New Monday
New Monday #61
Happy Monday!
Remember Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials on TV?
Some guy walking around with a chocolate bar would trip and collide into another guy who was conveniently walking around with an open jar of peanut butter. And the chocolate bar would slam into the peanut butter and snap off, and each guy would have a chunk of chocolate with peanut butter on it. And then they would yell at each other:
“You got peanut butter on my chocolate!”
“Oh yeah? Well YOU got chocolate in my peanut butter!”
Then they would pause, and take a bite of their chocolate/peanut butter hybrid, and of course they would be delighted. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are awesome. Two great tastes that taste great together.
It's the very definition of a Happy Accident.
This is all thoughtless thought. The commercial doesn't show people pondering, “What would peanut butter and chocolate taste like together?” Instead, things are physical. People collide, shit happens, and the result is awesome.
This is EXACTLY what you want to go for in your creative work.
Don’t just think about it. Get it out into the real world and try it. Force a happy accident, an unintended experiment.
Your brain is not capable of thinking the wrong thought. You can’t make a “mental typo.” You can’t think “tree” and by accident think “three.” You can think of rhymes, but that’s not the same as misreading something, mishearing something, accidentally getting chocolate in the peanut butter, etc.
But you could point to a tree, stumble on your own tongue and say, “Look at that beautiful three.” And Beautiful Three might strike your ear, and suddenly you're writing a song about a father, a mother, and a child, or a love triangle, or three high school girls killed in a car accident, etc. It all rolls out of making that mistake and then recognizing the value of the idea.
Your brain is also syncretic. It can’t think of a new idea. All it can do is remember old ideas and combine them in different ways. You can think, “I wonder what Z might be like if I did X and Y?"
But if you take that thought and try it physically in the world outside your head, you might be able to force a happy accident.
Don’t Work in Your Head
If your brain can only think of what it can think of, and it can’t make mistakes, then you need to work in the tangible world where someone can walk by and get peanut butter all over your chocolate. Where you can misread your own handwriting. Where you can accidentally play the wrong notes. Where you can mean to put blue on it but accidentally stick your brush in red. Where you can drop something. Erase something. Where you can mishear someone's mumbles.
Don’t write music in your head. Write it on an instrument—maybe on an instrument you really can't play. Screw with the tuning. Have everyone in the band switch instruments—that's what they did to record this mega-hit. Great stuff. The playing is such a mess!
Mishear stuff. Tune a radio to a station you never listen to, put the volume way down, and go into another room and wash the dishes. You'll hear little bits of melodies and words, tiny quiet snips of music. Your brain will try to assemble it into some sort of song. Get a bit of inspiration and then write that song down.
Add something random. John Lennon turned on a radio during the mono mix of I Am the Walrus and it was printed into the mono mix master tape. It also happened to work perfectly. At 2:00 you’ll hear the sound of him tuning in the radio.
You’ll also notice from this point on that the mix sounds really weird. The radio part was added to the mono mix, so when it came to the stereo mix, they had to splice in the mono mix, but did some processing to it so it sounded somewhat stereo. Whatever. It's very cool. And it’s absolutely an accident, a very happy one.
Also, they mixed the snare too low on the drums on the left side, so they overdubbed someone hitting a chair with a spoon in the center to reinforce the snare. The Beatles were all about happy accidents.
Use the wrong mic. Play with one finger.
React to problems in a positive manner. I tracked a really quiet drum part that was played with brushes. We had mics close and the preamps cranked to get all the details. I forgot that the ending of the song was really loud, so we're cruising along and suddenly the drummer switches to sticks and bashes the hell out of things, mic overload, preamps overload—it is total distorted mess. It sounded great. Kept it.
A guitar player had to cut a solo part. I snuck into the studio and totally cranked up his amp. He rolled up his guitar volume as I punched in and surprise, surprise! Everything exploded in feedback. The result was wonderful. Kept it.
Have the singer sing while screwing with their headphone volume.
After you complete a mix, go through and click randomize on every plug-in you can. Record that, then mix it with the other mix. Use the randomize buttons in general.
Use outboard or plug-ins designed for one thing somewhere else. Put vocal processors on bass. Use drum presets on guitars. Put guitar pedals on everything.
I had a dog named Buster I used to bring to recording sessions all the time. I did one series of sessions where I just decided I would always try to record my dog. So we had a mic set up and every now and then I would hold him in front of the mic and get him to growl and bark and make noises. Sometimes it was really cool and we kept it. It only had to work once or twice, in a long fade out or something or during a guitar solo.
Best Happy Accident Ever
Tommy James and the Shondells had a hit in 1967 called I Think We’re Alone Now. Huge record.
They were in the studio to work on their next single, and the engineering staff went to play I Think We’re Alone Now in the control room, but the tape was on the reel-to-reel wrong, and the song played backward.
And they liked it, and wrote their next single based on it. They named the song Mirage, which is bizarrely appropriate. And it became the follow-up single to I Think We’re Alone Now.
We made a quick recording so you can hear how these two songs are really the same thing.
The Luke Law
I came up with this as a way of forcing happy accidents and keeping my momentum up while painting. It works for anything though.
The Luke Law is: do the next thing that comes to your head no matter what, no matter how stupid it might be, no matter how destructive it might be. The Luke Law believes that going forward is better than sitting there thinking.
As an example, I was working on a painting and got stuck. And what popped into my head was, “Paint the person red.” I sighed, because I knew this would probably wreck the painting, but the Luke Law must be obeyed. Promptly. So I painted the figure red, and promptly wrecked the painting. In a desperate attempt to fix it, I started painting over the red figure with white. The net result was a strange-looking white figure with bits of red showing through all over. And it looked really cool. Kept it.
Go make some accidents this week. Come up with some ideas and execute them in the physical world. Get out of your head.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #60
Happy Monday!
How is your brain? Mine is a pain in the head. It's lazy. It procrastinates, especially when it has something difficult to do, like write another New Monday for you all. My noggin has trouble making decisions, especially when I'm tired. It can fall into loops of judgment: "This is no good. This isn't very innovative. Everyone has heard this before. You have no talent. You should take a nap. Let's do it after the nap. You're always taking naps. What is wrong with you?"
It always wants to pull me, or push me, into something that seems too easy or too familiar: "Don't experiment. Just get the burger. You love burgers." It can be like riding a bike, and the tires keep going into a rut on the road.
By design, brains are very energy-use conscious and have a "there are starving children who would love to eat that potato salad" attitude towards everything. Brains want to conserve energy. They never want to get off the couch. They know it burns a lot of calories to think, so brains try not to—because who knows how the next mammoth hunt will go (evolutionarily speaking). Brains are into fast answers, copying, finding repeatable patterns, outsourcing, muscle memory, habits—anything to avoid thinking.
Creative brains also like to problem-solve. I'm often stuck with half my brain fascinated by something it wants to play with, and the other half complaining from the bedroom, "Just come in here and watch Star Wars again."
Defining the Problem
People say, "Get out of your head." Exactly. What we want is to have thoughtless thoughts. My thinking often devolves into a familiar thought pattern—a rut, or into a judgment loop, or some other mental activity that saps my energy and resolve.
But I also experience lots of moments of inspiration, where some idea comes slamming in, jumping the ruts and judgment. It's fresh and energetic, and off I go writing, playing, or painting, or what have you. It's a great feeling. The thoughtless thought.
Remember back to your last bit of creative work and you'll sense its structure is similar to telephone lines hung on a few telephone poles. The poles are inspiration. The telephone line is technique: how to form a sentence, load a paintbrush, cycle through chord changes by fifths.
The creative act is stringing technique wire between phone poles of inspiration.
This is exactly a song: there's an inspiring idea, and then a bunch of music theory or familiar hand movements, or something you nicked off a Jamiroquai record, and hopefully there's another phone pole of inspiration at the start of the chorus.
Great songs have a couple of inspired moments, like this:
Love – "Alone Again Or". I'm going to have to do a whole thing on this album.
Some songs have one inspired moment, and then the rest of it is like an injured duck waddling around. Technique. There are tons of songs like this:
AC/DC – "Thunderstruck" Notice how unquantified the opening guitar part is? Also, how Malcolm Young's rhythm part just makes it happen?
Eddie Money – "Baby Hold On" Good riff but it never gets beyond it, really.
There are songs that are ALL technique, and the only inspired bit is the concept or the title:
A lot of stuff is built around some sort of sound someone stumbled on, and that's all there is for inspiration:
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – "Relax"
On second thought, it's a good melody too, using those four notes, so maybe it's a bit more than the bass sound.
Obviously, anything might work.
Also, quite obviously, there are two ways to get better at making creative stuff: get better at the inspiration stuff, and/or get better at the technique stuff.
For the next few weeks, we're going to look at how we get better at the inspiration stuff. I'll be tossing you all a boatload of ideas pulled from records, research, and my own 10,000+ hours in the studio. But that is for next week. I don't want to have these things go above 1200 words.
In the meantime....
Bowie's Daughter
This came out a few days ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a98wIRa_reA
Lexi Jones is the daughter of David Bowie and Iman Abdulmajid. Lexi is twenty-four, a visual artist and designer, and she put out an album, Xandri, on April 2nd. It was a very low-key release, just some snips on her Instagram. Her YouTube channel has 235 subscribers as I write this.
I can't find out much about it. I don't know who played on it, where it was recorded. There are indications that she wrote the songs and played and produced it, but who knows. It's not on a major label—she put it out herself using DistroKid. I'm guessing that was her choice—what label would turn down Bowie's kid?
I had a hard time finding a representative song. The recording is all over the place. It sounds like songs cut at different studios, or at least at different levels of quality. There's radically different levels of playing on it too. There is something, though, consistent about the songwriting. It sounds like it was all written by one person.
The vocals... there's something pitchy about them. Like they were either corrected but not all the way, or that they weren't corrected at all and the pitch issues are just what's there.
One thing I'm clear about: she has a gorgeous, rich, round, natural voice. She doesn't know how to use it yet, but if she figures that out and gets the songwriting together, Alexandria Zahra Jones could be a thing.
There's another Lexi Jones. She's from the Midwest and her YouTube has about the same number of subscribers as, uh, Lexi Jones.
Here's a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv0bhC20OhM&list=RDEMTHEEcg-BUicMpgOX0o_dwA&start_radio=1. It's about the Kansas City Royals.
Well, look at the time! Have a great week.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #59
Haaaaaapppppyyyy Monday,
Episode 59 of New Monday is PACKED. Maximum experience requires listening and reading along. But there's no rush.
Start with a link below. It’s around 7 minutes long. No vocals. Keep it on in the background if you wish.
(Listen for a bit, and then read on. I’m trying to write somewhat in sync to the song. Maybe read the next paragraph after 5 or 10 seconds?)
I’ve come to the moment in my life where I have to write about AIR, a duo from France that released an astonishing debut album, Moon Safari, and followed up with a bunch more music, all consistently good.
AIR is not overly original. It’s loosely electronica, or pop, or chill out, lounge, or trip hop—all that. None of that.
AIR is low-key and can easily fade into the background of whatever you’re doing, but it can also be hooky as hell and catchy as the flu.
There’s a lot of the gas of Pink Floyd in AIR, especially that ii-V progression. AIR slings ii-V around the way Taylor Swift mines variations on I-vi-IV-V. But there’s also a “Frenchness” to AIR. It has the cool insouciance of a Serge Gainsbourg record, perhaps filtered through Kraftwerk and the Krautrock Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunkel listened to while growing up in Paris.
Moon Safari is a reference to a Ray Bradbury sci-fi novel in which characters travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs. The whole album has a science fiction flavor to both the lyrics and instrumental parts that could be pulled from the soundtrack of Forbidden Planet. Moon Safari isn’t so much about hunting on the moon as it is about hanging out in the lounge at a spaceport, smoking, drinking, etc. Not so much the hunt, more the afterglow.
(It’s the same thing over and over again. La femme d’argent was the opening track on Moon Safari. How awesome is this to simply drift away with it?)
There’s a lot of Motown, especially James Jamerson, in AIR. Moon Safari, and AIR albums in general, are all about the bass. The sound is thin and dry—it’s an old Hofner, not the Beatle bass but the club bass. Nicolas Godin bought it because it was cheap. He plugged it into a little guitar amp for Moon Safari.
Jean-Benoît Dunkel is a classically trained keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist. He tends to favor old, analog synths. In the early days of AIR it was because it was all he could afford. Now, it’s because that's the sound. Among the synths were a Korg MS-20, a Moog Minimoog, an old Fender Rhodes, and some past their prime analog drum machines they bought for cheap—a Linn 9000, a TR909 and a CR78.
They had no money for fancy effects units; instead, they plugged into guitar pedals for flanging, phasing, echo, and distortion and tracked things exactly how they wanted them to sound. The two played most of the instruments on the album with friends occasionally adding parts. They also sang, generally disguising their voices with vocoders. They also had friends contribute vocals, especially singer/songwriter Beth Hirsch. More on her later.
Basic tracks were cut in an apartment studio and then an abandoned house. Strings were added at Abbey Road in London, some final touches back in Paris at Gang Studios (they have a gorgeous vintage API), and then mixed at Studio Plus XXX on an SSL. Which was total overkill...
...because Moon Safari is an 8-TRACK RECORDING. The duo used a Fostex D80 locked up to an AKAI S1000 stereo sampler along with an Atari ST running Cubase. They later moved up to an old Mac.
(I have no idea how fast you read or where you are in the song, but dig that distorted Fender Rhodes solo—tracked through a Big Muff.)
Moon Safari made a minor ripple in France on its release in 1998. The first single was a decent club hit in the US and got to #13 in the UK. The album’s stature grew. It's now considered a classic, one of the best albums of the 90s and tremendously influential. AIR still makes records, never veering far from their origin but always coming up with something slinky and singable. The duo scored the film The Virgin Suicides and placed songs in movies and TV shows. Moon Safari kicked the door open for them. Bad metaphor. Moon Safari knocked on the door and whispered, “Let me in...” breathless, with a French accent.
Juxtaposition
A central concept in art is juxtaposition. Placing two things together, perhaps disparate things, and the combination reveals a new meaning perhaps, or an expansion of meaning. AIR is all about juxtaposition, from the mixing of styles to the blend of acoustic and electronic instruments, to the DIY nature of the way they record.
The videos of the singles off Moon Safari are wonderful examples of juxtaposition and how additional meaning is generated.
All I Need
This first video is for All I Need. The vocals and lyrics are by Beth Hirsch. The video was directed by Mike Mills (not the bassist of REM). He filmed a real couple in California, documenting their lives and their thoughts on each other, underscored by the music. You do lose the song a bit, but there’s something captivating about the couple, their vulnerability and honesty.
Spoiler alert: don’t read further 'til you watch the video.
The spoiler is that this couple broke up. This is a lovely little documentary about something that’s extinct. For me, it changes the song, bringing out the intrinsic sadness. Beth Hirsch sings “All I need,” but it’s evident that not all needs are fulfilled. Love it.
Kelly Watch the Stars
Kelly Watch the Stars was inspired by actress Jaclyn Smith, who starred on Charlie’s Angels as Kelly Garrett. The guys in AIR decided she was the most beautiful woman in the world at the time, but the song seems to be about outer space. The lyrics are basically “Kelly watch the Stars” over and over, with some sci-fi film squirps and burbles. Juxtaposition already. The video, again by director Mike Mills, spins it off in another direction entirely—and with a different mix than the album too! A really fun video!
I get a thrill out of great ideas.
Juxtaposition is a power thought tool to have in your production or songwriting bag of tricks. It's a thing many use but few in a conscious way. When you're lost for an idea, perhaps think about adding something that makes no sense... and then seeing if the whole thing makes more sense.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #58
Happy Monday!
I started watching Severance Season 1 a few weeks back, and the first thing that struck me was the music. It’s amazing.
No Spoilers
There’s a mysterious company, Lumon, which is located in a town somewhere in the Hudson Valley of NY, where there’s always snow on the ground, and the cars are from decades ago, when boxy was the new sexy. The decor at Lumon is neo-Danish minimalism from the 60s, the technology is analog—film cameras and cassette recorders—except there are computers with bitmapped graphics. But somehow, the company can do brain surgery in the office with a rechargeable drill, inserting a chip that divides their personality and memory in half.
One half, the “Outie,” continues on in life as normal. The other, the “Innie”, exists only on the Severance Floor of Lumon. When the Outie steps into a particular elevator at Lumon, the personality switch happens, the Innie steps out and works all day at a job that neither worker nor audience can figure out. The twist that drives the whole shebang forward: the Outie and Innie are basically separate people who know of each other, but have never communicated and have no idea what the other’s life is like.
Season One starts slow but dang, is it captivating. The story hooks in and pulls you along by the head and the heart—by turns it’s thrilling and hysterical—there’s wonderful acting, a wicked, bizarre visual design sense to everything, and fabulous music by composer Theodore Shapiro.
Mr. Shapiro is a major film composer with credits all over the place: Dodgeball, Tropic Thunder, The Devil Wears Prada, Wet Hot American Summer, Captain Underpants—an eclectic credit list that lets the composer stretch out in all directions. He’s won two Emmy awards for Severance. It’s relentlessly inventive music.
The score of Severance is minimalist, in keeping with the visual design, usually not much more than a piano and often built out of repeating four-chord sequences, but man, does he get mileage out of it. Like the characters, the music seems split. Like the overall aesthetic of the show, there’s something dreamlike and ominous happening in the music, leavened by cultural references and a healthy dose of humor.
Here’s a video of the opening credits. That electronic stutter at the end is edited snippets of a single piano note.
I found this longer breakdown of the opening music that gets into the chord changes and dissonance and makes clear why there’s always an element of jazz tickling your ear. No spoilers in this video.
But there are spoilers in this interview with the composer, so don’t read it unless you’ve been watching. Severance is full of surprises—as is the music—and surprises are what make life worth paying attention to.
Season 2 Opener
Season 2 Episode 1 kicked open with the hero, Mark S, played by ever quirky Adam Scott, getting off the elevator and running like a maniac around the Severance floor. Watch it now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAE3bC1RZY
The camera work is amazing—fluid and exciting, a mixture of digitally controlled cameras and a handheld. It and the music impart a sense of energy and thrust to what is essentially a confused man running around a white hallway.
The music is Burnin’ Coal by pianist Les McCann. It swings and it cooks—jazz with a heavy dose of soul music to it. The original recording, cut live in the studio in 1969, goes on for over six minutes. For this scene, the music was pruned to fit the video, and the video pruned to fit the music, with a string rise added at the end to pull us into the mystery and world of the show.
Les McCann
McCann was a pianist and singer. He’s one of the innovators of “soul jazz,” jazz with an emphasis on more straightforward R&B rhythms simple structures, and a social conscience. The Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s Mercy Mercy Mercy, Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder, music by Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott, organist Jimmy Smith—soul jazz. McCann’s music was intimately connected to the civil rights movement and his live recording of Compared to What was a hit — here’s video of it from the Montreux Jazz festival.
Les McCann had a way with really simple piano parts.
Burnin’ Coal is on McCann’s 1969 album Much Les. It’s a forgotten masterpiece.
Much Les has a bit in common with Roberta Flack’s debut album I wrote about a few weeks ago: same studio, Atlantic in New York City, same producer, Joel Dorn. Same console, same tape deck, and the same warm, wooly sound. I love the sounds of these recordings: hard-panned mono tracks, room sound rather than artificial reverb, everyone yelling to each other.
We made a Soul Jazz playlist for you here.
For those that have watched the show—spoiler alert— here’s a video of director Ben Stiller and actor Adam Scott discussing the thinking behind the scene. It’s a treat to see the collaboration between these two. They also go into detail on how the camera movements were accomplished, what’s CGI and what isn’t, and the demands of putting such a scene together. It’s really an interesting video and worth the watch.
An Easter Egg
Severance is full of Easter Eggs, and we’re coming up on Spring, so here’s a fun thing for you all: a Severance-themed Sale!
Mark’s Innie is part of a four-person crew at Lumon that is the Macro Data Refinement team. They’re often referred to by the initials “MDR."
Is it a coincidence that Korneff Audio has an MDR, our Micro Digital Reverberator?
Get it now for 50% off by using the code severance-50. The Sale is ‘til Wednesday at 11:59pm EST.
That’s all for this week. A lot of you all wrote in regarding Peter Frampton—thanks for that. It’s always a treat to hear from you all.
Uh oh! Time for S2 E4 of Severance...
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #57
Happy New Monday!
I wrote a complete New Monday on another topic entirely, and then a video popped up, and I have to share it with you, so that’s what you get today.
This is absolute joy personified. It’s six minutes of why all of us love music, love making music. You don’t have to read anything else in this episode of New Monday, the entire point is the video. Watch it and crank it up!
Everybody on that stage is euphoric! I’ve watched this repeatedly and it makes me cry every time. Is it the rapture on their faces? Is it that the band is totally kicking ass? Is it me remembering my own time on stages in clubs, in studios with the 24-track 2” playback slamming through the bigs? All of that.
And it’s seeing Peter Frampton, where he loves to be, on stage and playing.
He's sitting because he’s battling Inclusion Body Myositis. It’s an inflammatory muscle disease. One gets progressively weaker as muscles waste away. The muscles around the knees weaken. The distal muscles — in one’s toes and fingers, weaken. It doesn’t shorten life, but it takes one down a hell of an awful path, especially if what you do requires fine motor control of your hands.
Mr. Frampton has battled many things. He went from sideman to rock god to teeny-bopper idol. He made a terrible movie and lost artistic credibility. In 1978 he was in an awful car accident that led to years of drug abuse and alcoholism. Things took an upturn in the late 80s when he toured with his childhood friend David Bowie on the Glass Spider tour. He credits that with reviving his career. Since then, he’s gotten sober. He’s been able to release records constantly, tour, and do what he loves to do. No longer an idol; now he’s a respected elder statesman. There are the ramifications of IBM—he performs sitting, and he himself notices that he has to think more when he plays—but as you can see in the video, he’s in his element. And he’s announced tour dates!
The Late Show Band is as good as it gets: Louis Cato, Joe Saylor, Nêgah Santos, Louis Fouché, Endea Owens, Jon Lampley, Corey Bernhard. They do a rave-up ending on Do You Feel Like We Do, and then, after a quick four-count, they roll straight into a jazz number under the credits. Fantastic players.
Frampton Comes Alive
Frampton Comes Alive made Peter a household name in 1976. It spent 10 weeks at #1 in the US and charted for nearly two years. It was the best-selling album of 1976. I drew the album cover on my French notebook in middle school.
The record was tracked at various smaller venues on the East and West coasts of the US. He was not yet playing stadiums, but places like the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and The State University of New York in Plattsburgh. It was recorded to 2” tape at 15 ips. The slower tape speed ensured they could catch all of the songs like Do You Feel Like We Do, which went on for fourteen minutes. It was mixed on the Datamix console at Electric Lady in NYC by Chris Kimsey, who produced Peter’s previous albums.
Chris Kimsey is a monster producer/engineer and worked with everyone. That great clutch of late 70s/early 80s Rolling Stones albums—Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, and Tattoo You—that’s all Chris Kimsey. Fantastic sonics on those records. My favorite drum sounds!
There were a couple of quick fixes on Frampton Comes Alive—microphones moved out of position on a couple of songs, a piano part had to be overdubbed for an intro section, but other than that, everything you hear on Frampton Comes Alive was recorded live. He had a fantastic band: Bob Mayo, Stanley Sheldon, and John Siomos.
Highly recommended quick read: An Oral History of the Making of Frampton Comes Alive. It’s a really interesting look at what happened by the people who made it happen.
That Black Guitar
Peter played a black 1954 Les Paul with three pickups on Frampton Comes Alive. “Phenix” was his main guitar for a decade until 1980. He was touring South America, and the cargo plane carrying all of the band’s equipment crashed right after take-off. It was full of fuel. The plane exploded, burned for hours, killing six crew members. It appeared all the band's instruments were destroyed.
But Phenix survived. It was somehow stolen from the wreck and eventually wound up in a guitar shop on the island of Curaçao. Long story short, thirty-one years later, Peter was reunited with his beloved instrument. Evidently, he knew it was his sight unseen: when he was handed the guitar in a gig bag he knew it by its weight. And it’s still his main axe, as you can see in the Late Show clip. Man and guitar, a bit dinged up but going strong.
Here’s a video about the guitar and its journey.
Do You Feel Like We Do?
As long as we’re on Peter Frampton, here’s a wonderful interview with Rick Beato. It’s a great conversation. Mr. Beato has a unique capability to open people up.
No time to watch the whole thing? Here’s the story of how Do You Feel Like We Do was written. It helps to jam with a band.
I think I have to see that Late Show performance again. There’s no day that couldn’t use more joy and music.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #56
Happy Monday, all!
Headphones recommended! I highlighted some things you can listen for.
The opening is meticulously constructed:
Some slowed-down guitar whammy noise on the right, then two backward thumps on the left.
Three guitars - an acoustic and two electrics?
A bass note - the bass part overall is omnipresent yet unnoticeable.
What sounds like a backward strum on the left turns into a normal acoustic guitar part on the right, as the drums and the main riff kick in.
Sonar ping - like from an old war movie. Dead center. It happens around the 4 of each measure, slightly after it. I can’t exactly count it. Woodblock? A voice?
Drums
Very dry, very tucked — a sharp contrast to “the snare must be heard at all costs!” mentality of contemporary recordings. I think there are multiple overdubs. There’s a ride and snare kind of center to right, a floor tom to the left. Verse and chorus are almost the same thing, but at the turnaround, there’s a snare-floor tom-rack-tom fill (right to left to center) distinctly slowing the tempo for a moment. Love this change-up in feel. Don’t think this was cut to a click track.
Vocals
Very straightforward in the verses. Wet and pulled back a bit. An occasional double. The chorus is at least three tracks, with a phased sounding delay/reverb swooshing thing pulling to the sides - left then right?
Guitars
Graham Coxon is a very underrated player. 2nd verse is like a punk/modern take on Little Wing. The solo is three guitars. He cut the parts sitting on his amp, hence feedback. Coxon was into grunge and you can really hear it here. The solo could be off a Soundgarden album.
The Chorus
Oh my! Rich and swirling! A total uplift! Vocals! Cymbals! Guitar lead lines, an organ, a mellotron!
A Break after the solo. ...but then things come back in distinctly out of time.
Vamp Out
It’s a chorus that’s slightly abbreviated. They repeat it twice and then there’s a very audible edit at 4:33 - on the word “find.” My guess is they repeated the vamp a bunch and then decided to cut it down. I can’t be sure, but it sounds like they edited the master and didn’t quite nail it — the F of “Find” sounds cut off - “ind” not “find.” I love hearing stuff like this.
In the fade, not a boat motor, but a Hammond organ. The pitch drops right as the song ends. Did someone just press stop on the deck?
Gorgeous production by Stephen Street, who did The Smiths, The Cranberries, and of course, Blur. Interview with him here.
Forget the production for a moment. What does this song mean? What does it mean to you? What’s it about?
For me, it is about the loneliness and sadness of starting over. But there’s hope. Yes, this is a low point in your life, but you’ll get through it.
It came out thirty years ago. I found it interesting but too Britpop. It didn’t fit in with the heavier stuff I was producing at the time, so I didn’t find it too useful or inspirational. Radiohead’s The Bends knocked me out. Blur, not so much.
In 2025, this song wipes me out. I tear up when I hear it.
Obviously, I’ve changed, because the music hasn’t.
This is a Low
This is a Low was the standout track on Blur’s 1994 album Parklife. Parklife is a high point in Britpop, and certainly one of the great albums of the decade.
Parklife was cut at Maison Rouge, a studio established by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. It was a major place throughout the 80s and 90s. A lot of great music was made at Maison Rouge. The Internet Wayback Machine found this. Maison Rouge closed in 2000 and the building was razed.
This is a Low sat for weeks, basically complete, including the layered guitar solo, but without lyrics or vocals. Singer Damon Albarn was exhausted and had no ideas. Time was tight, the whole album was mixed, their record label, Food, was being typically difficult and pushing them, Albarn had to have hernia surgery... less than propitious circumstances.
But Albarn found inspiration: he’d been gifted a handkerchief with a weather map printed on it by Blur bassist Alex Jones. The map, more specifically, was of weather zones around the British Isles, the zones coinciding with a British radio program called The Shipping Forecast, which is exactly what it seems to be: weather reports for ships traveling the English Channel, the Irish Sea, etc. It turns out the band had a soft spot for The Shipping Forecast — they listened to it during an awful early tour of the United States. It made them feel less homesick. Albarn knocked out the lyrics, then the vocal, then went off to hospital to get his hernia fixed.
The lyrics are inspired by shipping zones — Dogger Bank, Cramity, etc. — with goofy rhymes and “Veddy English” wordplay.
Hit traffic on the Dogger bank
Up the Thames to find a taxi rank
Sail on by with the tide and go to sleep
And the radio says
And there’s a wonderful chorus:
This is a low
But it won't hurt you
When you are alone
It will be there with you
Finding ways to stay solo
This is a Low refers to a low-pressure zone, not some deep emotional state. You’ve all heard weather presenters saying, “This low-pressure zone is coming in from the north...”
Any of you ever get choked up from a weather report?
What is Meaning?
One of the central issues artists have with Ai music and Ai generated art in general, is that since Ai has only a statistical view of life, and can’t bring any sort of true emotional perspective to what it makes, the products it outputs are cold and sterile, and devoid of something human.
But as we can see from This Is a Low, it doesn’t matter what the meaning actually is, or what the intention or impulse was that gave birth to a thing. What matters is that a listener has some sort of receptor site inside for it. I made big life changes a year ago and now I’ve got a receptor site. Thirty years ago, This Is a Low meant nothing to me. In 2025 I can tear up over a song that’s about a weather map.
If people have the itch, they'll find something to scratch it.
Can Ai create output that people find moving? Yes. It can poop out love poetry without ever being in love. It can dump out songs, and in the next few years, some couple will get married and “their song” will be some well-chewed and digested, statistical mash of Just the Way You Are, Tonight I Celebrate My Love, All of Me and whatever else was snogged up. The couple will concoct it with Ai and then try to sell it on Spotify.
The lyrics might be like this: Until I die, let me hold you if you cry. Whether it rains or pours, I'm all yours.
Statistical Cliché
Sounds like the lyrics to an Ai wedding song, right? Fooled ya! It’s Coldplay, and they claim the song, ALL MY LOVE, will be their last single. A threat or a promise? By the way, officially, it’s ALL CAPS. They don’t want it confused with the Led Zeppelin tune from In Through the Out Door?
I associate Coldplay with numbers: in this case, seven songwriters and a further seven producers. It seems the more writers and producers involved, the more statistical and vanilla the song. Kinda explains Ai.
On the bright side, there’s this video, featuring just Chris Martin from the wading pool of writers and producers that is Coldplay, and Dick Van Dyke! It’s highly redemptive. The whole statistical potpourri is forgivable and elevated by a personage of such character and presence, humanity and individuality. He’s 99 hundred years old and he still has it. What charisma! You can’t not watch him when he’s in the frame. Extra points for film and still clips from Mr. Van Dyke’s glorious career. Heck, turn the sound down and just watch the video.
The Point
Like microwave cooking, Ai will only get better, faster, cheaper. It's unlikely to be strictly regulated (that might not be a bad thing). It can mimic human voices, play every instrument and convince people it understands what’s inside them. Heck, it makes porn — what more evidence is needed as to its power?
