real strings...

A couple weeks ago my friends Ben Rosenbush and Faith Miller came in to the studio to add the beauty of real strings to the Tim Lemmens project. They played on four songs. Two of them I had done string arrangements for, which they just played and the other two were more improvised. I love the richness that strings bring to a song. These two came in and played all over the Caitlyn Smith album Face Over Heels and I just had to ask them back again. Tim was in the holy land for a couple weeks, came back and went full speed ahead into camp season and we will be reuniting next week to finish tracking. Hope to be done mixing in August. In the meantime I have been mixing the greycoats record and couldn't be more excited. More to come...

north... er, greycoats rather

The other album I am producing right now is a band called greycoats. Formerly known as North, the band called me up looking for someone to produce their project. They had recorded this album in it's entirety at another studio on their own and decided (after restructuring many of the songs) to take it again, this time with a producer. Since they are long time acquaintances of mine and have used me to record/mix other projects they have worked on it seemed to be a natural fit. Greycoats also found themselves in need of a bass player and I decided it was a good time in my life to step into a more serious performing group. The drums, Rhodes and piano were recorded back in January at a studio just four blocks from Two Pillars called Fur Seal. Back at Two Pillars Jon, the singer/guitarist has been tracking guitar and vocals, I tracked all the bass, their keyboard player, Titus came in and sorted through all the keyboard parts he laid down at Fur Seal and the drummer, Mike came in to play shakers, tambourine, and jingle bells. They have a song called "Spiritual," which needed some interesting rhythm tracks. We decided to record these tracks outside since it fit the feel of the song. Mike recorded the stamping of his feet on the pavement, banging a hammer on a metal pipe and dropping a handful of heavy chains on the ground in rhythm to the song. Since they had recorded many parts for the album already and wanted to utilize some of those tracks, Jon brought in a media disc filled with cello parts, marching bass drum, bells, accordion, clarinet and er-hu. The only problem was that the tempo changed on a couple of the songs. Since it was only off by 2-3 beats per minute I was able to time stretch the audio without changing the pitch and line them up. I am still surprised at how good it sounds after taking such an audio beating as time-stretching. Greycoats has more of a brit-rock feel. Imagine Morrisey singing Coldplay songs with the back up band of Sigur Ros, with the overall musical direction by Thom Yorke.

Tim Lemmens

I am in the process of producing two full records by two local artists. The first is a veteran of the Twin Cities music scene. His name is Tim Lemmens and his sound is inspired by the likes of Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Maroon5. We have been feverishly tracking everything part by part, which has allowed us to be quite picky about each musical moment that passes. His drummer Aaron and guitarist Mike both did a fantastic job. I laid down all the bass tracks and between Tim and myself we are adding various keyboard parts. I have these new API pre's that sound amazing especially combined with my two Distressors. I am finding it difficult to go to my other top notch pre's because the API's sound so pristine. The newness will undoubtedly wear off and I will give some time back to the other slightly jealous preamps. We have all the bed tracks laid and are currently and simultaneously doing Tim's vocals and adding other ear candy moments like synth, Wurlitzer electric piano, rhythmic loops, Rhodes, Hammond organ, pump organ, Casio keyboard drum beats, thumb piano, etc. Once these things are done we will focus on background vocals and the album will be ready to mix. The key ingredient to the recording success of this project is the monstrous upgrade to HD3. Good bye LE. You have run a good race but the inevitable has finally come to fruition.

Save the Cookie - part dva (that's two in Slovak)

My girlfriend and I just returned from Slovakia. It was one part vacation, one part work. On the vacation side of it we got to see Bratislava, Vienna and Prague. The Save the Cookie album "Phantastic" has been released all over Slovakia and we spent a couple days shooting a music video for the song "My Music." I was blown away by the quality, as it is easily comparable to any high-budget music video I have seen on this side of the pond. In the video I play a big record label executive and am signing a contract with them. As I push the contract towards them a gust of wind blows all the contract papers around the room. I freeze in time and the camera will circle around me (a la the Matrix) with the papers floating through the air. It was really fun to be a part of it. We also took some time in the studio to write a new song for their next record. The song is called Sugartown and after we finished writing it I produced Monika's vocals, like I did back in August when I was there last. We're going to keep writing music from opposite sides of the world and when they are ready to record again, Monika will either fly to America to work in my studio or I will return to Bratislava. Be sure to check out Save the Cookie at www.savethecookie.eu. Hopefully the video will be available soon on their site or on youtube.

Highway 61

We have had quite a wide range of music at two pillars lately. Last week we welcomed the bluegrass group Highway 61 into the studio for a five song demo. Bruce and I set up the majority of our mic collection to capture these guys playing in their element; all in one room together. The band consisted of four vocals, mandolin, guitar, banjo, upright bass and fiddle. In about five and a half hours this group kicked out some classic old-timey music and seemed to be thrilled with the end product. I enjoy stepping out of my comfort level to achieve great sounds for various styles and this was no exception. Another feather in the stylistic cap for two pillars.

filled with voices (and bodies!)...

Last week I was working on the Tiny Tree Triumph project and Brian wanted a choir of voices behind one part of the latest song "Flashlight." Several of our friends joined us and including myself we had six people singing. We multiplied our voices on several tracks so it sounded like a larger group than we really were. The background vocals turned out really great and I had to bring my camera in and snap a couple shots seeing as how this was the largest group I'd had in the studio at one time. That is... until yesterday. My partner, Bruce Balgaard, did a favor for his daughter Amanda and her Chamber Singers group and invited them in to the studio to record a whopping 23 a cappella songs. There were at one time eighteen high school students in the tracking room, easily beating the old record of six! It was really a treat to hear and capture the voices of these talented young singers in their element. We captured a beautiful natural reverb by sticking a couple of microphones out in the hallway. It sounded like they were singing in a large church. Nice to know the tracking room is big enough to record a vocal ensemble of eighteen and even nicer to know that the control room can hold the same eighteen for listening to the playback.

beginnings of a great thing

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My good friend Brett Mikkelson came in yesterday and began recording scratch tracks for his CD. Brett is a really gifted singer/songwriter and my soul connects with his music in profound ways. Our songwriting is quite similar making our collaboration on this recording even better. My expectation is that this project will be some of my best work. Check back in a couple of weeks to see the progress!