And The Beat Goes On...

Project update: Donna Beasley's next record, 'Under The Rushes" is coming along nicely. Yesterday we went to Anthony Aquilato's home studio and recorded a keeper vocal on a tune using the AT 4050 microphone. I had just purchased a 4050 for my own studio (and used it with great success) last week, so we tried it again and it fit the tune perfectly.

The day before, the amazing Kenny Vaughan (of Marty Stuart's Fabulous Superlatives) stopped by to pick up his D'Addario string order. I asked if he was free to throw a guitar part down on a song, he agreed and 45 minutes later we had a vibey guitar track that took the tune to a new place...very cool. In a room full of nice guitars - Les Pauls, Teles, ES-125s, Strats - Kenny opted for my Teisco Del Rey. Plugged into the 3 Monkeys Orangutan, he dialed up a killer guitar tone and had the part within a few passes.

On my most recent road trip, I was able to have "Pro Tools Guy" Mark Dobson rough out a mix on one of the more complicated tunes on the record. He showed me several tricks on getting a naturally ambient drum sound to be a bit drier, using gates and EQ and compression. With that session saved as a template, I can apply those settings as a strating point for any other song on the record tha needs "less room and more drum". All of the drums were cut on the same kit on the same day with the same mics.

I'm also getting a Pro Tools laptop rig together for a friend and will be out buying more RAM for it today. Stay tuned, I'll post a few snippets of what we are up to soon.

The Groove Is Dead And Gone

The King of Pop died today. I wasn't a huge fan...didn't own any actual records, downloaded a few singles of my favorite tunes of his and the Jackson 5. But he was undeniably a masterful musician and performer, and since I'm at least tangentially in the same business as he was, I must pay my respects.

I grew up with Michael Jackson. He was 3 years older than me, so I was about seven when he hit the charts with the J5. "ABC" was my favorite at the time and remains so. Back then I liked the shout-out chorus, I guess. Nowadays I love the bass line and the exuberant groove.

I really started listening - as a musician - when "Off The Wall" came out in 1979. I was a junior at Mauston Area High School, and was way into The Cars, UFO, Van Halen and hard rock. But the radio played "Rock With You" and 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "She's Out of My Life" a lot and there was no denying the brilliant songs, performance and production. I really liked the vocal phrasing on "Rock With You", especially the way he says "girrrll" as an aside on the outchorus. It was cool.

Three years and a ton of awards later, we got "Thriller", the most succesfull album ever made, with estimates of world-wide sales to be between 47 and 100 million copies and 28 million in the U.S. alone. Seven Top Ten singles. "Billie Jean". "Thriller"."Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". "The Girl Is Mine". "Beat It". "Human Nature". "P.Y.T."

He mastered the music video art form, ushered in the extended video re-mix with the title track, and became the King of Pop with that record. He never needed to do anything else.

But he did.

After that came "We Are The World", the re-united Jackson's massive "Victory" tour, and the Paul McCartney collaborations. The follow up album "Bad" (imagine the pressure!) had five number one singles on it. After that I lost interest and only heard bits and pieces of his output.

RIP, Michael. I hope you find the peace you sang about.

O Breather, Where Art Thou?

Hmm...well talk about being caught up in the fable. It finally feels like I can take a breather and it's been six weeks since I posted last.

The Keith Urban tour has been going great. We've been to the East coast and Canada, then St.Paul, Chicago and Green Bay (where I made a pilgrimage to Lambeau and the Pro Shop). Then a week off, which I spent in Wisconsin, and then shows in West Virginia, Virginia and Alabama.

Here are a few shots from the rehearsals we had in Nashville:


Ken "Cubby" McDowell, Audio Tech

There's about 80 of us out here putting the show together including carpenters, lighting guys, video guys, audio guys, back line techs, tour management, trainers, masseuses, catering people, bus and truck drivers, etc.



Trace Foster, Guitar and Keyboard Tech



Joe Keiser, Monitor Engineer


Mark Dobson, Pro Tools Guy


Dobson, Steve Law (Front of House Engineer),
Chris McHugh (Musical Director/Drummer)



The Rehearsal Set List

We've had some great opening acts so far: Little Big Town, Jason Aldean, Zac Brown Band and Dierks Bentley. We'll be seeing Sugarland, Taylor Swift and LeAnn Rimes in the future.

Pocketses?

Pocket. The word is now a verb in the audio world, meaning to "place a sloppy or loose performance in time". In my case (although all of my playing could be more in the pocket), it refers to a different intro that I came up with for one of the songs on the new record.

It was supposed to be an unaccompanied, atempo introduction with the band entering on the downbeat. I did not like the way the random tempo was making the rest of the song sound off. I think the ear locks into a tempo at the beginning and a noticeable groove shift is judged to be "wrong" even though the intro itself might be at fault.

What I want to do with it now is have the intro stand alone. The last chord rings out for two bars, so I can tack the song on afterwards and the time gap between seems to erase the memory of the intro's tempo. I previously added some harmony slide guitar diads (ala George Harrison) underneath the Wurlitzer solo (courtesy of Michael Webb).

I figured these slide licks would sound great as pickups to the tune proper, so I copied them and moved them to follow the ringing intro chord and lead to the tonic downbeat. But... they occur on the "1" of the solo section and I need them to start on the "and" of "4", with the destination note of the slide being the "1" of the tune's downbeat. They don't fit.

Enter Pro Tools 8 and Elastic Audio. You can specify the amount of time you want a piece of audio to take up, and place it in the track already stretched to fit. Amazing, but I don't know how to do it very well.

Enter Mark Dobson, famous engineer with better things to do, no doubt. He has, however, graciously agreed to help, so sometime this week (hopefully) I will get a master class in PT pocketing, and another track of the album will be very near completion.

Mr. Green Screens

Video may have Killed the Radio Star when talkies first came about, but these days videos can make a radio star. Luckily, it's not just cool videos that account for the success of the new boss, but great music accompanied by great videos. This was the first video shoot I witnessed that used the green screen technique of shooting the principals and adding the background later. Pretty disorienting to see the floor become the wall.

