Recording - August 2012 - 61

I’d overdub my main steel part, which in a live performance I’d layer over the loop. Once I was happy with my parts I’d upload the files for Jeffrey, who also has a Pro Tools studio. He’d download, overdub, then upload his bass part, which I’d then download, insert into my master session, and then I’d mix. Ultimately, when we transitioned the music from duo to quartet, I re-edited my steel parts so that there was only ever one layer of steel. I did this because for each project I produce (especially when I’m writing/producing my own music), I tend to believe in the concept of working within a palette of sounds and self-imposed limitations— it’s art and this is my esthetic. I decided to limit every track on BKQ to exactly four instruments–piano, bass, drums and pedal steel. Pedal steel—pitched to what? Pedal steel guitar is a non-fixed-pitch instrument. For later overdubs, some sort of pitch reference must exist before recording (as with fretless bass). I’ve developed a method I call “scaffolding”– a musical structural element that at some later point gets removed or at least modified: a drone, or a rhythmic chordal accompaniment, most likely on piano. The team This music required capable jazz players, even though I’m not one myself. The problem as I saw it would be to present such players with the prospect of playing in an ensemble with pedal steel (in my experience almost universally stigmatized by its association with country and western music), and worse yet, with a pedal steel player who wasn’t really a bona fide jazz player. I was so relieved and grateful when John R. Burr (piano) and Jason Lewis (drums) agreed to play on the album! Both John R. and Jason are among the very best musicians I know, as are Jeffrey, Rich Kuhns (piano

Workflow—the bass Eight of the album’s eleven tracks were produced using the layered approach (described above); only the last three tracks to be produced (the three covers—“Birdland”, “What’s New”, and “Jessica”) began with live tracking. Layered track production generally followed a similar path. Working in Pro Tools, there’d be the initial phase of writing/producing that usually included creating at least a drone or piano scaffolding layer. Working against a click (linear or sometimes tempomapped), I’d record my steel parts against the drone or scaffold background. When I felt my parts were complete enough to inform Jeffrey of the structure of the tune, I’d upload the session to him. Often in this early phase, I’d lay out in sections where I thought I’d want to be able to freely improvise once the track was more developed.

Photo by James Saxon

on “Been Here Soon”, “En Noir Et Blanc”, and “Highways Remembered”), and John Wiitala (upright bass on “What’s New”). All of them have a great deal of experience and incredible skills. It was important to me that I show them the respect I feel for them and knew they deserved, but at the same time, I had a sound in my head and it wasn’t something I could go onto iTunes, find a dozen examples of, and ask them to “play it that way”... All of these players were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt as the producer, working with me one on one, allowing me to search with them for ways to make the music sound how I wanted it to. Though always willing to try hard to satisfy my production method, John R. especially expressed a desire to just get together and play the music live as a quartet, and I totally understood this impulse; I know as a producer that serious magic can happen in that setting. But there were a number of reasons why I was hesitant to go that route, at least at the beginning of this project. First and foremost, I can’t do anything other than play when I’m playing pedal steel. The instrument requires my full attention: both hands, both feet, both knees and both ears. Recording live would mean I’d be busy playing and not able to fully focus on what the other musicians were doing and thus I couldn’t produce, at least not in the moment. I can’t even trust myself to engineer myself well while playing. I absolutely must record a DI (at conservative levels) simultaneous to recording my amp, because the chances are excellent that I won’t notice (unwanted) distortion in my amp chain, and therefore won’t react to it while I’m playing. With a clean DI as insurance, I know I can reamp later.

Jeffrey said this: “Depending on the complexity of the song, it may take me anywhere from a couple of hours to a full day to sketch out a bass track and do a rough comp. One of the most important parts of the process for me is being able to sleep on it and give a listen with fresh ears the next day. If the track still sounds good the next morning, then I’m off to the races. If not, then I warm up the tubes and hit it again.” When Jeffrey finished a track, he’d generally upload a single audio file with instructions describing how to spot it in my master session. On a few rare occasions, I asked him to revise his track, but by and large when he delivered tracks to me, once I was able to pick my jaw up off the floor (more often than not his tracks would just blow me away on first listen), I’d move on to the next task, scheduling drum overdubs. Workflow—the drums When I chose to evolve the initial five tracks out of the duo format into the quartet format, with steel and bass tracks already finished, it meant a de facto overdub session for drums (and piano). Ultimately I think there are pros and cons to recording this way. On the plus side, since there was a click, I wasn’t asking Jason to play against an amorphous tempo. Similarly, with the rest of the track explicitly representing a final version (or at least a final model) of steel and bass parts, the arrangement was very well defined. On the minus side, Jason was limited to reacting to what was already there; at least at this point in the process, only the subsequent piano overdub would be in reaction to his playing. I was nervous that this would be a detriment to his creativity. Thankfully, my nervousness was unfounded; I can’t imagine any
RECORDING August 2012

Recording - August 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2012