Cuz He Needs a Larger Audience

[Betterout]

My cousin Ryan Dannar thinks a lot. He thinks about music, and his music is thoughtful. He's just an idea man. Not only does he have really good ideas, he can express them very well. It's a shame very few people have had the opportunity to share in these well expressed ideas. I think everyone should. In fact, by the time I'm an old man, if there's not a "Dannar's Critique on Rock & Roll, Volumes I-XXVI" on every bookshelf in the English-speaking world, I'm going to feel extremely cheated. Anyhow, I don't know if you guys know it or not, but he has a blog. It's worth checking out.

ryandannar.blogspot.com/

[Jeff]

I wish Ryan would consider cross-posting his music columns over here. It would be good for us, as we don't have much of a discussion of music going--which is odd since I think I've recorded with better than half the members of this group. It would also be good for him since we are a built in audience for his kinds of insights.

Ryan, where for art thou?

(If you do ever show up Ryan, I really want to know what you think of the band M83.)

Jeff

[ryan]

Aww, yous guys.

Thanks for the flattery. As you've no doubt noticed, I'm now participating in the Indiginous forum. But I'm afraid there's just no way I can live up to the hype. For instance, I have never heard of the band M83. But, Jeff, I agree with you that The Arcade Fire is easily the best band to emerge in at least the past year, if not in the past decade.

I've gotta go. Later, guys.

[Jeff]

If they can pull off something as good as Funeral again they will definitely be in the rarefied air for me. I am certainly rooting for them. When I first heard Funeral I felt the same as when I first heard Pablo Honey and Pretty Hate Machine--though I haven't liked NIN nearly as much in the last decade. Still, all of these acts made me think that something new was happening musically. What would you call the Arcade Fire's vibe if you had to name it? I've talked to Justin about "The New Sincerity" but he is rather skeptical.

[Jeff]

I just listened to both of your new songs. Here are some comments for you:

1. I love your guitar tones. They are driving and clean at the same time, kind of like Weezer's Blue Album.

2. I really like the general production quality of your music. All your stuff even from your Idiot Plot days has impressed me this way. I would like to see you discuss a little about mixing and mastering. What plugins do you use? What are your EQ goals? Etc.

3. I really got a sense of fun on By The Hour. Also, you were combining all kinds of references to rock history, which I quite liked. You have a good rock voice. I liked the clipping on the vocal in the chorus. Did you intend that?

4. Golden Goose Egg is my favorite of the three songs you've put up on your site since April. I don't have any clear reason why. It's just that after I heard it I wanted to listen to it again. I'd love to hear to vocal.

[ryan]

Thanks for the feedback, Jeff. Here's a quick response:

1. Thank you. I do spend a lot of time experimenting with my tone. I get very frustrated when I can't get the exact sound I want. Sometimes I have to record a guitar-part several times, using different mics, amps, or direct-boxes, to find the exact tone that works for a particular song. Lately, I've been "cheating" a lot by simply running-in a direct signal from my Line6 PodXT Live. In "GGE" and "By The Hour," all the tones you hear are patches I programmed-into my PodXT Live. No mics or actual guitar amps were used. I hate to admit it, but in many cases, the direct signal from the PodXT Live sounds better than anything I'd ever be able to capture from a mic'ed amp.

2. I would love to share my recording/mixing/mastering techniques. However, I have so much to say about the subject that I hardly know where to begin. If there's enough interest, we should start a new thread for music-production. I'd love to hear what techniques you and Justin have used.

3. I think what you perceive as "clipping" is actually an analog distortion which was happening on my Behringer mixing-board. I didn't intend the vocal to distort quite as much as it does, but I had the level at the mixer up so high that it was difficult to really "rock the mic" without getting a bit of distortion. Since I was trying to work quickly, and basically capture my ideas while they still felt fresh, I decided that a little distortion was no big deal.

From a more general perspective, I've been using a lowly Shure SM57 to record all my vocals lately. It's not the most ideal vocal mic, but I don't have the money to purchase a good condenser right now, and I've discovered that the SM57 actually lends a nice character to vocals, if you use it right. I connect it to my Behringer mixer, and bump the channel's input-level up so that I get nice warm signal when singing quiet passages. This ensures that I'll capture all the quiet vocal nuances that might otherwise get lost. This mixer has a 3-band EQ. I dial the low shelf-EQ (fixed at 80hz) down all the way (this helps eliminate vocal pops and other unwanted noises; the human voice has no musical qualities which extend to or below the 80hz range). Then I dial the mids and highs up or down, depending on how bright or mid-rangy I want the vocal to sound. Once I've got it EQ'ed the way I want it, I check my levels again, and readjust if necessary. Quiet vocals should light-up the meter about halfway. Loud vocals should max it out (causing analog distortion), unless I back-off the mic, which I often do during louder passages, to attain a more "across the room" kind of sound.

I run the mixer into my Aardvark 24/96. I usually enable some compression on the Aarvark's virtual-mixer, at a ratio of about 2:1 or 3:1, with a threshold of around -16db, sometimes more or sometimes less, depending on the nature of the vocal. The idea here is to use a fairly light, transparent compression over the entire dynamic range of the vocal. Ultimately, my use of compression and hot levels during vocal-tracking is designed to flatten the dynamics of the vocal-track as much as possible during the recording process. This makes the vocal-track fall into the mix that much easier. During mixdown, I usually end up adding some reverb, 10-band EQ, and more compression to the vocal track (using plugins; I really like the Waves Gold pluins).

Honestly, I think the secret to capturing a good rock vocal is to flatten its dynamic as much as possible, so that a gasp or whisper is nearly as loud as a scream. To me, this kind of approach communicates a rawness and energy that a more dynamic, less "squashed" approach kind of loses. Of course, it's worth mentioning that this recording method wouldn't fit every kind of vocal track.

4. I really like that song too. It's actually the result of combining two separate song-ideas into one. The verse-section and the "Smashing Pumpkins" section following it were one idea. The chorus and post-chorus were from a different song entitled "Angry Young Man." I decided to combine the two songs because (a) neither song sounded complete by itself, and (b) these two ideas completed each other in a way I thought sounded very natural. Once I put 'em together like that, it was hard for me to see them as separate ideas again.