I have no idea what the final result will be, but here are some shots of the video shoot for "Kiss A Girl", all shot against a "green screen".


Chris "Rodge" Rodriguez with his Deering 6-string banjo.


Brad, Jerry, Rodge, Chris, Brian...looking a bit Beatlesque.


A Day on the Green...

Me In Front Of Something Significant

Now that everybody's got a camera on them 24/7, everything is a photo op, every event a 3D backdrop for you to pose in front of.

Hence this photo from the iPhone of crewmate Trace Foster:



Daytona 500

In Clubland

The rest of the month finds us in various clubs and TV shows from coast to coast. A bit of a whirlwind promo tour for the new album, then we settle down to prep for the Summer tour. The boss has the #1 Country single right now, and there's at least a few more on the album that will probably reach that apex over the next months. It's a really strong collection.

We played a show last night in Valdosta, GA at the Wild Adventures theme park. A few rusty spots - quickly laughed about and left behind -but the band sounds great already and it's going to be fun to see and hear that kind of energy coming off a small club stage. The old-timers out here tell me that's a normal show, but being the new guy, it's all fresh to me. I watched the show last year on the Kenny Chesney tour, but seeing and hearing it up close is a whole 'nother thing. I've been lucky to only work for bands and artists whose music I enjoy listening to, night after night, and the new gig is no different.

There's a few guys on the crew I've worked with before, and many that I've met at gigs, so I don't feel like a complete stranger. It's fun to go to work when the pay off is a screaming crowd full of happy and satisfied people who have no idea who you are or what you did to make the show happen - and they shouldn't. The only time we get noticed by the public (hopefully) is when something goes awry and we have to fix it, and we like to keep those times to a minimum.

We were also blessed with a bus driver so skilled that I could not even tell we were moving and I slept like a log and (probably) snored like a chainsaw, there and back. Nice.

Practice Makes Perfect

Here's a few shots from last weeks rehearsals:

Together Again

Tom Brumley, famed pedal steel guitarist with Buck Owens' Buckaroos passed away today in Texas. He was 73 years old.

Brumley was renowned in the steel world for playing the solo on Owens' "Together Again", a heart-felt ballad of reconciliation punctuated by the beautiful melodic solo that perfectly captured the sentiment of the lyric. Much like George Harrison's "Something" the solo is so intrinsic to the song that it sounds wrong if a band covers the tune and does not at least nod to the original.

Brumley's father, Albert E. Brumley, wrote the gospel classic "I'll Fly Away". Only drummer Willie Cantu is still left from the original Buckaroos line-up, a combo that is largely acknowledged to be among the finest road bands to ever perform. I suspect there's going to be a hell of a jam in Heaven tonight.

This Year's Model

Well, it is with sadness and fondness that I finish up this week with my last dates with the LeAnn Rimes band and crew. I signed on almost exactly a year ago, did the very fun and successful Kenny Chesney tour and many more headlining dates, but I've decided to accept an offer from the Keith Urban gang to be one of the guitar techs for them this Summer.

LeAnn and her husband Dean have been kind, generous and honest with me at every turn and I thank them and their management, band and my fellow crewmates for that experience. This is a family of friends that I have spent a lot of time with, and that's not something easily walked away from. So to all of LeAnn's band and crew, past and present, thanks for making the job seem like a hobby. I will miss all of you and will bug you frequently.

Keith was on many of the stadium dates we did with Chesney, and his show last year was pretty amazing. Lots of great guitar playing and a road band that holds it's own against any I've heard. I first met him when I was teching for John Fogerty and he and JF did the CMT Crossroads in California.

I look forward to adding to my road experiences with a new cast of characters, details of which may appear on this site from time to time and town to town.

The Latest

The new Donna Beasley album, "Under The Rushes" is coming along nicely. I've been working on guitar overdubs, which is always big fun. I've been trying to think outside the band, and by that I mean - try to think of parts that serve the song even if they cannot be reproduced live on stage. That requires some doing, as I need to get past my familiarity with the demos and treat these master versions as fresh songs.

Even if you try to copy the demo, it always sounds different once different people play their instruments. I played all of the instruments and programmed the drums/loops on the demos, so I had an inside-out view. When you hire a band to play those parts, it's always different, usually better.

I've been trying to approach these songs as wide-open, with no conscious limitations to radio or genre or whatever...if I glimpse and idea, chase it and catch it, I'm trying to let my creative side be satisfied with it before I begin to edit. This means some favorite parts might fall by the side, but that's OK.



There's some OmniChord on this record already, and may be more to come. Probably get buried in the final mix, but that's the kind of thing I am looking for...a bit of ear candy to make the listener want to hear it again.

I've been using my Deluxe Reverb for most tracks, and the 3 Monkeys Orangutan head into my DR's Celestion Vintage 30. Stuart Mathis loaned me his Orange AD15 and a very old and cool Supro, so I'll get some of that vibe onto this record eventually. Guitars have been the Epiphone Casino, Gibson ES-350T and Fender Esquire.




The Vox ValveTone overdrive pedal has been a regular choice with the Deluxe. The Orangutan has that chimey grind in spades without a pedal.

The Venerable Rule of 78's

This is just awesome. Music.

We have a rich legacy of music in this country...have you been listening?

The foreign stuff ain't bad either!

I Like Mic

Tech specs for geeks.

