Did the thieves take the 001? They did. But, I think I’m going to buy a Mac. It would have made going and working with Phil a lot easier if I had had all Mac-based Pro Tools files. We had some trouble switching from PC to Mac. Not a huge amount, but enough to where it’s like, “Why do I care about being on a PC?” I think for a while I was loyal to the PCs because I thought they were more the workingman’s computer. How did you hook up with Phil? commissioned him to come out and record a live thing in Seattle so they could have extra shit to sell. So by Kyle Sheaffer we met through that and then met him & Matt Mair Lowery several times later and he called me a few times. He kind of solicited the photos by Matt relationship, in a way. He’s just an easy-to-work-with guy and we got I started recording it when I had a Hewlett Packard debut , Oh, Inverted along real well. He helped us a lot. That’s the other Pavilion, one of those little ones, with Cool Edit Pro. World, is a testament to the power of thing about the new record. There’s a lot of vocal The computer had a really slow processor. Then I home recording. A band with great songs captures overdubs and stuff and on a few of the songs that bought a Gina sound card that was 16-bit. So, some those songs using the gear they can afford and were actually recorded up there, and we got to use of the songs were recorded with that. Halfway manipulates the recording process to turn technical this Telefunken mic, like $11,000 microphone. The through I bought a 24-bit Digital Audio Labs limitations to their advantage. For their second release, LM something [ELAM 251], the freaking wickedest soundcard, and I also bought this Rode NT-1 mic, Chutes Too Narrow, the band, led by , returned mic ever, so there’s that on the record as well, going which blew my mind. I’d read a couple reviews of it to the basement with more experience and some better through an API board. And the record was mixed and was impressed, then bought it. And this is how gear. They also spent some time at Avast! Recording Co. in entirely through all separate channels on an API amateurish I was: When I bought the NT-1, I also Seattle with engineer . We sat down with James board, which helped vastly, I think. bought an XLR cable. You know what I mean? I did after he had returned from tour only to find that his house Who mastered it? not own one before that. I put that thing on my and home studio had been broken into. [Emily Lazar at] The Lodge in . computer and I was absolutely shocked at how quiet Did you go there for that? There’s a big sonic difference between it was. I mean, I thought that something about my No. There was just too much stuff going on. I would Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too computer was making all that noise. That there was have enjoyed doing that, but at the same time by Narrow. Was this an aesthetic decision, no way to prevent it, because I was like, “What am then I was so fucking burnt on the record. If I’d had or just the outcome of different gear? I doing, it’s just this mic, this SM 57 plugged into six months or a month to sit on it I could have done Well, it was an aesthetic decision. I think one of the this thing,” you know. Also, I did use a Roland VS- that, but we had to get it done immediately. reasons I used so much reverb and delay and stuff 840, the very first Roland digital recorder. It was a When you were mixing with Phil, like that on the first record was because you can 6-track. So I used that for the drums. Then I would did you find that you had a kind of hide a bad-sounding mic with reverb. You transfer them onto my HP one track at a time - I had different style than when you can make it sound a lot cooler. So I knew right away to manually sync them all up. I had to run it through were working by yourself? that when I was done with that record, if I could get the card that only had two inputs. Yeah. I bury the vocals and I don’t think that’s some money I would buy some better preamps. I The NT-1 is what, $200? necessarily a good thing. I’m shy about my vocals didn’t have any real preamps - I was running Yeah, I think they were like $250 when I bought that. being loud, and I think you can hear that on the through a Mackie board. Sometimes I was just But they sound really good in comparison to a SM first record. I think there are a lot of benefits we got running directly into the computer. So I bought the 57 with a guitar-type, unbalanced cable. out of working with Phil. He’s not afraid to have the UA 6176 and the HHB Radius 10, and I think that So how did the new record come together? mix expose certain things once in awhile. made a huge difference. And I have a couple of Rode I’ve been working on probably 30 songs over the last Did you learn a lot from Phil? mics now, and an [AKG] 414 that made a huge two years. I decided to pick ten of those and work I did. He knows that I’m interested in recording and he difference sonically, I think. I was able to just not on them, finish up the writing process and record enjoys talking about it. I learned some of the little hide behind the reverb as much. So those were the them. We began recording probably two months tricks that he uses. I learned about reamping snares changes and they were sort of half practical, half an before we ended up going up and working with Phil and things like that. aesthetic choice. Like, I have a good acoustic guitar, at Avast! A few of the songs were just done, On both records, there are a lot of bold you know, and if you can record it nicely, it sounds recorded entirely in the basement, using the sounds. Is there a conscious decision good just by itself. So I think that’s where we’re at equipment I bought, which also included a Digi 001. to do these, or do they just happen? now. It sounds pretty good. So I worked with Pro Tools, switching back and forth I think I wanted to have that. I wanted to be We’ve read a few conflicting reports between Cool Edit Pro and Pro Tools. I like the aggressive a little bit. I wanted to get a little more about how Oh, Inverted World was effects in Cool Edit Pro, so I ended up using those a rock in the mix. I wanted to be a little more dynamic recorded. Could