What Ai can’t do yet, and perhaps never, is take a weather map and a radio show heard while depressed on a tour bus and, in a flash, turn it into a song. It takes human intuition to make that leap, or to decide to cut three guitar parts and blend them for the solo, or decide to keep that organ in during the fade. Or to wait until the very last moment, trusting for some inspiration.
I think the point is you must trust, and double down on your humanity. More on this later.
David Johansen
David Johanson, the flamboyant singer of those glam punk boys of the 70s, The New York Dolls, and better known in the 80s as the Amaretto-sipping Buster Poindexter, died. I found the New York Dolls and Buster Poindexter frivolous and fun and forgettable.
But I saw Mr Johansen on Saturday Night Live in the late 80s, and he laid down a gorgeous performance of a song he wrote, Heart of Gold. It clobbered me: I was going through an awful breakup and I remember crying during it. Always, the meaning we find is what we bring.
I searched and searched... and turned up this clip of it on TikTok. Thanks to Huggy SNL for keeping this alive.
https://www.tiktok.com/@huggyattack/video/7477059970047937823
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #55
Happy Monday, all.
The Pro-Tools Meter Controversy
Last week, the very accomplished Bob Horn (Muse, Lupe Fiasco, BTS, Ne-Yo, Everclear, Usher), a guy that knows his stuff, was on the AudioNerds podcast, giving away tons of tips and information — again, the guy is very accomplished — and at the ending, dropped a bombshell: Bob says that different meters on Pro-Tools have a subtle but audible effect on the overall sound.
A clip of Bob Horn dropping the bombshell...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwM_6t5ip8M&t=3289s
Of course, now there’s an online discussion with people lining up on both sides of the line either agreeing with Bob or disputing it.
Matt Weiss — another very accomplished fellow (Akon, Tory Lanez, Nicki Minaj, Becky G, Rick Ross, Ozuna), did a bunch of research, and he can hear the difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhVgC-JcPEo
Dave Stagl — an ATMOS mixer and yet another very accomplished fellow (Jesus Culture, Lecrae, Mayday Parade, Rudy Currence, Todd Fields), did a bunch of research and doesn’t think it’s a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbKFb-GRZs
What do I think?
1) Who cares what I think? I barely care for what I think.
2) I had a terrible experience with Pro-Tools in my younger days. Like, “Show us on the doll where Pro-Tools destroyed your session, Lukey” experience.
In Pro-Tools' defense, the year is 1991 and it is a very new product, a very young product. I was using it to crossfade two mixes into each other — this was a PT set-up that had four tracks and required a gunned-up Mac to work. It cost $6000. I got my mixes loaded and decided to do a little bit of EQ’ing (because who can resist dicking around with a finished mix just a little bit more and it will be perfect and so will my life), and when I switched the EQ on, all the sound stopped.
Ah! Audio mystery! Must investigate. So I started playing with everything, to no avail. Sound gone.
I should add that Pro-Tools was crashing more than a preschool of toddlers flying Zeros on a Kamikaze mission. Like every ten minutes, followed by a five-minute reboot. My patience was worn thin. I was angry. Hungry. Hangry. Hangry dealing with Pro-Tools. Hangrypt. I needed a Snickers or a time jump eight years into the future.
The issue was a teeny tiny black level control knob buried in the channel EQ of Pro-Tools, and the default setting was all the way down. Who would even think of designing it this way? Had I not been Hangrypt from tons of crashes, I might have noticed it in the first half hour or so. ANYWAY... I eventually discovered the knob. Turned it up. And then Pro-Tools crashed again.
ARRRGHHH!!!! Oh my GOD did I lose my temper! Very upsetting to the studio intern, who was a sweet and quiet girl from Japan named Yoshimi. Especially when I flung the damn manual out the window into the parking lot. The manual was in a three-ring binder, which burst open, its pages floating down like propaganda leaflets dropped from a plane: “Surrender. You have lost. Your leaders are lying to you. Just fly the two mixes onto the 24-track deck, back-cueing* one of them."
I did so many things wrong that day, things I would never do once I got older. One must keep one's temper and not scare the interns. Don’t fling manuals. Don’t kick over the cart the Pro-Tools system is on.
Roberta Flack
What a singer. What a musician.
Ms Flack was a child prodigy, enrolling at Howard University at fifteen to study piano, switching eventually to voice. She was discovered playing and singing jazz in DC and by fall, 1968, had a record deal with Atlantic.
She had a great career, including hit records across three decades, duets with Donny Hathaway, Peabo Bryson and Michael Jackson. She’s the first person ever to win back-to-back Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, in 1973 for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and 1974 for "Killing Me Softly With His Song."
Her debut album, First Take, was cut in one ten-hour session at Atlantic Studios in NYC— First Take is an apt title. She had a killer band, all top-notch jazz players: Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Ray Lucas on drums. The album is an amalgamation of soul, folk tunes and jazz, with a gospel touch.
Here’s all of First Take - It is one of the great debut records. Simply smashing.
Apple Music
Spotify
YouTube
The "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was cut in one take. Producer Joel Dorn thought it was too slow and wanted to re-record it at a faster tempo. Roberta disagreed and won the argument. The slow, gorgeous song was a sleeper hit: it didn’t do anything until Clint Eastwood used it in the film Play Misty For Me. It shot up the charts and garnered Flack’s first Grammy in 1973. In a twist, Eastwood called Flack to ask for permission to use the song. She wanted to re-record it at a faster tempo. He wouldn’t let her!
She is an ASTOUNDING singer. She’s loud, she's soft. She's always expressive. Her pitch and control are phenomenal. She effortlessly holds out notes across multiple measures with barely any breath, with a hint of vibrato and unerringly on pitch. All while playing jazz piano with a live band and a string ensemble.
Listen to "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men", you can hear her lean in and out on the microphone as her voice gets louder and quieter.
The album was probably tracked on a very early MCI console to an Ampex eight-track, and mixed on a custom console expressly built for mixing by Atlantic engineer Phil Ihle, from Spectra-Sonic pre-amps. I’m thinking that the MCI looked a bit like this, and this and this are shots of the custom mixing desk, now at Fellowship Hall Sound in Little Rick, Arkansas.
While poking around I found this, and it’s a total trip to the past! Full of ads, pictures, mic set-up diagrams, it gives a wonderful flavor of the times. Be prepared to waste some time reading! It’s awesome!
It’s been death death death the past few weeks. Next week, no deaths and something else.
Check out the Roberta Flack record. It’s seriously awesome.
Adieu for now...
Luke
* I’ll explain what Back Cueing is, in the recording studio sense of the word, next week.
New Monday #54
Happy Monday, everybody.
Please excuse the all-over nature of this particular episode of New Monday. I'm in the midst of figuring out big things and I'm doing it publicly, and dragging you nice people along for the ride.
Great song to hear at the end. You can skip to it, of course.
Question
People say, "This compressor glues the mix together."
What do they mean? Or, what do you think they mean?
Glue implies that it sticks the mix together. Sounds like a good thing, but what the heck IS it? What does it mean in terms of physics, in terms of amplitude and waveforms? It's not enough to have a word to use. It has to mean something tangible, describable.
There are two things that I think might cause this "glue" thang to happen.
If you run the entire mix through a compressor, the waveform of the mix is going to trigger that compressor; specifically whatever element of the mix has the highest amplitude will sort of "control" the action of the compressor. In most rock, pop, hip hop, etc., the highest amplitude belongs to the kick and/or the snare, so those elements will tend to cause the compressor to clamp down and release, thus imparting their rhythm across the entire mix, such that the whole mix sort of "bounces" up and down together. Sounds tighter. Sounds more together. Might this be "glue?"
The second idea: if you mix all the waveforms of the separate tracks together and then feed them through something that causes or, more correctly, adds, some harmonic distortion, that harmonic distortion is derived from that combined, complex waveform, rather than some harmonic distortion from the vocal, some different harmonic distortion from the piano, etc. Might this "unified" distortion be our mysterious "glue?"
If you run a mix through a compressor, you get both the rhythmic squeezing of compression and the additional harmonic distortion (because compressors do generate this). So, is that "Glue?"
Seems dumb to me to walk around the studio tossing words like "glue" around without having some idea as to what is happening. As far as I'm concerned, saying, "I'll know it when I hear it" is another way of saying, "I don't know what I'm looking for."
So, what do you all think? Feel free to write me back if you agree, or if you disagree and have a better idea. How does a compressor "glue" a mix together?
Existential Crisis
I'm having an existential crisis, but given the times, who isn't?
My current existential crisis monster is... AI. Of course.
I'm sick of the whole AI conversation - I'm sure most of you are, too. On one hand, there are some powerful tools out there that make life easier and I made a total killing on NVIDIA stock.
On the other hand, I have friends who are very competent at what they do who are losing jobs in everything from mastering, to marketing, to design, to writing, to photography because AI is cheap and good enough.
I've been thinking about how I will survive, economically and creatively. And I'm older than most of you. I only have to last about another 10 years. Some of you have 60+ years ahead of you. That is scary. There's already AI that can outsing a human, write lyrics (albeit awful lyrics, but it will get better), make movies, etc.
How do you make money? How do you do what you love? How do you express yourself in a meaningful way? How do you thrive?
I don't have answers.
What follows are musings, presented in no particular order.
The Microwave Oven
The microwave oven and its dependent sub-technologies—heat and serve foods, most of what is at Trader Joe's, etc., brought a hyper-fast and convenient paradigm to cooking. Humans love that. You can throw something in a microwave, knowing nothing more than pressing a few buttons, and in a few minutes get something out that can be pretty darned tasty. It can be actually delicious. It can also suck. But if you know what to buy, and what buttons to press, you can whip up dinner fast and it can be good.
Or good enough, perhaps.
Good enough lowers standards as it becomes accepted, especially because it's faster and easier. Yes, a great handmade burger cooked on a flat top is better, but fast food is good enough and even when it's disgusting people still eat it.
There are still chefs. There are people that reheat stuff with a microwave and fancy themselves as chefs. Whatever. Microwaves make things faster and easier and cheaper.
Disruptive Technologies and the Arts
Technology has always been disruptive to the arts and creativity. When oil painting became a thing in the 1500s, Michelangelo hated it—he thought it was too easy. Real men painted fresco, which was using a water or egg-based paint on wet plaster. Screw up a fresco and you had to rip the wall down to redo it. Oil paint had a very slow drying time. One could scrape off a mistake or paint over, or otherwise move the paint around. Much faster and easier.
Humans are lazy. Fast and easier always wins. Oil paint came to dominate, and artists figured out ways of painting that went beyond what was possible with water or egg-based paint.
When photography rolled around in the 1800s, there was a general sense of "This will destroy painting." It didn't. It did take a chunk out of the traditional realistic painting of the time, but the Impressionists figured out how to incorporate elements of photography into paintings and modern art was born. And then other artists went beyond the Impressionists to come up with Cubism, Expressionism, Abstraction, Dada, action painting, etc.
The advent of multitrack recording was disruptive. At first, engineers were like, "What will we do with four tracks???" Well, how about we do Sgt Pepper's and Axis: Bold as Love? Sixteen tracks? Let's make "I'm Not in Love." Even more tracks? Someone will find things to put on them.
Drum machines? Same thing. MIDI? Digital recording? Pro-Tools? Same thing.
There is a tendency for the creative to adapt and conquer, and, more importantly, innovate. This is a good thing.
But under it all is always faster and easier and cheaper. Faster and easier and cheaper always wins.
Effort
AI, though, is fundamentally different from a multitrack or oil paint. You still had to have some sort of skillset. There was still effort involved. Retouching using Photoshop is much easier than retouching using a physical airbrush, but using a filter on Instagram is a piece of cake and requires nothing more than making a decision about what you want.
AI music starts with writing sentences and listening to the result. Now, you might have to do that iteratively, but compared to sitting there for hours practicing the piano, learning music theory, taking voice lessons, AI music making is a walk in the park.
Why practice? Why learn an instrument? How does one show up at a party and pull out a guitar and say, "I learned Here Comes the Sun," and sort of stumble through it, when someone else will pull out a smartphone and say, "I wrote a symphony this morning based on all the sounds a cat makes."
Risk and Taste
AI is statistical in nature. It repackages what has already been. It's unafraid to do the same old thing. It's fine with making something awful without apologizing for it. And when AI does apologize for a mistake, it isn't doing so from a sense of pain, shame or regret. It does it because it's expected. It's an apology from a psychopath.
One of the things I love about AI is that it will just do things with no thought to quality, individuality, originality. It has no comprehension of what is good, or what sucks. It just goes.
But we humans, we have taste and emotion. Our opinions are linked to our feelings and experiences. We don't like being wrong, doing wrong, letting others down. We need a tribe. Even artists as rebellious as Prince and David Bowie liked having fans.
By the way, I write New Monday entirely by hand and no AI is involved. So, when they are discombobulated and suck, like this episode, it's all me. And my word count thinger isn't working so I have no idea of the length of this. It feels too long.
LP
LP is short for Laura Pergolizzi. They're a singer-songwriter from Long Island (Yay! A hometownie). They've written things for Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, etc., etc. LP kicked around a few major labels in the 2000s, released a number of singles, and didn't make much of a dent as an artist.
In 2015, LP released a gorgeous tune, Lost On You. It flew up the charts in Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Israel, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Serbia. Mexico. Japan. Didn't do that well in England or the US.
It's a song with integrity. It's a break-up song—not a cliché, but a personal story— and you can hear that in the voice.
The title, which is a lyric as well, is a spidery thing:
Let's raise a glass or two
To all the things I've lost on you
Tell me are they lost on you?
Lost in someone? Lost without someone? A gamble that someone lost? And perhaps none of this is even understood because it's lost on you.
I don't think AI could write this song.
Lost On You
Now, here's them doing it live. LP can throw it down. I think I like this version the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDjeBNv6ip0
Feel free to tell me how you're thinking about AI.
Thanks for reading.
Luke
New Monday #53
Happy Monday!
Get the headphones out and put them on for this one....
00:00 Great electric guitar sound. It’s in mono with a slapback feeding into a reverb.
00:05 Two acoustic guitars spread out. Two different performances. Right seems to have different voicing, or tuning? Same three chords for the whole song.
00:10 Drums are mono, played with brushes. A lot of mono. The whole thing seems mono with stereo ambience. A technical limitation or an artistic decision? Both?
00:15 Bass is down the center, mono again, and really tight on that kick.
00:20 Electric guitar again. The reverb blooms out into stereo, mainly on the ending notes of phrases. Someone is riding the reverb return on this. SM-57 on a Fender Deluxe, I think?
00:35 Lovely lead vocal. Man, someone is close up on that mic!
00:40 Keyboard drone in there? Following the chords? Low-pitched?
00:50 This will sort of wreck it for you... the drums and low-end sound very different whenever the lead vocal comes in. When it’s out, the snare/hi hat hit has a “ch” sound to it. When the vocal comes in there’s a volume jump and a tone change — sounds more like a “SHHH” and the bottom gets a little warmer. Will explain...
01:10 Some background mumblers... all I catch is the last word, “heart.” Appropriate.
01:45 Lead vocal. Maybe an echo on it, but a warm reverb sound, and again, someone is riding it.
01:55 You can really hear the drum sound and bottom change whenever the vocal comes. I’m guessing because the vocal is sung so quietly that it’s pushed up in the mix. Then, when the singer is louder, the change in the drums is less because the vocal track is pulled down a bit.
02:32 Ouch! The end of the vocal line, “With you,” is way out of tune! No pitch correction here! Not surprising. Very hard to hold pitch when one is barely using any breath.
02:36 This guitar part... it’s great. James Calvin Wilsey played it. Strat with a whammy bar. He died in 2018 at my age, another victim of addiction.
03:24 That whispery vocal part sounds like, “This world is only gonna break your heart."
04:17 Oh jeez... an impossibly long held note, and this is 1989. How did they do this??? I think it fades into a keyboard part, or maybe they sampled and looped a section.
04:36 FINALLY the lock-step of the tempo breaks and the time loosens up — a rough harmony (the ghostly background voices) on top of the lead vocal, and then the ending, the guitars do an offset arpeggiated part. Now I think the left side guitar is in a different tuning.
Great song. Made his career.
Last Friday was Valentine's Day, so I was thinking about the greatest love song ever, or really, what even IS a love song? It was much easier to find the sexiest love song ever, which has to be Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. And if it’s not the sexiest song, it sure is the sexiest video ever. After seeing it, one dreams of beaches in black and white for weeks. And Helena Christensen.
Chris Isaak was a San Francisco Bay area, neo-rockabilly performer, with his band Silvertone. Filmmaker David Lynch featured the song in his movie, Wild at Heart, which gave the song a tremendous boost, launching Chris Isaak onto MTV and international radio.
Isaak wrote the song, and he and his production team, producer Erik Jacobsen and engineer Mark Needham, recorded it a number of times but no one was happy with it. In the end, Needham sampled parts of it and flew them to 24 track 2” using an AKAI DD1000 sampler. The AKAI was a monster of the time, capable of cutting up samples into smaller pieces, turning things into playlists, etc. That combined with a MIDI sequencer made it into a primitive sort of DAW, and Needham made tremendous use of it. Most of Wicked Game is an assemblage of samples — the drums, the bass, the backing vocals, even that wonderful guitar part — all snipped and restitched using the AKAI.
One of the acoustic guitar parts is standard tuned, the other is “Nashville Tuned,” which is when you take a 12-string guitar and remove all the low strings of each pair of strings to leave a guitar that’s effectively an octave higher with some oddness to it. Of course, no one semi-decapitates a 12-string to do this. More commonly, you get a wreck around acoustic and swap the lower strings out. At first, I thought the Nashville Tuned guitar was panned right, but the ending makes me think it’s panned left.
That wonderful vocal was cut live in the studio without headphones, which explains why the drums sound so different whenever the vocals come: phase shifts and tonal changes caused by the leakage — more on this further down.
Producer Eric Jacobsen did a lot more than Chris Isaak. Starting in the early 60s, he worked with the Lovin’ Spoonfuls, Time Hardin and... Norman Greenbaum! Yes, Eric Jacobsen produced both Wicked Games and Spirit in the Sky!
Mark Needham has worked on a ton of great records as well, ranging from Dolly Parton to Lindsey Buckingham (and Fleetwood Mac), The Killers, Imagine Dragons, P¡NK...
The video, incidentally, is iconic, inspiring much emulation...
Cutting Vocals Without Headphones
I have years of experience doing this. And out of love for you all, I wrote a whole big thing about it, covering every technique I know, including cutting a reversed-phase leakage track. If you hate headphones like I hate headphones, you’ll LOVE this technique.
New Monday is now a year old. I am experimenting with different logos and designs. Let me know if you like or hate one in particular.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #52
Happy
Mr.
"
That
As Tears Go By (live in 1965) —
I’ve Got You Babe (yes, it’s a duet with Bowie)
The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife
The Memory Remains (a Metallica Video)
New Monday #51
Happy Monday!
i/o Grammy
Grammys last night. Peter Gabriel’s album i/o won two last night, Best Immersive Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Tracked at Peter’s studio, Realworld, i/o was worked on by a lot of technical staff, but the Peter Gabriel’s website narrows that down to specifically congratulate Oli Jacobs, Katie May, Dom Shaw, Tchad Blake, Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, and Matt Colton.
i/o features two different sets of mixes, Bright-Side (mixed by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent) and Dark-Side (mixed by our friend Tchad Blake). There’s also a set of immersive mixes called In-Side, which were done by Hans-Martin Buff.
Wow. An entire album mixed by three different people, the mixes discrete from each other, such that you can compare song by song.
Obviously, separating out things by Bright-Side and Dark-Side indicates a bit of what to expect emotionally and sonically, but you don’t have to depend on someone else to tell you the differences, you can hear it.
i/o (title song) - Bright-Side
You’re better off listening to things on Apple Music or something that overall sounds better than YouTube, but the differences are considerable. I’m going to spend hours on this, I can tell.
Congrats all, and congrats, Tchad!
A Wonky Cover
I stumbled across this a few days ago. It caught my attention like a car accident might. Have a listen.
Why would anyone make this? Who thought, “The world is ready for a heavy metal version of Living for the City with someone banging on a piano. ” Ian Gillan is a fine singer, but this is mawkishly emotional and clunks like Eye of the Tiger: a sharp contrast to the deft groove and felt vocals of Stevie Wonder’s original.
The video, set in a classroom, has this wonderful moment in which a large fellow menaces Ian Gillan with a push broom.
Oh man, this kills me! There’s a “broom cam” bit in there as well. And then Ian Gillan is suddenly painted red! What were people thinking??
Luke: pull yourself together. Deep breath.
After finding the cover, I had to clear my palette with the original.
The Brilliant Original
The original is amazing. Listen here.
Stevie Wonder cut a series of five virtually flawless albums, starting in 1972 with Music of My Mind and ending with Songs in the Key of Life in 1976. He won three consecutive Grammy awards: Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life all were named Album of the Year.
Recently free from a restrictive Motown contract, Stevie started working with British producer Malcolm Cecil and American Robert Margouleff, a keyboardist and close friend of synth pioneer Robert Moog. The Brit and the Yank met, hit it off, traded ideas and developed one of the largest synthesizer set-ups in the world at that time. The two cobbled together modules and parts from Moog, ARP, Oberheim, EMS, and whatever else they found interesting, somehow worked out a means of getting the entire thing to play in tune with itself, and developed controllers for it, including using a joystick off a helicopter. They christened the instrument The Original New Timbral Orchestra but called it TONTO for short.
Stevie heard TONTO on an album, contacted Malcolm and Robert, and the three set up shop at Media Sound in NYC. TONTO took up an entire room, the three all working inside of it, surrounded by controls, patch bays, keyboards and the like. Initially it was very much a team effort, with Stevie bringing in songs and Malcolm and Robert creating sounds, suggesting ideas, as well as doing all the engineering, from drums miking to mixing.
Living For the City is a seven-minute extravaganza, an aural “movie” telling of a poor young man from the rural south who winds up incarcerated in New York City. From the socially conscious lyrics and story to the pioneering use of synth and what is now termed “Moog Bass,” to sounds recorded in neighbors in NYC, the song breaks ground in all directions.
The basic track was Stevie on electric piano and vocals. Then he dubbed on bass, which he played on TONTO using Moog modules. This sound alone changed recorded music: it’s everywhere now.
The three had previously tried to use ace session player Bernard Purdie for drum overdubs, but it turned out the only person who could follow a Stevie Wonder guide track accurately was... Stevie Wonder. So, he played the drums. And then more synth from TONTO, handclaps and percussion, and more lead vocals. In fact, the only things Stevie Wonder didn't do on the recording were the voices in the voice-acted sections towards the end of the song.
He played every instrument on it and sang every vocal. EVERY. VOCAL.
So, all the background vocals—the ones that sound like women, the stacked choir at the end — it’s all Stevie Wonder, singing into an Electro-Voice RE-20, the pitch manipulated by changing the speed of the tape deck. I would never have known.
The relationship between Stevie Wonder and Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff eventually soured. By Songs in the Key of Life, the two were out of the picture. They continued to work on music with Depeche Mode, Oingo Boingo, Jeff Beck, Weather Report, Billy Preston, The Doobie Brothers, GWAR and on and on... Margouleff produced a DEVO album, Freedom of Choice, which included the iconic Whip It. I was a junior at a stupidly preppy public high school on Long Island. Whip It provided some very welcome relief from all the Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd blaring from mummy and daddy’s cars.
An interview with Robert Margouleff — he’s an undersung genius.
A video on the making of Living for the City, including a look at TONTO and Stevie playing drums.
Another City
Fire Aid was organized to raise money for beleaguered LA., picking itself up after the recent spate of wildfires. It was impossibly star-studded: Green Day, Dr Dre, Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, No Doubt, JONI MITCHELL !!!, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, a reunion of Nirvana (as much as that is possible), Stevie Nicks, Earth Wind and Fire, The Black Crowes, John Fogarty, Tate McCray, Jelly Roll... who else... Rod Stewart, Olivia Rodrigo and on and on.
The killer performance, though, was by pop singer P!NK. Accompanied by guitarist Justin Derrico, she did a medley that included a wonderful Me and Bobby McGee and an ass-kicking Babe I’m Gonna Leave You! Fabulous stuff from a very underrated singer and her great touring guitarist.
Quick Science
Last week we explored critical distance and losing the car in a parking garage. This week: a quick video from Steve Mould on why you can’t find your lost phone when you call it. Such interesting stuff, and it applies to making a record.
And here we are at the end. Y’all take care.
Warm regards,
Luke
Rick Beato Likes My Sweater and Other tales from NAMM
New Monday #50
Happy Monday -
As I write this Dan and I are on a plane flying back to New York.
It has been a wild ride. We've been sitting on the Shure/Tchad Blake news for months, dying to tell you all about it, but bound by NDAs. There have been some hints dropped, and some of you figured out something was going on. A big step up for us.
The Level-Loc is getting a lot of attention, and I hope you all give it a spin and have some fun with it. Ours isn't just a drum smasher. It's really good all over the place and it's a lot of fun to use.
SO — NAMM...
NAMM is so huge, with so much stuff and people everywhere, it is hard to take it all in—it's hard to remember all that you see and all that happens there. And it's one thing to walk around NAMM, and yet another to work a booth. I spent nearly all of NAMM at our booth and I saw very little new gear, didn't get to play any guitars or get any cool swag.
But what I did get to do was talk to hundreds of people, and that's really the point of going to NAMM: to connect with friends, meet new ones, and in general celebrate the human side of the recording and musical instrument industry.
And it is absolutely a celebration.
There's no way I can give you a sense of NAMM as you might experience it. I spent most of the day on my feet behind the bar at Korneff's Plug Inn, demonstrating the Level-Loc and occasionally eating an expensive burrito. But here are some things that struck me as fun and funny, and maybe will give you a sense of what goes on at NAMM other than looking at stuff, buying $15 beers and thinking, "Is that Andrew Scheps?"
A guy who looked like Tchad Blake
We came up with the idea of a bar for our booth a few weeks ago, and plowed through designing backdrops, cocktail menus, coasters, t-shirts, found an IKEA knock-off bar unit online, and had all of this stuff shipped sight unseen to a buddy of ours, engineer and composer and all around brilliant musician Jason Soudah, who stored it all in his garage. On Tuesday, Dan and I flew into LAX, picked up a bunch of boxes from Jason, dumped everything at the Anaheim convention center, and then scrambled back to our AirBnB in Santa Ana a few miles away to launch the Shure Level-Loc.
We're awful at time management. We were making last-minute changes on the plug-in, the manual, the website, emails, until we passed out, then got up four hours later and did it some more. We managed to send an email out to all of you in which we spelled "Tchad Blake" as "Tchad Black."
Exhausted, rolled into the convention center to set up our booth around 1pm on Wednesday, with a bunch of tools, ready to put up our backdrop (3D modeled by Dan), and assemble our two bar units. But when we got to our booth, the backdrop was up, one of the bar units was fully built, and there was no one at it.
Who set up our booth? Certainly not Dan and I or anyone on our all-volunteer team.
NAMM has all sorts of rules. One of them was that if a booth isn't set up within an hour, the union workers at the Anaheim Convention Center swoop in, set it up and you get charged.
Were the mystery booth fairies union guys, and was our lateness going to cost us $1000?
Now we were concerned. We found a guy across the aisle and had a conversation that went like this:
"Hey, man. Did you see who set up our booth?"
"Yeah. It was these two guys. One had a shaved head and the other guy looked like Tchad Blake."
The shaved-headed guy was Matt Engstrom, director of Licensing for Shure, and the Tchad Blake looking guy was actually Tchad Blake.
Tchad Blake set up our booth. I said to our booth neighbor: "That actually WAS Tchad Blake. He set up our booth."
Booth neighbor stepped back, with a look on his face that seemed to say, "Who ARE these guys that Tchad Blake sets up their booth for them?"
Yes, Tchad Blake set up our booth, and he also helped take it down, and he spent hours and hours at it, usually helping people demo the Level-Loc. Kinda cool to watch people's reactions when they're working with an industry legend... "Oh my god. Tchad Blake is showing me how to compress drums..."
Tchad is that kind of guy. He's great. And if you think his mixes are good, his booth building skills are off the charts!
Tchad, Dan, and Lawrence from PluginFox
Matt Engstrom at the Shure Booth.
Selfies
Speaking of our booth, it was non-stop busy every day of the convention. Seems everyone wants to hang out at a bar. There was always a knot of people in front of it, a bunch of people on the bar stools messing with plug-ins, and new people coming in every few minutes.
Master film mixer Alan Meyerson stopped by. Lovely fella, really funny (most engineers have a great sense of humor). He and I have a mutual friend, the aforementioned Jason Soudah, who worked with Alan for a number of years at Hans Zimmer's studio in Santa Monica. Alan and I took a quick selfie to send to Jason:
Alan and Luke
Jason sent back this:
Good morning Jason!
A most ridiculous picture. Jason had been up all night on a session and was just getting into bed when he snapped this.
We took a lot of pictures. They're all over our IG and FB.
The Birds of Santa Ana
Wednesday was windy, and I drove from our AirBnB to get coffee for Dan and a bunch of great friends who were helping us and staying in our AirBnB as well: Lawrence Ames from PluginFox, Justin Bennett and Alex Prieto. Lovely guys.
Got to a coffee place in downtown Santa Ana, popped out of the car to be greeted by the screams and cries of thousands of birds. Thousands. So loud as to be practically deafening. They were all over the trees and screaming like a scene out of The Birds. As I walked, they flew from tree-to-tree, as if following me. Here's a moment of it.
Lost in the Garage
The Anaheim Convention Center is huge - 1.8 million square feet (our booth was 100 square feet) and has thousands of parking spots. I'm a moron and also the designated driver on this trip.
Why put a forgetful moron in the position of designated driver? I think because it's funny and occasionally exciting, like when I made a u-turn from the far lane to get into the convention center.
On Friday, I parked our rental SUV — a freekin' land yacht with absolute ass visibility, and I felt fairly positive I parked it on level 43B. I took a picture of the sign but blurred the picture. Oh well. Can't be too hard to find a huge white carboat that's equipped with a dongle on the key that repeatedly beeps the horn and flashes the lights from a fairly far distance, right?
Ever heard of an acoustic phenomena called, "Critical Distance?" There is a point at which a reflected sound — the reflected sound of say, a car horn continuously beeping - is the same volume as the direct sound coming out of the bigass white SUV, and you can't localize the sound. You lose any sense of left to right. You have no idea where it is. Even if the lights are flashing.
So I'm pressing this button, the horn is honking, we're all exhausted, walking around this gigantic mostly empty garage with loud car horn sounds coming from seemingly everywhere. We walk this way, because it sounds like the car is over here until the acoustics change and it sounds like it's over there, so we walk that way and then suddenly it sounds behind us, and then we walk there and it seems to be a floor up, and then two floors down. Everyone has to pee. Eventually, we found it on level 41B. In my defense, I only had one digit wrong, and we all needed the exercise after standing all day.
Everyone pretended to be pissed, but secretly they had a good time and they let me drive the rest of the trip. And we all survived. Justin was especially delighted with the experience.
Rick Beato Likes My Sweater
I bought a pale green cardigan off some website that was probably just a front for Temu. It looked nice enough online; in person it's a little junky. The button holes look like finger holes more than an intentional orifice. My kids hate it. My son first saw me in it and said, "You look like a poor Dutch child." Weirdly specific.
Our booth "costume," so we looked like bartenders, was button-down shirts, suspenders and sleeve garters. In hindsight we looked more like bricklayers from the early 1900s. Dan wore his outfit the whole time.
TLA and DK
I gradually morphed mine from looking like a bricklayer to a poor Dutch child. By the last day I was 100% poor Dutch child.