Kick(close mic)......Sennheiser 421
Kick(far mic)..........Neumann FET 47
Snare......................Echolette 419
Tom........................Neumann U87
Floor Tom...............Neumann U87
Room (far)..............Bang and Olufsen BM5
Room (drum geek)......Sony 330



Bass..................Music Valve D.I.
Bass amp..........KMR81i



AcGuitar m/s.......AKG 414 brass capsule
AcGuitar..............Neumann KM84
AcGuitar..............Royer 122

ElGtr.................Royer 122
ElGtr.................Neumann U87SP

Vocal.................Soundelux 251/Avalon 737 Mercenary Edition/LA-2A

Tracking The Record, Part One

Tracking the record means, conversely, recording the tracks, in this case the "basic" tracks. Typically, sessions are cut with a basic group of musicians consisting of a rhythm section (bass and drums and rhythm guitar/keyboards) and perhaps another guitarist/soloist. The singer is usually on hand to provide guide or "scratch" vocals. This entails singing the song all the way through to let the players hear where they are in the arrangement. They could just play the chart, but certain vocal phrases may give them hints on how to play the song better, so it's great to have a singer run down the tune at the same time. Catching a great guide vocal or getting the singer inspired enough to try a few "keeper" takes is a bonus. Of course, the machine is always in record at all times on all tracks.


Paul Griffith

We got in early the night before to set a few things up, patch the tracking room and control room and load in the electric guitar stuff and a few of my acoustics. I brought a small electric rig (Deluxe Reverb, pedal board, Tele, Les Paul, Casino, Danelectro 12-string) and my Guild jumbo 12-string, J-200 and J-45. I wanted to have a rig ready in case I felt a flash of brilliance...which I guess I did not! I played a little on the first song, to give the electric 12-string feel to the track and didn't really play again all day.


Scott Neubert


Scott Neubert brought his collection of guitars and ended up using his J-45 and a Collings. and added banjo, mandolin and Dobro after we got the basic tracks cut. We decided to tackle all of the basic at once before overdubbing. As it turns out, we needed to re-track all of the acoustic parts due to excessive drum bleed into the acoustic guitar mic. We found this out early on and did not have to back track, re-visiting songs from hours before, which can kill the vibe for the guy having to re-track. We tried a take or two and determined which one was best (we never did more than three complete takes on anything), then added the new acoustic guitar on, and Donna sang it for keeps if she was feeling it. The early takes were good and I let the band decide what was the best, if I was ambivalent about two takes.


Steve Mackey

Our pre-production efforts really paid off here. Donna and I had demoed the whole record in Garageband, rehearsed with Steve and Paul and played half of these songs at a gig on December 2nd. Everyone had the demos and many of the charts for at least a week in advance of the session for most every song. This allowed the guys to soak in the vibe we were going for and get some ideas in their heads about what to play.


My Guitars, a happy Steve Mackey

I'm all for spontaneous creativity, but I prefer the basic tracks to have some thought and logic behind them, a more processed approach than hitting record and getting the best moment from three or four people at once with minimal preparation. I figured since we only had one day to ct all of the songs, the pre-production before coming to the studio was equivalent to spending a day per song in the studio. It's a fine line between spontaneity and over-thought and you don't want to kill the vibe with too much planning. Steve and Paul get what Donna is trying to do, Scott has gigged with her many times and Anthony and I have discussed the sound of the record and what kind of mood we were going for at length. We narrowed our options down and it made the whole project fun, quick and exciting. Things went so smoothly - we just hit a groove, stayed in it without stopping for lunch or long breaks, and knocked out nine tracks in 8 hours.


Anthony Aquilato

Anthony brought a ton of stuff from his collection including a pair of Amek CIB (channel in a box) preamps, an Avalon 737, a re-furbed and modded LA-2A and several microphones, including the Soundelux 251 that we used for the keeper vocal tracks. The studio had several channels of Neve and API pres, but we used the board pres for almost everything, with little or no EQ and very little compression. There was at least one mic on everything, three on most things, so we did not leave much to chance, and now have several usable options come mix time...stereo, mid-side or mono acoustic guitar; if mono, which mic: mono KM84 or mono Royer 121. Lots of that kind of thing going on. We also opened the sliding glass door to the 9-foot grand piano room open, taped down the root and fifth of the tonic chord of the key we were in and mic'ed the room in stereo. Theoretically, we should have a room reverb sound with perhaps a slight harmonic content.


My area of the desk

Well, that's it for now. The project continues on into overdub mode. Time to get the strings changed on all the electrics, intonate them and start tracking guitars this week.

London Calling

The folks at Radial Engineering Ltd. in British Columbia have got a few things figured out. I've been using their products for years, both personally and professionally - and sometimes both!

Their D.I. boxes are legendary and legion. Their rackmount switching systems like the JD7 are on the gear list of most major guitar and bass players. Their stompbox series of ToneBone pedals are industry standards in quality of sound and quality of build. I've blogged about my love for the Hot British and Classic pedals before. And now, this:




Radial has just released a new line of pedals, based on the ToneBone concept, called Bones. Smaller, lighter, non-proprietary power supplies no tubes - lots of things different from their big brothers. What's not different is the sound...big, fat overdrive and distortion.

I have a London here at the house that I've been putting through it's paces all afternoon. I'm plugged into the new 3 Monkeys "Orangutan" model head, using my Deluxe Reverb with a Celestion Vintage 30 as a cab. The 'tang has it goin' on tone-wise, so the London needs to boost that sound, not obliterate it. It does so...and then some.

For starters, let's look at the jacks: The In and Out jacks are next to each other, at the far right of the back of the pedal, not on the sides. This helps keep it's footprint down on a crowded pedal board.

The 9-12 volt DC jack is the common "Boss" model, which means you can use any similar power supply, including One Spots, that have a minimum of 100mA. No battery power is available, due to the Class A circuitry - which is so power hungry that you'd spend more time swapping batts than playing if it did.

There are two footswitches, labeled Toggle and Bypass. As expected, Bypass turns the pedal on or off. The London is not "true bypass" keeping with Radial's philosophy that active buffers are good things in a pedal chain. It's quiet, switches silently and does not "suck tone".

The Toggle button switches between two settings, 1 or 2. Setting 2 is indicated by a red LED. Each setting has it's own Level control and they share a two-band EQ, Low and High and a Drive control that ranges from Bluesbreaker combo distortion to a raging Plexi.

