Vicky Emerson sessions

I just finished a week of tracking Vicky Emerson and band. Vicky is a talented singer/songwriter originally from Minnesota but now makes her home in New York City. I was really excited for this project a couple months ago when we met for preproduction. Finally the week of tracking was upon us. We had a slight cast change, that was beyond our control, but the final lineup ended up being the perfect fit for this record. Tyler Burkum (Mat Kearney, Meiko, Wild Sweet Orange) played electric guitar and lap steel, Aaron Fabbrini (Sara Groves) played upright and electric bass and Steve Goold (Bill Mike Band, Jason Harms Quartet) played drums and percussion. One of my favorite moments from the session was for the song "Into the Woods." Wednesday after lunch we took a walk down by the Mississippi river and I rummaged through the brush collecting various branches, logs, sticks and leaves to create a loop for the guys to play to. We brought them in and Steve and I went to work creating an organic drum loop using these items.After the loop was recorded and assembled the guys went in and made magic happen. It sounded so good we decided to let them keep playing for an additional 3 minutes after the song was done. It turned out so cool we are trying to decide if we should just leave it all in tact and have a 7-1/2 minute song on the record. Why not, right?

The schedule for the week was pretty insane. We were only able to get 2 songs on day one. Vicky had a show at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and wasn't able to get to the studio until a little after 3pm, so it was a short day. Day two we ran into a few issues related to computer glitches and noisy neighbors. Another two song day, leaving six songs for our final day of tracking the band. (gulp). Day three came and we were able to knock out all six remaining songs! Then Thursday and Friday Vicky and I were able to track ten vocals and three piano takes. (whew! I get exhausted just typing it.)

It was a great week of recording.

(pictured below is Tyler Burkum. Aaron Fabbrini is behind the glass door with his upright bass)

three-in-one

Yesterday we kicked out the bed tracks for an up and coming artist named Beth Roesch. Beth has a sound that is influenced by some of the finer female singer songwriters of our day. Songwriters like Patty Griffin and Sara Groves, of whom she is a huge fan. So she was really excited when I told her that her backup ensemble for the tracking would be none other than Sara's band. Aaron Fabbrini played bass, Zach Miller played drums and I played electric guitar (okay, so I am not in her band but I used to be, so that sort of counts...) These guys are incredible studio musicians, bring tons of ideas, ample gear (Aaron even brings his own Telefunken preamp and Tube-Tech compressor!) and an unbelievable amount of passion and care. We will finish up these three tunes and when Beth is able to schedule more time, we'll hit another three. Ultimately resulting in a full record.


A few days ago, my very good friend Jason Gray called for some help on a song for his new record. He has been working with award winning producer Jason Ingram for this record and the tracks that I have heard sound pretty amazing. I am so excited to hear the rest of it. There was one song that still needed a little tlc and asked me to help. It was a dark but hopeful song that simply says; "could it be that everything sad is coming untrue." They had pushed for it to be a simple acoustic and vocal song to place at the tail end of the record. Jason had really hoped it could grow into something bigger, more emotive. With that kind of direction I added a big marching bass drum, piano, electric guitar and my friend Ben Rosenbush (pictured) who came in to work on mixes for his upcoming album (more on that later) got roped into playing cello on it. All in all I think the additional parts really helped the song and I am once again happy to be involved in another Jason Gray project.


Last week Ebony Jefferson came in to record a song called "Life Alone." Steve Goold made yet another appearance in my studio to play drums and a fantastic job he did. Ebony has a very soulful singing voice and has met up with a co-writer in Ben (pictured to the left) whose songwriting style is (in my humble opinion) a cross between Audioslave and Lenny Kravitz. Her voice blended with his writing style is a pretty cool combination. Ben brought in a Les Paul studio and an old Marshall half stack. I had to think whether I have actually recorded an old Marshall half stack before and came up with a solid no. These aren't as popular as they once were so my chances of tracking them have been limited in recent years. However, I totally understand why they were such a go-to amp in the studio at one time. Such a dark, meaty, trashy tone! That guitar/amp combination worked really well in this track. Eventually I will make links to these artists myspace pages once the songs are mixed and uploaded.

continuing with Faith

Faith Udeh won a band competition and one of the prizes was 20 hours of recording at Winterland Studios. I have worked there before. They have a beautiful API Legacy plus console in their control room that still has the drool marks from my last visit. Steve and Justin and I were back at it, this time capturing two more bed tracks on day one. Then day two we finished up Faith's vocals and I added a bunch of sweetener keyboard and omnichord parts. The bass I used for this session was borrowed from my friend Aaron Fabbrini. It is a hallow-body Guild Starfire bass and it sounds huge. For one of the songs I ran it through an auto-wah pedal and it gave it the perfect growl for that tune. One of my favorite things about visiting other studios is see how they do things and learn from it. This time I figured out how to wire up a small speaker from a studio monitor to make it a kick drum microphone that only hears the sub-frequencies. I had an old Yorkville monitor in my garage so I built my own and will be trying it out on a project today. In the top photo to the right (the drummer photo) you will see such a speaker mounted to a mic stand. Below is the speaker/mic I made in my studio.