And on the last day, Rick Beato showed up, brought to our booth by a wonderful keyboardist, Kim Bullard. Kim deserves a New Monday just about Kim, and maybe that is in the future.
Dan, the Poor Dutch Boy, Rick Beato, Tchad, and Kim Bullard
It was my first time meeting Rick. And he is EXACTLY like he is on his YouTube channel. Actually, everyone I met at NAMM, that you see in videos on YT or on Mix With the Masters — Tom Lord-Alge, Andrew Scheps, Alan Myerson, Stuart White, JJ Blair, Tchad — all of them are exactly who they appear to be. And they're all nice, really funny, charming and... just simply studio guys.
Rick Beato, though, has this other thing going on. It is hard to describe, and you see it in his interviews. He listens so well, and so closely, that... it's like he's 100% there for you. It doesn't matter who you are. If he's talking to you, you have all of his attention. And he also has this child-like enthusiasm — I've written about this before — when you talk to him it's like you're telling a toddler about Santa Claus. It's like he's going to explode.
We chatted about the Level-Loc, and a lot about how wonderful Shure is as a company (wrote about that last week here), Rick was all smiles and barely contained explosion.
But he's busy, NAMM is big, and as he and Kim left to wander deeper into the bowels of all the booths and gear, he suddenly turned and said, "I like your sweater."
I can't wait to tell my kids this story! I'm a little poor Dutch boy no longer!
It just occurred to me that if this was Japan, I would perhaps have to send Rick Beato my sweater? Isn't that a rule of etiquette in Japan? If someone compliments something you have to give it as a gift?
I Shure like that Level-Loc!
NAMM Shoutouts
Aside from Lawrence, Justin and Alex, who helped out both building Korneff's Plug Inn, manning it, and tearing it down, thanks and props to the wonderful Chaz Root and his wife, JJ. Chaz was tremendous: demo'ing plug-ins, talking to people, bringing by friends — thank you Chaz and JJ.
And shout out and thanks to all of you guys who stopped by and were so nice and enthusiastic. And thank you for all the wonderful feedback I got about this little New Monday project that I started almost a year ago. Truly, I never thought this newsletter thinger would mean anything to people, but evidently it does. Thank you for making that clear to me.
This was a long one! Thanks for reading it.
Warm regards,
Luke
New Monday #49
Happy Monday,
We are days away from NAMM. There is high excitement in the Korneff Audio Sphere of Influence.
Are you planning on going to NAMM? Please stop by our booth (#16124) and say hi.
Ok. Twenty days into 2025, and it's not too late to decide what you're going to do with this year. After all, the year is still making up its mind about what it's going to do to you!
I have two inspirations on my radar, and since they're both audio-related, I'll share them.
SHURE - Capitalism Done Right
My first mic was a Shure. Everything in my life that has to do with recording music started with that mic.
I had the pleasure of visiting Shure's headquarters in Niles, Illinois, (call it Chicago) back in October. What an eye-opener.
We all know Shure as a maker of microphones and headphones, wireless mics, perhaps phonograph cartridges, some ancient hardware that was in the PA rack in the high school gym, etc. The microphones are great, as are the headphones, but really, the whole company is great.
Shure is basically a military defense contractor that doesn't make weapons. In the early 1940s, Shure was contracted by the US Military to produce microphones for the war effort. Equipment produced for use in a tank or a dive bomber has to be built to an incredibly high standard of reliability and ruggedness. Hitting MIL-SPEC standards is a huge investment in research and development, quality control, testing — it requires a total rethinking of the way things are done. For Shure, it was an inflection point.
Sidney N. Shure, the founder of the company back in the 1920s, decided that rather than make consumer-grade and military-grade electronics, Shure was only going to make military-grade. EVERYTHING was going to be military-grade, whether it went in a tank or a kick drum. That has been the philosophy of Shure ever since.
These people are over the top. They have robots bending cables a million times, they have machines specifically designed to drop mics on their grills. There's bottles of artificially made human sweat they spray all over lavaliers and in-ear monitors. They try to break everything. They have a space full of Shure products that were horrifically damaged but still work. Mics broken by Roger Daltry. Mics run over by bulldozers. SM-57s recovered from swimming pools and fires that still work. They also have a world-class recording studio, anechoic chambers, and all sorts of testing equipment because not only should Shure stuff last forever, it should sound great. The Shure gang are quality-obsessed.
It goes beyond that. The company is full of lovely people. The turnover rate is really low—people stay at Shure for decades and never leave because it has a great corporate culture. But it's beyond that.
There's a plaque in the "Shure Museum," which is an extended, wide hallway in their headquarters, which is itself a futuristic building out of a StarTrek episode. The plaque is a quote from Sydney Shure, affectionately referred to as Mr Shure:
It's that "Community" aspect I want to focus on. Shure flows money into a network of charities in and around their physical plants and around the world. Its employees are encouraged (and given days off) to participate in charitable activities like the Chicago Children's Choir, Special Olympics, Christmas gift drives. Shure is not a company myopically making money for faceless shareholders. Shure is awesome.
Proof of Shure's awesomeness: they don't talk about the altruistic stuff they do. It's not a talking point in their marketing plan. It's just who the company is at a deep level. I've been in the industry 40 years and had no idea what Shure was really about until I took the tour at their headquarters. And if you're ever in Chicagoland, try to get a tour of their headquarters. You'll leave blown away and inspired.
So, for how to conduct business, let's all be like Shure in 2025. Let's make great stuff and be good to everyone. Let's do capitalism right.
When I grow up I want to be as young as Tchad Blake
The engineer/producer/mixer Tchad Blake has been popping up in a number of New Monday episodes. I've always thought highly of his records, but the dude is a very inspiring guy.
Tchad is around 70, but he experiences the world with fresh, child-like ears and eyes. He's constantly looking for something new, something he hasn't seen or heard yet. Everything is an exciting experiment in progress. I'm bitching about how Ai will change everything and Tchad's thinking about the cool stuff people might do with the technology.
He also appears to be egoless. Here's a guy who knows tons, has tons of credits, but never assumes for a moment he's the smartest guy in the room, or the studio. He asks the assistants questions and listens to the answers. He's always learning.
And of course, he's wildly creative, ruthlessly experimental, and he makes great sounding, interesting, substantial records. We put together a Tchad Blake playlist for you all, and we'll keep adding to it, because Tchad is still making stuff really worth hearing.
So, for 2025, let's approach art, music and creativity like Tchad Blake does, as something new that's there for our inspiration and education.
I don't often fanboy, but I'm definitely a fan of Shure and of Tchad. It's not often you meet your heroes and they're better than what you've imagined.
Shoot me a message if you're going to be at NAMM.
Happy New Year - last time I'll wish this to you all until... next year.
Warm regards,
Luke
California, Al, Joni, Delta Spirit
New Monday #48
Happy Monday -
NAMM is about 10 days away. Dan and I are really excited about it - our first booth!
#16124, located in North Level One of the Anaheim Convention Center. Please stop by!
As most of you know, California is being ravaged by wildfires.
The fire is ravaging homes and communities, which is awful, but California, and the area that’s on fire, is a center of culture. Countless artists have lost their homes and studios. Architectural landmarks and historic businesses are gone. Fire surrounds the Getty Villa museum. We have friends who’ve lost their home studios. Mixer Bob Clearmountain’s home and studio are no longer.
At this point NAMM is full steam ahead—Anaheim is hours from where the fires are, and hopefully, things don’t get any worse.
So, I’m thinking about California a bit this week. California... California...
California...
Here’s a song to listen to... Tchad Blake’s Mix
The production team of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake knocked it out of the park on this one. As a single it did ok, but it really got a kick when it became the opening theme to the TV show The OC. Tchad Blake mixed the album cut as well as the TV version.
'California' was also remixed by Jack Joseph Puig, I’m guessing for the single. It’s pretty different. Have a listen here.
It’s always cool and interesting to listen to the same tracks mixed by two different masters of the art form.
Here are the songwriter credits... this gets interesting: Alex Greenwald, Jason Schwartzman, Joseph Meyer, B.G. De Sylva.
California Here I Come
Jason Schwatzman the actor actually quit the band as his acting career took off. Alex Greenwald is the singer on the recording. Who the heck are Joseph Meyer and B.G. De Sylva?
They were songwriters at the turn of the century - not this century, the other one, like around 1922. Meyer wrote musicals, De Sylva was his decade’s version of Quincy Jones and then some, writing songs, producing movies, co-founding Capitol Records in 1944. The two men grew up in California and wrote a hit together for the singer Al Jolson. The song? California Here I Come! And evidently, they’ve got copyright on that title and phrase, and that’s how they wound up with a songwriting credit after both of them were dead.
California Here I Come was a HUGE Hit. There was an attempt to make it the state song, but alas, it didn’t work. California’s state song is this.
I know 'California Here I Come' from Bugs Bunny. This is the version in my head.
The Loony Tunes people went berserk with the song, using it in a ton of cartoons. Someone in internetland made a compilation of all the times it was used. Oh my god! What an amazing thing! I grew up with Bugs and Daffy and Elmer and the whole Loony Tunes crew.
Loony Tunes is the basis of my personality. Loony Tunes and SCTV.
Blue California
There are plenty of happy California songs. I think I prefer the depressing ones.
Joni Mitchell wrote a beautiful California, released in 1971 on her album Blue. Self-produced, with Joni handling all the songwriting and the lion's share of playing, Blue is on every list of top 100 albums of all times, 10 albums you must hear before you die, etc. Deservedly so. It’s so personal and deeply felt it’s almost painful to listen to, like a stranger coming up to you at a party and telling you about this awful breakup they just had, how terrible their life is, how love only leads to utter despair and on and on. You’ve just met this person. And now you’re wet with their tears.
Blue was a huge success, breaking into the top 20 in the US and England, and getting to #9 in Canada. There was a time when a deeply weird and complex break-up album like Blue could have a huge commercial impact.
Delta Spirit
Speaking of sad, break-up songs called California, there’s a gorgeous knife in the heart of a tune by San Diego’s Delta Spirit. I don’t usually think watching a video enhances a musical experience, but in this case, the music and the video foil each other, each telling their own story, the video more suggesting what characters in the song might be doing outside of the timeline of the song. And in the end... is the girl changed, or is she biding her time?
Watch California by Delta Spirit here. Heartbreakingly good.
That’s all for this week. I have to get back to NAMM prep. We’ll be sharing things with you all on our Facebook Page and Instagram.
Speaking of sharing, if you want to donate to help the victims of the fire, this is a good organization to donate to.
Stay safe, all of you.
Warm regards,
Luke
NAMM, Time, Liminal Spaces, and thinking about the Army.
New Monday 47
Happy Monday, People!
Here we are, a brand new year! So many things to blow up! Where to start??
Here’s a song to listen to while you read: Time Waits for No One.
Meet Us at NAMM
It’s our first time with a booth, #16124, at NAMM! We are very excited and you’re invited to stop by and hang out! Use this handy map:
Evidently, all roads lead to booth #16124.
We also have a surprise, or three, up our sleeves... stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed in a suspenseful way.
Time Waits for No One
This is a lost gem from the Rolling Stones. Cut in 1974 and released on 'It’s Only Rock and Roll' album, it’s a gorgeous song that no one seems to know.
This was a weird time (pun!) for the Stones. They cast-off long-time producer Jimmy Miller, who had worked with the band since 1968’s 'Beggars Banquet' and through their "golden period.” Miller developed a debilitating drug habit (which seems to happen a lot when you hang around The Rolling Stones) and 'It’s Only Rock and Roll' was the first album produced by The Glimmer Twins, the sobriquet of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
'It’s Only Rock and Roll' is a liminal album for the Stones—liminal is a grad school word that refers to a space between things, a transition point. Hallways are liminal, in between rooms. Liminal albums are snapshots of a moment between stages in the evolution of an artist or a band. Liminal albums are often really interesting, if a bit wobbly. Some liminal albums, like the two The Beatles released, 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver', are the best moments of a career.
'Beggars Banquet' was liminal, as the band shed founder Brian Jones, threw out pretensions of competing with The Beatles, and returned to blues rock. They did, however, hang onto some of the sonic experimentation with which they indulged (perhaps overindulged) on 'At Her Majesty’s Satanic Request'. The result was 'Beggars Banquet' rocked out, with a rare combination of great songs combined with lots of percussion, and unusual recording techniques, like running guitars and drums through cassette recorders to get a sort of hybrid electric acoustic sound. Street Fighting Man is such a killer track.
Likewise, 'It’s Only Rock and Roll' was liminal, as the Stones transitioned from a bunch of wild kids into “elder statesmen” — everyone in the core band was in their thirties. Guitarist Mick Taylor left (he developed a drug habit), Ron Wood started hanging around, and the band evolved into the line-up that would take them into the 1990s. The next bunch of albums were compilations and the Stones lost their footing until 1978’s "Some Girls.“ Regardless, the adventure and innovation of the early 70s Stones was gone.
'Time Waits for No One' features lovely, modal guitar solos by Mick Taylor, lush instrumentation with acoustic guitars and flanged electrics, percussion, piano, and a synth meowing like a cat in the background. The final mix is cloudy and seems unfocused and lost, but that seems to work with the lyrics, which are some of Mick Jagger’s most poetic.
Yes, star-crossed in pleasure, the stream flows on by
Yes, as we're sated in leisure, we watch it fly, yes
Time can tear down a building or destroy a woman's face
Hours are like diamonds, don't let them waste
Men, they build towers to their passing
Yes, to their fame everlasting
Here he comes, chopping and reaping
Hear him laugh at their cheating
Drink in your summer, gather your corn
The dreams of the nighttime will vanish by dawn
And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me
And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me
Sounds like someone is considering their age and what’s next, huh?
Liminal indeed.
Liminality in Record Production
The in-between places on recordings, the transitions between sections, were always something I thought about and carefully approached in the studio. About a year ago I wrote a bunch on this, so this is just a quick refresher — some ideas for a New Year.
Consider how the song moves from a verse to a chorus. How is that transition being handled? Is a new instrument coming in to introduce it, or is something dropping out to make room? In rock, often transitions are indicated by drum fills. What sort of fills are happening in that liminal moment? Is it the drums alone, or is there a bit of a guitar or keyboard part in there as well? I think of transition points as gates, a narrow passage between song sections, and part of the job of the arrangement is to figure out how to get through that gate. Do instruments go through it one after the other, or does one lead, or do they all play the same part and go through as a team?
Some ideas and examples:
Drums start then lock in with the bass
Lovely transition here: instruments hand off to each other, like a waterfall or a stairway down
This is a mess, but it works. The whole song is a mess but it works.
Another liminal moment that deserves attention are song bridges and breaks.
A bridge is exactly that, a walkway from one part of the song to another. I also think of a bridge as a moment in which the song "changes its mind,” where there’s a shift in viewpoint. This is especially common lyrically. As an example, you have a song where the singer is complaining about how lonely they are, and in the bridge they realize it’s their own fault.
Army
Great example: Army, by Ben Folds Five. The song is about a kid dropping out of college and wondering what to do next—the chorus is literally “been thinking a lot today.” In the bridge, we hear his actual ideas on what he’s going to do next, and this is supported by a bunch of abrupt changes in style, tempo, and mood, going from a fuzz bass thing, to a tack piano breakdown, to another fuzz bass break, and then into one of the most kick ass horn section parts ever. And then it glides back to “thinking a lot today” and the protagonist is back on his bed staring at the ceiling, stuck in a liminal space, thinking "what do I do next?"
Good lord, what a flipping amazing song.
Happy New Year. I hope it’s a great year for you, full of adventure and meaning, and if you’re stuck in a liminal situation at least make it interesting!
Warm Regards,
Luke
Perry, Fanny, Happy New Year.
New Monday 46
Happy Monday.
The year winds down, a new one starts.
Former US President Jimmy Carter has died. He is the longest-lived American President—he was a few months past 100 years old when he passed. Mr Carter was, more than anything else, a humanitarian who tried to make the world better for those less fortunate, and he tried to do that on all levels, from local (he built houses for Habitat For Humanity, like actually swinging the hammer) to remaining involved in global affairs as a negotiator and unofficial ambassador of the US. He was also a prolific author, and won three Grammy Awards out of ten nominations in the Best Spoken Word Album category. Not a bad life for a kid from a peanut farm in Georgia who once was involved in stopping a nuclear reactor meltdown by being lowered into its radioactive core.
Another person died recently, who was nominated seven times for a Grammy but never won, which is crazy considering Richard Perry’s career.
Richard Perry
Richard Perry died at 82 of Parkinson's Disease. Mr. Perry was a super producer. In his heyday, the 70s, his name was on everything, and his name had hit cachet to it.
Perry was a musical prodigy from New York City who migrated out to the West Coast in the mid 60s and started his career producing Captain Beefheart’s 'Safe as Milk', a strange psychedelic blues album, and the novelty hit 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' for Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim was a surprise hit, Beefheart was a critical success, and Perry’s was on its way.
A Partial Discography: Carly Simon (yes, he produced 'You’re So Vain' and supposedly it took 100 takes to nail it), Harry Nilsson, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Leo Sayer, Ringo — including a session with John, George, and Ringo playing together — Donna Summer, The Pointer Sisters, Neil Diamond, Julio Iglesias, Ray Charles, Rod Stewart, live albums for Ella Fitzgerald.
We put together a playlist of Richard Perry things here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe6ZCJT_4KPlYNTQVwJUhdrnMyWho9N4Q
Perry could not only play virtually everything, he could arrange and knew how to put deals together. He ran record labels, did A&R work, and got involved with Broadway musicals and films. He was never lowered into a nuclear reactor core with a screwdriver, but he did produce one of the most interesting and sadly unremembered bands perhaps of all times, the excellent, ass-kicking Fanny.
Fanny
Perry didn’t only do pop records, he produced the first three albums by Fanny.
Fanny was an all-girl rock band that played their own instruments, a rarity in 1970. Perry found them, signed them to Reprise Records and produced their first three albums. Damn. Fanny really rocked. Sisters June and Jane Millington (guitar and bass, respectively) grew up as rich in the Philippines, moved to California in the early 60s and by 1965 were dropping out of college to concentrate on music. By the time Perry found them, they’d added a killer drummer, Alice de Buhr, and keyboardist Nickey Barkley.
Fanny hit the top 40 in 1971 with Charity Ball but they didn’t have a career commensurate with their abilities. The world, I suppose, wasn’t ready for a band that could throw it down like The Faces but had the harmonies of The Shirelles. Fanny’s real impact was inspirational, and groups like The Runaways, the Bangles and the GoGos count Fanny as a prime influence. In an era where record labels wanted girls dressed in skirts, and backed up by studio musicians, Fanny did their own thing in bell-bottoms with harmonies that sounded like The Beatles or Badfinger. Here’s a Fanny playlist. There’s a lot of great stuff here.
A Blast from the Past
Here’s a 1984 interview with Richard Perry from the long-defunct Recording/Engineer/Producer magazine. Scroll down to page 38 to read. There’s a pullout section on his engineer, John Arrias, that’s more tech-oriented. But ya know what, forget the interviews and just look at the TONS of ads for EVERYTHING: consoles, mics, tape processors, studios—it’s really a fun glimpse at the industry just as MIDI and digital technology were becoming nascent.
Enough of the past, and into a weird future as the industry continues to shift, Ai continues to grow like a creature spawned from radioactive waste, and we all try to find our footing and our place in it. There’s always re-invention this time of year.
Next week I’ll post up the last bit of writing on setting levels and put that entire set of ideas together.
Happy New Year to you from Dan and I. We have a bunch of things planned and we will be FULL OF SURPRISES this year! But one thing that won’t ever change is how much we appreciate all of you.
Warm regards,
Luke
National Sweetheart, Setting Levels, Sinatra
New Monday 45
Happy Monday and Happy Holidays!
Last week I wrote about setting levels and promised to go into the details of doing this on our plug-ins. So I did that. But it’s long, it’s a link:
An Overview of Setting Audio Levels, Part 1
And... here is some music you can listen to while reading. This is...
National Sweetheart
More psychedelic fun, although this time it’s mostly all instrumental, sitting somewhere between The Shadows and some sort of early moody Neil Young album. It’s lush, well-recorded and played, and is lovely to have floating around in the background while you read about setting plug-in levels or how amazingly evil Spotify is.
National Sweetheart has a good YouTube channel. These guys have a lot of creativity and a definite theatricality, which makes sense because they also write music for a bunch of major brands out of their studio, Blue Deer.
Evil. Necessary?
If you don’t want to read about level setting while listening to National Sweetheart, you can read this article about how evil Spotify is. Spotify is gaming their own system against artists and, in some ways, against listeners. Every time I post a Spotify link I wish I hadn’t, but streaming has become a necessary evil I suppose.
In the mood for something more joyous, especially considering that it’s the holiday season? Here’s a thing on Slade’s big Christmas hit.
For me, it ain’t Christmas if I don’t hear Frank Sinatra’s A Jolly Christmas Album, also called...
The Sinatra Christmas Album
We had this on eight-track when I was a kid. The damn thing would loop non-stop starting mid-December until the first week of January. My siblings and I were brainwashed by this, similar to how Frank himself was brainwashed in the movie The Manchurian Candidate. Here’s a scene. This is one heck of a strange scene.
'O Jolly Christmas' was recorded July 1957 at Capitol Studios A in Hollywood. This album was cut totally live, with an orchestra, background singers and of course Frank himself, basically all in the same room, in four-hour sessions across four days. Unbelievable musicianship and audio engineering. The skill set required to pull something like this off...
NOW- IT IS TIME TO CRY!
Here’s a John Lewis Christmas commercial. It’s gorgeous. I cry thinking about it.
In Montreàl and New York it’s cold and there’s some snow. The year winds down and a new one comes creeping in. Dan and I wish you a wonderful holiday, whatever you might be celebrating.
Very Warm Regards,
Luke
Driving Songs and Parking Lots
New Monday 44
Happy Monday,
Driving Songs
A friend had an early morning event to drive to, and it got me thinking about speeding around in a car, which of course got me thinking about the best driving song anyone has ever recorded, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zKAS7XOWaQ&list=PLe6ZCJT_4KPm_1xpeYct48rflHClPpPyW&index=1
Damn, that song rocks. It's the perfect driving song: perfect tempo, perfect feel (thanks to a great rhythm section, Ian Paice and Roger Glover), killer solos by Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore, and a one-and-done vocal by Ian Gillan. Lyrics about cars and/or sex, of course.
'Made in Japan' was a seminal record, cut absolutely live with no overdubs across three nights in Japan, in 1972. The Japanese market was clamouring for a live album, the band grudgingly complied. They really had no faith in the project, but not wishing it to suck completely, they flew engineer/producer Martin Birch in to record things.
Birch tracked things down to either 8-track reel-to-reel or two 4-track decks that were synched. Organist Jon Lord recalls there being two 4-tracks, but the technology limitations of the times leads me to think it was probably an 8-track. Martin Birch thought the equipment used looked like junk. The band's PA system was by Marshall and based around a 16-input solid-state console, so perhaps that figured into the recording somehow as well. No one had high hopes for the recording, and most of the band didn't bother to attend the mixing sessions.
Actually, the recording came out REALLY good. So good that the band managed to push their record label, Warner, into releasing it in more countries than just Japan. 'Made in Japan' was hugely successful, aided by a single, 'Smoke on the Water', and is rightly considered one of the great live albums.
8-tracks. Those drum sounds cut to two measly tracks perhaps? A track of bass, a track of organ, a track of guitar, and a vocal. A pair of tracks used to record the audience. Or maybe the whole is mainly a stereo mix off the board? Big magic afoot on 'Made in Japan'.
I've put together a playlist of songs to drive to, and you're all invited to contribute. It's located here on YouTube, with 'Highway Star' leading it off. There are obvious choices like 'LA Woman' and 'Radar Love', and some less obvious entries, like The Cure's 'Just Like Heaven' and the Moody Blues' 'Question'. The criteria for inclusion is: it has to make you want to speed around in a car, and there's only one song entry per band or artist. Lots of things you like by Iron Maiden? Sorry, whittle it down to one. People might be wondering why 'Them Bones' isn't on the list. Because 'Them Bones' is a song that makes you want to WRESTLE. This was the fave soundtrack tune when my son was a toddler and we would re-enact the WWF on the big bed upstairs for hours, with constant, completely safe body slams, etc.
Either put your entries in the comments on YouTube or reply to this email. If this is somewhat successful perhaps we'll make some other playlists.
Setting Levels
I recently got an email asking questions about the operating level of our audio plug-ins. Hi Alex!
I wasn't fully satisfied with my answer. Actually, I'm not fully satisfied by any answers or dogma regarding audio levels. Dan and I have discussed this at length many times.
There's a lot of online talk about levels, gain staging, where should the faders be, what should the meters read, yada yada yada. This is a complex topic.
I've written a series of articles on this, covering the technical stuff in an understandable manner and always stressing the practical sides of things. Here are links. If you read it in the order of the links it is like a comprehensive course. You can also, of course, skip around.
https://korneffaudio.com/what-the-heck-is-bias/ (It starts off discussing bias. Because if you understand this then everything else makes a lot more sense.)
https://korneffaudio.com/harmonics-and-harmonic-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/what-causes-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/noise-in-audio-engineering/
https://korneffaudio.com/dynamic-range-headroom-and-nominal-level/
https://korneffaudio.com/compression-saturation-and-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/at-last-gain-staging/
https://korneffaudio.com/nominal-level-and-meters/
Here's all of this in a nutshell
Digital audio equipment, and the procedures and processes involved in recording digital audio, are heavily based on equipment, and procedures, and processes developed by years of analog recording, and this makes total sense. Digital recording evolved out of analog recording. We think of, and describe, many aspects of digital recording using an analog recording mental model.
The most important mental model that we use is that there is a "sweet spot" to set the levels, in which one gets an optimum result.
With analog equipment, there is definitely a sweet spot. It's a place wherein the signal feeding in and the signal feeding out of the equipment are as similar to each other as possible: the frequency response is the same, the transient response is the same, there's minimal noise, there's minimal additional harmonics added (harmonic distortion). The sweet spot is the level at which the signal has maximum linearity: what goes in is what goes out. This is assuming you're not actively eq'ing the signal or compressing it or some such.
That sweet spot corresponds to something called the Nominal Level. Gear is designed to work at nominal level, and if you want things to sound good, try to get things to be at nominal level.
How do you know what the nominal level is? It's usually indicated by a meter of some sort. Get the meter to look correct, and the audio will be correct. It really is that simple.
So, what does a correct meter look like? It depends on the meter. I could get into a huge discussion about meters, and next week I will specifically break down the meters on various Korneff Audio plug-ins to help you really understand things, but for now, I'll give you the absolute baseline concept:
RED IS BAD
If there is nothing else you learn, learn this. Red is a warning, and most meters will show red when levels are out of the sweet spot on the high side. Levels below the nominal (below the sweet spot) aren't as problematic as levels above the sweet spot that cause things to flash red. Seriously, most level setting on both analog and digital devices is simply to adjust the input
so that things occasionally flash red. OCCASIONALLY. Not all the time.
Remember that our plug-ins, and most plug-ins, are based on analog circuits, and that means that there is math in there that is emulating the behaviour of how an analog circuit will sound depending on if you're in that sweet spot or not, and the meters on plug-ins are there to help you get the plug-in to operate in its sweet spot. So use the meters and your ears. Also, bear in mind that the sweet spot/nominal level is kinda on the big side. It isn't incredibly specific. It's like parking spots in a parking lot: there are a lot of parking spots that are near the door of the place you're trying to go and you don't have to get your car perfectly in that one damn perfect spot.
You don't have to be anal or OCD about your level setting, you just need to get somewhere near the door.
To answer Alex very specifically, digital audio uses a sort of "imaginary" nominal level that is labeled as -18dBFS, and our plug-ins, and most plug-ins, are designed to be their most linear at -18dBFS. In other words, the sweet spot is at about -18dBFS, but you don't need to be anal about this number, you really just need to know how to understand meters, and we'll talk about that next week.
I hope this helps.
Warm regards,
Luke
Common Saints & Reverb ideas
New Monday 43
Here's a thing to listen to...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHp3x3CFmj0
Common Saints is the nom de studio of Charlie Perry, an Englishman, multi-instrumentalist and producer who just released his debut album, Cinema 3000, on Oct. 29th.
Good, wet fun!
I suppose Common Saints' genre is psychedelic soul music. On a practical level, it's what you'd get if Roger Waters was less interested in why the British education system screws people up and more interested in having tons of sex in a room lit with Moby’s lava lamp collection. On Idol Eyes, the chorus is “Wanna make love? Wanna get high?" Exactly. Cinema 3000 is the ultimate sexytime album, as well as the ultimate sleepytime album. Both. At the same time.
But that isn't to say the record is shallow. Rather, it's poetic and hopeful, all about good vibrations and not recriminations. This isn't Nu Metal, and why one has their issues. This is dinner with friends who are smart, nice, and upbeat, touching on ideas with a smile and some edibles and not wallowing in complicated soup with Nietzsche and Freud.
I love this record.
The songs are a strange mixture of hooks and dreaming, sometimes structured but often simply musical events happening over the same set of chord changes. And then something super-catchy happens. There's definitely a healthy dose of Pink Floyd and AIR in the recipe, but also a dollop of vintage soul music, especially in the sonics of the low, drums and vocals. Great bass lines abound. There are slick guitar solos that also sound off the cuff. And slide guitar. C'est La Vie is what would happen if the Rolling Stones decided to clean up the basement while working on 'Exiles on Main Street'.
And wonderful production. Mr. Perry records loosely but puts things together with infinite discipline. And he's a master of ambiance and reverberation. In fact, the record is a masterclass in what to do to make things wet without getting soaked.
Reverb and ambiance, the sound of it, the amount of it, is an instant clue as to the era in which the music was recorded. Nothing makes things sound dated like reverb. A trend on a lot of contemporary recordings is to evoke a past by using reverb... a lot of it. Often too much. Cinema 3000 is lush, thick with washes of ambiance, but it’s all used creatively and in really musical ways.
Some sound examples, cued up for you.
Check out infinite decay time on the end of this slide guitar lick
Here, Mr Perry uses vocal reverb to basically generate a pad. Notice how the reverb is phrased around the sections of the song. By the way, send this song to someone you’re romantically interested in, it’s as romantic, gorgeous and heartfelt.
Listen to how each part is in its own distinctive environment. Starting with the drums, which are in a boxy small room, and then each part comes in, enclosed in its own little reverb bubble, until the chorus, when the whole thing is suddenly in a zeppelin hangar.
All of these clips sound much better on a better streaming platform. The whole album is really really worth a listen.
Articles and Ideas
Highly inspired by Common Saints and with indirect sound in mind, I pulled together a bunch of ideas on using reverb, a few previous articles, a new one written just for this New Monday Episode, a bit of this and a bit of that.
Don’t Think of Reverb Acoustically - Luke’s thoughts on the matter.
Practical and Impractical Reverb - Dan’s thoughts on the matter.
Hearing Different Reverb Types
I'll leave you with this, from Cinema 3000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZSqc3uSYmg
Warm, fuzzy, somewhat hazy, trippy regards,
Luke
It’s Tuesday! More plug-in ideas!
New Monday 42b
Happy Tuesday!
As promised/threatened, here is another email with usage ideas, inside information, and whatnot on our plug-ins.
El Juan Limiter
The El Juan is the first of our plug-ins using our proprietary licensing system. From now on, all our plug-ins will be using it and we’ll upgrade the original 5 too. Soon.
