Bottomless Pit
Week 29, Undefined
YouTube link for iPhone
This song was about as close as I’ve come to scrapping a track and freaking out because I didn’t have anything else to go with. This was the first song that I’ve ever written on bass, and that seemed to throw me off of my game when it came time to write a guitar part. The bass line and song that I wrote just didn’t call for my usual style of guitar playing which is more chordal and rhythmic. A major credit should go to my wife, who after hearing me freak out and give up two nights in a row, suggested that I try writing a baritone part first. That’s what I did on the third night, and even that didn’t work until I tuned the baritone up a couple of steps to an F# version of standard tuning. Finally a simple baritone and guitar part came together, and I was on my way. I was a couple of days behind, though, and frankly I’m a little surprised that everything came out sounding as good as it did.
That goes doubly for the drums, as this was a pretty challenging drum part, and I was also breaking in a new mic configuration. I started out Project 52 with three drum mics and have slowly been adding them along the way. This song unveils the six-mic configuration. I’m pretty sure that I’m done adding mics, though. I’ll probably start taking mics away from here on out. I was inspired to switch mics up after reading a great article by Chas Ferry in the latest Tape Op Magazine. Quick plug: Tape Op is an amazing institution of a recording magazine. If you’re not currently subscribed, then do yourself a favor and get it (hint – it’s free). They do incredible interviews and generally have awesome content from a less-than-mainstream perspective (this week’s issue features an interview with Mac McCaughan of Superchunk and Merge Records fame), along with great online forums which are hands down the best in the recording world.
Inspired to put put a bit more room in my drum mix, I added a pair of large-diaphragm condenser mics about 20-30 inches out in front of the kit, one in front of the high hat and snare, and one out from the floor tom and ride cymbal. The revelation of the article is that in a small room like the one that I’m using, moving the room mics closer in to the source increases the ratio of distance between source and reflection, thus creating the impression of a much larger room. I didn’t have much time to play with it – I pretty much spot miked everything, but first impressions are pretty good.
After a weekend full of two 3-year-olds’ birthday parties, crammed-in drum takes and lyric writing, I ended up with a song that sounds a lot like a couple of the bands that I’ve been listening to a lot lately. I’d say most noticeably is the band C-clamp, which is sadly one of the most under-appreciated and unknown of my regular arsenal of 90s bands. As far as I know, both of their albums are out of print, but you should still seek out their music if you can find it. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Bottomless Pit and The New Year, having recently purchased one of the latter’s records. Bottomless Pit is made up of former Silkworm and Seam members, and The New Year is the band of former Bedhead fame. Even though these guys are all of a strong 90s indie rock vintage, both bands are still out there making great-sounding records and playing shows. It’s inspiring.
The rest of this week’s recording was done in regular fashion. The drums and final mix were done with Reaper. The bass, baritone, and guitar parts were all performed on my Orange Crush 30r and recorded using a dynamic mic into the iPhone. The vocals were recorded using the iPhone’s built-in mic, and everything on the iPhone was tracked using the MultiTrack app.
Thanks again for listening. Have a great week everyone.
Week 25, On Ice
The 25th song is called “On Ice.” YouTube link for iPhone
I’ve been listening to a lot of Silkworm lately. As often as I have Silkworm on rotation, it’s probably more notable when I’m not listening to them. Silkworm is a band that I’ve grown to appreciate more and more over the years, to the point where I’d have to rank them among my top five. I love these guys, and you owe it to yourself to check them out if you haven’t heard them. They have a 10-album discography spanning 14 years. My personal favorite is Libertine, followed closely by Firewater and Developer (yes, this is at least partially my moniker’s namesake). Everyone should also check out the band Bottomless Pit. It’s the current project of Silkworm co-frontmen Andy Cohen and Tim Midgett, along with former Seam drummer Chris Manfrin and bassist Brian Orchard. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of playing several shows with Bottomless Pit, and they’re one of the best bands recorded and live that I’ve seen.
For whatever reason, as much as I listen to Silkworm, I don’t feel like their sound shows up in my music as often as other bands, but then this week’s song breaks that trend. I have to assume that other Silkworm fans who are reading and listening to this can hear the influence.
“On Ice” is another straight up little rock song. It was written in E-A-D-G-A-E, which is the standard tuning with the B-string dropped to an A. I had a lot of fun with this song, which is about as close as I’ve gotten in the project to the sound of a three-piece rock band. The mix is mostly one guitar track and one bass track (though another take of the same guitar part is buried in the mix and panned all the way to the right for a little depth). The guitar and bass were performed on the Orange 30r and recorded using the break-out cable into the iPhone. Those along with the vocals were tracked with the fantastic MultiTrack app. The vocals were tracked using the iPhone’s built in mic. The drums were recorded into Reaper using the same five-mic setup as weeks previous. Everything was mixed in Reaper as usual.