Faith Udeh - rock hop?

Faith Udeh has been in the studio this week. She is a hip-hop artist that has several songs that have a pretty aggressive rock edge to them. We are taking this project one song at a time until we get an entire album done.

For this session we brought in Steve Goold to play drums (he was pretty excited about his newly updated toms for his Risen acrylic kit) and Justin Sharbono to play electric guitar. I sat in on bass and quickly remembered that I get a little overwhelmed when I play multiple roles (player, engineer AND producer). It can be difficult to watch all the meters, keep your ear attuned to what everyone is playing and simultaneously remember all your own parts as a player. We got the sounds pretty quickly, which tends to happen when you have players and gear of this caliber. Luckily for me my new friend Dan Deurloo dropped by to see the studio, so he sat in the captains chair and manned the button-pushing while I wore my bass player hat for a little while.

Last week I was explaining to Faith the phenomenon that hiring professional musicians to record on a project winds up being cheaper in the long run. Simply due to the fact that they bring a ton of skill, great musical minds, incredible knowledge of their instrument and a wide range of gear with them to the session. For instance, if Steve comes in to do a full record with me, he will bring up to 9 different snare drums and several cymbal combinations. For this one song with Faith, Justin brought in 2 distinctively different colored amplifiers made by ÷13 (both visually and soncially!). One that is a dead ringer for a Vox AC30 and the other sounds like a beefy Marshall. We ended up running them simultaneously for a pretty monstrous guitar tone. He also had 3 electric guitars with varying tones. All that combined with much experience in the studio means better ideas in less time and better takes, ultimately resulting in less hours of editing.

Faith will come in and nail down her performances, I will finish adding any sweetener parts and we will be ready to mix! In the mean time I have been working on mixes for two albums that I am thrilled with, Brett Mikkelson and Ben Rosenbush. I will update the blog when they are finished.

CD Release Concert

I haven't posted anything in a while. Mainly because the studio work I have been doing is mostly mixing, which doesn't make for cool photos. Last night, however, I played with Elizabeth Hunnicutt and a band of fantastic musicians (all of whom played on her CD) for her release party. The night went really well, there was a crowd that must have numbered about five-hundred and I had a record amount of instruments at one gig. Pictured below is me sitting in my musicubicle. At one point Liz said something about me having 20 instruments back there, so I counted... 10! Here is a list of what I played last night.

1. Hammond B3
2. Fender Rhodes electric piano
3. Yamaha CP70 piano
4. Yamaha S03 synth
5. glockenspiel
6. lap steel
7. dobro
8. accordion
9. mandolin
10. metal shaker

I can't imagine ever breaking this record. It was a really great show and I hope that Elizabeth sells truckloads of CD's.

Pedal Steel

Now that Elizabeth's project is done I am able to put all of my focus on an album I have been working on for far too long of a time. Brett Mikkelson (Brett Tyler is apparently still in the running...) has been more than gracious through all of my transition time into the new studio and finishing up some other projects. We have made some serious headway in recent weeks. This particular week we were honored to have Joe Savage in to play pedal steel on most of Brett's album. Joe is simply one of the best this town has to offer. A regular player on A Prairie Home Companion and also sits in with several of the Twin Cities finest groups. Joe is the kind of player that can give you so many great parts to work with that it is literally difficult to sift through them. Each part is played with precision, great thought and with accuracy, all on one of the worlds most difficult instruments to play. Truly an honor to have him at the Library to add his beautiful skill to an album I will listen to over and over after it is finished.

The Final Additions to the Hunnicutt album

The Elizabeth Hunnicutt album is finished! It was mastered yesterday and it turned out great. One of my personal favorite moments while tracking was adding vibraphone to a few of the tunes. I have gotten to know John, Steve and Chan of the New Standards, who rehearse across the hall. Steve let me borrow his beautiful vibraphone one evening and I spent a couple hours coming up with parts. I had hoped to be able to add vibes to the album but wasn't holding my breath. It suddenly worked out and I am so glad. It added a really nice element to this already beautiful batch of songs. I will now be moving onto some mixes for a couple other projects and hitting the long awaited Brett Tyler album.