The El Juan started as a joke. A certain plug-in company changed their business model, switching over to subscription, which pissed a lot of people off. Dan was on Social Media, listening to the complaints, and posted something along the lines of “I’ll make a version of XXX and give it out for free if 1000 people like this post."
A few days later, Dan got to building the El Juan. The origin of the name you should be able to figure out.
The El Juan definitely excels at making things louder, and it does this by limiting and makeup gain. But it also has waveshaping.
Waveshaping
When you change the shape of a waveform, it adds additional complexity, in the form of additional harmonics. A simple sine wave goes in, waveshaping can add an octave to it, or thirds, or whatever you want, really. Waveshaping can add a bunch of sweetness or a bunch of garbage.
The “traditional” analog way to waveshape was to clip the waveform by overloading a component in a circuit or an entire device. Yes, saturation and distortion are forms of waveshaping. Digitally, one can apply math to replicate analog saturation and distortion, and that is waveshaping. Or, unlike the analog world, one can use math to add a very specific, controlled series of harmonics to a waveform.
A simple way to think of this: when I refer to waveshaping, I’m referring to math that adds a limited, very controlled set of harmonics. Saturation uses math to add more than one or two harmonics, and distortion adds tons more harmonics. Waveshaping - simple and a little. Saturation/Distortion - complex and a lot. The El Juan’s waveshaper adds some harmonics, which result in a richer, fuller sound. It doesn’t add saturation per se, it’s waveshaping, it’s adding some of the elements of saturation - the nice ones!
The El Juan has two different waveshaping options, which change the harmonic structure of the signal feeding through it, much the same as feeding the signal through a different console brand will affect the structure of the signal. And this gives you a hint as to how we use the El Juan. Like the PSC and the AIP, we almost always start the El Juan by flipping it around to the back and playing with waveshaping and input eq.
Here’s a video which shows a lot of the power of the El Juan.
The available settings are clearly marked and the effect will be obvious to your ear. Start back here, getting something that you like that fits your mix. Then, switch around to the front and use the limiter section to further process your sound.
Goofy Goofy Secret: the original marketing for El Juan was supposed to be like a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western comic book. The Tale of El Juan was narrated by a robotic turtle named “Old Pedro.” However, when I was typing things out, I made a typo and wrote "Old Pedo.” I thought it was hilarious, so there was a running gag of Old Pedro and various other characters mispronouncing his name and Old Pedo, I mean Old Pedro, having to constantly correct it.
Again, I thought it was funny. But a few people found it less so... and somewhat insensitive, childish, stupid, tone-deaf, etc. So Old Pedro the Turtle got shelved and thus died one of the great marketing ideas in North American history.
Puff Puff mixPass
The Puff makes things apparently louder by using... waveshaping! The Puff Puff is basically a dedicated waveshaper. If something is already compressed and still not sitting there correctly, the Puff will make it a bit louder (and actually undo a bit of the compression by popping out the peaks a little bit).
How does waveshaping make things sound louder? It adds harmonics, and typically, when you add things in audio, there’s a power and loudness, unless things are out of phase. That’s a very simple way of explaining it. Try this: think of additional harmonics as adding density — the signal becomes thicker, richer, and our ears perceive it as louder. Note that the Puff makes things PERCEPTUALLY louder, but there isn’t much of a change on the meters. You don’t get a different LUF reading typically.
Quick Tip: Dan’s basic trick is if something sounds good, do the same thing again. Put a Puff Puff on a channel or a bus, and then add another one, Most of the time the result is a delight.
Both El Juan and Puff are designed as bus processors. That doesn’t mean they won’t work on a single channel, but our development thinking was that these are things you slap on a bus or across a mix. Both do similar things but in very different ways, and there’s also some redundancy. The El Juan also has waveshaping and the Puff also has a clipper on it.
Here’s a thing: You’ve slapped the El Juan across your mix bus, you’re doing some mighty fine limiting and things are sounding good, and you think, “Let’s add the Puff Puff to this and see if we can’t end the loudness wars once and for all.”
Where do you put the Puff? Before the El Juan or after? That’s a good question.
I’ve tried both, and I usually wind up with it after. So, once I limit things with El Juan, then I put the Puff on after it and play around with it a little more. I almost always swap the positions of the two, but generally, the Puff goes after.
Here’s a video where I’m using Puff and El Juan together. Some good ideas here.
Quick Safety Tip: Even though the Puff doesn’t typically change the meters, it doesn’t mean that putting it on last won’t clip your mix bus. One thing I do is have a True Peak meter on the bus after the Puff, and I make sure I’m keeping the true peak value at -1 or even -2, depending. We could have a whole ridiculous discussion of all this stuff and I assure you, we will, and soon.
The WOW Thing
The original WOW thing was a cheap plastic box you could slap on your computer speakers to get things a little wider sounding for, I don’t know, more drama when playing Legend of Zelda. Eventually, the WOW thing found its way onto the guitar tracks of a number of famous albums in the 90s and suddenly it’s a must have guitar secret. And to be honest, it’s great for that. But at its heart, it’s a psychoacoustic processor that uses delay and phase shift to fool your ears into thinking things are outside of the geometry of your speakers.
The WOW gently gets rid of everything below about 1kHz - the more you turn up WOW, the more this frequency cut happens. Hence, the WOW thing by default makes things brighter. And this is where the misnamed TrueBass control comes in, it adds back bass. Actually, it invents bass. It’s not TrueBass at all. All the real bass on the track died in a horrible filtering accident earlier in the signal flow. And this is what I love about the WOW Thing: it’s a great bass/low end enhancer.
I use the True Bass on kicks, bass — anything where I want something kind of big, low and pillowy, rather than something super tight down there. It works great for this. Also, you can’t go wrong putting the WOW thing on reverb returns.
Here’s a video I did a few months back in which I stem mixed a song using only The WOW Thing. There’s a ton of ideas in this video on how to use it to get more bass, more motion, overload it for additional harmonics...!
Pumpkin Spice Latte
This is a surprisingly complex little plug-in disguised as a seasonal beverage.
Pumpkin Spice was designed to be an all-in-one, a mini-channel strip that could get something rough and chewy out of a vocal track. Of course, people are using it all over the place, not just on vocals. I like it especially, a friend of mine swears by it on brass, and it does work.
There are limiters and compressors all over the place on the Pumpkin Spice, and they’re all interactive with the rest of the controls so that you don’t really know they’re there. You can slap this sucker on a raw vocal track and you’d be surprised by how much things will get under control without touching a knob.
Pumpkin Spice is a quick idea tool. Throw it on a track, play around and get some ideas. Perhaps execute the ideas using more adjustable plug-ins, like swapping out the reverb for something with more adjustments, but often it sounds so good as it is, we just leave it on the track.
Fun Usage: Set the delay time to under 5ms or so. Crank up the feedback and you’ll get crazy comb filtering, a “stuck flanger” effect. Change the delay time to shift the resonance up and down. Then, automate that delay time every now and then to wake everyone up. Fun stuff!
That’s it for this Tuesday. See you next week... on Monday.
Warm regards,
Luke
Five Years of Korneff & Plug-In Tips and Tricks
New Monday 42a
Happy Monday -
Korneff Audio started on a Black Friday five years ago, with one plug-in, the original Pawn Shop Comp. Five years later, we’ve got nine, and a bunch more waiting to see daylight. So, I guess happy birthday to us?
For this episode (producer/engineer John Agnello calls each of these an episode... sounds like an eventual podcast...), I thought I’d be extra useful by giving some info on our plug-ins, specifically going into how Dan and I use them in the studio, some design background, some usage hints.
There’s so much though, that I am splitting this into two emails, one today and one tomorrow. SO... keep an eye out for New Tuesday!
Factoids and Uses and Whatnot on All Our Plugins, going by age
Pawn Shop Comp/Pawn Shop Comp 2.0
It’s misnamed. It’s really a vintage channel strip consisting of a tube preamp coupled to a FET-style compressor. It works on everything, including the mix bus, but it’s el supremo on vocals and bass. Tons of saturation options because of the preamp, and the ability to switch in different tubes and transformers. The way we use the PSC is to put it on a channel, flip around to the backside, fiddle with the preamp and the tubes and transformer, and THEN adjust the compressor. Think of it as selecting the console you want to use before engaging the channel EQ.
Fun Factoid: The Operating Level control is a circuit Dan nicked off a cassette tape duplicator his Uncle Bob had given him when Dan was a wee teen. He liked how it sounded, so it wound up in the Pawn Shop Comp.
Usage Secret: I’ve mentioned this before... two of them, one right after the other, set one to respond quickly and the other a bit more slowly (play with attack and release). Swap the order in the inserts ’til you get something smooth.
Talkback Limiter
This beast is another FET-style limiter, based on a circuit found in SSL consoles designed to keep studio talkback mics from destroying speakers and ears. Hugh Padgham and Peter Gabriel invented gated drum sounds with this circuit.
Yes, it is amazing on drums. It makes anything snap and click and punch. It lives on our snares, kicks, room mics, etc. It’s probably the best overall drum compressor out there.
But, and I suppose it’s part of the FET transistor modeling, and the artifacts produced by an FET, the TBL adds a thickness to things. It’s hard to describe but I can hear it in my head. It has a similar sound to Neve Diode compressors. It makes me clench my jaw and want to bite something. If you know Neve compressors, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the TBL is really great on things like vocals and acoustic instruments provided you back the DRY WET BLEND way way down towards DRY. Like, barely crack it open. It adds a little beef and evenness. We typically follow it with another compressor.
Fun Factoid: for distortion effects, click around to the back and mess with the trimpots. AND for a real adventure, on the front panel, click on the power lights at the top and see what happens...
Amplified Instrument Processor
I wrote about this thing's monstrously good sounding EQ a few episodes ago. Further, I wrote a whole course on how to use it. If you want to be enrolled in the course, reply to this email and I’ll sign you into it.
Usage Idea: Put an AIP on each of your submix buses. Switch on the Proprietary Signal Processing button on the front, and then play around with the three different settings on the back - one is tube-ish, one is tape-ish, and one is California 1970s’ solid state-ish. Again, do this BEFORE you do anything else with the plug-ins. It’s like picking out different sounding channels for each grouping of instruments.
Micro Digital Reverberator
You know who likes reverb units with almost no controls? Me. I love messing around with compressors, and EQs, and delays but when I get to reverbs I just want presets that sound good. I don’t even like adjusting simple things, like the decay time. Maybe it’s from screwing around for hours on 480Ls and always going back to the presets. Who knows.
Do This: Even though the original hardware units this puppy is modeling were basically designed to go on an insert or across a whole mix, put the MDR on its own channel and feed it via a send. Why?
1) You want to be able to EQ your reverbs. This is a HUGE trick. This guy explains it better than I can, so go read this.
2) You want to be able to feed the output of one reverb unit into the next, and so on.
What?? Cascade the reverbs?? YES!!!! It’s total insanity and fun!
In fact, do this: Put THREE MDRs on three separate channels. One is a short small room, one is a plate, and the last is a huge concert hall. Use the small room to widen and add a touch of ambiance. Use the plate for vocals, but just a smidge, and then use the concert hall for pads, etc. NOW... feed a bit of that small room INTO the concert hall, but just a touch, to have some movement and depth way way back there in the speakers. For special moments, like the end of a solo, or a chunk of vocal line when the singer screams out his ex-wife’s name in anguish, or when someone has decided a certain single snare hit is incredibly important, feed the small room into the plate and the plate into the concert hall. Obviously automate this stuff.
Fun Factoid: Everyone overlooks this, but the MDR has stereo widening/narrowing on the back....
The Echoleffe Tape Delay
This is one intimidating monster. I’ve seen grown mix engineers fling themselves into oncoming traffic when they discover there are individual EQs, bias, and pan settings for each of the three delay lines. I have stood over their mangled bodies, finally at peace, and I’ve whispered, “Did you know you also have complete control over wow, flutter, tape age, head bump, as well as tape formulation, and you can switch off the Echoleffe’s delay function and just use it as a tape saturation simulator?"
This thing is the opposite of the MDR. It’s bristling with controls like a pissed-off German porcupine. It’s a pity, because once you get the logic of the controls, the ETD is quick to use and impossibly versatile. It can do easy things, like adding slapback on a vocal (it’s overkill for that, honestly), but it excels at making sounds you’ve never heard before.
The ETD can turn a single note into a keyboard pad that modulates and moves. It can twist delays into reverbs and musically sync the whole thing to the tempo of the track.
Usage Ideas: Set the delay times to below 11ms - set all three of them differently. Pan them everywhere. Play the track, and adjust the feedback for each delay line on the front panel, then go to the Tape Maintenance Panel and futz around with wow and flutter — this will add modulation to the delay times and suddenly you’ve got flanging happening that is out of this world and panned all over the stereo image. Gradually increase one of the delay times to get pitch-shifting effects. Automate the changes of the delay times. Play with the REVERB DENSITY switch on the front panel to basically DOUBLE the number of echo returns.
Even if you never buy this thing, download the demo and spend a week writing songs with it.
Licensing
Our original five plug-ins are iLOK-based for security purposes. Yes, we are phasing that out and soon our original five will use our own proprietary licensing system developed by Dan, the damn genius. When will this happen? We are hoping very very soon, but no promises. But know that we’ve heard your requests to get the heck off iLOK and we are working towards that.
I don’t have a new record this week. I’m still listening to Kim Deal every day. It gets better and more creative and insightful with each listen. But here’s a great interview with her on the Broken Record podcast. She talks about everything, including the new album. And she’s really really funny! And so so smart. She talks a lot about Steve Albini, and sadly, she occasionally refers to him in the present tense, as though he was still alive.
Warm regards,
Luke
Black Friday Sale, Kim Deal
New Monday #41
Happy Monday!
We started our Black Friday Sale today. And we added plug-in bundles, which people have been asking for. SO... 40% off plug-ins and up to 60% off on bundles!
Kim Deal
A few weeks ago I wrote about albums by older guys. I was in some sort of search for meaning, I suppose.
On November 22nd, former Pixie and Breeder Kim Deal, at age 63, released her first "real" solo album, 'Nobody Loves You More'. It's simply wonderful. Might be the best album of the year.
Kim had released a few things on her own in the past decade, things she recorded on eight-track tape — she's an analog kinda gal, but finally hunkered down in Florida, learned Pro-Tools (by bugging her friend, engineer/producer Steve Albini for lessons over the phone) and got to it.
Most of 'Nobody Loves You More' was recorded by Steve Albini, with Kim producing, along with a crackerjack bunch of players ranging from rock musicians to jazzers, to string players, and more. The record is lush, quirky, and ever-interesting. Songs evolve from sparse, punky Americana into a cha cha, or there's a pedal steel, or strings. It's all over the map, but it's held together by melody and Ms Deal's fascinating voice. It takes a bit to get used to — she sounds like an animated cartoon character played by a chain-smoking alcoholic, but it's the perfect voice to deliver the pain and magic of this album.
The record is full of pain. She lost her mom to Alzheimer's, and then, following in quick succession, her dad, her aunt, and her uncle — within one year. And then she lost Steve Albini — he died after 'A Good Time Pushed', the last thing he ever recorded.
But while it's a painful record, it's not sad. There's something gorgeous and content about it, triumphant and wise. And Ms. Deal has a great sense of humor, which comes out in the lyrics and the scatological arrangements. It's such a good record, and so worth a listen. In a fair and decent world, it would sweep the Grammy's.
But it won't. Because it's not something built to fit an algorithm and tweaked to within an inch of its life — there's not even autotune on it. It doesn't have guest rappers, songs written by fourteen people, or Max Martin anywhere near it. Kim has about 7,000 subscribers on YouTube. This music wasn't written with data science and AI pitching in on the lyrics. It's not statistically constructed to increase engagement. It ain't fucking "content."
It's a record by someone doubling down on the one thing all of us can double down on: being one's self. Unapologetically screwed up, vulnerable, perhaps a bit pissed-off, but playing your own damn game.
'Nobody Loves You More'
Some things on YouTube:
A short one this week. Have a lovely time - the holidays are upon us. Love love love.
Warm regards,
Luke
Shel Talmy, Mic Stuff
New Monday #40
Happy Monday -
While I was writing this, producer Shel Talmy died. You might not know his name, but you surely know 'My Generation', 'Friday on My Mind', and this little ditty from The Kinks.
This was a groundbreaking recording. There’s fuzz guitar on it!
Now, the story is, to get that guitar sound, Dave Davies slashed his speaker with a razor blade. At the very beginning, before the band kicks in, you can clearly hear a buzzing that might or might not be the two edges of a paper speaker cone against each other, but also, by 1964 people knew that if you turned up an amp a lot you’d get distortion. Heck, people knew this since... forever? So, I think it’s a combination of a turned-up amp and a damaged speaker, but I wasn’t there. I was only a year old and still wetting myself.
Another thing to hear: the bassist not muting his bass. Listen for an out-of-tune resonance that can be heard in the gap in the iconic riff. Even as a kid this used to drive me nuts. What does it take to wrap a sock around the neck at the nut?
By the way, Jimmy Page is on this session, because The Kinks’ lead singer, Ray Davies, wasn’t playing his usual rhythm guitar. Producer Shel Talmy wanted him to concentrate on vocals and brought in Jimmy Page to do Ray’s parts. Because it was live in the studio with no overdubs. Now, both Jimmy Page and Dave Davies claim to be playing the rhythm part, which is unusual because usually guitarists claim playing the solo.
Talmy also produced a few very early David Bowie records, when Bowie was still Davy Jones. You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving is not one of Bowie’s best compositions, but even on this one we can hear hints of his latent songwriting ability. Check out the “rave up” sections that are verging on pure noise.
Talmy wasn’t all noise and rock, though. He recorded some gorgeous acoustic folk stuff. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme by Pentangle is a lovely recording. Check out the cello glide from left to right at the start, and the precision and clarity of the various parts.
Shel Talmy, off to that analog tape studio in the sky at 87.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
Shameless plug-in plug: go buy a Pumpkin Spice Latte. $14.99 - that’s less than what an actual Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte would cost you at a Starbucks in New York, and our plug-in, with its combination of saturation, ambiance, and echo is far more useful and less fattening, unless we’re talking about your tracks, because then it’s more fattening.
Microphone Stuff
I love microphones. I love having a lot of them to choose from, I love moving them around, I love buying them, I love trying different microphones and going, “meh... that sucks, try the XXXXXXX (insert your go-to mic here)”.
In no particular order: mic stuff.
What the 3:1 Rule really is
“When recording with multiple microphones, the 3:1 rule states that the second microphone should be placed three times as far away from the sound source as the first microphone.” Definition courtesy of the internet.
How to explain this... It’s not about phase. Phase doesn’t magically fix itself if things get three times farther away from each other. It’s about the LOUDNESS of LEAKAGE. What causes phase issues is the unintended stuff that gets into the second mic, and if it’s loud enough, plays phase havoc with the intended stuff in the first mic.
We have this:
It’s the leakage from the acoustic guitar, if it’s loud enough in the vocal mic, that will cause phase issues when it’s heard with the direct sound picked up by acoustic guitar’s mic. The guitar leakage (indirect sound) on the vocal mic will phase interfere with the guitar (direct sound) on the guitar mic. Following the 3:1 rule means hopefully the direct sound is a lot louder than the indirect sound. It’s controlling level, not phase. If you’re in a small, reflective room with tons of leakage everywhere, all of it loud, you’ll have phase issues regardless of distance.
Instead of the 3:1 rule, do this: Use one microphone. If you can’t do that, the closer the mics get to each other, the closer they have to get to their individual sound sources.
I learned something called acoustic separation. This was like, if you didn’t want the leakage to cause an issue, make sure it’s 26dB quieter than the direct sound. In practice, this is pretty hard to hit, so even if you’re getting 10 or 15dB of difference on the meters you’re doing well. Of course, 26dB is better.
And for God’s sake, don’t get a ruler out and measure this stuff.
Mic Position as EQ
If you’re using a mic with a directional polar pattern, there are a TON of placement options that can drastically change the frequency response of what you’re recording. And I’m not talking about where on the sound source you’re placing the mic. I’m talking about proximity effect and off-axis coloration.
Distance for Low End
Think moving closer or farther for low-end effects.
Most directional mics exhibit proximity effect—the closer you get to a sound source, the more the mic will enhance the low end. Some patterns and mics have more of this than others. Figure-eights (bi-directional) have the most. Rather than boosting the lows, move that mic closer, or swap in a mic like a figure-eight. A fig-eight on a bass cabinet or a kick is a fun thing. A 414 switched into fig-eight is a great thing on a guitar cabinet, also on toms (provided there’s not a cymbal over the tom).
Of course, if you’re trying to get rid of low mud, proximity effect will not be your friend. Proximity effect is often the cause of muddy vocals. Back the singer up a foot.
Fun phase trick. Mic something with a fig-eight, then put a board of wood behind it so the direct sound bounces off the board of wood into the back of the mic for instant phase strangeness. Have someone move the board closer and farther for a flange effect.
Added benefit of bidirectional polar patterns: they have the most side rejection of any mic, which makes them very useful when you really need to isolate a source from something on either side of it and there isn’t a bunch of stuff leaking into the back. Very useful on congas and such, also pianos.
Also, while most omni-directional mics don’t have proximity effect, some, usually multipattern condensers, do have it, so use those ears.
Axis for High End
The reality of directional patterns is that they’re a mess. You see them in books and mic spec sheets and they look like this:
Seems nice and uniform, doesn’t it?
Nope. The response changes depending on the frequency. In fact, the only place a mic is reliably flat, or somewhat like its frequency response diagram, is dead on from the front. From any other angle, the response is different.
The basic rules: the lower the frequency, the more the polar pattern tends to be omni; the tighter the polar pattern, the stranger the frequency response. The most consistent patterns are on bi-directional mics, the wonkiest are on supercardioids and shotgun mics. Here’s a more realistic response graph for a supercardioid mic.
A total mess above 1kHz. Or... think of it as a bunch of little EQ curves to play with.
Point the mic straight at something, get one frequency response. Position the mic off-axis to the sound source and the high-frequency response changes. It’s like a built-in low-pass filter.
There’s a lot of control here. Put a mic slightly above a singer’s mouth, point it down towards their chest and you can smooth out a spittie high end. Still sibilant? Move the mic right or left a bit. Come in from the side of their head, pointing towards their opposite shoulder. Adjust bass by coming in closer or further away. Adjust sibilance and highs by changing the mic’s axis.
A quick tip: if you’re going to be doing really weird mic angles on a singer, be aware that there’s a “turn towards the mic gravity” going on. Put a dummy mic in front of them so they sing towards it, and then let the weirdly placed mic do its job unnoticed.
This also works for any acoustic instruments, from cabinets to pianos to drums to horns—whatever.
Mics as Limiters
Mics are mechanical, mechanical stuff has inertia, the diaphragm of a mic has inertia. “Slow” heavy mics, like most moving coils, round off transients. I’ve written about this before. Here’s a diagram I stole.
This can make a huge difference between something sitting nicely in the mix and something that sounds like a little click unless you turn it up a lot, and then it’s way too loud.
Use Pop Filters Always
If you’re sticking a mic in front of a person, put a pop filter on it. Doesn’t matter if they’re popping the mic or not. They’re spitting crap and bits of chapped lip and dead taste buds and chia seeds and whatever else is in that mouth into the mic and all over the diaphragm. Kissing is fun, but cleaning chunks of spaghetti carbonara off your eardrum isn’t. Ever pay to get a diaphragm cleaned by some mic tech? Do you want to? Put a pop filter on it. It won’t affect your high-end.
Setting Up and Breaking Down
Most of you no longer deal with this, but it’s a good lesson.
When you’re doing a big session with lots of mics, set up the stands first, the cables second and put the mics on last. Route cables so there is always a footpath for people to walk that doesn’t have microphone cables on it. Route your drum mics all around one side of the kit so there’s a clear way for the drummer to get in and out without stepping over cables.
If you drop a cheap mic, it bounces. If an expensive mic hits the floor, chances are it’s toast.
Breaking down: before you let a single musician into the studio to put away their gear, unplug EVERY SINGLE MIC and put them AWAY in the MIC CABINET and LOCK IT perhaps. Every time a mic was ever stolen or broken, in all the years I was in studios, it was during the breakdown. Get them out of there first and fast.
This was shorter until I heard about the passing of Shel Talmy. Y’all have a great week.
Warm regards,
Luke
Old Guy Music
New Monday #39
Happy Monday!
We hope you’re enjoying the Pumpkin Spice Latte we just released. For those unfamiliar, it’s an analogy sounding channel strip, for want of a better word, that has a vintage tube console vibe along with lo-fi snap, crackle and pop pretensions. You can get a lot of sounds out of it and it’s only fifteen bucks, give or take a penny.
Everyone is into the vintage vibe when it comes to sound: old mics, old consoles, old guitar amps, old snare drums, compressors. Vintage vintage vintage. We also tend to like vintage music, or at the very least, the music we most identify with at a particular time in our lives. When we were young.
What we don’t seem to be as into is old people. Specifically old musicians. Specifically old musicians making new music. Or maybe it’s just an issue I have. Maybe. But I’ve not detected a lot of clamor for a new Mötley Cruë (Good lord—there are two umlauts in that) album.
I spent the last week listening to new records by some old guys, partially out of curiosity for what they’re up to, these guys I grew up with (and now old with), and partially for the learning aspects.
Music, the arts in general, is something from which one can learn. This seems to be a staple feature of culture at any time in history. As a kid, I learned rebellion and defiance, risk-taking and experimentation, love and loss... I learned a lot from records. It’s the same today, music is still culturally informative, but for old me, I’m looking for music from other old guys. Older than me. But not old stuff. I don’t want to recycle 1973 - 1998. I already know how to Fight the Power and that I’m Unlovable. Now I’m curious about how to grow old and still be cool.
The Cure
'Songs of a Lost World' dropped November 1st. It’s selling really well, considering it's about death and loss, delivered with The Cure’s patented gloom and doom keyboard patches and flinkie guitar parts. Critics seem to love it. I dunno. I’ve always thought The Cure worked best on quirky pop tunes that seemed to hint at something darker rather than extended noise jams with Robert Smith yelping on about something. What’s more interesting: Robert Smith buying escarole in the produce aisle at the local supermarket or Robert Smith in a black draped goth temple, lounging on a black couch? I prefer the juxtaposition in the supermarket.
However, what is cool, and generous, is that they released a three-hour concert on YouTube that’s beautifully shot and recorded. They play the entirety of the new album, along with a smattering of the hits. The new stuff, though, can’t compete with oldies like Close To Me, and they end the show with Boys Don’t Cry, something I already learned...
The The
The The, the nom de plume of singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson, released their (His? Their? How very modern—pronoun trouble!) first studio album in 25 years back in September. This is some smart smart music.
The The has always been smart, and confounding expectations, musically zigging when you might think it should zag. Their big song, This Is the Day, was one of the more interesting hits of the early 80s, with its Trio-esque drums, farty bass and accordion. The link is to a lame video that Matt Johnson hated when it was released. It’s easy to see why, between the totally cheesy video comping and his haircut.
'Ensoulment' is very smart—how could an album with a song on it titled Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot be anything but? Didn’t get enough politics over the past, oh, eight damn years? Try Kissing the Ring of Potus. My personal fave is a thudding lump of song called Zen & The Art Of Dating. It’s not a pretty picture and it makes me want to stay home and watch Yellowstone. But Mr. Johnson is an active participant in our increasingly unpredictable world, and the album is an invitation to dip in.
Slick, noisy, strange production, very The The. Love how they did the vocals on this. It’s like he’s staring at you from a few inches away. You can feel the stubble and smell the Chardonnay on his breath.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
'Wild God' came out in late late August. At first listening it’s dour, but with a bit of poking around you’ll find joy under it. Frogs is a cinematic treasure, uplifting and melodramatic to the edge of cloying, if not for the lyrics, which come at you in a montage of images: frogs, rain on a Sunday, some guy with a gun, Kris Kristofferson walking by, floating over a bed of keyboards and strings, with a choir out of a 70s Italian movie.
O Wow O Wow, How Wonderful She Is... oh, it’s phenomenal. Featuring the most modern production of the record, it’s a giddy celebration of a girlfriend, the Australian singer Anita Lane. She and Cave were lovers as well as writing partners, and although they stopped being a couple in the mid-80s, they remained friends and collaborators. Towards the end of O Wow, there’s a spoken word section, an obvious home recording of Anita Lane recounting an earlier time with Nick Cave, writing songs, being in love. Her laughter... It’s a snippet of the last audio she ever sent him—she passed in 2021. Heartbreaking in the best way.
If anyone wants to send me some old guy music, please shoot me links. And if you’ve got some new stuff that’s cool, that’s even better.
Warm regards,
Luke
A Toast: Quincy Jones
New Monday #38
Happy Monday, all. And I am sorry this is getting to you a little late. It’s been a busy morning!
So much going on.
Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones died yesterday.
To call this guy a genius is an understatement. He’s been a major force in music since the early 1950s. He composed everything from jazz standards to pop tunes to film scores. He produced. He arranged. He schmoozed. He put together an empire.
Please read his NY Times obituary. I knew a bit about the guy, but jeezl peezl, this man knew how to live!
Some things to hear:
Michael Jackson’s 'Billie Jean' was, I think, MJ’s biggest hit. It’s an astoundingly good recording. The snare sound alone gives me tickles.
God, the production is amazing. The bass comes in and there’s a little growl thing on the first note. Little finger snaps. Vocals panned all over - left, right, front and back. And used as percussion (listen to 'Rack ‘em Up' to see where some of these ideas came from).
Found this video - Chris Liepe goes through the multitracks as well as Michael Jackson’s original demos.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
We have a new plug-in out. Find out more here.
We’re doing a whole series of plug-ins based on Beverages. This is the first. It’s... well, basically it’s a lo-fi channel strip with vintage pretensions.
For a simple plug-in, it has a ton of power, and a wide palette of sounds. I compiled a bunch of things that both inspired the PSL and that you can use as references in terms of the sounds it can get you. Click to listen!
The Strokes - these kinds of guitar sounds
Tame Impala - these kinds of drum sounds
St Vincent - these sorts of keyboards and horns
Led Zeppelin - that lead guitar sound! Also the drums (turn up Whipped Cream!)
Clarence Carter - love that tube mic vox distortion and the grainy drums
Joy Division - basically, Pumpkin Spice Latte can get every sound on this recording
Royal Blood - the vocals, and maybe something across the entire mix
A short one this week. Dan and I were up all night for the past few days getting Pumpkin Spice out and we’re basically sleep deprived, and I for one am existing only because of double courtados.
We appreciate you all.
Warm regards,
Luke
The Numbers Game
New Monday #37
Good morning, all.
This came up at some cafe last week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQShbReNt2o
My first thought was, “That’s a Bowie lick. That’s Rebel Rebel. What kind of fresh hell is this?”
This song has been out for a year and I’ve been blissfully unaware of it. It’s like I’m late to a party that I didn’t want to go to.
I Used to Make Up My Own Lyrics to Songs When I Didn’t Understand Them, Too.
So, Bowie’s estate sold his entire catalog to Warner Chappell in 2022 for $250,000,000. Zeros for emphasis. This is 26 albums worth of music, from “meh," like Be My Wife, to moments of absolute brilliance like Fantastic Voyage. And, of course, all of the hits.