The 2 setting has a slight (non-adjustable) mid boost to boost your solo with a bit of EQ hump as well as volume, using the Level knob. There are also two 3-position slider switches for tonal tweaking. The Bite switch offers flat, boost or cut of the high end. If your amp lacks or exudes Presence, tame or taunt it here. Kick is a stepped mid-range boost with 3-positions: 0 (flat), +7 or +12dB of juicy gain.The thinking is to offer you ersatz channel switching in a pedal. By setting your amp to it's optimum Clean sound, you can use the London to get a Crunch rhythm sound and a mid-boosted Lead channel.


Careful tweaking of the Bite and Kick controls with the Low and High can get you from Led Zeppelin II to Boston to Back In Black and beyond. Marshall and Vox characteristics are found within a couple of minutes twiddling the controls. This pedal can be transparent or highly colored thanks to it's wide range of available EQ, which is one of the things I really like about the Radial line.

I tested it with my Les Paul VOS, a 1985 Fender Japan Esquire with Fralin pickups, a new Epiphone Casino and a Mexican Fender Strat with the EMG Gilmour pickup configuration. With minor tweaks to account for the variance it guitars, the pedal worked with all of them, the Les Paul being especially nice... which is no surprise as an LP into a Marshall is the sound of my childhood (and arrestedly developed adulthood).

As the clever and informative manual reminds you, small movements and thinking interactively will reward you with great sounds for the time spent. It's not a set-it-and-forget-it pedal, it's much smarter than that.

12 Jangly Mien

Guitars are on my mind these days as I am "casting" the sounds for the next Donna Beasley record. Some tunes need Teles, some need Les Pauls, some Casinos, some a combination of whatever. One stand-out sound that almost requires you to play in a certain style is the electric 12-string. I have a Danelectro model, a cheap made in Korea guitar that sounds amazing and plays great. I've owned Rickenbackers in the past, but their necks are a little too narrow for me. The Danelectro feels like the Jerry Jones models that I really want, but for less than half the price, the Dano suits me fine. I blogged about it a couple of years ago here.



We're going to track with just bass (Steve Mackey), drums (Paul Griffith) and acoustic guitar (Scott Neubert), with Scott overdubbing some mandolin, banjo and dobro. I'll play more guitars and all electrics at home. This will allow me to concentrate more on the takes than trying to listen to the take AND play guitar at the same time.

One of the things I learned from making the last record is that producing is best done - in my case at least - by listening and giving direction from the other side of the glass. I might venture out to give an example of what I want, but I'm going to try to stay in the control room most of the time.

I had been following a strict "no demos, only masters" attitude for a while, and I think that approach can work. On this record, however, we found it easier and more efficient to demo the songs quickly in GarageBand, giving the players something to listen to and get ideas from. The demos are not something I'd want anyone to hear - out of tune at times, out of time occasionally, just a fast and easy way to get the basic feel down and e-mailed to the players. Of course, there are a couple where the feel is so good we may have a hard time beating it in the studio, but overall, they are more "worktapes" than real demos.

We rehearse tomorrow afternoon for a gig that night, playing most of the new record, then go into the studio on the 12th to track it.

Casino

Another day, another guitar. I picked up a 2006 Epiphone Casino today, in a beautiful Cherry finish. Made in China at an Epi-only factory, the build quality and finish detail is excellent.


No photos yet, but here's a stock picture:



It's completely hollow, unlike the famous Gibson ES-335 which has a center block running from the base of the neck to the end pin. Lots of Beatle guitar sounds started with a Casino, notably "Day Tripper" and "Don't Let Me Down". The lack of a center block makes the guitar decay quickly, meaning it is well-suited for rhythm guitar duty, though the Fabs used it for everything, with Lennon playing his almost exclusively post-Revolver. Paul uses his to this day.

Historic Films

Here's a great link to watch some classic music video from the vaults of Historic Films. Click on the "Online Comp Reels" tab on the left and catch some prime footage of Ralph and Carter Stanley, Muddy Waters. The Byrds, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and much more. The interview with the nerdy guy at the end does not turn out like you might initially think it will.

I found this place because they bought the rights to "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" and have apparently been transferring the quad tapes to digital for a while now. I want to buy this stuff...hurry up!!!

GarageBand '08

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my penchant for digital audio software - Pro Tools, Cubase, Reason, Live, etc. I'm most proficient with Cubase 4 and am easing my way into Pro Tools gradually. The rest I just dabble with for fun.

The GarageBand app that comes free with your new Mac - as part of the iLife bundle - was always a fun little diversion, but not really all that useful.

Until now. I traded in my refurbed 15" MacBook Pro for a new, 17" MacBook Pro last week. My old one had just had a logic board replaced ($688) and started running hot...within Apple tolerances, but not mine. The new Mac, actually the model before the brand new one, was on sale for $1699, a full $1k less than the NEW new model. I got 2.4gHz and 2gb RAM with a 160gb hard-drive. Nice.

GarageBand '08 is the latest, greatest version of the program and in my opinion it raises GB into useable pro audio recording device...at least for demos. Apple's flagship DAW, Logic Studio has a little brother called Logic Express....GarageBand is Logic Express Lite.

These new features make all the difference for me :

• Multiple takes with comping option

• Built-in tuner

• Automatable effects

For those of you not savvy to studio jargon, "comping" is short for compiling. You can comp several takes and use the best parts of each one to make up a master take. Let's say you were singing "Happy Birthday to You" and you loved the way you phrased "Happy Birthday", but did not care for that take's "to You". You like the "to" on Take 3 and the "You" on Take 2. Now you can use each of those favorites and consolidate them into one new track of a perfect vocal. Not a small thing. The same, of course holds true for guitar solos, bass lines, whatever.

The built in tuner may be minor to some, but it's one more piece of essential gear you can leave home as part of a mobile notebook-based studio.

Automatable effects is a really pro feature. You could already automate the volume and panning of any track. Panning refers to the placement of the instrument on the left or right stereo field. Very useful in crafting a professional mix.

