Indaba Presents: “Surrender To The Flow” By Jesse Lauter
By Jesse Lauter
I just had the most wonderful experience recording a band. They’re called Diamond Doves. We did a few tracks together for their Myspace/demo…
You might know Diamond Doves as Elvis Perkins’ band “in Dearland.” These guys have been around the bend, touring the country with everyone from My Morning Jacket, as well as playing famed festivals such as Bonnaroo and New Orleans Jazz Fest.
These guys are seriously pro but they’re creating this new side project sans Elvis (although Elvis Perkins in Dearland is still around), so they’re starting from scratch… I got to know these fine folks after they brought one of my bands, The Woes, on the road…
From an engineering perspective, I had a blast. We did basics to 1″ tape and I would freewheel dump into Pro Tools LE, where we would proceed to go nuts with overdubs…Tracking the drums to tape definitely got us going on the right track. I actually set it up so that we were able to compare the drum sounds on PT vs. Tape. Tape won all three times.
I would say these were the defining features of tracking to tape: less brittle, warmer on cymbals, snare pronounced much more, and the kick just booming. Sorry PT (my gut tells me tape would have still won if we were using a better converter than a 003)… I also got turned on to the Beyer-Dynamic M160 for just about everything. This is a hyper-cardioid ribbon mic, so very different from Royer or Coles. Found out it was a favorite of Hendrix’s and also was the lone drum mic infamously used at the top of the stairwell for Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks.” I used it as a single drum OH, vocal mic, and right on the grill of our guitar amps… You can get them for $300-$700.. Seriously, bang for your buck…
But from a production standing, what a wonderful experience. This band (Brigham Brough, Wyndham Garrett, Nick Kinsey, Mike Irwin, and the lovely Odetta) are such wonderful souls. Rightly intense about their creative ideas and egos checked at the door… Brigham, Wyndham, and Nick each had a song to track… and everyone was super supportive of each other’s track. I wish recording was always like this…
The best part was there was zero passive-aggressiveness in the studio. This is extremely rare. A lot of people come into the creative process with agendas and the like, but the only agenda this bunch had was to make music and have fun doing so.
I tell you all this because this is something we should all strive toward. I was very lucky to have this experience but you can too. If you let your guard down, surrender to the flow of music and creativity, then all sorts of thrilling possibilities can come about in the recording process. — Jesse Lauter
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Jesse Lauter is an American record producer who has worked with such acts as James Blood Ulmer, Ingrid Michaelson, Elvis Perkins,Marco Benevento, Smokey Hormel, The Miamis, The Woes, and Alana Amram & The Rough Gems. In 2008 he received critical acclaim for his recording of the Low Anthem’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and NPR. Since the release of the Low Anthem’s album Jesse has been featured in Mix and Tap-Op Magazines.
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