you give us the lot. I actually have a sponsorship with Cool Edit Pro with this record. definitive story? now. They send me stuff. When those guitars come in on “Kissing It usually plays a pretty big part on some of the songs at Yeah, but as much as I can I have the other guys do The Lipless” it’s very cool. least. I often will loop parts and, like, I edited like that stuff. The guys I work with are real good in my A lot of that distortion is the Pro Tools distortion. I crazy up at Avast! on the Pro Tools stuff. That song opinion. Marty always comes up with really cool thought it worked pretty well. With my Super Reverb “Turn A Square”, when we went up there it was about melodies for the keyboards. There’s a few times sitting there sounding awesome to my ear and then a six minute song, and it ended up being like three where I’ll guide him in some direction, but a lot of mic’ing it with the 414 or NT-2, even padded down minutes or something. And that was me editing and times he’ll just come up with something I never a bit, I wasn’t able to get that really nice, full, editing and editing over the course of a couple days would have thought of that’s just brilliant. And Dave distorted amp sound. But recording it like that and while we were messing with that song. So yeah, I is great as well. adding a little bit of distortion digitally really used Pro Tools to edit the entire song. And it’s a little Have you done any recording via the seemed to help. One thing I learned was that I was easier to do that in Pro Tools than in Cool Edit Pro. postal service, like sending tapes to overdriving the preamp when I shouldn’t be. You I haven’t used Cool Edit Pro yet. Marty in New Mexico? lose a lot of dynamics and you lose a lot of It’s a great program. It’s really intuitive. It comes with No. We talked about doing that, but you know, Jesse lives headroom, I guess, and I learned that on this record. tons of crazy-ass effects that you can tweak in all up here, so we would record the main stuff, guitar and Headroom was something I came to understand on directions, really extremely. So if you sit there long drums, and I’d sing a little bit even for scratch vocals, this record just through experimentation. enough with any of the effects you can find something and then Marty can come up and do a keyboard part The string part on “Saint Simon” is cool. It’s almost bad, because you spend the whole to go over it and do it in like 15 minutes. great. How did that come together? time fucking with everything. One of my favorite You have so many interesting sounds The melody I had in my head, so what would that be, effects in there is the “convolution” effect. In some on your records. I have to know, arrangement? The arrangement I guess. Then we had weird way it reminds me of a vocoder. But what you what is the “schwing” on “One By somebody [Annemarie Ruuljancich] come in and can do is go into a room, like a church, and snap your One All Day”? play the violin. I have a violin and I did some half- fingers, give it a precise bam, and it will listen to the It’s an auto harp, with some Cool Edit distortion and assed violin stuff on the first record that’s barely reverb. And it will take that and apply it. So you can probably stereo delay. I discovered stereo delay audible. But yeah, we had someone come in that use it to create your own reverbs, and it will apply about halfway through recording that record, too. I was great. I had this idea to have these harmonies those reverbs to whatever sound you bring into it. But lost my mind. It was like, “Oh my god! That’s how going on and she was able to do that. It worked out then you can do totally weird shit like go [makes you get that sound.” It sounds big. It sounds like it’s pretty well. That was recorded in Seattle. whirring noise] into the mic and put that as the file actually in the room. I put 11ms to the left or Are the voices on that part all yours? you’re going to refer everything to. And then you play something and I was thrilled. I was buzzing for three Yeah, I can sing like a girl. I remember once early on the bass or something, apply that, and it’s like [makes days. Like, “Holy shit, I’m going to put this on every when I was recording with the 4-track, I recorded whirring bass noise]. So on “Sphagnum Esplanade”, a single track.” And I didn’t know that you can cause something and I showed it to my dad and he was song I did, it has a really washy, weird sort of bass, and destructive interference that way, but you learn. like, “You sound like a girl.” [laughter] But my dad’s I used convolution to get that. It makes a regular bass What is that ambient stuff at the a wonderful guy and he’s the biggest Shins fan. guitar sound like some weird-ass synth thing. beginning of “Caring Is Creepy”? So when you started out, in Flake and Do you play a lot of the instruments Yeah, I’m whistling and… I can’t remember what I was then when you started The Shins, yourself? doing there. There’s some chiming thing going on… you were recording on a 4-track… In Flake we never recorded ourselves. We would do that stupid thing, at least in Albuquerque it’s a stupid thing, where you go into a studio owned buy a couple of old heshers who love to fucking put gated reverb on the snare. It was just mortifying. Horrible. You’d go in like, “Oh, we want to sound like Superchunk,” or something else that we liked back then, Pavement, or anything cool. But god, it was just miserable and you’d spend so much money, and they’d tell you you were just crazy. So I decided to buy a cassette 4-track, and I liked the way it sounded way better than that crappy fucking Garth Brooks sound you’d get out of the studios in Albuquerque. We used to be so frustrated with that. And you’re kind of on your own there. You don’t realize you can record yourself. It was only after I bought the 4- track, and even after I bought and started working on the computer, and I got Tape Op and I was like, “This is what I’m trying to do, this is my magazine.” Do you have a piece of gear that you can’t live without? Right now I’m in love with that UA deal [6176], just because of the way the compression sounds. It sounds like an old record, I guess, which I really like.