Now I'm sure some will claim that this is not a pro app, that it is a toy to play around with and write EurodiscoTranceHouseAcidJazz beats with. Fine, suit yourself. To me, it is the ultimate demo machine. I can get a track up and running in minutes, and take the next couple of hours refining the drums and bass parts into what I envision.

My attitude toward demos has changed a bit. I used to think that it was a waste of time and that you might accidentally get the take doing a demo...and if you were in a hurry and cut corners on tonal quality, you might get a take that, while perfect, is sonically unusable. I remedied this by always using my fill-blown rig to record demos or worktapes with.

For this record, my wife Donna' s second effort, we decided to rent some studio time in a real commercial studio to cut the bass, drum and acoustic guitar tracks. You can't get a better sound than that at home, usually, and it will help the record compete with other albums in the marketplace. We're scheduled to go in the second week of December. We will still do a lot of overdubs at home - vocals, electric guitars, pedal steel, fiddle, etc.

But to save time in the studio, we are demoing the songs, giving the players a pretty good idea of what we want while not tying them to my feeble attempts at drums and bass programming. We can create the general vibe of the song well enough to pass it along for reference. The bonus for me is that I get inspired by the great sound in GarageBand and start playing parts that I might never have come up with if I only allowed myself the tracking day or "guitar overdub day" to be creative. I can re-visit the song over and over, adding and subtracting ideas until I get a rough image of the finished product.

I'm using the Line 6 KB37 as a front end for GarageBand. 2 mic pres with phantom power, a 2.5 octave keyboard, a USB audio interface, and access to the Gearbox Gold bundle of guitar, bass and mic pre models. The Gearbox effects show up as AU plugins in Garageband, meaning I can apply them to any track, not just guitar or bass. Bus-powered, so no power supply.

You can hear the rough version here: "Can I Get a Ride". Some of the parts are out-of-tune, some out of time, but I was getting ideas and I just recorded them as they came to me. It's a demo!

I cut all of the acoustic guitars and Dobro with an M-Audio Pulsar II mic or B.L.U.E. Bluebird mic into the KB37 through a Gear Box model of an API mic pre. The electrics (Crunch rhythm, Clean Lead and 12-String Jangle) went into the KB37 and through my own tweak-as-needed preset of a Mike Campbell tone I call "American Girl", essentially an AC-30 with a bit of compression and reverb. The drums and bass are samples from the GarageBand library that I modified to fit our song.

I also just figured out that my Waves Musicians Bundle II plugins that I bought for use with Pro Tools and Cubase work with GarageBand, so I can access world-class EQs, compressors, delays, etc.

A Macworld commenter put together this list of new features:

• Full effect automation. You can alter any parameter of any effect over time
  
• Automation points (e.g. Volume curves, Pan curves, etc) can now be "locked" to their region so that they move along with it when dragged or duplicated
  
• Each track now offers 4 AU effect slots per track instead of only 2
  
• Multi-Take: You now have the ability to loop and record your performance on a "Real" (Audio) track over and over, later selecting which ones to keep, combine, and/or delete without having to stop your recording session.
  
• "Software" (MIDI) tracks also offer Multi-Take, if you wish, or you can choose to have them work as they have in previous versions, combining each pass into a single take
  
• Software Quantization is no longer "All or Nothing" there's a slider for the amount of Quantization.
  
• Effect slots in Track info can be rearranged to effect a track in different orders
  
• Exports to disk can now be AIFF, AAC, or the often asked for Mp3
  
• Uncompressed AIFFs can also be exported as 24-bit files for further Mastering
  
• Loop Families: A quick and easy way to swap loops between similar ones of the same name (Family)
  
• GB can now show you the name of the chord you are playing on a "Software" (MIDI) track
  
• In notation view, along with the proper note being displayed (1/4, 1/8, etc), a small bar visually shows the note's duration when the note is selected.
  
• You can delete a region and have all the regions to its right move to the left, the duration of the deleted region
  
• There is an "Arrange" track that let's you create and name sections, like Verse, Chorus, Bridge, etc. These sections can be dragged, duplicated, or deleted as a chunk
  
• Software tracks offer an Enhance Timing feature now that can even be used while recording
  
• There is now a Fade Out option to fade out songs in a curve
  
• The Master Fader and Master Volume Curve now operate independently
  
• There's the new Visual EQ, a hybrid of a Graphic EQ and a parametric EQ, with a built-in spectrum analyzer
  
• The somewhat useless "Simple" compressor has been replaced by a real one with parameters that can be set
  
• The length restrictions have been vastly increased, in theory, over 16 1/2 hours without any hacks needed to get there.
  
• The Digital display under the timeline offers some new, and some improved options.
  
• GarageBand can now burn CDs
  
• Ability to edit AND print notation.
  
• Timeline control over tempo.

I'd highly recommend GarageBand '08 to any musician looking for a quick, easy and comprehensive demo solution.

That Was the Year That Was

Last night LeAnn Rimes played her final scheduled show of 2008 in Frisco, Texas at a benefit for the Boys and Girls Club. And so ends a blur of a year of touring the country with a great bunch of people. LeAnn and Dean were consumate pros and I thank them for hiring me for the tour. Tour Manager Steve Emley has been a constant source of good info and had taken care excellent care of us in the band and crew. Production Manager Anthony Aquilato kept the crew moving with his inimitable Bronx panache.

My fellow crewmates: Shamus Bacon, Steve Hoover, Josh White, Danny Blazcak, Zeke Clark, and Daryl Dixon gave each other hours of fun and only a few minutes of un-fun as we supported the Kenny Chesney tour all Summer long.

Unless something interesting pops up in the next two months, I'm diving head-first into making Donna Beasley's new record. I'll be trying a few new things this time around... Stay tuned!

Where The Hell Have I Been?

Well, let's see....Lake Charles, Lufkin, New York City and points in between.

Woke up last night on the bus ride back to Nashville with the worst case of dry mouth I can remember. Two bottles of water, no relief. Finally got up at 7:00 a.m., made some coffee, drank that and watched the sun come up over the misty ponds and rivers of West Tennessee.

