Just a quick update, since it’s pretty late. I just finished recording a song with Tom Holmes and his friend Pete Eisenberg. Pete invited us over to his house beforehand for a delicious meal. It was great to meet Pete, who also happens to be a 3M employee. He’s originally from upstate New York. He moved to Boston, where he met his wife, and they later came to Minnesota when Pete’s career led him to the 3M headquarters in St. Paul.
Pete and Tom’s song is sounding really good so far. With a room full of guitars, how could it not turn out awesome? Pete played acoustic guitar, mandolin, and sang. Tom laid down electric bass and synth drums with his drum machine. We weren’t sure how that would mix in with Pete’s acoustic instruments, but I think it’s going to sound really cool together. I may try adding a little guitar melody and backing vocals, but I think the song is almost good to go. Check back this Sunday for the final mix!
This week marks the start of my challenge to record one new artist every week. And to start us off is a friend of mine and a talented drummer, guitarist, bassist, etc. – Tom Holmes. He was raised on old-school techno and grew up with some of the guys in Atmosphere. At the same time, he loves blues and anything with a good guitar riff. It does say something when you name your son Hendrix!
Tom and Hendrix
I’m really looking forward to producing Tom’s song. It sounds like it will be a heartfelt song dedicated to a friend of his. I’ll be heading back to Stillwater this week, and we’ll hopefully have something ready to post by the weekend!
The muggy Minnesota summer is wrapping up, and we’re heading into my favorite time of the year. For some reason fall gives me a boost of energy and motivation. Probably from the years of recovering from summer vacation brain melt. Anyways, it’s perfect timing for this song a week project to start next week. No one has volunteered for the first week yet, since everyone wants as much time as possible to write their songs. But I’ll hopefully be able to convince someone this weekend.
I just came back from an inspiring trip to California. The first half of my adventure was hanging out in LA with my friends Brandon, Doug, and Carson. Brandon co-runs a really successful YouTube channel now, and it was awesome seeing how he lives and breathes his video work. It’s a crazy balance between being able to do anything you want, but having the discipline to keep putting out quality work every week. It inspired me to rethink my priorities. For one, my fleeting desire for a full-time job is now out the window again! Right now I think working nonstop on my creative skills is ten times more important than saving up money.
For the second half of my California trip, I went to the San Fransisco Outside Lands music festival with my friends Nick and Kevin. I don’t know that I gleaned that much as a producer, but we saw a boatload of awesome bands! I thought I would be sick of music in general by the end of the weekend, but there was enough variety to keep it exciting. The best surprise out of the bunch was Phantogram, whose female singer does some catchy and quirky vocal looping.
Jose Gonzales’ band Junip was another incredible just-under-the-radar group. Such a smooth mix of minimalist acoustic and electric sounds. And of course, the big names were all really entertaining – Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Muse (what a light show!) and The Black Keys. Would I ever want to be on stage at a festival like Outside Lands? Not sure. It would be a ton of work to get to that point, but it could be a heck of a lot of fun along the way…
For you guys that are coming in to record your songs, I’d be happy to help orchestrate your song by adding additional instruments. I play piano, guitar, electric bass, and sing decently if you think any of these would fit in your song. If you ask nicely, I might even dust off my violin. We’ll have plenty of instruments at our disposal, synthesized and real.
Mitchell Johnson ticklin' the ivories at our house piano.
If you have musician friends you’d like to include on your track, bring them with! For mixing reasons, it’s usually better to record each instrument individually. But if you want everyone to play together as a group, we can do that, too.
Thought I would post my recording setup, to give you guys an idea of what to expect when you come in to record.
We'll do most of the recording in my bedroom, which now has carpet for better sound absorption and maximum foot comfort.
I have a small closet for recording vocals and/or any instruments we can fit in it. It might not be the prettiest setup, but with blankets on the walls, it’s a good echo-free recording booth.
Mark Knutson and Oanh Vu recording their next big single in my closet.
I have a number of mics we can use:
Two AT 4040 Cardioid Condenser Mics: My go-to mics for recording vocals, guitar, piano, wind instruments, etc.
Rode NTG-1 Shotgun Condenser Mic: Primarily used as a boom mic for film, but it can double as an extra condenser mic if we need it.
Audix D6 Dynamic Mic: Usually used as a kick drum mic, but can also be used for recording bass or electric guitar.
Sure SM58 Dynamic Mic: Usually used as a vocal mic for live concerts (dynamic mics are less prone to feedback). We could try it out on vocals to get a more live or lo-fi sound.
A messy but effective recording setup for Rob Carmichael's drums.
I use a MOTU Traveler mixer to hook up the mics to my computer. I primarily use the program Ableton Live for mixing. Occasionally I’ll use GarageBand if I want a different set of sounds.