Rebel Rebel, which is a song about a trans kid whose parents can’t figure them out, potentially finding love and acceptance:
You've got your mother in a whirl
She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair's alright
Hey babe, let's go out tonight
Gets commoditized into this:
Here's to old trucks, young love and Saturday nights
It’s covered legally under something called “Interpolation,” and David Bowie gets a co-write, along with Ashley Glenn Gorley, Jesse Vernon Frasure and Josh Thompson. Bowie did the heavy lifting back in 1973, playing the iconic riff himself. Here he is lip-synching it on TV dressed as a pirate. He’s really just wearing an eye patch (no parrot, no pirate) because he had pink eye.
Rebel Rebel: The Phantom Menace got to number 5 on the country charts. I don’t know how many streams that equals but split those pennies four ways.
We Need More Writers
Perhaps four writers, counting the dead one, isn’t enough. Perhaps we need, I dunno, another eleven. Because this Coldplay song has only five chords - Em, B, C, D, Bm - so that’s 3 songwriters per chord. I looked up the chords online and there’s actually a sixth chord I didn’t hear, an Am, which is forgivable because that’s really just the depressed cousin of the C.
Call it 2.5 songwriters per chord. So split those streams fifteen ways, although I suppose some are getting more than others.
I have to confess: I am “interpolating" this from Rick Beato. He spoke about it here a few days ago. It’s a good listen: he breaks down how the money flows. I’m not going to explain it any further because I’m not getting anything from the streaming. I’ll let Rick do the heavy lifting and get the pennies.
By the way, the song also had five producers.
What is there To Like?
Halsey’s latest record dropped three days ago. There’s a wonderful song called Dog Years. Great recording, lots of fun noises on the outro, interesting lyrics:
Well, they say all dogs go to Heaven
Well, what about a bitch?
What about an evil girl
Left lying in a ditch?
I'm not old, but I am tired
I'm one hundred ninety-six in dog years
I have seen enough
I've seen it all
Halsey wrote the song when she was 28... x7 (dog years) = 196. A cool autobiographical fact stuck in the lyrics!
Actually, calculating human years to their dog equivalent is more complex than that. Perhaps that is why the song required four writers and four producers.
Two Writers, One Producer
I was sitting with a friend (together we are 861 years young) and an old song came on. And we stopped talking and sat there and listened. It was this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_RQv7OMJFI
John Lennon wrote most of it, Paul McCartney contributed to the middle eight and the part about burning the apartment down. Produced by George Martin, who seems to have basically gotten out of the way, and engineered by Geoff Emerick. Just four tracks. Guitar and kick drum on one track, bass and a 12-string on another. Live to tape in three takes. Then vocals on a track, sitar on another, and a tambourine and some claps thrown in there somehow. I hear another acoustic guitar in there, but I don’t have my Beatles recording sessions book handy, so I can’t tell you for sure. Maybe they bounced things.
Norwegian Wood has been haunting me since I first heard it as a puppy. Every note on it is exactly the note needed. Every moment of it is interesting. Every part is unusual, right down to Ringo’s kick pattern. The lead and harmony were cut all at once in a few takes. George didn’t even know how to play the sitar! It was recorded in October, released in December, the second album The Beatles released that year, 1965.
Chris Young puts out a record every two years roughly. Coldplay releases at about the same rate, Halsey is about the same.
It must be difficult to schedule all those different writers and producers!
I hope you all manage to schedule in some STUDIO TIME this week.
Warm regards,
Luke
Ps. I couldn’t pick a Halsey quote, so here are two.
You got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a singer or a WW2 admiral.
The Groove Made Visible
New Monday #36
Happy Monday, y’all!
There was a band I used to go see when I was a kid, the Little Wilson Band. They played R&B. They had a great singer, Al, but I used to watch the drummer. His name was Pat and he rarely played fills, and he always had a great groove going on. When Little Wilson played, the whole club danced.
Pat was a funky-ass drummer, and it wasn’t what he was playing, but how he was playing it. He’d bring his right hand up almost to his ear before bringing it down to hit the snare. On some songs he’d strike across the high hat rather than coming directly down on it. Even his posture had an effect: some songs he’d sit more in a lump, others he’d be on the edge of his stool.
When I was producing, I took what I’d learned from watching Pat and tweaked drummers' performances and grooves with little physical changes to their movements.
Here are some videos where the way people are playing is really what they are playing.
Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis was a jazz cat who played with David Bowie on seven consecutive albums through the seventies. Davis was part of the DAM rhythm section—along with Carlos Alomar on guitar and George Murray (can you figure out why they were called DAM?). These guys were Bowie’s funkiest.
There’s not a lot of video of Dennis Davis in which you can really see him playing, but I found this clip from Kimmydrums, who’s knocking out Davis’ parts on Fame. Note the changes in the groove across three sections, as the part slides all over the beat, sometimes behind, sometimes ahead, syncopated, shuffling, and constantly funky. Most of all, watch the variety of stick movements, tiny directional changes, posture adjustments, changes to her grip, the way she dances on her throne. It’s different for each pocket she plays.
Kimmydrums is a former session player turned massage therapist who’s now back behind the kit. In her videos she “embodies” the player she’s mimicking. Hell of a player. I’d love to have her on a session.
Ringo!
This video of Martina Barakoska knocking off Ringo’s fills on A Day in the Life kinda popped my brain out of my head. Arguably the most famous drum fills ever, Ms Barakoska does all sorts of things with her arms, leaning everywhere, and she really cops the feel of those fills perfectly. And they are WEIRD LOOKING fills. I’ve recorded a ton of drummers and this stuff doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen. Maybe it’s all the space between, or the long pauses in the middle of the fills, or maybe it’s seeing a drummer not playing constantly and trying to hit every drum and do every style of fill. Should it be so odd to see a drummer hit just the snare on 2 and 4 and do nothing else when it’s not a mic check?
Martina Barakoska is another amazing player. And she’s available for sessions!
God Help Us
I don’t sit around watching videos of women drummers. I also watch priests. Here’s Father Hyacinth Marie Cordell playing polyrhythms. Technically, he’s a great player, but after popping in on a number of his videos, it became clear he isn't groove-oriented. This video of him doing John Bonham features him in the same “body" as the polyrhythm clip and it sure doesn’t feel like Bonham although he’s playing all the same notes. Maybe he’d have more feel if he was playing along to the record, but to my eye, it looks like the groove isn’t his calling.
Fred
Many great dancers were fabulous drummers. Here’s Fred Astaire playing drums with his feet while tap dancing. Notice that the way he plays the drums has the same precise, elegant quality as his dancing. Fred was also great on a kit that wasn’t spread all over the floor. And again, his elegance of movement is present. How we do one thing is how we do everything.
El Estepario Siberiano is amazing, but can he tap dance while playing? I think not.
Coffy
Coffy was a “blaxploitation" movie that came out in 1973. It featured Pam Grier as an emergency room nurse getting revenge for her sister’s death from an overdose. How does Coffy get revenge? With a shotgun, killing pimps, drug dealers, and eventually her corrupt politician boyfriend. She shoots him in the crotch. His name is Howard.
In the background you can hear a little wha wha guitar, some percussion...
Coffy had an AMAZING soundtrack by vibraphonist Roy Ayers.
Roy Ayers was a bop player who invented jazz funk, if one invents such a thing. The soundtrack of Coffy is more jazz-oriented than soundtracks to similar films, such as Shaft or Superfly, with Ayers cutting vibraphone solos all over it, vocals by DeeDee Bridgewater, harpsichords, and wonderful drums and percussion by Dennis Davis!
Coffy Soundtrack album - worth a listen, or five.
Maybe groove is less about shifting tracks ahead or back and more about shifting butt cheeks on the seat, or how you hold that stick?
Have a great week. Get your butt in the studio!
Luke
Beverages, Flashbacks, and Jerry
New Monday #35
Happy Monday -
I hope you’re off to a good start, perhaps with a nice cup of coffee.
Last week I went into a fave cafe in Montreal, hoping for a cortado and a croissant, and was greeted by country music as I walked in the door. A bit odd, out of character. Especially as it was a good cafe and awful country music.
Awful, cliché, mindless, beautifully played, recorded and sung country music. Modern country music, with practically no melodic movement. Country music for bringin’ up th’ brood in a development in suburbia. Everything on the recording was so perfect you could hear the manly, perfectly trimmed, autotuned stubble on the singer’s cheeks.
Ai Does Dallas
The kind of music you’d get if you fed this prompt: "Modern country song, mid-tempo, male singer, lyrics about how he loves his life, his wife, his kids, God, America, his truck, time spent with the boys watching sports, and how he likes to work hard for his family" into this Ai Music Generator.
I got these two: https://www.udio.com/songs/2Yo9vSP98DwAzqSERgeXG3, and this, https://www.udio.com/songs/4a4bxXqV1GGZ3613hP2n8B.
Yee haw, look at me, I’m writing country! Honestly, they sound just like the music I heard in the cafe, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing.
The whole bad country music thing got me thinking about good country music. Is there good modern country music out there???
Yes, of course, there’s good modern country music out there. We’ll just pick out one for now: Midland.
Midland
Midland formed in Texas in 2014. Three good old boys. Ok, one of them is an actor and a male model (guess who’s the lead singer?). And the bassist directed the Uptown Funk video for Bruno Mars. And the lead guitarist... well, he’s a good player and a very good songwriter. So they’re very modern. They have their own tequila!
The music is Neotraditional Country. What is that? Uh... contradictory. It translates to "New Traditional." I’m trying to figure out how that might work.
Sonically, it means songs with interesting chord changes and arrangements that tap into more traditional country themes. Like drinking. Drinkin’ Problem was their debut single... and it’s great. Great playing and production, kinda funny. I want to steal the opening riff. Their bass player directed the video. I’m not a huge country fan but I like a good drinking song as much as the next legally of age person. This one by Lou Reed pours my Pino. Say what you want about Mr Reed, but he can be funny as hell when he wants to be.
I listened to some more Midland, slowly growing more and more disenchanted. I knew the love affair was over when I ran into this video.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the target audience, but... I can’t look at this without being embarrassed for the guy. Although, DAMN I LOVE THE BASS on this.
It occurred to me that I just might be having flashbacks...
Flashbacks to this...
How to Destroy Your Career
Musicians come and go, trends come and go, but there’s no denying that there’s Billie Squire before this video, and the Billie Squire after...
If you’ve not seen Rock Me Tonight, you’re in for something. A treat? A laugh? A question mark floating over your head?
I wonder how the director managed to pull this performance out of Billie. "Prance, Billie, Prance! Give me everything you’ve got! Now, spin around like a dying praying mantis! Do that arm thing we discussed! Yeah!"
The 'Rock Me Tonight' video blew Mr Squire’s street cred, and while he continued to make music, and still does, it was an inflection point in his career. He was huge before it, and never returned to the charts after.
I do not know how we went from a cafe in Montreal to Billie Squire’s bedroom in 1984. I also don’t know how Ronald Clyde Crosby managed to go from Oneonta, New York to Austin, Texas and become
Jerry Jeff Walker
but somehow, he managed it.
Jerry Jeff Walker was one of the instigators of the Outlaw Country Movement. The outlaws — Jerry Jeff, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Johnnys Paycheck and Cash — were rebelling against the Nashville studio system that had a veritable stranglehold on how country music was written and recorded. Heavily influenced by rock music from the late 60s, the outlaws wanted artistic control.
Jerry Jeff Walker REALLY wanted nothing to do with the Nashville studio system. He didn’t want anything to do with studios period. His debut album for MCA was cut live to 16 track tape — he made the engineers bypass the console and somehow plug straight into the tape deck. I’m reckoning there had to be mic preamps in there somewhere.
Jerry Jeff’s desire to have it as authentic and raw as possible led him to recording an absolute country classic, ¡Viva Terlingua!
¡Viva Terlingua!
¡Viva Terlingua! was cut live on the stage of a dance hall across a week in Luckenbach, Texas, in 1973. It was recorded by a father and son mobile recording team from New Jersey, called Dale Ashby and Father. I couldn’t find anything on these guys, other than that they followed Jerry Jeff and his Lost Gonzo Band around for months after, recording everything.
This is a killer record. It’s immediate and raw, yet wonderfully recorded and played, despite the fact that sessions began with Jerry Jeff whipping up a vat of sangria with God knows what in it. Maybe that’s why it’s so good: the band certainly wasn’t feeling any pain.
My favorite cut off it is Get It Out. The recording is totally in your face, without a hint of reverb, your head buried in the drum set or the bass amp, or whatever is featured at any given moment. I love well-written bridges on songs, and this one has one.
The entire album is worth it. Hear it here.
There’s a story behind Luckenbach Texas, too. Like Billie Squire’s video, there was Luckenbach before the recording of ¡Viva Terlingua! - it was a ghost town with a population of three. After, well... it still has no people in it, and its zip code was retired, but it’s become a country music destination of sorts, hosting various festivals and Willie Nelson Fourth of July parties, and of course, there is the famous dance hall. The town was also immortalized in a song by Waylon Jennings. Coincidently, ol’ Waylon never visited the town, but the song is lovely.
Let me know what you think of ¡Viva Terlingua! if you listen to it.
Luke
What a strange, wonderful world we live in.
Mystery Artist, Tinnitus, and a DIY for You!
New Monday #34
Happy Monday!
Today we have a MONDAY MYSTERY ARTIST! Click on the link below, and just watch the first two minutes - after the flute solo and the spoken work part, and guess who is our MONDAY MYSTERY ARTIST!!!
Listen to the MONDAY MYSTERY ARTIST.
(Don’t be a pooper and skip ahead. Just spend two darn minutes and start off Monday with some goofy fun.)
(This space is intentionally inserted. Don’t cheat!)
Ok! If you guessed The Osmonds, you’re right! And you’re also old! Or very hip!
The Osmonds, as the video suggests, actually put out a concept album in 1973 called The Plan. It’s a concept album about Mormon theology. Uh, move over, Tommy and The Wall...
The Osmond Brothers
These guys were HUGE in the early 70s. My sister and I thought they were the Jackson Five in whiteface. We really did. We were that stupid.
Let's not get into the whole Osmond history here, but a little background is needed.
The Osmonds were born to a Mormon family in Utah, and whatever you might think of their music, they were a fantastically talented bunch of guys. All of them could sing, all could play multiple instruments, they could write, they produced their own records, they had hits, they made a concept album. The Plan was ambitious but stylistically all over the place, and was poorly received critically and commercially. In hindsight, it was the beginning of their end.
Signed to MGM records as kids, they started out on TV singing and dancing, became a boy band, then decided to rock out, which they did, earning a number of hits. And then they went pop again. By 1976 the bulk of their career was over, and the music they made is basically forgotten.
Brother Donny and only sister Marie became a TV phenomenon in the 70s, had a few hit records, including the ever-cloying Puppy Love.
Here’s a cover of puppy love featuring an older woman and her chihuahua.
Back to the brothers... The Osmonds were smart as well as talented. They toured the world, had their own record label, two recording studios, made tons of money, etc. Today, they’re retired and a musical footnote. Donny still performs.
And to think they started out because as little kids they wanted to buy their brothers, Tom and Virl, hearing aids - the two oldest Osmond brothers were born deaf.
Crazy Horses
One last parting Osmond shot: they released a heavy metal song. Not kidding—it’s listed as no. 66 in Stairway to Hell: the 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe.
Crazy Horses rocks. It’s about cars polluting the planet. AMAZING drums by Jay Osmond, who is also singing lead, the rest of the brothers playing live with the drums on a backing tape.
Uh. Jay also came up with the choreography...
See Crazy Horses here. So good!
Great bridge. These guys could really write.
Tinnitus
Tinnitus is the bane of my existence, and I’ve heard from many of you about your own trials with it.
There’s an organization called Tinnitus Quest. They recently had an online Q&A with one of the top experts on the affliction, Dr Dirk de Ridder.
Dr. de Ridder covered EVERYTHING, from causes to treatments, including medicines, therapy, and devices like the Lenire, and Susan Shore’s.
What seems to be very promising is treatments involving psychedelics and drugs like ketamine.
If you’re suffering, the Q&A is really worth a listen. Here’s a playback of it. It was supposed to be an hour; Dr de Ridder answered questions for almost two hours. This is complete and easily digested info. Much recommended.
Always feel free to write me if you’re suffering from the big T.
Make a Mic
There’s a guy out there called The Microphone Assassin. Here’s his podcast.
I found a video he made: it’s a how-to recipe for making a condenser mic from about $60 worth of parts and like 5 solder connections. It sounds amazingly good and if you’ve wanted to do a bit of DIY, this seems like a piece of cake. He lists where you can get all the parts.
I’m going to make one towards the end of the month.
And here we are at the end. I hope you all have a great week and manage to get into the studio a bit.
Warm regards,
Luke
TRB's "Power in the Darkness"
New Monday #33
Happy New Monday!
I had an unhappy weekend, wrestling with a recalcitrant website and customer service people who apparently can’t be bothered.
When I’m pissed off, there’s only one thing to listen to: the most pissed-off, angry music ever recorded, the 1978 Album "Power in the Darkness" by Tom Robinson Band. In particular, a song which you can find at the end of this email. If there’s only one thing you click on today, click on 'Man You Never Saw' at the bottom.
Tom Robinson Band
TRB started in 1976 and released a single, 2-4-6-8 Motorway (an 8-track recording!), which hit #5 in the British charts. It’s sort of a fun singalong thing with a great guitar solo. Doesn’t sound that angry.
By 1977 punk was sweeping England and TRB became part of the movement. Their subsequent records became increasingly angry and political in nature, and with a very specific agenda. TRB was furiously anti-racist, pro-women's rights, and especially pro-gay rights, because Tom Robinson was openly gay at a time when that could get you “beaten unconscious and left in the dark,“ to quote a line from a TRB song.
I heard TRB in 1979 at a high school party. Steve Udry’s house. The kid had records, and taste! Unlike a lot of early punk, the guys in TRB were really fluent players, with a ripping guitarist and an organist, of all things. Some of the songs on the album veered to English music hall, but the attitude was clearly punk. I loved it! The rest of the kids... maybe not so much. It seems quaint now for teenage New Yorkers to be put-off by a lyric like “Freedom to choose what you do with your body, Freedom to believe what you like,” but really, we were a bunch of dumb young preppies stealing our parents' beer.
Power in the Darkness
The title track, Power in the Darkness, is a stone-cold punk rock classic. The opening is Grand Funk Railroad meets Santana, until the bassline comes in and swings the whole thing towards Motown or Sly and the Family Stone. There’s even a spoken word section in the middle... it’s sort of a faux political speech.
It’s a wonderful record, with great sounds and playing. The album was cut at Wessex Studio in London. A ton of great punk records were cut there - The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, Gen X... but also Queen and the first King Crimson album. 24 tracks with a Cadac console.
'Power in the Darkness' got me kicked off college radio a few years later. I will confess that I had been given a friendly warning first, but I was young and just had to open my next radio shift with a song expressly forbidden by Purdue University.
Throw Yourself Down the Mountain
In 1976, an Austrian skier named Franz Klammer threw himself down a mountain outside of Innsbruck to win the Olympic Men's Downhill by 0.33 seconds. He was on the edge of wiping out for virtually his entire run. It was like watching a series of car accidents that didn’t quite happen.
Bands also throw themselves down the mountain, playing with a sense of no guardrails and no safety net. Tom Robinson Band did it on Man You Never Saw. It’s glorious, charging through the verses, nailing the turn-arounds, a savage one-take guitar solo, and the best breakdown (or three of them) anyone’s ever come up with.
These days Tom Robinson is only somewhat calmer, married (to a woman), and still performing his wonderful, smart, angry songs.
Have a great week. I might have thrown myself off a mountain due to website issues but hopefully not.
Luke
Hawksley and Puff Puff tips
New Monday #32
Happy Monday!
I am guessing most of you don’t know Hawksley Workman. He’s Canada’s answer to the question, “What if Prince and Bowie had a baby?”. He plays everything, sings, composes, engineers, sometimes records entire songs in a single day, veering all over the map musically. Is it cabaret? Is it alternative? Is it noise? Only Ryan Corrigan (his real name) knows for sure.
Two Hawksley videos, and both are so worth a watch.
The first... early in his career, shot in one take and a Juno Award winner: Jealous of Your Cigarette. This is the best use of two and a half minutes ever.
And this, from a few years ago: Young and Wasted. Another simple idea, beautifully executed. What a melody, and what a voice to sing it.
Just one more - live mayhem in a studio. Teenage Cats. When I grow up I want to not care what anyone thinks as much as this guy.
After that 'Young and Wasted' song I feel like crying and missing my past. Oh well, onward...
Puff Puff Fun and Tips
We usually have a few specific use cases in mind when we design plugins. Like the Amplified Instrument Processor: it’s designed to go on electric guitar buses. But then it winds up on vocals, reverb returns, the master, all sorts of applications beyond its original scope.
Of course, this is exactly what’s supposed to happen. Plugins should add to your creativity and spark ideas. It’s never a bad thing to think, “How would this sound if I did this with it?"
We get a lot of new uses from you all, and here are two that I think are especially useful applications of the Puff Puff mixPass.
#1 Puff to Even Out Levels
Frase is a producer, composer, singer, engineer, bassist, multi-instrumentalist. A Canadian, like Hawksley.
Frase performs live and it’s a blend of DJ’ing and live singers, dancers, and players, with backing tracks served up by Ableton.
What’s been a problem for Frase is that he’s using material recorded across several years, mixed and mastered in different studios, and loudness is inconsistent because of different amounts of limiting and compression. Adjusting level doesn’t really work, and adding additional compression is a non-starter.
Frase’s solution: he runs the individual tracks through individual instances of the Puff Puff mixPass and then matches loudness by ear. Because the Puff Puff isn’t a compressor or limiter, the actual meter levels don’t really change, but the apparent loudness does. Once he tweaks the loudness, he bounces the tracks and he’s set.
This is the critical thing about the Puff Puff MixPass: it makes things LOUDER without really affecting amplitude.
#2 Puff to Undo Limiting
Another tip/application courtesy of Jason Soudah. Jason is another one of those guys that can play everything, sings, engineers, produces, composes, but the bulk of his work is in film and TV scoring. And he’s not Canadian.
Jason has been working on a major film soundtrack, and he’s riding herd over hours worth of music with thousands of tracks and an ungodly plugin count.
One of the critical things he has to do is make alternate mixes for different uses — with vocals, without, for live use, as a backing track, mixes for different languages, etc. But depending on the type of mix, there can be lots of minor alterations throughout. For instance, the horns might be pulled down a bit during vocal sections, but when it’s an instrumental only mix, then the horns are going up and down all over the place, so the automation needs to be re-written. And then that track is feeding through a limiter on the mix bus, but because the mix might be missing things, the way the limiter is responding can be weird, like it pushing down swells and sucking the excitement out of things.
So, Jason’s been running mixes through the Puff Puff AFTER the limiter, using it to restore loudness and match levels with other mixes. As a side benefit, the Puff tends to increase dynamic range because of the way it affects transients, resulting in bigger and brighter mixes without losing headroom, and in some cases gaining headroom.
Vault of Marco
Oh, that Marco... you never know what comes out of his vault... wonderful song by Big Star.
Lovely recording of acoustic guitars - small diaphragm Neumanns through a Spectrasonics console into an LA-176.
Something upbeat and gorgeous to one through the work of the week calls. Y’all be cool.
Luke
Oh no! My Vikings are intermodulating again!
New Monday #31
Happy Monday!
Gah!!! We hoped to have a new plug-in out this week, but it will be released in October. Note to self: don’t announce things unless it’s a sure thing.
There is a ton going on, though, at Korneff: new plug-ins, a bunch of plug-in updates that you’ve been asking for, some new collaborations with some very interesting entities and people, a booth at NAMM... the fun never ends.
Here’s a thing to listen to while you read...
Oh my... Scandinavian folk metal anyone? Would these guys absolutely crush the Cranberries in a fight? Judging by the video, they’d crush just about anyone in a fight.
Onward.
The last two New Mondays have been loosely connected by the math of overtones, or harmonics, and how that applies to equalization and last week, how saturation and distortion fall into this same mathematical black hole.
This is foundationally important stuff, and without a good sense of it, it’s really hard to have a firm grasp on all sorts of things. Understanding this will help you to know why use a limiter here and not there, or add saturation here and not there. Or why mixing in a perfectly in-tune guitar part can suddenly make the whole record sound out of tune.
It’s all about...
Inharmonicity
Ever notice how much a tuner jumps around when you first hit a note? It’s because the initial strike is essentially pitchless. It’s “inharmonic,” which isn’t a real word but inharmonicity is.
I found this video on why bells sound out of tune. It’s not a technical explanation of inharmonicity, but it is a great illustration of it.
Here’s a thing I wrote on inharmonicity. Don’t know this stuff? Read about it.
Intermodulation Distortion
The way equipment and devices, whether analog and tangible or digital, create inharmonicity is through something called Intermodulation Distortion.
It’s your friend, it’s your enemy... typically it’s your enemy. Here’s a video of a guy demonstrating it with a guitar.
Again, I wrote more on it here.
Ai Criminals
The music industry, in general, doesn’t know how to deal with Spotify and streaming services. Good guys? Bad guys? Evil? Necessary evil?
This guy ripped them off for millions and now he’s off to jail. Robin Hood? Jesse James? Michael Smith?
A Drum Trick
Here’s a tuning trick for floor toms, which are always a pain in the head it seems. I haven’t tried it yet, but it does appear to work, and why would someone fake this? It’s not like there’s millions to be made from Spotify with streams of it.
Vault of Marco
Marco strikes again with some very obscure and excellent early 70s soul from Marie “Queen” Lyons. What a fabulous singer. Bizarre mix. The whole thing is mono except for the horn part, which panned right with reverb on the left.
Marie made one record and then vanished into the mist of time.
Have a great week, y’all.
St Vincent, Saturation, and Mr Flowers
New Monday #30
Happy Monday, all.
Fall appears to be here in the Northern Hemisphere. Cold days ahead. This will warm you up:
What a cool record! Funky flinky guitars, gang vocals, live in-the-room and in-your-face drums, and god knows what sort of insanity for the FOUR MINUTE VAMP OUT!
St Vincent
St. Vincent (also known as Annie Clark) has always been interesting, but her latest album is fantastic. Self-produced, it’s a playground of ideas, noises, styles, production techniques, and wonderful engineering. Cian Riordan appears to be mixing things out of this space here. Modest but dang, the results are amazing.
Perhaps most impressive is Ms. Clark’s songwriting. She’s really notched it up on this record.
Busy Days at Korneff
We’ve been really busy at Korneff working on a new plug-in that will be out next week, and that is why this particular New Monday is a thin one. But let’s jump into something briefly because it plays a part in what you’ll see next week.
The Hierarchy of Saturation
This topic is related to last week, and EQ, and the math involved, overtones and such.
Compression -> Saturation -> Distortion
The first thing you get when you turn up the gain is compression.
As you increase the input level into something (analog gear, a digital simulation) eventually, the device runs out of ability to correctly reproduce the waveform. When this happens, the peaks of the waveform clip—they square out a bit. The top of the waveform is literally getting clipped. When you clip a waveform, it is a type of compression, because the dynamic range is getting a wee bit smaller. Please note that this compression has an infinitely fast attack time. This does NOT make things punchy sounding because no transients can get through un-clipped. Tape compression, which happens on analog tape, sounds great but it doesn’t make things sound punchy; it does the opposite.
Then you get saturation.
A clipped waveform, even a slightly clipped waveform, generates harmonic distortion. That is, when you clip a waveform as it feeds into something, it comes out with additional sonic information mixed into it. At low levels of clipping, your ear won’t notice, but as you increase the level and the amount of clipping, the additional harmonics will become more noticeable. People seem to call this saturation.
What you’ll first notice is that things sound brighter. This is because harmonic distortion goes up the scale, up in frequency. Saturation makes things apparently brighter. A saturated kick doesn’t produce more lows, it produces more highs. And it also LOSES punch because of the clipping of transients mentioned above.
Then you get distortion.
There comes a point when the added harmonic distortion becomes really loud, and our ear no longer hears it as just an increase in highs, but as distortion as a phenomenon. A cranked-up guitar amp is designed to do this.
When you slam a signal to audible distortion, remember that it’s compressed, saturated and distorted — all of that stuff happens. Distorted signals are NOT PUNCHY. They’re clipped.
Good Math and Bad Math
The harmonic elements added to a saturation/distorted signal are mathematically related to the signal feeding in. Clipped adds the 5, the octave, the octave above that, the third, etc. It gets very complex because harmonics are added mathematically to the harmonics that are already part of the original signal.
This is why if you have a tuning issue with an instrument, the more it gets distorted the more out of tune it will sound.
Some devices produce harmonics using math that sounds good. Some produce harmonics that are mathematically ugly sounding. Double a guitar part up with a tube amp and a solid-state amp, and the two parts might sound rather out of tune, or even phase cancel somewhat when mixed together. Good math and bad math don’t always mix.
Playing around with this
If you’re going to add saturation to a track, remember that the signal will compress and get brighter. This makes saturation very useful as a mixing element, and if a track just isn’t quite sitting correctly, add saturation by either using a saturation plug-in or perhaps turning up the input level a bit. You might like the result.
All of our plug-ins saturate in a pleasant, analog way. Not all digital products do this, so use your ear.
Saturation = compression + brightness EQ.
It doesn’t make things more bassy, but it might make something sound warmer, and it might help a low part to stand out better on small speakers.
Saturation doesn’t make things punchier.
I wrote more on this here.
Farewell, Mr Flowers
A few weeks ago there were three New Mondays (21, 22, 23) that touched on English session bassist extraordinaire Herbie Flowers. Mr. Flowers died on September 5th at 86 years of age.
Aside from being a wonderful musician, Herbie Flowers had a great sense of humor. He co-wrote a novelty hit, Grandad, that actually reached #1 on the English charts in 1970. It was sung by an actor, Clive Dunn, in the voice of an old man, looking back on the life he had as a boy. There’s a children’s choir for the choruses singing, “Grandad, you’re lovely.”
As far as novelty songs go, it’s on the depressing side.
But it’s a proper send-off for Mr. Herbie Flowers, who was a grandad, and evidently a lovely person. He plays bass on this as well as tuba. Hear it here.
Farewell, Mr Flowers.
Look for a new plug-in next week!
Warm regards,
Luke
A quote by St Vincent (Saint Vincent de Paul)
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A quote that some knucklehead on the internet thinks is by St Vincent
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Nick, Albert, and Roger in Eden
New Monday #29
Happy Monday! And Happy Labor Day if you’re in Northern North America!
Listen to this!
A weird song off a great album, Nick Lowe's 1979 album Labor of Lust.
I had to get “Labor” in here somehow.
Nick Lowe
In the 70s Lowe was the bassist and singer with a group called Rockpile. They played stripped-down rock ’n roll, sometimes verging on rockabilly, with the attitude and energy of punk, but full of country and pop overtones. In the US, The Cars were harbingers of what came to be known as New Wave. In England, it was Nick Lowe and Rockpile.
Lowe was, and still is, a wonderful writer and performer, but in the 70s he was also a busy and highly influential record producer. Lowe produced the first five Elvis Costello records, The Damned, The Pretenders, Graham Parker, Dr. Feelgood — a veritable who’s who of early New Wave in England. Lowe also wrote a bunch of hits: I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass, (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding, Cruel to Be Kind, and I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ’n’ Roll).
Rockpile
I Knew the Bride was a hit for guitarist/singer Dave Edmunds, who was also a member of Rockpile, along with guitarist Billy Bremner and drummer Terry Williams.
Rockpile put out a total of five albums, but only one, Seconds of Pleasure, has the Rockpile name on it. The rest are Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds solo albums. Lowe’s Labor of Lust was recorded at the same time as Edmund’s Repeat When Necessary, with the songs divided up by lead singer into two different albums. Both are great records.
