single stereo cab. Sometimes we would double a part and I would just rerecord one side. For me, two mono tracks sound better and fatter than two stereo pairs when doubling, and that’s because of phasing. On acoustic guitar we’ve used
RECORDING JULY 2012

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Recording - July 2012

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