Got home at 9:00 a.m. to realize a full-blown head cold. Dripping nose, aching body and what I call The Hot Ear, a temperature rise so sudden and fervent you could mistake it for a tent revival. Today it's the whole damn Irish head a' blazin'. Cold packs and compresses are in order, one for the bean, one for my swollen and bruised foot that had a Marshall 2x12 combo amp in a road case fall on it last night druing load out. Hurts to wear shoes.

Fabulous Wife brings me pot roast, biscuits, Vegetable Beef soup and Mucinex with a Tylenol 3.

Fabulous Friend Elizabeth Cook brings over Ricola, Vitamin Water, soft tissue and NyQuil.

Fabulous Self-Medicating Me sips a W.L. Weller and Coke Zero concoction. Bourbon has it's own healing properties.

LeAnn finishes up the year next week...back to Texas...and then we start the next Donna Beasley album. Assuming the Hot Head goes away by then.

Americana Music Association

My wife, Donna Beasley, was selected to perform a showcase at the Station Inn as part of the Americana Music Association conference here in Nashville. Somebody in the crowd had a camera and posted our rendition of Donna Fargo's "Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A." on YouTube.



That's me on electric guitar (occasionally lumbering into view from the left), Paul Griffith on drums, Dave Jacques on bass, and Tony Paoletta on pedal steel guitar.

He also grabbed "Cotton", a Beasley original from her album "Good Samaritan".



I'm guitar teching the stage at The Cannery, one of the other venues hosting performances this week. Tonight is a Glen Campbell tribute, featuring Glen himself!

Da Pack

So, Game Two of the post-Favre era and how does Aaron Rodgers do? After engineering a 21-3 halftime lead, he rallies the team from being down 25-24 in the 4th quarter, to win -with the help of some opportunists on the Defense - with a final score of 48-25. The Packers keep the division lead. With the Lions loss (0-2), along with the Vikings (0-2) getting Paytonized at home and the Bears (1-1) losing their close game, the fabulous Pack are 2-0 in 2008.

It's tough to watch the pressure Rodgers is under, though I think the Green Bay fans are much more patient than any other team in the NFL. I can't imagine what it would be like to replace an icon like Favre if he was a 17 year starter in, say, Philadelphia? Cleveland? Pittsburgh? Of course, those cities don't really spawn legendary players these days, but noone was more beloved by the fans than Brett.

There's a great debate - still raging - on whether the idea was a sound one or not; whether letting Favre go in favor of the good of the team was the correct or even polite thing to do. I think they made the tough choice and the right choice. I hope Brett has an amazing year, sentimentally and because if he does, we get an even higher draft pick for him. If Rodgers can win 8 or 9 more games this year, Green Bay made a deal they couldn't refuse.

When You're Hot, You're Hot

Jerry Reed


Jerry Reed (Hubbard) died yesterday at age 71. Peter Cooper at The Tennessean has the definitive obit. Reed is probably known by most folks under 30 as an actor. He starred in a series of Burt Reynolds-Hall Needham car chase movies, including the genre-classic "Smokey and the Bandit".

Others will remember Reed as the guy who had a few novelty hits on Country and Top 40 radio in the '60's and '70s. 'Amos Moses", "Guitar Man", "When You're Hot, You're Hot", "She Got The Goldmine, I Got The Shaft".

I'll remember him as an ace guitarist. No less a virtuoso than Brent Mason calls him "my favorite guitar player ever". With a thumb-picked contrapuntal style, he sounds like a cross between Merle Travis and Fats Domino. Here's a YouTube of Jerry on "The Porter Waggoner Show". He trades cornball humor with Porter then plays a funky 'Wabash Cannonball". Check out his version of Ray Charles' "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" at 4:o5. (Porter seems slightly unconvinced at the beginning...)



Jerry Donahue (The Hellecasters) introduced himself to the guitar world with his rendition of Reed's "The Claw", a tour-de-force of funky bends and shifty double-stop phrases.

One of my favorite Country records,"Country Willie", features Reed as a session guitarist on his gut string guitar. The inherent mellowness of the nylon strings perfectly blended with Willie's voice and the classic songs on that record.

R.I.P., Jerry.

Doyle and Debbie

Shot at the famous Station Inn in Nashville, this parody/tribute duo give a lexicon lesson in L'Amour. Genius.

Year of the Cat

Well, thanks to yesterday's Instalanche, I figure I have a few more readers of this blog, so I'd better keep on posting. Tonight's topic, as I sip a little George Dickel and Coke Zero, will be cats.

I am not a cat person. I grew up with a family dog, from when I was six years old to when I left for college. They might have had cats before me, but I never got into them, and it did not help that I was/am allergic to their dander.

For the past several years, a wild calico cat occasionally wandered through my yard and I always shooed it away. When I got married and my wife moved in, she would sometimes "talk" to it while I was at work. She swears she never fed it, but I wonder.

Last year was a scorcher here in Nashville and that cat showed up on our doorstep, sick and weak. We gave her some food and thought that was the last of it. Of course, she kept coming back, and one day she appeared with a bloody mess on her face from a fight she had gotten into. We tricked her into a cat cage and took her to the vet, where they patched her up and gave us the bill. We now have a cat.


Simone

Her name was originally Cat, Jr., before we spent real money on her. The name came from "Raising Arizona" where the Snopes brothers have their "own little Gale, Jr. now". Her new name is Simone, from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and because, being a calico, we had been referring to her as Le Chat L'Orange, which we pretended meant " the orange cat". It probably doesn't though.

Anyway, she has turned into a "mostly house" cat, but she does enjoy long walks in the dark and catching baby bunnies, which I then have to drive 30 miles to deposit at the animal rescue clinic. She has done for us what most pets do: given us something to look after and care about and be on the look out for. I think those are human qualities that need a little help these days, and Simone is doing a fine job.