In the studio, Lowe was nicknamed "The Basher," because he wanted to smash through songs as quickly as possible, not worrying about perfection and instead going for feel. It’s hard to argue with the results.
Eden Studios
Ground Zero for all this early New Wave activity was London’s Eden studio, sadly now out of business. Eden was a top-notch studio, known for having a great vibe and acoustics as well as the best equipment available at the time. Eden hosted Rockpile of course, and Elvis Costello, The Bay City Rollers, Tom Jones, The Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Joe Jackson, The Killers, George Michael, The Darkness, Oasis, The Smiths... the list goes on.
Here’s a promo video for Eden Studios showing off its adjustable acoustics and two SSL consoles.
Eden during the 70s featured a hand-made custom console, built by the owners and some of the staff to save money. The Rockpile sessions were cut on that custom console, with evidently a lot of smoking and drinking...
Albert Lee
I turned up this video of country guitar ace Albert Lee cutting a lead track for Sweet Little Lisa, one of the songs that wound up on Edmund’s Seconds of Pleasure. Lee played one amazing take, no punches. Edmunds, no guitar slouch himself, was blown away, and while listening to the playback, a drunk Nick Lowe jokes to Lee “You obviously read my pamphlet on this...” Also look for Thin Lizzie’s Phil Lynott in the video, as well as Huey Lewis, who contributed harmonica to a few tracks.
You’ll see Lee push the neck of his guitar down throughout his playing: what he’s doing is activating a device built into it called a Parsons/White B Bender, which allows one to get pedal steel effects out of a regular electric. It’s become a fairly standard guitar modification for country players. Lee’s a total master. Here’s a clip of him live in 1982, cued up to his solo on Sweet Little Lisa. Watch for the B Bender action.
Roger Béchirian
While all the Rockpile recordings were happening, Nick Lowe was also producing absolute classic albums for Elvis Costello, with much of the work done at Eden by a wonderful engineer named Roger Béchirian. The real turning point in Costello’s career was the very political “Armed Forces” album, released in 1979 (damn busy year for Nick Lowe!). Béchirian contributed a very detailed reminiscence of working on Armed Forces. He covers EVERYTHING, from mics to miking to mixing. This is one of the best things I’ve read on production. Read it here (very worth it).
What’s Old is New
New occasional feature: we’ll pull up a recording technique from the past and see if we can’t use it now.
Ever hear of a Mixback? Find out about it here.
Thanks to everyone for doing our survey. We really learned a lot from you all and we’ll apply it.
Also, we have a plug-in birthday coming up... look for a flash sale very soon!
Y’all rock!
Luke
Doobie Brothers, Marvin Gaye and EQ'ing ideas
New Monday #28
Happy Monday
First of all, thank you to everyone who submitted a survey. We’ve only managed to read a few so far but the suggestions have been really helpful. If you’re sitting on your survey, remember you have til the end of the month! We do want to hear from you!
Do you steal ideas when working on your music? I do. I’m working on some acoustic guitar stuff that has a swampy kind of sound, so I went poking around in the past and of course turned up this nugget.
Black Water
Tons to hear—what a mood and vibe assembled in such a deceptively simple manner. Lots of little changes to the mix in every new section of the song. Listen and follow along.
0:00 Chimes at the top for a water feel, and then listen for an autoharp strummed (it sounds like someone strumming guitar strings above the nut) just in the back, alternating left and right.
0:07 Two slightly different acoustic guitar parts panned hard left and right. This really tricky, syncopated playing. Kudos for songwriter/lead singer Pat Simmons for overdubbing the second part (I think it’s the one to the right) so tightly. Also a viola comes in, a right center, played to sound like a bluegrass fiddle.
0:18 Lead vocals centered and pretty dry.
0:41 Harmony vocals—sounds like three guys around one mic, panned back and right center.
1:00 More reverb added to the lead vocal for this section.
1:10 Lead vocal pans left and... it sounds like they added a delay and panned that hard right. Could it be a 30ms Cooper Time Cube delay? It’s got a strange frequency response. Or it could be a really really tight double. What do you think?
All those moves in on the vocals in less than a minute, and that’s not counting whoever is riding the gain.
1:31 Drums panned 3/4 left, sounds mono. Very flat, dry sounds—typical dead 70s drums. That kick.... that sounds like an AKG D12. They sort of sound like a “boing” rather than a slap.
Bass comes in, played very tight on top of the acoustic guitar’s low note and weaving around the guitar part. Maybe slightly to the left of center?
1:55 Viola again, but now two tracks and one doing a harmony. They “breathe" and it sounds a bit like an accordion.
2:15 The viola swells in, doing what sounds like a horn part, but I think it’s the viola still.
2:24 A great little tom fill. I love drum parts like this that come out of nowhere and seem almost to be a mistake. Charlie Watts is the master of this.
2:35 A solo acoustic guitar, played with a pick, comes in opposite the viola and the two trade off.
2:57 This is such a cool moment. The bass takes the attention, the lead guitar drops back a bit. There’s a cymbal splash off to the left... I think it might be someone making a “pish” noise with their mouth.
3:08 This is a glorious moment in recorded music history: the acapella break on Black Water. Three tracks, one part right, then one center, then one left. They’re all running through Amigo’s reverb chamber, but I think the right side part, with the bass voice on it, has a complementary really long reverb on it panned left. SO... maybe they printed the reverb to tape and then panned it and then fed it back into the reverb again? The center part is doubled lead singer, the left and right parts are the same guys but singing in different registers and balanced differently around the mics.
3:25 The music fades back in, there’s yet another improvised lead vocal. This might be Tom Johnson instead of Pat Simmons but I can’t tell for sure.
And the song rambles out, back down the river.
Brilliant production by Ted Templeman, wonderful engineering by Don Landee. These are the same guys that did a bunch of Van Halen records.
Black Water was tracked and mixed on an API console, cut to a 3M 24 track 2”, and all this fun happened at the now defunct Warner Brothers Studio in North Hollywood. Note that this studio is often credited as Amigo Studios on records - same place, different name after a buyout.
Black Water became an unlikely single in 1974, the Doobie Brothers’ first #1, and was an instant classic. I remember hearing it as a kid and being amazed at the mood and vibe... 1974... 5th grade??? A bunch of us trying to do the acapella part and totally sucking at it because we were all still sopranos. Sounded like The Brady Six.
Speaking of the brilliant acapella part, and speaking of stealing ideas, Ted Templeman nicked it from here.
I listen to this and I’m amazed by the clarity and depth, and how they pulled this all off with comparatively simple equipment. We’re basically talking API console EQs, a few 1176’s and a reverb chamber.
But what is really going on here is excellent microphones put in exactly the right spot on excellent instruments played by excellent musicians. And the whole event happens in a room specifically designed for recording. And the guy picking and putting the mic in the exact right spot has a closet full of different mics to pick from and years of experience putting different mics on different instruments, and figuring out through the osmosis of experience what works with what.
Daunting. Let's cheat.
The Frequency Chart
Frequency coincides with pitch. Every note played or sung has a specific frequency to it.
A useful idea. So useful that in my early engineering days I had to search around audio textbooks (it was a pre-internet world) to turn up a chart like this:
This was a super handy thing to have. It’s not needed as much anymore because there are EQs with built-in Real Time Analyzers, but I find knowing the numbers and the math very useful.
Here’s a bunch of EQ ideas based around the chart and the math. I’ll be adding to it, and if anyone has an idea to add, send it to me and it’ll go on the chart.
For those of you who wanted something more technical, there ya go.
The Vault of Marco
My buddy Marco sends me things he’s listening to, and Marco tends to listen to obscure stuff that is always sorta cool. The first entry into the Vault of Marco, made all the more timely by the impending elections in the US, is...
You’re the Man - Marvin Gaye
Recorded in 1972, You’re the Man expresses Gaye’s disappointment with leadership in the US and his hopes for better policies for the people. This nice message must be tempered by the fact that Gaye was in huge trouble with the IRS for not paying back taxes and he eventually fled the country.
Motown Records thought the song was too controversial (meaning that there might be financial backlash and boycotts against the label) and didn’t promote it, so it vanished off the charts and out of the cultural consciousness quickly. The album "You’re the Man" was supposed to be released to follow up Gaye’s groundbreaking “What’s Going On” album back in 1972. That didn’t happen either. The album was finally released in 2019, on Marvin Gaye’s 80th birthday, after he had been dead for 36 years.
That’s all for now. Remember to get those surveys in. And of course, feel free to write anytime. It is always a pleasure to chat with you all.
Luke
Korneff Audio
Tchad Blake and the AIP
New Monday #26
Happy Monday, Summer Campers!
This popped up on the Instagram feed of super-engineer Tchad Blake last week:
"There's no "best" eq for anything. All you can really say is what's your favourite at any given time. The (Korneff Audio) AlP has quickly become my favourite eq, ever. Analog or digital. Every time I use it on anything I think I'm hearing something new. It fits my ear/brain chain better than anything l've used before. Wtf...right?? How did these guys do this?? I'd love to know if anyone else out there is hearing just how cool this thing is or even, tell me how it's not. I've been using it every day for over a month and I'm still jacked up about it. "
This is a tremendous compliment, coming from this guy. Tchad Blake is king cheese, bacon from heaven. He's awesome.
Forget the credit list and awards: Tchad Blake makes really interesting recordings. He's always experimenting and inventive. He records drums in the smallest room possible using a Binaural Dummy Head as an overhead mic, doesn't use much reverb, loves to compress and distort, pans things strangely, and in general makes super cool sounds. Listen:
American Music Club "Mercury" on Apple Music
On Spotify
On YouTube
Tchad asked, "How did these guys do this??"
This is how we do it
The EQ on the AIP is a 4-band fully parametric EQ that is especially sweet sounding. It has a weird interface that is based on its inspiration, the Klangfilm RZ062B.
From the name, one can guess that Klangfilm was German and involved in sound for film. Formed in 1928 by partnership between Siemens and AEG (Telefunken), Klangfilm amplification, speakers, preamps, EQs, and home entertainment equipment was top-notch. By WW2, Klangfilm was wholly owned by Siemens, and often the names Klangfilm and Siemens are used interchangeably. Klangfilm stuff from the 50s and 60s is especially coveted.
The RZ062 was a tube EQ built for film mixing consoles. It was a three-band passive EQ with high and low shelving and either a midrange tilt EQ (the 062a) or a presence EQ (meaning upper midrange) that had 4 different frequencies (1.4kHz, 2kHz, 2.8kHz, 4kHz) with up to 5dB of gain at the selected frequency (062b).
The 062 has some similarities to the REDD 37 console used by the Beatles on Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Peppers, The White Album: the REDD 37 preamps were made by Siemens.
The RZ062 is an amazing sounding EQ that is remarkably smooth and gorgeous sounding, but it's very limited in choices of frequencies, bandwidth, and overall versatility. Another common complaint is that most of the gain controls provide 2dB increments, and often a setting is either too little gain or too much.
What Dan loved about it, aside from the overall character, was the presence EQ on the 062b that worked perfectly for electric guitars.
So, Dan got his hands on the schematics and basically built the circuit digitally.
This is the usual way we make plugins—we model things at a resistor, capacitor, transformer, transistor, diode level. But what we also do is figure out what we can do with that circuit in the digital realm that would be impossible or, at the very least, difficult to do in the analog realm.
Frankenklangfilm
In the case of the RZ062, Dan decided to take a passive EQ and make it fully parametric. This makes the AIP 4-band incredibly versatile, with the sonics of the original expressed in a modern way. The AIP EQ can do anything a digital parametric EQ can do, from narrow deep cuts to ultrawide boosts, making it useful for anything from getting rid of hum and notching out vocals to finding the exact sweet spot on a snare to gentle "airband" style enhancements. The gain is adjustable out to a ridiculous 36dB of boost and cut, and we've even modeled some EQ curve goofiness that can happen with vintage passive equalizers.
Is it an exact recreation of a RZ062b? No, but at certain settings it can precisely replicate the response curves of the original. We consider it more the Klangfilm's mutant cousin. Frankenklangfilm.
One thing that hasn't changed from the original, however, are the tube/transformer input and output stages, which are a big reason the AIP EQ is so sweet sounding. The original circuit design tends to saturate the transformers a bit. The result is that the input signal is harmonically enhanced feeding into the equalizing circuitry, and then the EQ'd signal is rounded off a bit by the output.
So, that's the quick version of what's going on with the EQ on the AIP. If you want to grab an AIP Demo, click here.
Amazing Interview
Gearspace did an interview with Tchad a few years ago. It's detailed, funny, and he gives away the store and the secrets.
I have been sick with a summer cold and tinnitus all week, and I'm behind on answering a bunch of you that wrote in. I'll get back to you all this week. It's always a delight writing New Monday and hearing from you guys.
Next week I think we need to do a survey about how I can make New Monday better and more useful for you.
Warm regards,
Luke@KorneffAudio.com
Spirit's The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
New Monday #25
Happy Monday!
A friend asked me recently, "What's the best album ever produced?"
Without hesitation: Spirit's The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.
Here it is on Apple Music - this is the best sounding online version of it. The original album is the first 12 songs.
Here it is on Spotify. Again, first 12 songs.
Here's it on YouTube, which doesn't do its sonic quality justice. Again. The first 12 songs are the original album.
Listen to it on Apple Music or Spotify. YouTube breaks the songs with commercials and the album was designed to flow from song to song with no breaks.
Take 40 minutes out of your life and listen. Good speakers or headphones!
Sued by Led Zeppelin, Buddies with Hendrix
Some of you might know this album and band. Most of you don't. These were the guys involved in a lawsuit with Led Zeppelin a few years back. It was alleged that the opening of Stairway to Heaven was nicked from this.
Spirit was formed by guitarist Randy California, real last name "Wolfe." Jimi Hendrix gave him the nickname "California" to differentiate him from another guitar player Hendrix nicknamed Randy Texas.
It's 1967, Randy Wolfe is 15, playing with Jimi Hendrix, when Hendrix gets invited to England by Chas Chandler. Young Randy's parents won't let him go. Hendrix goes to England to become HENDRIX, Randy goes back to California.
Randy's stepdad was a West Coast jazz drummer named Ed Cassidy, who was rocking the shaved head look before anyone. They formed Spirit with jazz keyboardist John Locke, and then added bassist Mark Andes (later a member of Heart during its MTV days) and singer/multi-instrumentalist Jay Ferguson. They released their first album when Randy California was 17.
Spirit was a genre all to themselves. Psychedelic prog rock with heavy pop and environmentalist overtones, perhaps? They had a minor hit with "I Got a Line on You." They never sold a lot of records. This happens when there isn't a firm angle on genre for marketing. How do you promote albums with jazz instrumentals, pop tunes, songs sung in Hebrew, songs about pollution, etc.? The record label couldn't figure it out either.
The 12 Dream of Dr Sardonicus: How to Produce a Record
The 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus was Spirit's 4th album. It charted poorly on release in 1970.
Every individual song is great, and unlike anything else on the album, even though the songs quote moments from each other at times. The playing and singing is fantastic. The recording - done in Sunset Sound's studio 1 on a custom API console, is fantastic by the standards of the times and by the standards of today.
The production was by Randy California and David Briggs. Briggs is best known for working with Neil Young. As Briggs describes it: "When people ask 'You produce Neil Young?' I'm not ashamed to say 'Only the best albums.'"
So Much to Hear... and Steal!
Just the panning of things on Sardonicus is amazing. Parts bounce around from speaker to speaker. Voices stack and talk to each other. Even a tambourine becomes a relegation. Songs don't fade out; they slip away into reverb, moving away from the listener into another space, and then returning as a different song. I don't think anyone has yet made a record that takes such advantage of movement as Spirit.
Songs have different textures, grooves, colors and sounds from slide guitars to one of the earliest uses of a Moog synth. Vocals peak into mixes from radios or telephones, recorded backward and turned into choruses of creatures. There's string sections, horn sections, bongos, sound effects of traffic, tractors and cats, lyrics about love, nature, hippie stuff, capitalism...
It's an insane mix of elements.
And it utterly works, because every decision is in service of the song.
The running order has a narrative arc to it. It seems to be about something, but you can't put your finger on it. The title is from a 1961 horror movie. California had an initial thought the record was a sci-fi adventure, and some of the song titles come from that, but it's a concept record mostly in execution and not in theme.
Whatever. It's how you make a record.
The Aftermath
There was tremendous creative tension between Randy California and Jay Ferguson. The classic lineup of Spirit broke up after Sardonicus. There were various forms of Spirit and Randy California after that. Jay Ferguson formed an insipid pop band called Jo Jo Gunne. He became a very successful film and TV composer. He wrote television's equivalent of a platinum record, this thing here.
Randy California drowned in 1997. His son was caught in a riptide while the two were swimming in Hawaii. Randy pushed the boy to safety but couldn't manage it for himself.
Ed Cassidy outlived his stepson, dying at 89. Keyboardist John Locke played up until his death at 62. Mark Andes is semi-retired but still plays.
I've been listening to the 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus since 1982. It still blows my mind. I'm writing this while listening to it. It sorta kills me that I'll never produce a record as good as this one. But it's a good pain.
What do you think is the best album ever produced? Huge and somewhat dumb question, but I'd love to hear your answers, and hear what you're all listening to.
Have a great week. Make some music!
Singers: Elizabeth, Jeff, and Nina... and a movie that is killer!
New Monday #24
Happy Monday,
Singers and singing today, and minimalist arrangements. And a scene from a great movie.
Start here. Headphones or earbuds are perhaps preferred. There are such little things to hear.
It begins and perhaps it’s a heartbeat, but maybe a clock? Or dripping water?
There’s a rhythm that's perhaps the track noise of a vinyl LP, like the record has ended but it’s stuck in the runout groove, and no one is getting up to lift the needle.
A voice drifts in, singing words that don’t matter. They’re just sounds to be sung, stretched into shapes.
The song never fleshes itself out beyond a harpsichord, a few piano chords, and a wet, ghostly choir.
Trip-Hop Masterpiece
The singer, Elizabeth Fraser, hits a high point at about 4 minutes. And then it all drifts away, on that constant, watery pulse, stuck in that runout groove.
Teardrop is a definitive statement in trip-hop. It’s a sad masterpiece in a genre that’s bleak to begin with.
Fraser came up with the words while working with Massive Attack in the studio. She had just heard about the accidental death of her former lover, American singer Jeff Buckley. She thinks the song is about him, about loss.
Jeff Buckley Died Too Soon
Jeff Buckley was blessed with a once-in-a-generation voice. The guy could sing your To-Do list and make it sound like a love letter.
Although he too bends words into sounds and shapes, Buckley never loses grip on the meaning of lyrics. He digs in deeper, turning into a character delivering a monologue.
Case in point is his rendition of Lilac Wine. Listen here.
Lilac Wine was written in 1950 by James Shelton. It’s been recorded by many artists, but Jeff Buckley’s version is like watching a drunk talking to himself before passing out.
The production and the mix is by Andy Wallace. Listen for a kick, so low and large that it’s more of an exhale than a drum, and gorgeous shimmers of reverb. Wallace’s basic rig was an SSL 4000 console and a Lexicon 480L reverb, and not much else.
At 3:20 the band drops out and the narrator has an epiphany or a hallucination, and then resumes drinking. As the song ends he seems to pass out, climbing a vocal staircase to heaven. An angelic ending.
Buckley drowned in 1997. His breakthrough hit—a Billboard #1—was his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, 10 years after his death.
Aside from a love affair, Elizabeth Fraser and Jeff Buckley are connected by influences: especially Nina Simone.
Nina Simone
Nina Simone: a classically trained pianist with a one octave growl of a voice, perfect pitch, and a penchant for not wanting to do what other people do.
She doesn’t have a pretty voice like Fraser and Buckley. Hers is ungainly and raw, but it works tremendously well. And it doesn’t matter the language, either. She’s a wonderful actress and always gets it across.
Listen here to Ne me quitte pas. You can ignore the lyrics. All you need is the title in English: Don't leave me.
A cabaret tune by Jaques Brel, about a desperate lover, perhaps suicidal. Cut in 1965, this sounds live in-the-studio, with everyone in the room and Nina Simone in a booth rather than where she usually was, behind a piano.
If Lou Reed is the patron saint of singers who can’t sing, Nina Simone is the devil on your shoulder saying, “Screw it. Sing anyway. You’ll be fine."
Let’s slam this all together. All this love and loss, singing and acting.
A Great French Thriller
Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne) is a French thriller from 2006. If you’re looking for a movie to blow your mind and heart open, it’s highly recommended.
For eight years, Dr. Alexandre Beck has been limping through life, devastated by the horrific murder of his wife. He and Margot were in love even as children.
Watch a brief sequence from it here.
All that without a word of dialog.
After this scene he gets an email... from his dead wife! Or is she dead?
See the movie and find out!
New Monday #24
This is the 24th New Monday, written to inspire you to think about audio and recording as an artist and not a mechanic. Ai is here. We have only our humanity to hold the fort.
What Ai cannot do is figure out how to take love and loss and make something wonderful out of it.
We have tons of great stuff happening. More later!
The Guys at Korneff Audio
David, Gus, Terry, Wayne and Herbie. And Malcom.
New Monday #23
Happy Monday!
Check it out: our friend Malcom Owen-Flood, who is a wonderful engineer and location sound expert, made a video using our Echoleffe Tape Delay. Have a look, give Malcom some love, etc.
ONWARD and UPWARD into SPACE!
July 20th, 1969, some of us heard this or saw it on TV.
I saw it. I was 6?
In an effort to capitalize on the event, this was released on July 11th, 1969. Listen. Just sit there and listen.
You’ve heard this a million times but it remains a simply stunning recording, like nothing anyone had heard at the time and it still sounds startling and fresh 50+ years later.
It didn’t sell especially well, but it did on subsequent re-releases, and now... it’s one of the great songs and certainly one of the great productions in the rock canon.
Space Oddity was the lead single on Bowie’s second solo album, which was produced by the legendary Tony Visconti. However, Visconti thought Space Oddity was a novelty song, and while he produced the album, he passed this single off to engineer producer Gus Dudgeon.
Dudgeon LOVED the song and he and Bowie planned out its expensive and complex arrangement, which features a rhythm section, a mellotron, a string ensemble, and a wacky little electronic instrument called a Stylophone, which was basically an oscillator controlled by moving a little metal pen (stylus) across an engraved keyboard. The stylophone was on Bowie’s original demo of Space Oddity, and in the finished recording you can hear it behind the 12 guitar - it sounds like an oboe - and more obviously in a descending line here. Bowie played both 12-string and the stylophone, as well as performing all the vocals.
Wayne, Herbie and Terry
I’ve always loved the lead guitar parts on this, played by Mick Wayne. This sound here, and similar moments scattered about the recording, are him screwing around with the tuning of his guitar’s strings — a studio accident. Wayne was tuning and the sound of it hooked both Dudgeon and Bowie by the ear.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an interesting record from this time if Herbie Flowers wasn’t the bassist. His basslines are so fluid and melodic, and typical of his playing, somehow catchy and memorable. This line here at the start of the bridge is so killer, weaving in and out of the vocals and the flutes.
The drummer on Space Oddity is a guy named Terry Cox. He’s clearly a jazz drummer, occasionally keeping a simple beat but often providing more drama and dynamics than just time keeping. He was a member of Pentangle, which was perhaps prog rock before even King Crimson. Pentangle played a mix of traditional English folk music and jazz. Check out the opening drum riff of this live recording. Has anyone sampled this yet? This sounds like the great grandmother of Massive Attack. Or maybe it sounds more like Teardrop, especially in the vocals.
The interplay between guitar, bass and drums, and then vocal, mellotron, and string section, is probably something that could never be programmed or created with AI. Listen to the absolute looseness of this vamp out, and how all the parts weave around each other, especially Herbie and Terry.
Gus Dudgeon
Gus Dudgeon went on to a big career, working with Elton John during his heyday — from 'Madman Across the Water' to 'Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy', and yes, Dudgeon produced 'Goodbye Yellowbrick Road'. He’s also credited with using the first “sample” — a drum loop on this. He worked with XTC, Joan Armatrading, The Beach Boys...
He also produced Mott the Hoople! This is a personal fave, and it has the best 5 note guitar solo anyone ever cut.
Mott does have a Bowie-esque sound. It’s probably because they had broken up when Bowie heard about it, offered to produce an album and give them a song. They took him up on it and got their first hit.
The hit Bowie gave them, All the Young Dudes, is one of those songs everyone has heard but few know the title of. It’s easily one of Bowie’s best songs. And he just gave it away.
So... we leave the glam for a while. Please feel free to write in and toss me ideas about what might happen next on a New Monday.
Herbie saves the day for the Godfather of Glam?
New Monday #22
Happy Monday, all
SO... you’ve heard this song a million times, but it’s amazing, so put on your good earbuds or headphones, or listen on your good speakers, or if you’re at your computer and listening on something like iLouds (Dan and I both love our iLouds), put a pillow over your monitor - it tends to clean up imaging - and give this a good listen.
The biggest hit from a very polarizing figure in rock.
Can he sing? Meh... I suppose Lou Reed is the patron saint of singers that really can’t sing, but that didn’t stop him.
The studio was Trident, the producer was David Bowie with Mick Ronson, and the engineer was the amazing Ken Scott. He wrote a nice and detailed memory of the recording session that you can read here. I’ll hit upon a few of the main useful things below.
Herbie Rides Again
The incredibly recognizable opening riff on the bass is courtesy of our hero from last week, Herbie Flowers. It’s amazing how two notes with a slur between them can be so catchy. He was called in to lay down an upright bass part, but ever the businessman, and knowing that he’d get paid more for additional tracking, Herbie suggested an overdub: an electric bass part a 10th up. You hear this part on the chorus and on the vamp out.
Do D’do D’do Do d'Do
'The “colored girls” sing the Do d’do' on the chorus were sung by Thunderthighs, and they weren’t 'colored', they were three white English girls who were session singers in London. And they even had their own hit, Central Park Arrest. It’s.. well, have a listen. A lot of fun and way way out there for a pop tune. And that’s the Thunderthighs in the video! I might have to clean this up audio-wise.
It was written by Lynsey De Paul, who was a major solo artist and singer/songwriter in England in the 70s. Touted as “England’s Carol King,” she wrote for herself and others. Here she seems to have written a song for Saturday Night Fever two years before the BeeGees. I found a playlist of all her singles, if you’re looking for things to inspire. There’s a good chance Herbie Flowers is playing bass on a bunch of these.
Back to 'Walk on the Wild Side', there’s a wonderful, easy effect you can steal. When the Do d’do’s first come in, they sound far away, and as the part continues, the Thinderthighs seem to get closer. Do this: use a pre-fader aux send from a vocal channel, feed it to a reverb unit and crank the reverb’s output up. When the channel fader on the vocals is down, the reverb is dominant, and the vocals sound far away and back there. As you push up the vocal’s fader, they’ll seem to get closer. Of course, use this dramatically.
More Lou Reed
Lou is an acquired taste with a very inconsistent output. He phoned it in at many points in his career, but when he got himself together, and often with a great producer, he made some outstanding music.
Berlin - this was his third solo album and it’s the most depressing record ever recorded. It’s also phenomenally good. I discovered it in college, played it every day for months until one afternoon I noticed my roommate, Carl, crying from it. He loved the album but it made him want to kill himself. Produced by Bob Ezrin, 'Berlin' has a rock band kicking ass alongside an orchestra! Check out Caroline Says I. Doesn’t it sound depressing to you? The Kids features children screaming for their mom and an out-of-tune flute at the end.
Rock n Roll Animal - this is one of the great live albums, not so much for Lou Reed, who seems strung out on most of the tracks, but for the band. Good lord, the band is ABSOLUTELY KILLER. This record will make you want to buy a phase pedal. Also the audience applause was from a John Denver concert. Lou Reed would throw up in his grave if he knew that.
Coney Island Baby - a sleeper of an album, produced by Godfrey Diamond. One doesn’t think of Lou Reed as romantic, but this collection of songs written for his girlfriend of the time, Rachel (who was actually transexual), is lovely and quiet. The two were so close they shared clothes, and that love comes across on the title track, and this wonderful love song She’s My Best Friend.
The Blue Mask - this came out in 1981. It’s Lou Reed live in the studio with guitarist Robert Quine, fretless bassist Fernando Saunders, and a great drummer, Doane Perry. One or two takes per song, then a vocal overdub, and next song please. Great album, great recording, great playing. Title track is killer, but the rest of the album unfolds beautifully. Stunning fretless bass all over, and moods ranging from love to murderous drug withdrawal.
This has been a strange rabbit hole to go down... one visit left from this particular slice of space-time before we’re off to something else.
Thank you for the TON of responses to last week’s New Monday. You all are lovely. Have a great week.
The Guys from Korneff
The coolest song of 1973? Herbie Flowers, Advision
New Monday #21
Happy Monday!
I wish I could go back to ten-year-old me listening to the radio when I heard this for the first time. The damn DJ didn’t say the singer’s name, and I misheard the title as “Rocco,” or “Rock Oh."
Of course, the title is "Rock On,” David Essex’s biggest hit, and 51 years later, it's still amazing.
Essex was more successful as an actor than a musician, but he had 19 top 40 singles in England during his career, as well as successful albums. Rock On cracked the Billboard Top 40.
Slapback on the Vox
Rock On started with a demo, which consisted of Essex singing and playing drums on a garbage can as a drum. The engineer on the session put a loud slapback echo on the demo, and that is really the crux of the sound of it, and what makes it so frickin’ distinctive.
But the lead vocal isn’t echoed the entire time. It sometimes splits and hockets from the left channel to the right, sometimes it’s doubled, sometimes there’s a harmony. There’s a wonderful moment where a mass of vocals drop in like Māori warriors performing a Haka. Supercreative use of vocal texture, and keeping the ear’s interest while never losing the thread of the song.
Chordless Arrangement
The vocals have so much breathing room because of the minimalist arrangement of producer Jeff Wayne. Wayne heard the demo and figured out a score for drums and percussion, bass, and a few string players. The music bed is melody lines rather than chords. In fact, the only true chord is the massed vocal.
The classically trained London string players hired for the session were playing too tight and in tune for Wayne and Essex’s taste. They solved the problem by getting them all a little drunk.
Enter Herbie Flowers
Wayne’s arrangement had a rudimentary bass part. Fortunately for the session, the guy they hired was Herbie Flowers.
Herbie Flowers was a top session man in England. He occasionally toured, but touring got in the way of his very busy studio career. By the end of the '70s he stopped counting the number of records he’d tracked on (over 500 at the time). Flowers played double bass (traditional upright string bass), electric bass and tuba, and was equally proficient playing rock, jazz, classical - whatever the session called for. He played bass for Bowie, Elton John, Miles Davis, all the Beatles except John, and tuba on Abbey Road.
Steal These Ideas
Flowers was also a businessman. At the time, session players got more money the more tracks they laid down. Herbie talked Wayne and Essex into letting him put two tracks down, one low and the other high. The result is the incredibly cool bass part on Rock On. It’s the lick that makes the record.
Flowers tuned the low bass down a half step, which resulted in a low-end mess of rumble at the end of each iteration of the riff.
Usually, putting reverb on a bass isn’t a good idea. But with the right arrangement, it can certainly work, and it does on Rock On. The riff Flowers came up with for the overdubbed high bass part, slathered with plate reverb and a hint of delay, sounds like a guitar part. There’s not a guitar to be found on Rock On.