Next week marks the halfway point of my project. Most of the 26th song is done, and I can’t wait to get started on quarter number 3! This has really been an incredible ride. Thanks again for following along.
Week 11, Minimum Style
The eleventh song is called Minimum Style. YouTube link for iPhone
This song was written while fooling around with my two-year-old’s toy guitar, pictured below. Also in the picture is my Orange Crush 30R, which I’ve used for just about all of the guitar and bass tracks so far.
my kid's toy guitar
I recorded the toy guitar part while sitting in on my bathroom floor and using the Blue Mikey. The tile in the bathroom made for a nice punchy reverb to couple with the guitar. It’s my first time recording in the bathroom and that was done because my kid was playing downstairs and if he had heard me playing the guitar he probably would’ve wanted to go upstairs and play the drums.
Sometimes I get a pretty small window of opportunity to get a take down and I can’t be picky. I think that was particularly true with this song knowing that I was working with a short week. Looking ahead at the calendar I have the holidays, traveling to Colorado, coming up on a deadline for a video game soundtrack (more on this another week), and a very important University of Pittsburgh football game in a couple of weeks. So I expect that I’ll need to keep things simple for the next couple of songs. Of course when I set out to keep things simple I end up using seven guitar tracks. Go figure.
Anyway, back to the song. So there’s toy guitar throughout, then the rest of the guitar tracks were recorded on my baritone guitar. One take is clean, more bass-like, and plays through most of the song after the intro. The other two are dirty, more guitar-like tracks, and just play through the last bit of the song where it opens up. I love the baritone and wish I could use it more often. Well, good thing I have 31 songs left to write. The baritone was recorded using the custom break-out cable through the Orange as usual. I added vocals using the Blue Mikey (I think – it’s been a while now and everything is running together). Oh yeah, and I felt compelled to add whistling in the beginning for some reason, which seemed like a good idea at the time, and I think that it came out fine, but every time I hear the beginning of the song now I can’t help but think that I’m listening to Guns and Roses’ “Patience”…not that there’s anything wrong with that. And I suppose hearkening back to G n’ R isn’t an unprecedented move for me – there are probably a few people out there who can recall that my old band Hovland would evey once in a while drop a cover of “Mr. Brownstone”.
Tim Midgett of Bottomless Pit
Andy Cohen of Bottomless Pit
I added drums with the usual four mic setup the day before the tour while I had my studio setup to work on the video game. The drums were recorded in Reaper and everything else was recorded using the iPhone into MultiTrack.
Everything ended up working out pretty well. My friend Chris said that this song could have been a bit longer, and since he mentioned it I think he’s probably right. But I managed to pull the song together before heading out on tour with The Karl Hendricks Trio, and that has to count for something. We had a great time, played some good shows in Columbus and Bloomington with The Kyle Sowashes, and then capped off the tour with a killer show in Chicago opening for Bottomless Pit. It was a great crowd, all the bands really nailed their sets, and I got to see a bunch of old Pittsburgh friends who have moved out to Chicago over the years.
Here are a couple of dark photos (thanks flashless iPhone) of Bottomless Pit from the show at the Hideout in Chicago. These guys are seriously one of the best-sounding bands that I’ve ever heard live, and on a recording for that matter. I’m truly honored to share a stage with them. You should all be making plans to pick up their two records on your next vinyl shopping trip.
Thanks again to Kyle and the rest of the Sowashes for setting up the tour and for good company along the way. Thanks to everyone for coming out, and thanks to everyone here for continuing to listen.
Week 10, The Early Years
The tenth song is called The Early Years.YouTube link for iPhone
This song marks an interesting chapter in my adventure into high-tech lo-fi recording. This project has required me to establish some rules of operation to survive the weekly deadline. One of them is that when I sit down to record something, I better get a recording and be ready to live with it. I discovered the downside to that rule for this week’s song. When I tracked the guitars and bass in Sonoma Wire Works’ FourTrack app, I ended up setting the metronome to a tempo that I later couldn’t live with – it was a little too slow to bring out the intensity that I was going for. Feeling confident that there was an easy high-tech fix rather than just re-recording everything, I imported the tracks into Reaper, sped up the playback a nudge, and then rendered the mixdown to a stereo track that I then uploaded into the MultiTrack app.
Easy fix, right? Not so fast (pun only slightly intended). The problem that occurred to me, only after getting this far and leaving myself a day or so left to work on the song, was that when I imported the vocal and drum tracks back into Reaper, having been recorded at the adjusted pitch and speed, they wouldn’t match up with the original tracks and would be subject to the same playback speed adjustment and be sped up twice. Since I’m not out to make chipmunk-core (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I had to figure out a way to get out of this jam without starting over. Thank goodness for Reaper. I’ve focused mostly on the iPhone apps so far, but I have to put a solid plug in here for Reaper. The software comes with the ability to adjust just about anything that you could possibly think of. To the benefit of my song, that includes the ability to change the rate of speed for any track in your project with or without adjusting the pitch. That was all that I needed. I just brought the playback speed setting back to zero and adjusted the original bass and guitar tracks up to the faster rate of speed (1.086 to be exact). That left me with a little more work to do to get the tracks aligned properly and I was set.