Speaking of Year of the Cat...Playing around with my Line 6 KB37 keyboard with a Grand Piano patch in Garageband and I stumbled upon the intro to the "Year of the Cat", the 1976 single from Al Stewart. I've always loved the song for it's arrangement and great sonics. Engineered by Alan Parsons and co-written by the late Peter Wood, the song is an impressionistic tale of exotic romance with a cat lady in some Casablanca-esque locale. I think.

I love the string arrangement, the acoustic and electric guitar solos, and the fabulous sax solo that ties it all together. The intro is over a minute long. It's doubtful that such care and craftsmanship will be put into any pop songs in the foreseeable future, but I hold out hope that somewhere there's a kid with all of this technology who wants to record real instruments playing real music in an effort to bring some beauty to the world.

The Six-String Banjo

It's hardly a new concept, but it seems that I'm hearing more banjo sounds coming from various records these days: Keith Urban, Robert Plant, LeAnn Rimes. I suspect that sometimes what we are hearing is a session guitar player playing a six-string banjo, a hybrid instrument tuned like a standard guitar, but with the sound of a 5-string banjo. The newer sounds aren't being played in the Scruggs style, but more as just another tone playing a part in the arrangement. The typical (stereotypical) "banjo-y" sound is rare. This is not "Deliverance" or "Bonnie and Clyde".

Plant's recent duet record with bluegrass/pop diva Allison Krauss has plenty of examples of this new sound, used by avant-guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits) to creepy effect on "Nothin'" and as a pseudo-Django French-cafe rhythm pulse on "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us". Nice.

I've been thinking about getting one, and I found that Deering makes several models and in fact, Rusty Danmeyer with LeAnn plays one. We call it a "ganjo". In the hands of a steel guitar player, the 6-string can sound especially authentic, since the right hand techniques used in both are so similar. You can sound like a guitarist playing the banjo or a banjoist playing a de-tuned banjo.

Obviously some people have taken to it with ease. Here's Brad Davis - and a damn fine cup of coffee - with a lesson or two. "It's good for the 'double down-ups'...it's got a real cool sound to it." says Brad. Word.



It's a neat sound, familiar and ancient, yet new and exotic. I like that.

UPDATE: Welcome music-loving Instapundit readers. Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Glenn for the link.

That's Not a Resume'...

...that's a history book. 

Jerry Wexler has died at age 91.  He was a music pioneer, most notably as a producer of the Atlantic recordings in New York, Stax in Memphis and the famous Muscle Shoals sound. Check out how many of the classic records he made that you know by heart or have in your possession. 

They take up four pages in the AMG credits.

Here's the obit in the L.A. Times.

AllMusicGuide's excellent bio has this:

Wexler had first traveled to the South to plug Atlantic new releases on Dewey Phillips' radio show and found he liked the potential in the area. But when he heard about Stax Records through two hit releases by Carla Thomas, he flew down to Memphis and found a gold mine ready to be cashed in. At Stax there was already a firmly established, talented house band (Booker T & the MGs), a wonderfully funky studio where he could bring his acts to record, and a young label head, Jim Stewart, who was anxious for bigger distribution and green about the music industry at the same time. For Wexler, the relaxed environment at Stax was a revelation, and for Stewart, the presence of this seasoned New York hipster was a validation of Stax's talent and promise. For a short time it was a joyous partnership.

While other execs were beating the path in New York, L.A. and London, Wexler found his home in the rural and forgotten areas of the country. He brought in Sam & Dave, a duo he had signed out of Florida with the agreement that the act would be on the Stax label, but ultimately owned by Atlantic. In a sense, Wexler was exploiting all the hit-making factors of the Stax studio, but keeping the long-term profit earnings.

When Wexler brought another Atlantic artist, Wilson Pickett, to Stax in 1965, the result was the classic "In the Midnight Hour," but it also signaled the beginning of the end of Atlantic's association with Stax. The Memphis musicians could no longer take the headstrong Pickett, and by 1966 Jim Stewart began to see Wexler as an outside exploiter, casting him and his Atlantic artists away from the studio.

Ever the workhorse, it didn't take long for Wexler to bounce back. With the success of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," Wexler found an even more isolated group of talented young writers and players at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Once again, Wexler had happened upon a flourishing scene in the middle of nowhere and was determined to ride it for what it was worth. In 1966 he brought Pickett there to record and liked the results; soon FAME studios and its owner Rick Hall replaced Stax as Wexler's main base of operations. In 1967 Aretha Franklin, recently signed to Atlantic, flew in to the studio; the resulting single, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way That I Love You)"/"Do Right Woman" was a smash hit, but again resulted in the severance of a creative relationship. After a heated argument between Rick Hall and Aretha's husband Ted White, Wexler (and Aretha) left FAME permanently -- however, not before Wexler could call a desperate Rick Hall and ask for his permission to use Hall's musicians for a King Curtis session. Hall agreed and Wexler, somewhat underhandedly, used the FAME rhythm section to finish the Aretha Franklin album in New York.

That same year, 1967, was an important one in Wexler's life. Wexler was named Record Executive of the Year for his work turning Aretha's career around, and Ahmet Ertegun sold Atlantic Records for $17.5 million. The two execs remained with Atlantic Records, but with the actual ownership in someone else's hands, Wexler began to work less and enjoy the riches more. He bought several boats and relocated to Miami Beach, where he set up his own version of a house band, the Dixie Flyers, at Criteria Studios, producing Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack.

With the '70s came stadium-sized rock & roll bands on the scale of the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, and although both groups were signed to Atlantic through the '70s, Ertegun was able to change with the times much better than Wexler. He was no longer the head of Atlantic Records, no longer the sole man in charge of production, A&R or administration. While Ertegun and the rest of the company forged into the era of rock music, Wexler stayed behind, preferring to work with Southern musicians like Duane Allman, Dr. John and Delaney & Bonnie. And, just as Atlantic was changing, so too was the music that Wexler had helped bring to prominence. By the mid-'70s, Black music was transforming into funk, disco and rap, and artists that Wexler had produced, like Aretha, were changing as well. By relocating to Florida he had taken himself out of the loop, and feeling increasingly marginalized at the company, Wexler resigned from Atlantic Records in 1975.