Check This Out
I found this brilliant guy, Chris Eger, who put together what sounds like a note-for-note version of Rock On, with him playing and singing every part. It's a vision of what happened back in 1973 at Advision Studios in London. It’s a deceptively simple song.
Check out his channel. It’s so damn cool!
The Whole Album is Killer
While Rock On is the standout track, the entire Rock On album, which was Essex’s debut, is a sonic adventure. It’s 70s glam, but it’s peppered with horn arrangements that evoke Vaudeville, strange strange vocals, clever arrangements and wonderful production touches. And tons of Herbie Flowers bass lines with a fat sound that manages to be low and articulate at the same time.
There’s a semi-reggae tune called Ocean Girl... I don’t even know where to begin with this track. Is that an early use of vocoder on that vocal on the left channel? And if not, how did they do that effect? There’s something that sounds like a slide guitar flitting around the background, but I think it’s an Ondes Martenot, which is an obscure French electronic instrument, developed in the late 1920s. It sits somewhere between a cello and a theremin. It’s credited on the album. I think it’s lurking on Ocean Girl. What do you think?
Actually, this whole album is really worth a listen. Seriously. Put it on and cop a bunch of great ideas off of it.
Until next week... Rock On!
That was cheesy.
The Guys at Korneff Audio
Cloudbusting, Grooves
New Monday #20
Happy New Monday!
Actor Donald Sutherland died last week.
I recalled he was in a Kate Bush video for the song Cloudbusting.
The song is an odd one, the video is a strange one, but it is Kate Bush, and she is one of those people who does whatever they want.
In the video, Sutherland and Kate Bush play a father and a son, based on psychologist Wilhelm Reich and his son, Peter, and inspired by Peter’s memoir A Book of Dreams.
Peter Reich adored his dad; his dad’s controversial ideas ended up getting him imprisoned — there’s a Kafka-esque scene in the video in which the father is taken away. Somehow Kate Bush turns it into a top twenty single.
Here’s a deeper dive into the making of the video.
You never know where inspiration might come from.
Humanizing Grooves: Pull and Push
In the studio, I always spent a lot of time on how things felt, on the groove of the song, whether it be humans or computers or a bit of both. On drum machines and software like that in Logic, or in packages like Superior Drummer, there are tons of options and controls, in addition to amazingly well-recorded drum sounds.
One of the key controls is whether the drum part is Pushed, or Pulled - pushed meaning the part is slightly ahead of the beat, pulled meaning slightly behind the beat.
Common thinking is that for something to sound funky and have a great groove to it, it should be pulled a bit behind the beat. I used to think so, but after experimenting and listening, I now think it is a lot more complex than that.
Here are some guidelines for your thinking on this. These aren’t rules but it's hard to find exceptions. Of course, this is all based on my hearing and feel for grooves. Your results might be different.
Guidelines for Grooves
Eight Notes are almost always pushed a bit ahead of the beat. And this makes sense from a physical perspective. Yes, there are swing rhythms involved too, but most rock and pop don’t swing all that much.
Listen to the hi-hat on this - it’s clearly pushed.
And kick is also Pushed. Which leads to...
Push kicks or whatever is doing four on the floor. Kicks are almost always slightly ahead, especially on 4 on the 4 stuff like this song here.
Note that these are all real drummers playing real kits. Next guideline:
The snare can be pulled. It's not always pulled, but very often it’s either pulled or the arrangement is doing something such that the snare seems to almost stop the flow of the song on two and four.
Listen to this. The kick and hats are pushed, the snare is pulled, as is the bass.
This is Hella Good by No Doubt. Fantastic live in the studio playing by Adrian Young. Listen carefully: you’ll hear at the start the whole drum part is pushing, but the moment the band kicks in there’s a slight slowdown and that snare generally pulls back behind the beat.
Perhaps instead of thinking pulled on the snare, think getting a sense of the whole song stopping for a moment, like the snare cuts it for a split second.
On this recording, listen to the slight change in arrangement on the fourth beat of each measure - the hi-hats drop out.
That snare “pothole” that breaks the flow of the song is super critical to that groove, and to a lot of grooves. Reggae players always talk about leaving space.
This Childish Gambino tune has pushed hats and kicks, a pulled snare that has that song “cut” effect to it.
Speaking of Space
I watched a ridiculous Jason Stathem movie a few nights ago, The Beekeeper, and noticed that there was almost continual underscoring through all the dialog. It was distracting. Of course, we’re not talking great writing or great acting here so maybe it was needed, but the next night I watched episode 2 of House of the Dragon, and while the show is scored and orchestrated, it’s considerably less so than The Beekeeper.
Too much music, too much production - it can turn into a surrogate laugh track that indicates what you’re supposed to feel.
Space is good.
Thanks for existing in time and space with us,
The Guys at Korneff
Krautrock! Conny Plank! PZM tips
New Monday #19
Schönen Montag!
That’s German.
I’ve been bopping around Montreal’s subway system listening to Krautrock. It’s perfect music for trains and tunnels and feeling odd and alienated.
I went down a Krautrock rabbit hole. And this is your invitation to join me down there!
Krautrock... that is a terrible name, coined by British music journalists. I hope any German readers don’t find it offensive, and please feel free to correct or add to anything in this Neuer Montag.
It’s also ridiculously reductive. It’s applied to a variety of music recorded from about 1968 into the 1980s, that stylistically ranges from psychedelic jams to synth-based minimalism to prog rock with embarrassingly bad lyrics to punk to free jazz. As a genre, Krautrock is all over the place.
While a lot of it has a mechanical 4/4 beat known as “motorik,” the only commonalities seem to be a tendency towards experimentation and noise, and that it doesn’t have blues as a basis for chord structure or improvisation.
Whoops! Another commonality in Krautrock is a brilliant engineer/producer named...
Conny Plank
By brilliant, I mean Bill Putnam or Al Schmitt or Tom Dowd brilliant. An engineer’s engineer. Someone who not only knew where to put the mics, but also how to build the console. BRILLIANT. Conny Plank should really be much better known.
Komrad “Conny” Plank recorded or produced practically every group associated with Krautrock at one time or another. He also recorded albums for Scorpions, Eurythmics, Devo, Ultravox, Killing Joke, Brian Eno, and even Duke Ellington! Plank turned down working with David Bowie on the album that eventually became Low, (too much drugs, he thought). He also turned down working on U2’s Joshua Tree (too much Bono).
The center of his studio near Cologne was a 56-channel custom console, built to his own specifications and recording style with Michael Zahl, who now makes 500 series EQs and such.
Here is some vintage console porn. I love this stuff.
Plank also developed a recall system that used a camera suspended over the console to take a picture of the knobs. To recall this “snapshot” of the console, the film would be projected back through the camera onto the console and an assistant would turn the knobs to match the image projected onto them. Brilliant.
He also solved the problem of listening to finished mixes in the car: he built an illegal radio station in the studio. He and the clients would pile into his car, tune into the studio’s station, and wait for the assistant engineer to include the mix in a playlist of similar records. Again, brilliant.
And, of course, he was a virtuoso engineer, a huge believer in mic placement and working room acoustics. His recordings of percussion-based experimental jazz are fabulous, capturing everything with amazing clarity and precise stereo placement. He was also a master of tape manipulation, blessed with a fantastic memory that allowed him to edit long, free-form jam sessions into cohesive songs, linking forward and reversed bits of tape and noise without keeping detailed notes. He just sort of “did it."
Conny died young, at 47 in 1987, of cancer. His console is now in England, still making records for artists like Franz Ferdinand. The Motorik goes on!
Some Things to Hear
Here’s a curated list of some things Krautrock and Conny Plank.
This is a wonderful extension to everything I’ve written above, going into a bit more detail on the recordings and linked to listening examples.
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/10-essential-conny-plank-records/
Can - this is out there stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZbAFmnRVA
Kraftwork - the Beatles of Krautrock. They’re still around. The album Autobahn was the last record they did that was engineered by Plank as they became more successful and ever more electronic. Here’s a playlist of vids. Great background music. Occasionally look up and see Germans dressed as robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQIYEPe6DWY&list=RDEMlS0N2Gz3BIH0JY8Cyyrimw&start_radio=1
Neu! - Loose, jam-oriented stuff. The recording below is an 8-track, engineered by Conny Plank. The drums here can’t be on more than two tracks, but there’s astonishing clarity and stereo perspective on everything. My guess is he did this with just two mics in exactly the right place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndpi8tNZyQ&list=RDzndpi8tNZyQ&start_radio=1
Niagara - who says a percussion-only album can’t be amazing? Breathtaking engineering by Conny Plank, and amazing playing by a bunch of killer drummers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T5R4nFIBgg
La Düsseldorf - a spinoff comprised of members of Kraftwork and Neu! Industrial before industrial?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz9q9UZS4M0&list=PL4384B64D44A0F11C
Cluster - electronic and minimal, occasionally with Brian Eno.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l50cmJOiHv0&list=OLAK5uy_kNoI0SQPzDD4EFa5MY1gKk-dOyd202orU
Tangerine Dream - dramatic electronic Krautrock, or the basis of every sci-fi movie soundtrack since 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFHE73aOMI&list=RDEMflsAy-eLxQ2-oszlwebZ4g&start_radio=1
Faust - Krautrock as noise. Or punk ska. I have no idea what this stuff is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=menuXx3oq80&list=OLAK5uy_lJ5UzdPN6Dj1C7D3oYhQDSc_6Zjc3KgPI
Not Krautrock, but Conny Plank...
Eurythmics - Belinda. Recorded by Conny Plank. This is when the band was way more rock.
Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports This is the record that started ambient music. Plank was very much involved.
Ultravox - Vienna A huge early new wave hit. High romance and electronic noise, Conny Plank at the faders.
Devo - Q: Are we not men? A: We are Devo. Produced by Eno, engineered by Plank. Insane stuff.
Scorpions - Love Drive. Conny Plank and early metal. Great sounds overall.
A Percussion Recording Tip
I used to use a stereo tube mic most often, but when I was dealing with a percussionist who was playing a lot of different things all over the place, like congas, and then some bell tree thing, and then a rik, and then a talking drum, and on and on, it became impossible to mic all of it with a pair and get good capture, or mic things individually and not get tons of phase issues.
The solution was a t-shirt and a PZM.
A PZM is a flat plate of a mic that has a semi-hemispherical pattern — it picks up everything across 180 degrees. Not a cheap mic, they were originally made by Crown and were like $800 each. However, you could get a Crown PZM for $60 if you went to Radioshack, because the Realistic PZM was in fact a Crown mic. For $120 you could get a pair of great-sounding, albeit unbalanced wreck-around mics.
SO... I taped a PZM to the center of a t-shirt with gaffers tape and had the percussionist put the shirt on, the mic facing out from his chest, perfectly positioned for percussion pick-up. Since he was naturally balancing levels as he moved from instrument to instrument, I didn’t even have to ride gain. For the mix, I’d split the one track to a bunch of channels and then automate them with whatever EQ or effects were needed to get the best sound out of that particular bit of percussion. When dealing with expensive studio musicians, producers often wanted me to go fast with them in the studio and then work more on the mix because, well, my time was cheaper!
Thanks for coming down the rabbit hole. Tchüss til next week!
Great songs, terrible covers
New Monday #18
Happy Monday!
And belated Happy Father's Day to the dads.
A week ago, just as I was finishing up New Monday 17, which featured The Cars, I heard an awful cover - just released. Awful awful awful. This got me thinking about the original, which is flat-out great, covers, and idea theft.
The Original
The original, and undisputed king: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boaJCrHNRMA
867-5309/Jenny was written in about 20 minutes by Alex Call and Jim Keller. Call was a professional songwriter, Keller was the guitarist of a band named Tommy Tutone that was in the midst of recording their second album for Columbia Records.
Contrary to myth, there is no Jenny that inspired the song, and 867-5309 was just a bunch of numbers that sang well.
The song was huge, 40 weeks in the top 100, Tommy Tutone became a one-hit wonder, and everyone called that phone number and asked for Jenny, which drove people who actually had that number CRAZY. Ah, the good old days before caller ID!
The band knew they had a hit the moment they heard the demo. Good lord! Here’s the demo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwbee1zn90s.
They worked out the arrangements and tweaked the lyrics in the studio for a few days and then cut it live to 24-track tape at the now defunct Clover Recorders in LA. A few overdubs and a mix: instant smash hit.
The Recording
867-5309 is very straightforward. It starts with a jangly guitar line that fades in on the right, slides toward center, there’s a Hammond organ swell and BANG! This is a SUPER high energy performance. It's electrifying and it still feels like a shot of adrenalin when singer Tommy Heath yells "Hey!"
Tommy Tutone was a tight and well rehearsed bar band. Parts slither and hand off to each other, leading you through the song and constantly keeping your attention. Guitar and drums fills are ICONIC: You can't imagine the song without them, as we'll see on the covers. The guitar solo is also iconic. With a great song like this, the best production is getting out of the way and just letting the band kill it.
Re-record/Remaster
In 2009, or 2011 (the data gets hazy) Tommy Tutone re-recorded 867-5309/Jenny, probably for a "Best of the 80's package for K-Tel. While technically a better recording, it's not a better record, even though it's basically a note-by-note remake. Everything is overly processed. Clover was a major studio in LA in 1981. In 2009, a recording like this, with minimal budget, is being done in a much smaller, cheaper situation, overdubbed rather than cut live, drum machine. There's a noticeable lack of energy and interplay.
The Cover that Sparked This
This was the cover, released last week. I’ve no idea why David Lee Roth decided to cover it. Yuck.
In the past, when Diamond Dave's covered a song he's done a reinvention. His “The Telephone Song" is lackluster and boring. The drums sound like a live player did them on an electronic kit and then someone fixed it. PLEASE pull that snare back in time a bit, it's too ahead of the beat. The main guitar is a big, woofy-sounding acoustic. The iconic guitar fills are reduced down to just one, flown in stiffly throughout the song, and it's a lame guitar sound, too.
The guitar solo has been reduced to a harmonica solo that would embarrass Alanis Morissette.
Vocals are squashed and small. The whole recording is squashed and small. Did they ever master this?
Of course, there’s worse: Nirvana butchered it live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV4bCSjKBSo . In their defense they all switched instruments — Kurt on drums and vocals! And they’d been drinking.
Original, a Cover, and a Cover of the Cover
Hush is a fabulous tune by Joe South. He wrote it for Billy Joe Royal, and it was released in 1967.
Deep Purple heard it, amped it up and released it in 1968. This kicks ass. Damn, this is heavy. They redid it again in 1984 and screwed it up.
Kula Shaker covered Hush in 1996. They were smart enough to knock off Deep Purple’s version, but they missed on the tempo. They definitely dropped the funk ball on this one.
AI for the Kill
But all this is perhaps water under the bridge. New Rick Beato thing on AI. I think you have to keep up on what’s going on with AI, especially if you want music as a career. Maybe everything is a cover tune.
Stay human, friends, stay human.
A great debut album, RTB, 40 tracks and overloading the input
New Monday #17
Happy Monday!
Ok, imagine it's this time of year back in 1978, and you hear this song for the first time at a high school dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BDBzgHXf64
Chunky guitars, keyboard noises, a strange vocal, huge toms, drums and bass... and a chorus sung by the band overdubbed more than 50 times.
Welcome to New Wave, kids! The Cars set the scene and the sound with their debut album, "The Cars."
The Cars
This is easily one of the best debuts from any band ever. It’s a killer combination of great songs played by excellent musicians, sung by distinctive singers, and assembled by a master producer, Roy Thomas Baker. It also helps that it was recorded at AIR Studios London, which in 1978 was THE state of the art.
The Cars were a perfect blend of elements and musicians. The quirky songs and vocals were provided by Rik Ocasik, who was also a master of those clicky guitar parts all over The Cars’ records. Ocasik created happy pop tunes that were somehow depressing and world-weary. There’s always a sense of "We’re in love, but I know you’ll leave me. Or die. Sigh."
The other lead singer of the group was Ben Orr, who had a terrific voice albeit not as distinctive as Ocasik’s. He was also a very musical bassist and had movie star looks, which was an interesting contrast to the skinny, angular 6’4” Ocasik.
Guitarist Elliot Easton... a monster player. He’s the guy throwing country, jazz and Beatles licks all over the place, and intertwining guitar lines with Gregg Hawkes' keyboard parts. Often you can’t tell which is a guitar and which is a synth. Hawkes invented a lot of the musical vocabulary of New Wave, pioneering using sequencers and synths in the studio and live.
Drummer Dave Robinson was The Cars' secret weapon. He is relentlessly solid with excellent timekeeping abilities and a killer sense of style: Robinson had a design background, and gave the band their signature look and album covers (although he didn’t design the cover of the debut record).
The Cars debut was pop, but it was rock, it had prog elements, it was serious, it was silly, and there’s not a bad song on it.
If you’ve not heard The Cars in its entirety, take 35 minutes and listen to it. Tons to learn and steal.
But if you’re busy, just take 8 minutes and listen to this excellent Rick Beato clip in which he breaks down a Cars’ hit off the album and explains it all to ya.
Roy Thomas Baker
If you don’t know the name, you know the acts he’s produced: Queen (yes, he did Bohemian Rhapsody), Foreigner, Cheap Trick, Devo, Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe, Journey, Alice Cooper, The Stranglers, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Darkness... hell of a long, and wide, career.
This is an excellent interview with the man. He talks songs, bands, recording technique, and he paints a vivid picture of big studio recording in its heyday.
Stephens 40-track 2-inch
John Stephens made tape decks and other audio gear. He started out by modifying 3M multitracks, and ended up designing his own electronics, tape heads, and a terrific drive system that minimized wear and tear on the tape.
Most of you don’t remember a time when playing the tape wore it out, starting with high-end loss. Stephens built decks to minimize this as well as improve response characteristics. His company made portable multitracks for on-location use during film shoots, and studio decks with different track configurations including 24, 32 and a whopping 40 tracks on a single 2-inch roll of tape. 'The Cars" was tracked on a Stephens 40.
Stephens decks were basically hand-made by the man himself and his small staff, and they were out of business by the 80s, when the industry standardized on 24-track 2-inch. Stephens decks are considered as good if not better than vintage Studer multitracks.
Here’s a bunch of things on Stephens and his tapedecks, for all of the knobheads like me and Dan!
A Tip, an Idea, a Thing to Try
We’ve heard from a bunch of you about last week’s tip from Dan, which was to try adding another iteration of the same plug-in and see what you get.
Here’s another idea. It works well with most of our plug-ins, and depending on how a plug-in is designed, it might work on some plug-ins from other companies.
Try overloading the input stage of the plug-in and see what you get. On most Korneff plug-ins, like the AIP, the PSC, if you turn up the INPUT TRIM, you’ll overload the input gain stage of the plug-in and you’ll get saturation and additional harmonics, similar would happen if you overloaded the input stage of a piece of analog equipment. This is because our plug-ins have a modeled analog circuit that includes an input gain stage. Not a lot of plug-ins are designed this way.
When you overload the input stage of a piece of equipment (or a plug-in with an input stage), you affect the character and the operation of everything happening after that. Overloading creates saturation, which adds some dynamic range compression (think compression with an instantaneous attack and release) as well as additional harmonic distortion, which might warm things up and/or add some brightness. Much of the sound of classic analog recordings is subtle overloading of channels and tape, all happening before any additional EQ or compression.
Remember that whenever you deliberately overload things to lower your monitor volume a bit—you don’t want digital clipping going through your speakers at high volumes or into your ears.
If you’re enjoying New Monday, can you do us a favor? Forward this to a friend who might be interested?
And of course, if you write to us we will answer you.
Rock on!
The Guys at Korneff
A Podcast, Shakespeare & Double the Production Tips Inside
New Monday #16
Happy Monday,
So much to write about...
We’re in a Podcast
Our friends Benedikt and Malcom from The Self Recording Band recently had a conversation with Dan and I about recording, Korneff Audio, plug-ins, the industry, etc.
Benedikt and Malcom are great guys who know their stuff. Their website has lots of resources on it, including the Podcast with the guys from Korneff. Audio.
Double, x2, Twice as Much
Double double toil and trouble... Today we’re looking at doing things x2. And there are double the number of production ideas and tips in here today, including Dan Korneff’s Secret Secret. Read on...
Production tip from Shakespeare
Here’s the beginning of a monologue from William Shakespeare's Hamlet:
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
This monologue from Hamlet goes on for like another 65 lines and then at the end, you get this:
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
71 lines of blank verse (that’s what they call this stuff) that do not rhyme, and then 2 lines that do.
I studied Shakespeare at Oxford in the early 80’s, this monologue in particular, and the question was always: Why do the last two lines rhyme?
Shakespeare did it to make them stand out. To catch your ear. To add EMPHASIS. To make you remember that particular moment as important.
I started to hear examples of this sort of thinking on records. Echos that would pop on for only a few words. A moment of strange EQ or distortion. Some little thing to grab your ear for a moment, like someone highlighting a line of text in a book.
The Beatles were masters of this, and they did it very often with doubling. Or, in some cases, not doubling.
And I Love Her, the sort of ballad ANYONE would be lucky to write (notice the all caps... emphasis...). Have a listen, and note how the doubling of the vocal works.
Only two lines out of the whole song are un-doubled! All the rest is doubled. And they don’t even seem to be very consequential lyrics, but they do force you to pay attention to the hook line that follows.
So, next time you’re mixing and making, think about what little moment can be made special, and how you might do that.
There’s another thing to learn from this particular song: if you write something with a killer melody and have a great singer sing it, you don’t need to do much production-wise to make magic.
Dan Korneff’s Secret Secret
I was surprised to learn that Dan’s mix bus has two iterations of the Puff Puff mixPass on it (along with a bunch of other things). I asked him about it, and he said this:
“If something sounds good, I do it again, figuring that it will sound even better. With the Puff Puff on the mix bus, I added one with the default settings, and it sounded great. So I added another one, same thing, default settings, and that sounded even better. I tried a third one, but that didn’t work. So two it is."
GAH!!! This is SO simple and SO obvious and I wish I'd thought of it, but I didn’t. Dan further confessed that he does this ALL THE TIME. He’s always adding another iteration of the same thing and listening.
This is a great trick. If it sounds good with one on it, try adding another.
Double Compression
A friend showed me a trick using two compressors when tracking vocals, and it became my standard operating procedure for recording vocals, bass, acoustic guitars, or anything that had too much dynamic range to fit comfortably on tape. I still track things this way 30 years later.
Here's an extended blog post on this, complete with settings, a few diagrams and usage ideas. This is a game changer for your engineering. Perhaps many of you already do this. If you don’t, you should.
AI is Still Here
Watch this good video in which a guy in our industry, Cameron from Venus Theory, discusses AI and its impact on audio careers, and how one might survive. His conclusion, by the way, is the same idea that I came up with a few months back, which is:
Double down on being yourself.
Again for emphasis: Double down on being yourself.
Happy Monday all. We always enjoy it when you write to us. Thanks for reading.
Two Times the Love,
The Guys at Korneff Audio
Minimal Drum Micing, Stealing Serge's Ideas
New Monday #15
Happy Monday,
I'm still experimenting with the format. That might never change, and it probably shouldn't.
(If you're creative and not experimenting then somethings wrong).
All the links are now tucked into paragraphs, and people asked if the musical examples could start at exactly what I'm writing about, so I did that as well.
I really appreciate all your comments and ideas. Please feel free to write and suggest. New Monday is here to inspire you and open ears and minds to possibilities, mine included.
I think it is best we start off with a song today. Something mellow and sort of sad, like Memorial Day in the US, so have a listen to Paper Tiger by Beck. This is a great recording and performance. And we will chat about it lower down the newsletter...
Developing Plug-ins: the Dan Method
We get asked a fair amount about how we develop plug-ins and why our plug-ins are the way they are. A lot of what we're about is revealed in this blog post Dan wrote about how he developed the Talkback Limiter. Did you know the TBL started as a DIY project with circuit boards, resistors and wires, etc.?
Minimal Drum Micing and Drum Tuning
Drum recording has evolved from letting them bleed into the vocal mic to over and under micing every piece of the kit... and then replacing everything with samples.
The Glyn Johns Micing Technique keeps popping up. It's not really a fixed technique as much as it's an approach, and Glyn Johns himself kept evolving and changing it.
In a nutshell, it's a mic on the kick, and then two overheads, one basically over the snare, the other somewhere near the floor tom. Often, though, extra mics were tossed in there as needed, depending on what was lacking.
You've heard this sound a lot — The Rolling Stones from Beggars Banquet to Exile on Mainstreet, the first Led Zeppelin album, and on and on. It's the sound of the early 70s.
I stumbled across a really excellent video on the Glyn Johns thing, and on minimal drum micing in general. But what's really good about this video is how Joel from DrumsDotPizza ties drum tuning into the whole picture.
Tuning is not just a way to make the drums sound good, but getting them pitched correctly changes how they're picked up by mics. This guy gives away a lot of good information that applies to all drum recording, not just when you're being minimal about it. This is the most valuable thing in this week's New Monday.
Stealing Ideas and Influences
Back to Paper Tiger...
This song has been on my mind since I first heard it. I love the sounds, and the orchestration. I originally pulled it into this newsletter because it seems to be a pretty good example of minimal drum micing, but I would bet it was tight mic'd as well. Whatever, a dandy fine drum sound. But there's more...
Steal this:
There's wonderful interplay between the guitar on the right channel and the string section on the left—it sounds like they're soloing off each other, and I was wondering how the hell they pulled this off. Turns out Beck sang the string part, and then his father arranged it. This is a very stealable idea.
The theft, or inspiration, gets worse. Or better?
Paper Tiger, and Beck's Sea Change album from which it came, are influenced heavily by a 1971 album called Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg.
Histoire de Melody Nelson
Gainsbourg is... beyond France's Bob Dylan? Culturally, in France, he's a HUGE deal.
Histoire de Melody Nelson is a concept album about a middle aged man hitting a 14 year old English girl with his car and then seducing her. And then she's killed in a plane crash. I kid you not. Needless to say, thematically, this wouldn't float at all today. It was controversial when it came out.
But the album was a tremendous critical success, and very influential. It featured very close mic'd vocals, a bass and drum driven funk groove, psychedelic guitar parts, and wonderful strings by arranger Jean-Claude Vannier. Have a listen to the first track from it, Melody.
See where Beck got Paper Tiger?
But not only Beck. There's also this recording by Goldfrapp. It's much tighter playing, but those string parts seem awfully familiar, as does the whole vibe.
Not sure you can hear it, but the chorus is a V - IV progression that we talked about a few weeks ago.
And more. Here's a song off Melody Nelson with a distinctive acoustic guitar part...
Note this highly very extremely similar guitar part on this song by French electronica pioneers AIR.
J'adore AIR, and their entire career seems based on mixing Melody Nelson with certain songs off Dark Side of the Moon... like this song Highschool Lover. Sounds a lot like Breathe (in the air), doesn't it? Just add the bass and strings from Melody Nelson.
And there are of course, more people who dipped into the Melody Nelson pool. Portishead. Jarvis Cocker. Placebo. Michael Stipe. The list goes on...
Is it an influence? Is it stealing?
Is it something that actually matters? It doesn't seem to.
Be influenced. Pick ideas like flowers and put them in your garden and let things grow.
Now get out there and borrow!
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
Mixing coolness and weirdness
New Monday #14
Happy Monday!
This week it seems we are revolving a bit around mixing.
Read This Article
This is a wonderful dual interview featuring legendary mixing god Bob Clearmountain (Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, everybody), and the brilliant Jesse Ray Ernster (Kanye West, Doja Cat, Burna Boy).
It covers careers, fave gear, technology—there’s a huge chunk where these two breakdown mixing in ATMOS—the origin story of the NS-10 as a studio speaker, and more.
It’s also funny and warm: these two guys have total respect for each other and a great friendship. It’s how life should be. Very worth a read.
Cool, not perfect
Mixing can get very clinical, nitpicky, and anal, and far too technical. Often, my favorite mixes have something wrong about them that makes them more memorable.
It’s like a beautiful face: sometimes there’s a flaw on that face that makes it stand out and even more interesting.
Look at models. Some of them are really weird looking, but there’s something gorgeous about that.
This Roberta Flack song is a mixing mess. Have a listen and then read on.
What is up with that kick, right? It’s HUGE. And it’s panned to the right. It sounds like someone beating a suitcase with a soup ladle. There’s a ton of stuff and gook in the low mids.
I met the guy that mixed it, Gene Paul (Les Paul’s son). He was mastering a record I had mixed, and when I commented on how one thing had too much bass on it, Gene said, “I put way too much foot on Killing Me Softly, but it worked.” It sure did.
The song I put too much bass on... not so much. Sigh.
Another mess, courtesy of The Beatles
This is probably less about the choices made and more about the technology limitations of the time, but this is an oddball mix even by Beatles standards.
The drums are totally lost except every now and again there’s this really quiet go ‘round fill in the back corner off to the left. But there is a lead tambourine on it! It’s the loudest thing on the track, other than the vocals.
Big fave moment at 1:51: There’s a great guitar riff that is super loud for like two measures, and then is gone, never to return. What??
It’s worth it to note that The Beatles had so many great riffs that they could basically throw one away for a break. Other bands would have built the entire song around that riff.
Mixing, Ears, Speakers
While we are in the age of digital music, human biology and physics remain strictly analog. A mix lives or dies in that very analog interaction of air and ears.
Here are some useful thoughts and tricks on dealing with speakers and your ears while mixing.
Mix with your ears
Just a quick thought here: there are now so many visual aids to mixing—real time pictures of frequency response and the like—that one can get caught up in how things look rather than how things sound.
In the early 90s, I hooked up a RTA to an SSL and mixed with it for a few weeks. I would try to get my mixes to have a similar “picture” to reference mixes I ran through the RTA. I learned a lot, but mainly I learned that I didn’t get good mixes chasing a picture.
No one has ever said, “I love the way this mix looks.”
Bad mix. Keep at it or restart?
One can start with the best intentions and wind up with an awful mix. Or one can be mixing and just not be hitting it right.
Do you restart the mix from scratch or just keep working through it?
I found whenever I restarted a mix, I would pretty much get something very similar to the mix I thought was awful unless I approached it from a radically different perspective.
The next time you’re caught in a crappy mix, throw it out and start again, but do something very different to start. If you usually begin with drums, start with the vocals. If you like to get an overall balance first thing, start the mix with something really strange, like bring up the backing vocals or the keyboard pads and start there.
The point is to break your pattern. If you don’t break the pattern, you’ll just repeat the pattern.
Mix it up!
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
Steve Albini
New Monday #13
Happy Monday!
Steve Albini died last week at 61. He was a superb audio engineer and by most accounts, a lovely person.
He was outspoken and had no time for stupidity or unscrupulous behavior. Needless to say, he had a negative opinion of the music industry.
He loved music, loved musicians, loved rock, and loved doing his work, which was engineering. Although he is called a producer by some, he thought “producer” was a dirty word and an exploitative job. He was an engineer, damnit.
He was a huge influence on recording, especially in the 90s.
Here’s a compilation I made of some of the more interesting and useful videos and articles covering various aspects of this complex man. Lot’s of How To stuff, but also some of it is pretty funny.
Start Here
If you’re unfamiliar with Steve Albini, start here, with this video of him with Anthony Bourdain!
Albini was smart and a nerd about everything - he’s even nerdy about the sandwich.
Engineering
Must read article on engineering - Great article - he covers literally everything he does in the studio. You’ll learn a ton from this.
Video: Steve on the Job and Equipment - More good info and ideas.
