James McCartney, from Abbey Road to Avatar: How David Kahne Recorded and Mixed “Me”
Music producers know a return trip is never guaranteed.
David Kahne rides on with James McCartney.
That’s true even for audio experts like David Kahne, whose production discography is a who’s who across the artistic spectrum, including Tony Bennett, Fishbone, Sublime, Sir Paul McCartney, The Strokes, Sean Lennon, Linkin Park, Ingrid Michaelson, and Regina Spektor. But he’s been around the block enough to know that even his technical mastery, extremely keen ears, and hitmaking habits may not produce a call back for the next record.
One artist that’s made sure to stay in a groove with Kahne is James McCartney, whose first full-length album has just debuted in the form of Me, released by ECR Music Group. The new 12-track collection was created after McCartney contracted Kahne for his two 2011 EP releases, Available Light and Close at Hand, a strong pair of sets that made his newfound fans eager to hear more.
No doubt, the unassuming Kahne was happy for the chance to be back with musical royalty – after all, James is the only son of Paul and Linda McCartney, and has a critically important heritage to build on. Together they’ve created a record designed to escalate the art of songwriting – acoustic, open, and instantly engrossing.
Shaping the Record
The NYC-based producer began work in earnest on Me in November of 2012, when McCartney had more than 40 new songs written and was ready for Kahne’s touch to bring the best ones to the forefront.
“I hope the reason that James wanted to work with me again is because I’m very patient, and I’m also very vocal-centric,” Kahne reflects in his suite at Avatar Studios. “He’s such a fluent guitarist, piano player, and bassist, so I was pushing him on vocals, which led back into the songwriting. We spent a lot of time developing the songs, and went back and forth on them for months. I wanted to take the time to do that with him.
“The vocals always lead the song for me,” continues Kahne. “If the vocal wasn’t sounding right, then we needed to work on the song some more – rather than trying to arrange the song into something dynamic.”
The persistence paid off. Me is filled with tracks of highly satisfying songcraft. The arresting opener, “Strong As You” is a gift for guitar lovers, brimming with confidence, woodsy hooks, and sparkling sounds. “Butterfly” is atmospheric, trippy and thoughtful as it forcefully builds. The evocative piano and thick vocals of “Snow” is virtuoso honesty, while “Snap Out of It” is intimately spare before surging forward on galloping drums.
Meanwhile, the natural six-strings and breathy drama of “You and Me Individually” may make it the album’s most unforgettable selection. At the end, brace yourself for the bonus track “Virginia,” a barnyard thumper that hits you like a guitar army – a bizarre and glorious singalong.
“Me” is all about the songs.
From working with McCartney on his 2011 EPs, Kahne knew to be always on the lookout, lest a gem of a line or hook go shooting past.
“A lot of times he has ideas that are very off-hand and are improvisations,” says Kahne, “Sometimes it will be a really fast reaction to something, and he won’t even know he said it – it’s just a joke or a piece of wordplay, but it’ll be great.
“An example of that is on ‘Virginia’, with the lines, ‘My baby left me down on Charring Cross/My baby left me and I don’t give a toss.’ He didn’t sing it the first time like we were going to use it, but I said, ‘That’s great.’ He just threw it out there, and it was perfect.”
Roots Recording
Tracking for Me took place in a studio with good DNA for a McCartney – Abbey Road. After the demos had been thoroughly worked out on vocals and acoustic guitar, McCartney rehearsed with his band for a week, then arrived at Abbey Road’s Studio 2 to record the dozen tunes that had made the cut from the original 40.
“In the end, it was songs that got an emotional, personal feeling from him – songs that hit home,” Kahne says. “I also wanted to show that he can really play. James is one of the best guitar players I’ve ever worked with, and a lot of people don’t understand that. The stuff he’s doing on ‘Virginia’ or ‘You and Me Individually’ – there’s very people who can play like that, and he just does it effortlessly.
“As far as recording at Abbey Road, the only reason to work there is that it’s a fantastically great room. It’s a big room that doesn’t sound cavernous. You can mike an acoustic guitar, and you’ll hear the room in the sound. It’s not bouncing all over the place – it just feels good.”
To capture McCartney’s vocals, Kahne typically depended on a Neumann U 47 or Lucas CS-4 microphone, going into preamps and dynamics including Neve 1073, Mike-E, LaChappel 583, Neve 2264 Compressor, Urei 1176, Retro Channel Strip, and Federal Limiter.
Another vocal performance of note on Me is “Thinking About Rock & Roll”, featuring a subtly layered duet of James and Paul – a father and son’s magic meeting at the microphone.
“That was one of the last songs that James wrote,” Kahne says. “Paul heard it and liked it, and thought it would be fun to have a date recording with James. They came over and spent an evening putting it down here at Avatar’s Studio A. There is something simpatico about the blend between them. I don’t think James sounds like Paul, but there is some family thing in there. I’ve found that over and over working with family people: They have a blend when they sing together. It makes sense, right?”
Mixing Me
Tracks in hand, Kahne returned to his suite at Avatar. A comfortable and casual yet highly ergonomic space, Kahne’s room is optimal for song production and mixing. The gear in his racks constantly circulate as he auditions hardware. Then he maintains a close watch on how much use he’s getting out of his keepers – if something stays stagnant for too long, it’s in with the new.
