Last time we looked at Outboard Processing Gear. Today it’s Musicians!
Some musicians play all the instruments on their records. Here are some examples: check ‘em out. I can play a lot of instruments, and I can even play a few well! However, when it comes to making a crackerjack Juno award-winning album it takes top-notch musicians, and today I’d like to introduce you to the ones who are contributing to my record.
Drums
Ty Murray is the drummer on my record, and I am grateful he fit me into his schedule. Ty actually went to music school, and his grounding in theory, structure and rudiments is exceptional. Here you see him reading a chart showing the structure of a song while he plays.
Ty charts these himself based on the scratch tracks I laid down. To refresh your memory: scratch tracks are basic recordings of voice and, in this case, acoustic guitar, which give the musicians an idea of the structure, feel, rhythm and timing of a piece of music. The drummer plays along to this, and subsequent musicians then typically follow the drummer, as well as the scratch vocals.
Ty is a busy drummer around Vancouver, playing in I don’t know how many bands, from folk to rock to jazz, country and even showbands for musicals! You can best catch him playing with his wack-country band Spank Williams.
BASS
Bass recording typically comes right after the drums so there’s a solid rhythm section laid down for the rest of the players. Jackson Gardner, who is also the producer/engineer/mixer on my album played some sweet, tight basslines for my songs. Good bass tracks are a vital part of a recording. Not only do they work with the drums to establish beat, rhythm and tempo, a good bass player also provides harmonic underpinnings in the song.
Typically these days bass is played directly into the board/computer, rather than having to mic an amplifier. With today’s studio magic in those computers we can add just about any flavour of amp and effect we want. Tres simple!
Jackson wears several hats, and he wears them all well. Thanks Jack!
Guitars
I played rhythm acoustic guitar on most tracks, with Jackson pitching in with some fancier sweet fingerstyle on the acoustic.
The heavy lifting on the electric guitar was done by the inimitable Emmett Jerome. EJ is another member of Spank Williams, in addition to playing in a bunch of other top Vancouver bands, such as Badmny. He has years of experience, starting in his early teens playing clubs and bars, and he has an innate alt-country feel in his fingers stemming from growing up in the Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta.
We ran Emmett’s guitar through a real guitar amp, rather than doing a Direct-In (DI) scenario like we did with the bass, because the tone from a vintage Fender tube amp is so sweet and the computer plug-ins can’t quite capture that mojo.
And this album has the mojo button turned up to 11!
Pedal Steel Guitar
While technically a guitar, these so-called “Sad Machines” are a beast of their own. According to Johnny Scorpio, who plays on my record, he’s one of a dozen or so pedal players in the Vancouver area.
A dozen strings, tunings that make no sense to 6-string me, and some pedal steels have 2 necks! IDK why… they’re crazy machines.
Here’s a Wikipedia link if you want to see some of the complexity of a pedal steel.
Here’s a fuzzy picture of JohnnyS enjoying life in the studio. Trust me, his playing is sharper than my photography!
I am absolutely thrilled to have pedal steel on my record. I’ve been dreaming of it for years!
Keyboards
I have a Wurlitzer organ and a Fender Rhodes piano on the record. Now, in this case, we had to model these keyboards using computer plugins, albeit with a real person playing them. The reason for this is abstruse: I tune my guitar to a reference pitch of A444, rather than the standard A440, and most keyboards are difficult if not nearly impossible to tune to a different reference pitch. (If you’re interested in learning more about this please email me.)
What we did was use a MIDI keyboard. MIDI means Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and with MIDI you don’t actually produce sounds as you play. Rather, the keyboard sends digital information to the computer that describes how and what you’re playing. It sends, of course, which note is played, plus how hard and intensely it is struck, how long it is held etc., and the software translates that into a surprisingly realistic sound.
You’re not limited to modeling keyboards either. You can play a violin part or a horn part. These can get tricky however, because it’s possible to play things that are impossible on the real instrument!
I am very grateful to have Spank Williams himself playing the keyboards on my record! Spank’s real name is Max Eurchuck, and he’s a talented multi-instrumentalist, and the front man of his band Spank Williams.
I know I’m supposed to be promoting myself and my record, I simply have to say, follow Spank and go see them when you can. In addition to being a very tight band, their show is super fun and engaging. And, seriously, how many country bands have a saxophone?
I urge you to follow Spank on Instagram and hopefully I’ll see you at one of their shows, because I go see them whenever I can! As I’m sure you’re figuring out by now, there’s a lot of Spank on my record. Two-thirds of the band in fact!
Vocals
Hmm, not much to say here. It’s mostly me, with Jackson adding backup and harmony vocals.
The biggest thing for me about doing the vocals was learning how to work with the click track. As I mentioned in a previous send, a click track is essentially a metronome, and at first when I was singing along to it I sang very robotically, stiff, no swing, no groove. While I don’t have much experience working with a click, I’m feeling really good about where I got my vocals to. I figured out how to swing it!
I also had to deal with singing my songs differently than I have been. Some of these songs I have been performing for a year or more, and they wore their own little groove into my soul, and changing that was a bit of a challenge. When you hear the record I think you’ll enjoy what I laid down!
Next send: Mixing & More!
BTW: if you have questions about all this, or questions about other aspects of producing an album please send them. I’ll give you a shout-out if I use your question as a post topic if you want, and I’ll endeavour to answer all questions, either in a post or via DM/email. You can reach me through this email or on Instagram @JohnMichaelLindmusic
Thanks for being my fan!
John