Mr Albini always had a very well thought-out approach to everything he did, and of course especially to recording. I’ve selected a few clips for you all that illustrate his thinking, and also are useful for you developing your thinking.
Techniques
Phase when mic’ing drum sets - he’s talking a lot about absolute phase here.
How to Clean a Console and Outboard - this is REALLY useful
How to Mic a Speaker Cabinet - man, he goes into depth and is an excellent teacher.
Gear
Mr Albini had an interesting taste in equipment. Here are some links to some of the stuff you see in these videos or that get mentioned in articles.
Neotek was a Chicago-based maker of recording consoles. They went out of business, were taken over by a company called Sytek (which was actually formed by former Neotek employees). Sytek too is now out of business.
Sytek MPX-4 preamps are spectacular. Incredibly clean with super fast response. They pop up on eBay and Reverb from time to time. Performance up there with an API.
Those strange looking black speakers on the bridge of the console I know quite well: B&W 805v’s. Wonderful speakers with a very sophisticated internal design. The 800 Series of speakers had a sort of honeycomb internal bracing system that resulted in an almost non-resonant cabinet.
The Really Nice Compressor - awesome and cheap.
On Business and Relationship
The Adventures of Steve Albini
Above all, we lost a good human being who lived life well. Rest in Peace, Mr. Albini.
Steve Albini does his George Martin (the Beatles Producer) impression.
Albini and friends on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
They prank Gene Simmons... this is really funny!
Take care of yourselves.
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
Good Karma, old and new
New Monday #12
Happy Monday!
We hope you’re on the receiving end of some good karma. We at Korneff are, and we hope it spreads to you all.
KARMA POLICE
What a great song. I remember hearing the original when Radiohead was ruling the alternative airwaves in the late 1990s. A simple pop tune taken up a notch with wonderful production and a grinding to a halt sort of ending.
Listen to Radiohead’s Karma Police here.
You might have heard a recent cover version of it by Pierce the Veil, recorded by none other than... our Dan Korneff.
Listen to Pierce the Veil's Karma Police here.
Another killer production, huge and heavy but with a lot of the flavor of the original.
Karma Police Drums
We’ve got two blog articles for you, one for the Radiohead original, the other for the Pierce the Veil cover version. Both articles focus on the drum recording techniques involved, and each article has ideas and techniques that you can use.
Read Radiohead Karma Police post
Read Pierce the Veil Karma Police post
Back Issues, New Format
This little newsletter has been growing and people keep asking to see previous letters. So...
We are still experimenting with the format. We’re thinking of featuring a different picture at the top each week. We’d like to show a picture of a studio with a coffee cup, so there is a nice Monday morning work vibe. We’d like to feature pictures of YOUR beautiful studio. And we think ALL studios are beautiful. So, please, send us a picture of your studio with a coffee cup in it, and we’ll see if we can make this work.
Have a great week.
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
V - IV, John Barry, BBC’s Soul Music
New Monday #11
Happy Monday - got your coffee? Evidently I've had too much of mine because this week's New Monday is manic and all over the place.
Sick of I vi IV V or John Barry’s Secret Chord Progression
There is entirely too much I-vi-IV-V happening in pop music today, in pop music in general.
Yes, it is the chord progression of hits like this, and this, but it and its variations are overused. Here’s an article on how often Taylor Swift has used it. And here’s a video on how often she uses a slight variation on it (I V ii IV).
If you’re looking for a different progression to base your stuff on, try this: IV - V. You can also call it V - IV or I - bVII or bVII - I.
Call it what you want, the idea is moving between two major chords a whole step apart. It’s easy, very handy (especially if you’re a guitarist), and has a TON of great songs written using it.
On Broadway - original Drifters version sort of hides it a bit, but the George Benson version makes it more obvious.
My Generation - V - IV with a bass solo.
LA Woman - this song is almost one chord, the IV - V only happens on the chorus.
And there’s still more... Reelin’ in the Years.
IV - V or V - IV has a modal quality to it —Mixolydian to be exact. It also doesn’t have a strong sense of resolve. Songs written with it can seem like they’ll go on forever.
More Allman Brothers???
I promise I’ll stop with the Brothers next week, but for now:...
The song "Dreams", on their first album, is a IV - V for almost the entire song, including a fabulous extended solo by Duane Allman. Very modal and vibey recording. Great vox by Gregg.
I couldn’t resist running "Dreams" through my instant-this-sounds-better workflow of the Puff Puff mixPass into the El Juan Limiter. And I made a short video of that too.
John Barry, the God of V - IV
Film composer John Barry was a top film composer. He won a bunch of Academy awards, scored the James Bond films, etc., etc. Huge name and a great musician.
He deployed IV - V often. It’s the cornerstone of the soundtrack to the James Bond film “You Only Live Twice.”
Nancy Sinatra sang the original version for the film. The distinctive opening riff is V - IV.
Bjork did a breathy, moody remake.
John Barry, though, outdid himself, on the soundtrack for "The Midnight Cowboy". His "Theme from the Midnight Cowboy" is one of the most gorgeous things ever written. It features the most lonely sad harmonica on the planet. If there’s only one thing you listen to today, it’s this.
John Barry plays Theme from Midnight Cowboy.
That song makes me cry. And here’s something else you can cry over!
Music has a tremendous effect or Fun with the BBC
Several months ago I wrote an article on the Johnny Nash hit “I Can See Clearly Now.” A producer from the BBC, Mair Bosworth, read it, contacted me, and I was honored to play a small part in a podcast about the song. The podcast is less about the music or recording and more about the almost supernatural effect the song has on people’s lives. The podcast is incredibly moving and worth a listen.
The podcast, on BBC’s Soul Music, is here.
Shout out to Mair Bosworth at the BBC. Soul Music rules!
And... I couldn’t resist running I Can See Clearly through the Puff Puff. That plug-in is amazing.
Probably too many links and ideas this week, but I got excited. There’s so much to listen to and to learn.
Have a great week.
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
We love to hear from you all. Send us your V - IV progression songs. Write some!
The Puff Puff, Dickey and the Allman Brothers
New Monday #10
Happy Monday!
Two things this week: we released a new plug-in, the Puff Puff mixPass, and Dickey Betts, the guitarist from the Allman Brothers Band, died at age 80.
The Puff Puff mixPass
Our latest is a dynamics processor. Using waveshaping, the Puff Puff adds harmonic content to "puff up" the apparent volume of a signal. It's not a compressor or a limiter, rather the opposite, but it has a similar effect: it makes things LOUD.
It also has controls to add character to things—distortion, overdrive and all sorts of fun sonic garbage.
I also made a video using it to enhance an Allman Brothers Band live recording. More on that below...
Dickey Betts and the Original Band
Forrest Richard Betts... a great player and a great songwriter—he wrote a lot of the best-known Allman Brothers Band songs, including their biggest hit, Rambling Man.
80 years is a pretty good run for anyone, but especially for a rock star who has had... adventures.
The original Allman Brothers Band line-up, brothers Duane and Gregg, drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johnny Johanson, bassist Berry Oakley, and Dickey Betts, are generally considered about the best rock band the US ever produced.
The evidence is a bunch of live recordings from The Fillmore East, which was a concert hall in NY city that was open for a scant four years but is still remembered for the quality of the performers it attracted, and especially for the Allman Brothers performances. Their 1971 album Live At Fillmore East made the band's career, and the album is one the best live rock albums recorded.
The original lineup of ABB was a spectacular band. They had the power of Marshall amps and the listening skills of a top-tier jazz group. They had two fantastic guitarists, a killer rhythm section, and the most authentic-sounding white blues singer imaginable.
The Allmans played The Fillmore East a number of times, including the two nights that were recorded for the live album. They also headlined the closing, last show at The Fillmore East on June 27th, 1971.
The Allman Brothers Live - a bootleg
Duane Allman died young and left a huge legacy that, while well deserved, has somewhat overshadowed Dickey Betts. Dickey was a great player, perhaps not as adventurous as Duane, but technically probably better. Duane actually remarked a number of times in interviews that he thought Betts was the better player of the two. We hear about Duane Duane Duane, but what about Dickey?
We have this: I found a bootleg from that last performance at the Fillmore, and pulled out a bit that features both Duane and Dickey rocking out with the band and also in solo segments. It's amazing playing, to my ear better than anything on the great live album.
The guitar sounds are phenomenal as well: both are using Les Pauls through cranked-up Marshalls, and it's the damn voice of rock 'n' roll. Dickey is over towards the left, Duane is on the right.
Duane is amazing, but Dickey SCREAMS on this recording.
Fixing with the Puff Puff and friends
I ran the recording through a couple of our plug-ins. The guitars sound great, but the drums are lost, so I did what I could. I made a video of how I enhanced it, and also I put the finished recording up for the world.
I used the AIP, the El Juan, and the Puff Puff. It’s a deep dive.
Duane died about four months after that last Fillmore gig, Berry Oakley a year after that. The band persevered, with Dickey Betts assuming the mantle of leadership for a decade. Butch Trucks and Gregg Allman died in 2017. The last living member of the original powerhouse that was this fantastic group is Jai Johnny "Jaimoe" Johanson, age 79.
The original members remain family, naming their kids after each other.
RIP Mr. Forrest Richard “Dickey” Betts.
Have a great week. Celebrate your friends.
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
We love to hear from you all. Write even if you don’t have much to say!
Taxes and Taxman, Wow - use a moving coil microphone
New Monday #9
Happy Monday!
If you’re in the US, still working on your taxes or did you get them done?
TAXMAN
I remember hearing this song for the very first time. I had just bought my very first record, which was Revolver, by The Beatles. George Harrison’s song Taxman was the lead-off track. It began out with some strange noises (analog tape decks ramping up to speed) and a weird count-in, and then BANG!
I made a special version of Taxman for you all.
There was an awful Beatles cartoon series in the late 60s. The voices all suck (except for Ringo), the animation is awful, but the music is good. Especially if you swap in better versions of the song... and then run the audio through the El Juan Limiter
It still blows my mind. Damn! That’s PRODUCTION. Guitar solos by Paul McCartney, by the way. The whole album is great.
WOW, man
It has been all WOW WOW WOW Thing at Korneff Headquarters for the past few weeks. Finally, I got a WOW Thing video done. I used it in some non-typical ways — it definitely isn’t a plug-in that only does big guitars. There are a few hacks in the video too, as well as Luke ADHD moments.
Watch the Wow Thing video here.
By the way, the introductory low price goes away April 19th.
Breaking Rules with Moving Coils
The WOW Thing became a thing when engineer Randy Staub used it on Metallica’s Black Album. He also used a Shure SM7 on the hi-hats. Not the usual thing you see.
The SM7 was Michael Jackson’s main vocal mic. Kind of a strange choice, especially since that mic is relatively insensitive and MJ used to make all sorts of weird little noises. Or maybe that was why they used an SM7.
Dan’s go-to acoustic guitar mic is an AKG D160. The Beatles loved this one, too. Luke's go-to acoustic guitar mic was the AKG D224.
Sometimes, actually very often, a moving coil is a better choice than a condenser.
Here’s why you should use Moving Coil microphones.
We love your comments and questions. Please feel free to write us, we love hearing from you.
Happy April 15th!
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
PS.. we have a new plug-in coming out soon. I used it on the music on that Taxman cartoon. The voice acting and cartoon soundtrack went through the El Juan, but the Beatles song went through something else. Any ideas as to what? Send us your guesses!
Hendrix in the West, an artistic principal, use plug-in backwards
New Monday #8
Happy Monday!
The spirit of rock 'n' roll and playing live continues with this AMAZING video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HldgxyA2XiQ
This is the definitive version of Johnny B Goode. Yes, Chuck Berry wrote it, but Hendrix blows the doors off of it.
How to Structure a Guitar Solo
Hendrix does two guitar solos, in the middle and at the end. Each solo goes through the changes (the chords of the song) three times. Each time through, he manages to drop a bomb of a solo that's different from, and yet similar to, the other solos.
This is a producing/artistic concept I'll dig into more later that we'll call Diverse in Unity/Unified in Diversity.
Each individual time through the changes has a sustained note opening, followed by a contrasting section with more of a flurry of notes. Each time through the changes follows that formula, with some minor variations. This is a "unity" aspect that locks the solos together and allows us to hear them as one complete statement.
But each sustained opening is different from all the others, and in the middle solo, the drama and energy of each time through increases. The first time he wobbles the note around in the midrange and keeps the fast stuff in the same general area. The second time through is more aggressive, opening with a dive bomb and playing more complex patterns after that. The third time he kicks a wah in—using it more like a treble boost—and plays a bunch of piercing high stuff. It's very dramatic, building up like a train heading at you.
The ending solo is similarly increasingly dramatic - in the middle he plays with his teeth (and yes, he's really playing with his teeth) and ending with an unaccompanied speediest, followed by the entire band hitting the last note perfectly.
I think my favorite moment, though, is right after the last note ends, Hendrix checks his tuning. It's sort of like, "Oh, back to business here." I love that.
So, next time you're in the studio and things are boring, or the guitarist has more ambition than ideas, think on Diverse in Unity/Unified in Diversity.
Use Our Plug-ins Backwards
To make the Hendrix video for y'all I took video from one source and audio from another, but even then it didn't sound all that good to me. So, I ran the entire thing through our EL Juan Limiter, and what a difference.
I also realized that both Dan and I tend to use our plug-ins backwards from the way they're laid out. So I made a video of our "reversed workflow" for you and explained a few things as well.
Click here for Using the EL Juan Backward video
By the time a lot of you get this we'll be in the middle of an eclipse. Crazy times! Last week an earthquake, this week a lunar eclipse! I wonder what might happen after that...???
As always, we love to hear from you, so please write us with your comments and ideas. We’re all ears.
Warm regards,
The guys at Korneff
Fugazi in a Sundress, TV music, cutting Vox, AI sux
New Monday #7
Happy Monday!
First: watch this before you read on any further:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIZD9WFpWZo
***************************************************************
I want to be reincarnated as a high school girl in a sundress and sandals, rocking out to Fugazi.
This thing is so damn HUMAN. This clip embodies the fun and camaraderie of rocking out in the band. Playing in a band. Remember: you don’t “serious" music, you play music.
Lead singer is a killer. She has a sincerity about spelling out how she’s going to do what she wants with her life.
Drummer is a killer, too. I wrote more about why he’s good and what is the takeaway if you’re recording/producing.
TV Themes and Songs
TV themes have gotten REALLY short. This has to be a byproduct of Instagram and TikTok and I don’t think I like it. I remember tv theme songs that were fabulous songs, like this and this.
However, some of these short themes are wickedly good as well as wickedly short.
Two of my faves, Better Call Saul and The Lincoln Lawyer.
Great little, distinctive bits of production/writing.
Perhaps think about getting good at making music like this.
Why are these things so effective?
1) There’s something familiar about them. When we think we’ve heard something before but we’re not sure, our brain tends to lock in on that: It's like a puzzle.
2) Cool sonics and sounds that are interesting. Both of these are using non-standard instrumentation, and again, our brain likes to puzzle out, “What is that?"
3) Strong moods that sum up the show. You can tell from the themes that 'Better Call Saul' is set in the West and has a sense of humor, and that 'The Lincoln Lawyer' is slick and mysterious.
Remember: our brains love questions and a sense of what comes next. Think about that next time you’re writing music or producing something.
AND... I couldn’t help it. I downloaded the themes off Netflix and they sounded AWFUL, like this...
SO I confess... I ran them through our new WOW Thing and then through the El Juan Limiter and they sounded much better! Here’s a before and after I made...
Cutting Vocals
We kinda touched on this a few weeks ago, that vocals need to be thinned out somewhat in the mix to get them to sit right (and easily).
The problem is standing too close to the damn mic. BACK UP.
Click here for more thoughts on this.
The struggle against our eventual robot overlords continues
Another AI product aimed at making creative work fast, cheap and coincidentally, uncreative?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tL5X8kuuGs
Contrast that crap to the Cleveland School of Rock Video we started with and be glad you’re not a robot.
At your request
You can now see back issues of New Monday online here: https://korneffaudio.com/new-monday-newsletter/
We are experimenting with the format a bit. Do you like long emails with a lot in them, or shorter emails with links that lead off to other content, so you can choose what interests you? Please let us know what you like.
Dan and Luke
Mix like Blur, and a question for Dan
New Monday #6
Happy Monday
Uh oh! We’ve wound up in Britpop, the early 90s music movement that brought the world bands like Oasis, Pulp, Suede, the Verve and Blur, amongst others.
Britpop is very English, with songs about English themes sung with English accents and harkening back to the English Music Hall tradition, which was the Empire’s version of Vaudeville. Obviously Britpop builds on music by The Beatles, Queen, 10CC and David Bowie, but also stuff from the 80s like The Smiths, XTC, the Cure, et al. Blur in particular channels Mott the Hoople. Singer Daman Albarn does a killer Ian Hunter impression.
Aside from Oasis, none of these bands did much in the US, which is a pity because there is some first-class songwriting, and, like a lot of music out of England, fantastic production.
Especially Blur. If you’re into extravagant production, listening to Blur for a few days will definitely give you a bunch of ideas.
Here are some mixing takeaways from several days of squinting at the Parklife album from 1993. By the way, these are just good mixing ideas in general.
The more sources you have, the more they should be MONO
And this makes sense if you think about it: stereo mic’ing adds width and phase shift and ambiance, all of which will turn into sonic clutter as more and more of it gets added in. So, think one mic, one source, or 1 input one keyboard/amp simulator. On most of the mixes on Parklife the drums are mono down the center.
Think CONTRAST rather than Reverb
You’ll get more depth and drama out of a mix when most of it is dry and only a few things have reverb on them. Again, the more stuff you throw into a mix, the more things get masked, and reverb and echo really mask things up. Listen to good mixes and you might hear a very wet drum sound in there, but chances are it only sounds wet when it’s highlighted by the arrangement. When it’s part of the mix, dry it up. When it’s by itself, wet it up.
Think CONTRAST Left and Right
Use the left and right and down just leave stuff in the middle. Especially on songs that are headphone ear candy. Parklife has things panning everywhere, in some cases languidly migrating from one channel to another. It’s fun! It’s interesting! It’s easy to automate!
Often on Parklife, a percussive part might be on the left, and something smoother and more sustained on the right. Or a percussive part is layered over a sustained part of the same channel so the two parts contrast rather than combine. In general these guys not only thought about what they were playing, but how it was going to fit into the big picture sonically.
CONTRAST by Sections
Contrast by sections. The verse has a distinct sound from the chorus. Perhaps the verse sounds spacious and the chorus sounds claustrophobic. There are clicky guitar parts on the verse and legato parts on the chorus. Change things up, in other words.
THIN Things Out!
Good lord, if there is one thing to remember it is this!
Everything is thinned. There’s an octave between 200Hz and 400hz, and there’s an octave between 2000hz and 4000hz. But one octave has only 200 little frequency guys between the two while the other has 2000 little frequency guys in there. But what is up above 2kHz? Cymbals? Violin overtones? Annoying keyboard patches?
Contrast that to what’s down between, oh, 150hz to 900hz. Like, EVERYTHING lives down there. Just about every instrument or vocal range has most of its fundamentals in that range. It's like the kitchen at a party: everyone wants to be in the kitchen. So, to get ridiculous clarity, either you arrange things — not everyone gets to be down in that area at the same time — or you have to thin things way way out. So, the bass gets its little own space, the guitars get their own little space, etc. Think of an elevator. There’s a weight limit. You can have a lot of people in it, but they have to be skinny.
Thin out the vocals. If you back a singer a few feet off the mic in a pretty dead room you get a thinner vocal that blends well in a mix and doesn’t have a huge amount of muddy warmth. Yes, you can shelve out the bottom end, but it is better to just not record what you don’t want. In general, to me it sounds like Blur isn’t constantly close mic’d. There’s true acoustic space involved.
Focus Focus Focus!
Parklife (and really, almost any good record) is mixed like someone directing a movie. During a movie, the director points the camera and tells the audience “You’re looking at this now.” A good mix works the same way: you’re listening to the vocals now, and now you’re hearing a drum break, and now it’s a guitar solo, etc. In other words, the listener is guided. The arrangement does this, and the mixing does this. PICK what is important. Make it louder. Change what is important on occasion. Let importance shift from part to part.
A Question and an Answer
We got an interesting question last week. Loyal reader Keith asks: “What plugins does Dan use? Is only Korneff or does he use others? The answer: Dan uses mainly Korneff stuff. In fact, often we develop a new plug-in because Dan has been using something from some other company and wants to improve on it. So, Keith, Dan uses the plug-in he designs all the damn time. And Luke almost exclusively so because he doesn’t feel like wasting time auditioning things. He just wants to rock and roll.
A Question for YOU
New Monday keeps evolving. We need some feedback from you all on how to make it better and more useful to you. We want you to be excited and inspired at 10am on Monday when you check your email. What do you like? What do you want more of? What do you want less of?
Dan and Luke
3/11, mic'ing guitars
New Monday #5
Happy Monday. It’s March 11th.
Happy 311
Oh no! 311 the band?
Yep! They celebrate their existence with a concert every 3/11 since their start in the early 90’s, although this year they celebrated yesterday in Las Vegas.
These guys were all over the radio in their time and were a counterpoint to grunge.
Oh that snare! It’s one of the most distinctive things about a 311 record. Instantly recognizable with a ton of ping and ring. I love snare sounds like that. Anyway, check out this short vid with 311 drummer Chad Sexton: it’s not the snare. it’s how he hits it. He’s a great player.
VIDEO: Chad on how to hit it...
So, here’s 311’s Beautiful Disaster. Have a listen.
Let’s concentrate on dual heavy guitar parts.
Often, doubled heavy guitar parts turn into a bland, undifferentiated goopy wall of sound, like someone dumped gravy over everything on the plate so the potatoes taste the same as the beef.
The 311 guys manage to get something heavy and the gtr on the left is distinct from the gtr on the right. If you listen, you’ll hear the guitar on the right has more midrange to it and the one on the left has the mids scooped out. The sounds stand out from each other and yet interlock.
How to do this? Use different amp/guitar combinations. Change things up. Can’t use a different guitar? Change the amp. Can’t change up the guitar and amp? Swap in different mics. Stuck with the same mic? MOVE THE MIC AROUND. Record one with the mic close, and the other with the mic further away. Eq them differently.
Use Ray’s guitar micing trick
My friend Ray would unplug the guitar and crank the amp way up so that there was a lot of hiss (white noise sorta stuff) coming out of the cabinet. Then, he’d get down on the floor, cover one of his ears and move his head around closer and farther from the cabinet until the hiss sounded bright and warm - as full as possible, and then he’d stick the mic right in the spot where his ear was. and he got a great sound - full, with a good representation of the cabinet.
What was Ray listening for? On a 4x12 cabinet, Ray was finding where all of the speakers on the cabinet and cabinet resonances were overall very much in-phase.
Record one part Ray style, and the other do your usual mic stuck right up against the grill.
Here’s Steve Albini’s ideas on this exact topic
Here’s Dan talking about how he gets guitar sounds in a Podcast.
Last Thing
Click here: it’s Quick, Inane and Funny
How are we doing?
We love hearing from readers and we're always looking for feedback. How are we doing with New Monday? Is there anything you'd like to see more or less of? What aspect of New Monday do you enjoy the most?
Hit reply and say hello - we'd love to hear from you.
Dan and Luke
Happy Accidents, Gorillaz and EVH
New Monday #4
Happy Monday. One thing leads to another.
Happy Accidents
Honestly, this is the whole point: Letting shit happen and then recognizing that it's good shit (or flushing it if it's bad).
A happy accident is when something unintended turns out to be better than any idea you had or thing you tried to make.
A great song is a series of happy accidents connected by music theory. A great production is a series of happy accidents connected by moments of waiting for the next happy accident.
A good creative environment is one where happy accidents are encouraged.
Talent is recognizing happy accidents when they happen.
This whole newsletter is a happy accident. Because of google searches for Shaun Ryder last week, all sorts of content about him is popping up on my feed. Happy accident? Perhaps. But what is important is that I spotted it.
So... here Shaun Ryder discusses a GREAT happy accident:
And here’s a link to the song he’s talking about:
Damn, that is a really catchy groove, Just two chords - like an A to a G. Gorillaz do interesting stuff.
Another fun one, this time courtesy of New Order. You wouldn’t think that a group that is sequenced and, well, orderly, would crop up here. But they do... a quick vid:
An Accident?
This popped up on my feed. I'm not a fan of the band, but this will scoop part of your brain out and smear it on the wall.
It's a room mic feed of EVH recording Eruption. From a talkback mic? Drum overheads? Miscellaneous leakage?
Whatever. It's spectacular playing, and in this recording context, it's pretty clear he dropped that solo like a bomb in one take.
On the album, with that goofy panning and awful reverb... the slickness of it makes me think it was "worked on." Punched in. Comp'd. Done with mirrors.
But the link below sounds like one incredible take. Leaps from one happy accident to another.
Think about how the processing changes the perception.
Here’s a longer discussion of how this came to be.
Happy Accidents and AI
Just to tie the past few weeks together: AI can’t recognize a happy accident. It’s capable of screwing up, but it can’t decide if the screw-up is a keeper.
Remember you have a human superpower right now that gives you an advantage over AI. You have an opinion, and you have taste. Cultivate that over skills.
Dan and Luke
We hope you’re finding this monday thing inspirational and a little bit educational. Let us know how we can make it better.
Happy Mondays and some useful tips
New Monday #3
Happy Monday. Hmm...
Happy Mondays
We only just noticed that this email series shares a name with an English rock band from the 80s, Happy Mondays.
These guys were ahead of their time. They sort of “invented" their time.
Happy Mondays pioneered looping, often cutting up drum and bass drum parts into loops and then playing as a band live over them. The result is an interesting fusion of rock and dance music. The songs are more grooves than anything else, but the things they put over them are wild, noisy and yet musical. These are really interesting recordings.
DRUMS - Gary Whelan plays loops and then puts even more drums over them. And he’s a great player.
BASS BASS BASS - Paul Ryder is the god of simple, perfect bass grooves. He could have played for Motown.
VOCALS - Shaun Ryder is one of those vocalists who really can’t sing but somehow it works really well.
GUITARS - Mark Day is one of those interesting players nobody seems to know about. Cool guitar parts and sounds.
Ah, so much to steal... Enough - listen to this album....
Pills Thrills and Bellyaches
Mics leak from the FRONT... a recording tip
If you’re getting bleed into a cardioid mic, chances are putting gobos and stuff behind it to block stuff out isn’t going to make much of a difference.
Cardioid mics already reject sounds behind them really really well. Most of the bleed getting in from behind is going to be low frequency, and not much is ever going to stop low-frequency bleed because cardioids tend to go omni a bit at low frequencies (and low frequencies tend to go around or through objects without a lot of difficulty anyway. Hard to stop bass.).
So, where is the bleed coming from? It’s coming in the front of the mic, along with the sound you’re trying to record. It’s coming in “over your shoulder."
How to deal? First, there’s the direct-to-reflection ratio. Is the direct sound getting in a lot louder than the leakage getting in? Let’s call this ratio Acoustic Separation - the difference between the thing you want to hear and the thing you don’t want to hear.
Typically, acoustic separation is defined as 26dB: in other words, the direct sound should read 26dB higher on the meter than the indirect sound. In the studio, that’s pretty hard to get, but even a 10 or 15dB difference is going to be fine. Less than that and you will run into problems.
In the home studio, the best vocal booth you have is a closet stuffed full of clothes. Set up your mic facing into the closet - maybe a few inches outside of it but pointing into it and all the clothes. Then, stick your vocalist INTO the closet facing out at the mic. Yes, they should have clothes all around them. You’ll be amazed at how dead and clean that vocal will be.
Dan and Luke
Feel free to send us comments. We always love to hear from you.
From AI music to the Dyna Comp.
New Monday #2
AI Music
Undoubtedly AI is the future of music production, just like the microwave is the future of cooking.
Suno.ai is fun in a scary way. Make an account for free, put in a prompt, and get a song a few seconds later.
The prompt was “Romantic pop ballad about alien abduction.” The result is this link here.
It’s not bad, and there are even some interesting chord changes leading into the chorus that are stealable. Humans have written worse songs.
Sorta wish the lyrics were more like, “Gorgax strapped me to a table and pulled out a machine” rather than “Star crossed lover looked in my eyes” but perhaps the AI was set for PG.
What do you think? A good way to generate ideas? A fun thing to do on Valentines Day? A creative way to tell your boss to take this job and shove it? A means of singing goodbye to your career in music?
Will.I.Am has some very cogent thoughts on the topic of AI. See the short vid here...
All Hail the Dyna Comp
Exploring unintended uses of audio equipment ranks high among Dan’s top studio pleasures. Enter The MXR 102 Dyna Comp: a guitar compressor pedal from 1972.
It's far from being the most Hi-FI piece of gear but it possesses genuine character and is readily accessible.
The brain of this circuit is an OTA (Operational Transconductance Amplifier), which adjusts signal volume based on its input. An Envelope Detector calculates the magnitude of the signal and gives the OTA current feedback relative to the input volume, boosting weaker signals. The distinctive sound of this pedal is linked to corrective equalization which helps tone down the noise. This makes it a perfect candidate to "use and abuse" in unintended ways.
Dan’s fave use, believe it or not, is as a really aggressive vocal compressor. It's over the top, in a great way, and helps create unique sounds that catch your ear.
It's also been rumored that the legend Randy Staub used this as a kick drum compressor.
Don't forget, these things run at instrument level, so you'll need to convert to/from line level before you patch into your rig. There are dedicated devices that make this process simple, like the Radial Engineering EXTC. Or you can use a reamp and DI box to get the job done.
You can also just plug the damn thing in and see what happens, but whenever you do frankenstein games like this, don’t wear headphones and keep the speakers off or really low until you figure out if it’s working. You only get one set of ears.
Happy experimenting!
Dan and Luke
Feel free to send us comments. We always love to hear from you.
It's a Monday.
It’s a New Monday
...and if you don’t, there’s an Opt Out link. We don’t want to waste your time; we just want to make it more fun and kinda cool.
VIDEO: Rick Beato interviews Robert DeLeo
Robert DeLeo was the songwriter/bassist for Stone Temple Pilots (and others). He’s a REALLY interesting composer and player. There’s a lot on how he approaches songwriting as well as recording and band history tidbits. Such a lovely person, and Rick Beato conducts sweet interviews.
Speaking of STP... this still sounds amazing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhu-OyHqZM
Great groove. Wonderful lurking space on the vocals, cool chords on the bridge. Drums up a touch too much? Hard to not mix drums high when the sounds are so good.
Article: Datamix Recording consoles
A brief history of Datamix console, Jimi Hendrix and master engineer Eddie Kramer.
Datamix was the first console installed in Electric Ladyland Studios, which was to be Jimi Hendrix’ personal studio.
Hendrix died soon after it opened. The studio became a fixture on the NYC recording scene for decades.
Datamix consoles seemed to sound ok but had a ton of problems. Interesting stuff. Anyone want a Datamix emulator plugin?
Here’s a pic of a module... looks inspired by a Trident A-range?
We Love This: LOATH: Is It Really You
Gorgeous melody, surprising chord changes. A great recording that YouTube mangles... sigh. Mixed by our friend George Lever.
Same thing on Spotify - less mangled than YouTube.
!!!!! Tip when cutting vocals
Don’t know why this works but it does.
Singer flat on a note? Have them stand on their tip toes when they go to sing it. Singer sharp? Have them bend their knees on the sharp note. Sounds dumb but it always works.
Have a great week.
Dan and Luke
Feel free to send us comments. We always love to hear from you.