It took me quite a while to come to the point where I was ready to record New Chapter. On one level, I was prioritizing other commitments, focusing my energy on family, work, and daily life. Even when those commitments slowed, I had trouble getting past some personal hurdles, including my preconceptions around the process of recording.
Recording an album – or even an EP – seemed like a huge, overwhelming process. Each song was going to take days to record as we tracked each musician individually and then put that together in the studio. Then there were the overdubs – musicians would need to pick apart little bits of music and smooth the rough edges. Once the music was all perfect, I’d need to spend weeks working on auto tuning anything slightly off pitch, applying effects and plugins, all while adding automation, compression, and limiters. Honestly, it sounded like a nightmare.
I couldn’t figure out why this process bothered me so much. This is what everybody did when they recorded music. Why couldn’t I just get over myself and get it done? I struggled for a while and then it hit me – this process was going to lead to a product that I just didn’t want.
I love the humanity in jazz and I just didn’t want that to get swallowed up by studio technology. That human piece seemed contrary to the studio process valued in today’s society. So how was I going to capture the humanity in the music and still record in a modern studio? Well, I needed to look back upon the recording process and see how to best use the studio to capture the musical results that I desired.
After a little bit of analysis, I came to the conclusion that there are basically two ways to use the studio:
– You can put out some microphones to capture a live performance
– You can use the tools available in the studio to construct a piece of art from bits and pieces
Of course, there are shades of grey between these two use cases that open different possibilities. You could record a live performance and add elements through overdubbing. The music could be a collection of live performances, pieced together into a coherent whole. There are lots of possibilities, but they all start with these two options.
I leaned towards the first method when I was recording New Chapter; the trio was all in one room with microphones capturing the whole performance. We could hear each other in real time, feel the sound vibrations move across the room, and communicate on many levels. That was the humanity that I wanted the element that felt essential to the music.
This recording method gains the human factor, but it also raises the stakes in the session – if someone trips over a song section, then the group needs to record the whole song again. It creates a little pressure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We feel that pressure when we perform on stage, so it’s part of the experience that I wanted to capture.
It also means that we’re putting the myth of “perfection” aside and looking for a reflection of real life. While there were plenty of microphones to capture each instrument individually, we were all in the same room; this meant that there was sound from the room on each track. We couldn’t go back and “fix” little bits of music. Live performance always has little glitches, but they’re gone a moment after they happen. Once again, this felt like a reflection of real life and part of the aesthetic.
There were some grey areas in the process as I overdubbed my bass playing melodies on both “Starting Point” and “New Chapter”. Did that take away from the human element in the music? Maybe. There can only be one of me on stage and I created a virtual second Chip. There’s definitely a dip in the humanity there.
So why did I do that?
It fit the musical vision that I was trying to create. While I love laying down a groove, I also see the bass as a melodic instrument. I wanted to create a space where the bass could play the melody without loosing the rhythmic drive. That required two instances of bass. In this case, the ends justified the means
In the end, I’m glad that we recorded in this fashion; I feel like New Chapter captures the humanity that I wanted around that music. In fact, I’ll be heading back into the studio next week and we’ll be recording four more songs in the same way. I feel like moving into the future, this is the best way to record this group.
Would I want to produce an album using the second recording method? Heck yea. I love studio technology and utilizing it in a creative way sounds like tons of fun. The music would have to take a different direction for me though.
I think that the musical product should drive the recording process and inform our decisions about technology usage. If I were to utilize studio tools to piece together songs, I would want it to lean in the direction of popular music – those genres are defined by studio production. Art music – in particular jazz – thrives on human interaction and group mindset; this should be recorded live.
Today’s studio technology certainly opens a lot of possibilities and there’s a lot of information out there about how things should be done. That’s all good stuff and it deserves a certain amount of our attention. We should be aware of the possibilities so that we can make informed choices about our recordings.
That’s some advice I wish I had heard years ago – I feel like I would have leaped into this New Chapter of my musical journey much sooner!