Two years later, the crafty exec signed on with Mo Ostin at Warner Records, where he helped bring Dire Straits, the B-52's and Gang of Four to the label, but the industry was never the same as when he was co-head of Atlantic. 

Thanks for the great music, Jerry Wexler. You are already missed.

New Computer On The Way

Seems the trials and tribulations of my old Windows PC have finally peaked. It no longer is stable enough to work on - much less count on - and I'm going to have to decommission her and move on. I certainly got my money's worth and I'm excited by the prospect of the new, custom-built computer that should be finished by Monday.

I decided to contact Steve Lamm at Cryptic Globe Studio and I asked him to attempt a repair on the old PC. His diagnosis was a failing motherboard - not something you can fix cheaply. As much as I love my mobile laptop rig, I have several projects pending that need the desktop system, so I made the move and ordered the CGR-1 model. Here are the specs for those so digitally inclined:

4U Rack Mount Case
500watt PSU
CGR approved motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz processor
4GB DDR2 800 Memory
Lightscribe DVD burner
160BG SATA II 8mb buffer drive for OS
2 x 250GB SATA II 16mb buffer drives for Audio and Loops
Dual Head (DVI or VGA) ATI RX2600 256mb Video Card
Microsoft Keyboard Mouse Combo
Windows XP Pro SP-3
Fully tweaked for your audio software/hardware
System Restore Disk
1 Year Part and Labor Warranty

Rack mount case

This machine will be running Pro Tools M-Powered 7.3.1 and Cubase 4 for DAWs. I'll probably install Reason 3 and Live 6.0 eventually (as I am still investigating them) but I want to keep this rig lean and mean for a bit.

A couple of the features I think I'm going to really like:

The rack mount format makes it more mobile if I decide to cut tracks outside of my house and certainly will look cooler than yer basic tower. The Core 2 Dual is much faster than my current machine. The Lightscribe DVD burner is pretty neat. You can burn the data on one side, then flip it over and laser-etch graphics or titles or whatever onto the other side - no more cheesy labels or Sharpie scrawls.

Three discrete hard drives address the modern day recording method - one for the OS, one for loops and samples, and one for audio.

I'm still using the M-Audio ProjectMix I/O as my FireWire interface, and I've started getting a better handle on the several available types of preamps I want to have on hand.


M-Audio ProjectMix I/O

I'm definitely buying a pair of Amek CIB channel strips from a friend of mine, which will give me an uncluttered Rupert Neve-designed sound that should contrast nicely with the UA LA-610, which has more character and tubey goodness.


Amek Channel in a Box (CIB)

I'm also considering getting the Focusrite 428 package. Four channels of luscious ISA 110-based preamps. Nice. There's an optional digital card that allows you to use ADAT outputs and link two 428s together. A definite possibility for the future.


Focusrite 428

I'm gradually trying to upgrade my gear to end up with a smaller but higher quality setup than I have been using. Anything bigger and better that I might need for a project I will rent at the time.

Of course, I had to offset this purchase with something for the house, so a new ceiling fan/lamp for the TV room is laying in pieces on the couch, ready for installation. Maybe I'll get to it in the morning.

Two Gigs in One Day

We've been alternating playing an arena show and then a stadium show with Kenny Chesney all Summer long. On July 5th, we played LP Field in Nashville. We had passes for our wives and families, so Donna got to watch the show from my usual vantage point - guitar world.


Donna and Shamus, our FOH engineer

The crowds typically start coming en masse during LeAnn's show, and watching 40,000 people congregate in one place is pretty amazing.


Tim Akers and his accordion rockin' the stadium

My dear friend Elizabeth Cook and her band were playing the Opry Plaza that evening. Our shoe was done at 6:15 and the truck was loaded by 7:30, so we headed over to the Opry House to catch the second half of her Plaza Party gig.


Elizabeth Cook and Bones Hillman

EC has Bones Hillman playing upright bass with her. Bones spent many years in the band "Midnight Oil", and he was the bass player on the tour that turned out to be the best Rock show I have ever witnessed. Cool to meet him years later and get a chance to tell him that. Bones played with us when we opened for Elizabeth at The Station Inn on April 24th.



EC, Bones, Tim Carroll, the fabulous Marco Giovino

Elizabeth sounded great, an excellent mix by the house sound guy, and the rest of the band played wonderfully. Donna and I got to go inside at watch them play on the Opry show itself after they finished the Plaza gig.

Nashville is a pretty special place. You can go from watching LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney play the modern style at the football stadium and then head out to the Opry for some old-school Country all in the same day.

Space and Time

I joined a new social networking site the other day. It's called Crewspace, and it's similar to MySpace, but less cluttered and meant for road crews to socialize with each other. As they put it:

A social network for Roadies, Tour Managers, Production Managers, Sound Engineers, Lampys, Backline, Techs, Drivers, Caterers, Security and anyone else who tours! Find work, find crew, connect with friends and have fun! Customise your profile, add music, videos, blogs etc.

We live temporary lives out here. Friendships last only as long as a tour sometimes, and the shared experience of travel, sleep, no sleep, work and boredom is a crucible for making fast friendships. We eat the same foods at the same time. We sleep in the same bunks or hotels. Whatever happened to me today happened almost exactly the same way to several other people, so there is not much to talk about except previous gigs and tours. I know how your day went...it was the same as mine!

Crewspace let's you re-connect with international touring and local crews that you might not have seen in years and let's you keep tabs on your friends. It also offers forums to discuss relevant industry issues and a help wanted/help available section.

Specialized groups were an inevitable solution to the 200 million MySpace accounts that are out there. Crewspace does a great job of meeting the needs of a small but necessary group of people in the Music Industry. I invite my fellow roadies to check it out.