Working on Cubase 7 in a Windows environment, Kahne loaded up tracks of vocals, guitar, bass, drums, strings, percussion, and much more. Thanks to his MADI connections, Kahne can seamlessly blend his DAW, plugins, analog processors, and summing amps. A/D conversion is from an Antelope Eclipse, while an Antelope Orion handles D/A duties, with monitoring via Barefoot MicroMain 27 and Equator Audio D8’s.
When it came to McCartney’s vocals, which display a musically rich characteristic throughout the album, Kahne used his Dangerous Liaison’s flexible routing/switching/Matrix/flip/audition capabilities to help him blend analog dynamics from choice pieces such as the Retro Channel Strip, a Federal limiter, and Fairchild 670.
The Dangerous Liaison plays a key role in shaping sounds during the mix.
He also didn’t overthink the effect he was going for on McCartney’s vocals, which can be up close and personal one moment, and Kurt Cobain’s evil twin the next. “It just sounds right,” Kahne says. “I want it to be warm sounding, but James also has a power mode he can go into that blows your speakers apart. So when he’s singing very quiet the compressors bring out the sweetness and warmth. It’s a little bit transparent, without trying to build out the low mids or be boxy, more like a warm blanket.”
Kahne is also a voracious user of plugins and soft synths, with new releases always going to good use in his workflow. “As far as new plugins, I really like the Noveltech Vocal Enhancer – it’s a very good way to shape the high end,” he states. “The House of Kush UBK-1 [Motion Generating Compressor] is a FATSO, and it’s so solid – I use it a lot on guitars, rooms, and keyboard busses.
“I’ve also been using Auto-Align from SoundRadix, which is ridiculous it’s so good and smart. From Softube, the CL1 B compressor is a really good plugin. I use it mostly for parallel bussing, it’s really warm and juices things up. An older plugin I use a lot is the Elysia compressor. And the Cubase plugins themselves are excellent.”
The rhythmic beauty and alternating textures of “Strong As You” is a song that Kahne found particularly challenging to mix. “It’s an anthem, but also very close — it could have been twice the size it is when it came into the chorus. It had to feel anthemic, but without breaking the personalness of it. That’s because it can be a weird thing to say, ‘I’m as strong as you’ – if you pushed it too hard it could come across as creepy. But it’s successful because he isn’t going off, and instead it’s clear he admires this person that he’s as strong as.
“So I didn’t want it to be thicker, but I wanted the lift. Again, I solved it mostly with arranging, and I mix as I go that way. I think I changed the drum sounds, added different kinds of electric guitars, and kept changing where they sat in the mix.”
For critical listening, Kahne depends chiefly on the aforementioned pair of Equator Audio D8’s, set up side by side in a compact stereo/mono setup to ensure his mixes are true. “I work on getting the vocal center in the track, and this way I’ll know that it’s there and I’m not fooling myself,” he explains. “I like mono recordings a lot. Some people like to spend a lot of time goofing with the left and right stuff – listeners are spending a lot of time on earbuds and headphones now, and they want their sounds going side to side. But I don’t want to lose that vocal, because that’s a where a lot of important stuff happens.”
No-nonsense monitoring: Kahne’s Equator Audio monitors are set up together to ensure that the vocal is situated properly within the mix.
Kahne use the Dangerous 2-Bus as his summing matrix, with 64 tracks of MADI returning from the computer being directly patched into his four Dangerous 2-Bus boxes. “I can also do split sends from the computer into my analog gear, and then the analog gear folds directly back into the Dangerous units,” he explains. “Very efficient, and perfectly summed.”
When everything was ready, Kahne assigned the finishing duties to Sabino Cannone, an Italy-based mastering engineer. “He’s very flexible, he’s very fast, he asks a lots of questions,” Kahne says of Cannone. “He works to get it right until its right. And he just loves music.”
Perfecting A Personal Statement
With James McCartney playing guitar and piano on a 47-city solo-acoustic tour that just concluded at Bonnaroo, his music is getting out there in the most real of ways.
“It’s interesting that he called the record Me – I think his experience of it was he said a lot of things he always wanted to say, and how he wanted to say them,” David Kahne relates. “It’s a particular set of problems and opportunities, being who he is, and he wants to have his own voice, like we all do. With this record, he got to go to the place where he could say, ‘This is who I am.’ A lot of the things he believes in are revealed in the songs.
“He may want to do a really loud rock record down the line, but this is a personal one where he’s making a statement of purpose for himself. And he’s done a great job at it.”
— David Weiss
Ergonomix: Kahne’s dual monitors feel like the windshield of a sonic spacepod.
Steinberg’s modular CMC controllers keep things moving quickly.
Barefoot monitoring expands the stereo field when wanted.
Antelope converters have won Kahne over.
The Rupert Neve Designs Portico 5043 and Portico II Master Buss Processor are additional current favorites, atop API, the Empirical Labs EL-9 Mike-E mic pre, and other choice pieces of outboard in Kahne’s always-current studio.
Dynamics and effects that made the grade, including the Retro Channel Strip, Fractal Audio Systems Axe-FX II, Empirical Labs Distressors, plus elysia and Chandler Limited compressors.
Federal + Fairchild are constantly in the loop.
Outside the box — guitars available on demand in Kahne’s suite.
A producer’s true passion.
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