With all of that said, I think the song ended up sounding pretty good. Sure, I would probably go back and re-record a lot of it, but that’s the fun of this project. There’s no time to go back and mess with things because I have another song to do.
The song is just a quick little rock number. There are two identical guitar tracks, a third guitar track for the solo, a bass track, a drum track, and one vocal track. The guitar and bass tracks were recorded as usual with the custom break-out cable. For the drums, I wanted to keep it really simple and give the Blue Mikey another test on live drums. This time I located the Mikey above the kit and out in front only about two or three feet. This resulted in some clipping, but I worked with it for this song and beefed up the drums using a simulated tube compressor plug-in on the back end. You can hear what I’m talking about around the 1:10 minute mark where the music fades out and the drums are left with a weird little fill before the guitar solo comes in. I was having a lot of fun with the fill and the solo for this song, I hope that comes through, but I don’t imagine that Yngwie Malmsteen and Neil Peart will be very impressed. I recorded the vocals using the iPhone mic, and I purposely clipped the mic and got a nice little bit of distortion on the vocals.
This is the week that I’m going on a quick tour with The Karl Hendricks Trio. We’ll be playing Thursday the 12th in Columbus, OH at the Treehouse; Friday the 13th at the Bishop Bar in Bloomington, IN; and on Saturday the 14th at the Hideout in Chicago, IL with Bottomless Pit (ex Silkworm and Seam). We have the distinct pleasure playing all of these shows with the great Columbus band, The Kyle Sowashes. It remains to be seen if I’ll find a way to get next week’s song ready before the trip or how it will come together, but somehow I’ll get a song up at some point next week.
Week 9, Solace
The ninth song is called Solace. YouTube link for iPhone
Officially the longest song so far – it also has the fewest lyrics coming in at three lines.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Seam lately, and though this song probably sounds a little bit more like a Bedhead or The New Year song, I would attribute it to my recent Seam obsession. If you’re not already a fan of Seam, Bedhead, or The New Year, then I would recommend checking them out. Seam and Bedhead have been defunct for a good while, but The New Year is still alive, well, and cutting records.
Speaking of Seam, I have a couple degrees of separation from Seam’s last drummer, Chris Manfrin. Chris is my wife’s second cousin, and happens to be the current drummer in Bottomless Pit. Bottomless Pit is the completely amazing band of former Silkworm frontmen Andy Cohen and Tim Midgett. Chris and I have crossed paths as Bottomless Pit and the Karl Hedricks Trio have played several shows together here in Pittsburgh and on the road. The reason I bring it up is because the Trio will be playing a show with Bottomless Pit in Chicago in a couple of weeks at the Hideout on November 14. We’ll also be playing in Bloomington, IN on the 13th, Columbus, OH on the 12th, and right here in Pittsburgh this Thursday. The Kyle Sowashes, another fantastic band, are kind enough to play all of these shows with us (and book them, thanks Kyle). I hope to catch up with some of my Pittsburgh friends at Howler’s for this week’s show, and would love to see anyone else who is in reasonable proximity to the other shows.
Enough about that stuff, here’s the deal with the song:
It gets pretty huge-sounding thanks to seven guitar tracks. The vocal tracks and the three main guitar tracks were recorded into the iPhone using the Blue Mikey. I really wanted to capture the clean tone of my Fender Twin – you can hear that the Mikey captured the Twin + Telecaster sound pretty well as illustrated in the first section of the song. I added a couple more guitar tracks using my Rode NTK tube condenser straight into the laptop since I already had everything set up to record the drums. The next day I added a couple more guitar tracks and the bass track using the custom break-out cable (from Week 2) to mic my Orange practice amp. I wanted a nice full drum sound for this song, so I went back to the four mic arrangement from weeks 4 through 7 but with the Rode NTK out in front of the drum set. I like how they ended up sounding, and for once I’m not miserable about my performance (I don’t fancy myself a drummer). I also managed to work in another DopplerPad track. I created a 16-beat loop which I wanted to sit lightly in the mix and then imported it into Reaper. The loop plays throughout the song, but you can only really hear it during the first and last sections. DopplerPad is really a great iPhone app. I’m looking forward to what they have planned for the next update. I used the fantastic MultiTrack iPhone app again to record everything with the exception of the drums and a couple guitar tracks.
Anyway, that’s about it for this week. Don’t forget to come out and see Bottomless Pit, The Kyle Sowashes, and The Karl Hendricks Trio on our tiny whirlwind tour (which is about the right size for us dudes with kids).
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