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We
pulled into Austin last night and immediately set up camp at our
good friend Rachel's house. This has been our SXSW home-away-from-home
the last few years. In fact we have a tradition of playing a show/party
in her backyard every year to close out the SXSW week. All of
the boys in the band have safely arrived in Austin as well. Neil
Cleary, our drummer, ventured in from Vermont via NYC through
Athens (where he played drums and keyboards on Elephant 6 legend
Bill Doss' latest project The Sunshine Fix). Jon
Williams drove down with my wife, Laura, and me in our Dodge
Van (Jon has been a mainstay in the backseat for three years now
- this year Laura taught him to knit and he has a multicolored
winter hat half-finished). Dakota Smith and Neal Pollack
are currently Austin residents, so they’re already here,
and all are assembled.
Oddly,
there is very little musical cramming going on, either these guys
are confident musicians who know that the attitude will make these
songs work much more than technical proficiency; or they are just
having too much fun walking around without winter coats to give
a damn. But no one seems nervous about our lack of preparedness.
We
are off to Maria’s Tacos this morning and then we load-in
at Dakota’s one-story house in North Austin. The timing
and schedule this week is absurd. Neal and I review schedules
one last time hoping for loopholes or unseen gaps but it’s
worse than we thought so we will use the Tuesday and Thursday
recording sessions as our only rehearsals for the official Neal
Pollack Invasion SXSW showcase on Saturday.
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Dakota’s
House:
Load-in was a snap since Dakota already has a drum kit in his
house. The van was emptied of guitars, amps, the two road cases
full of recording gear, my iBook G3 600mHz laptop and assorted
mic stands. My wife Laura, or THE BEAR as she is affectionately
referred to by everyone, has promised to return at 5:30pm to pick
us up so we can get the guys back to home base before I head off
to Wimberly to do a radio show. It is 1:15pm so we have about
4 hours.
As I unpack gear I tell Neal Pollack that we might want to shoot
our sights at recording maybe 6 songs this week as we might be
biting off more than we can chew given our time constraints. Neal,
ever the optimist, blows off my neuroses and politely promises
me that we can accomplish all 10 songs in our allotted time. Somehow,
despite the fact that Neal is a satirist/novelist and has never
made a rock record in his life I buy his spiel and confidently
go about my work. NOTE TO SELF: act confident and people will
believe anything!! HA!
I discover immediately that one of the four channels on my cans
amplifier is out of service. A quick scan of the circuit board
reveals that this old piece of gear is in no mood to be repaired
so I go to plan B which is to use one of the Metric Halo MIO 2882’s
1/4" analog out feeds as a mono headphone line. Given more
time I would have soldered a 2nd 1/4" lead on the phones
chord and had a stereo cans mix, but in a pinch (and since the
headphone mixes will be mono anyway) this will do nicely.
As far as the channel designations, I decide on the following
configuration for the 2882:
Channel #1 (XLR): Jim Roll Guitar VOX AC15TBX Guitar Amp (Shure
SM57)
Channel #2 (XLR): Neal Pollack Vocal (Shure SM-7)
Channel #3 (XLR): Drum Overhead L (Oktava MC 012)
Channel #4 (XLR): Drum Overhead R (Oktava MC 012)
Channel #5 (1/4"): Kick Drum (Audio Technica Pro 25/HHB Radius
50 Compressor)
Channel #6 (1/4"): Snare (Shure SM57 w/XLR to 1/4" transformer)
Channel #7 (1/4"): Dakota Smith Guitar (Line6 POD)
Channel #8 (1/4"): Jon Williams Bass (Direct line from amp
- speaker disabled)
One reason I think this setup will excel in this residential setting
(with limited isolation opportunities) is because we only have
external sound from Neal Pollack’s vocal, the drum kit and
my VOX AC15 guitar amp (which was setup facing the street and
in a distant room from the drums). Bass and 2nd Guitar/Line6 POD
are direct feeds and can only be heard in the cans. Yeah it would
be nice to have a church and an elevated trap kit to achieve that
John Bonham drum sound and maybe an echo chamber with a black-face
Fender amp to run Dakota’s guitar through, but with our
resources I am pleased with the sounds we are getting.
The SpectraFoo analysis of the bedroom with the drum kit revealed
a huge buildup of the midrange frequencies. It is a bare walled
reflection nightmare, but strangely it works great for that garage
sound, and I decide to roll with the sound we are getting in there.
Neil Cleary did a great job of tuning the cheapo Pearl drum kit
and we put some sweaters and blankets in the kick drum for added
damping effect. However, I decided not to treat the walls or try
to kill the early reflection and other lo-fi artifacts. It just
seemed to sound good that day, like a, well, like a garage!!
I call the guys in for instrument soundchecks one at a time, and
while I finish the setup and set levels in the MIOConsole software
mixer, the boys settle in for cigarettes and XBox NBA basketball.
(Turns out Neal Pollack is a big Phoenix Suns fan - but Dakota
is the video game champ and kicks everyone’s ass).
Finally, I call everyone in for the session and it is time to
start tracking.
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