P That Rode NT-2 is my favorite mic - I love it. O What part does recording play in your

APE songwriting process? T 28/29 The Creative Music Recording Magazine continuedcontinued on on the the next next page>>> page>>> How long did you spend recording each The computer is huge to me because you can alter of the ? everything. Nothing is permanent. It’s so infinite and The first one, at a really leisurely pace, took a year. I there is so much less pressure to nail it. I perform would mess around with different ideas. I’d spend a better under less pressure. You are on your own month on a song and just kept messing around with schedule. The next record I want to do the drums with it. Record maybe two days a week. About six months Phil, I think, and use that super nice stuff. I think into it, we got signed to Sub Pop, and then I started that drums really need that technical ear, and also the getting more serious about it. I was still working on ability to know what the problem is when you are it three months before the record was released. The hearing a bad drum sound. I don’t have that. I just new record was probably a total of three months. sit there and think that the snare sounds bad. I don’t That is including the two weeks we spent up in know why. “Is it my mic? Is something broken?” Then Seattle mixing, recording some overdubs, and it ends up being that the snare wasn’t tuned right or recording some songs with Phil. something like that. Drums for me have been a Did things change for you getting problem. By the end of Chutes Too Narrow I had a signed half way through an album? greater understanding of recording drums. I learned Well, suddenly I had a deadline. I don’t know why. How that tuning is a huge part of getting good sounds many years has Sub Pop been around? And we’ve recorded, which I didn’t realize. It sounds okay when never been signed, why do they need it right away? you are just smacking the damn thing, but you need But they did, of course. They start planning shit and to tune it for recording. So, I could have these basic you are only part of the plan. Halfway through they tracks from these new songs done with Phil. Then I are like, “Great, you’ve got seven songs. We need at could take them home and do what I did with Oh, least four more.” And I think those are the songs on Inverted World, which was sit and mess with overdubs. that record that I like the best, like “Caring Is Creepy”. With the added confidence that I have now and the That was one of those songs that they said, “We need better equipment, I won’t have to use as many effects another song,” and it’s one of my favorites. and it will be the perfect compromise of this record Did you feel comfortable working so and the first record. much faster on Chutes Too Narrow? So what do you do when you are not I felt less comfortable because it just wasn’t at my pace. recording? I was pressuring myself to get the record out. I felt I play a lot of guitar and write songs. I play every day that two years was about the max before you want and I just play around with parts and come up with to put out another record. Yeah, you know, the melodies. I can’t seem to escape that. That and pressure of the sophomore album. gardening are the two things I do that I’ve always I read that you’re a big Echo & The done. I’ve been gardening since I was 12. I’ve always Bunnymen fan. Are there some other been into that. But my yard is fucked right now records that you love as far as sounds? because I’ve been gone for a month on tour. Oh yeah, Ocean Rain, it’s brilliant. I love that dearly. I Have you ever thought of recording or love U2’s War. I love the sounds on that record. producing other bands? Drum-wise, I love the sound of Outlandos d’Amour by Yeah, I’ve thought about it. I know I could do a good The Police, the drums I think are just awesome on job, but I need to take my time with it. I’m still that record. That was an inspiration to me, hearing learning. I think that something a reader of Tape Op those drums when I was growing up. The Cure have could get from an interview with me would be some wonderfully recorded and produced stuff. I encouragement. I really know so little about love Boys Don’t Cry. recording, and I’m learning as I go. Maybe this is Any other thoughts? only true with a computer, but if you spend enough I love recording. I love how it is this weird attempt to time with it and mess with things, you have so many recreate reality, or synthesize reality, or maybe a parameters that you can alter, you can make stuff combination of the two. You can do a good job, just sound good. And you don’t have to have some hesher being someone with an attention to detail and the telling you that you fucking suck. [in hesher voice] energy and foresight to work at it. But this idea of “You got to have a snappy kick. It’s got to have that recording and writing music and playing in a band is fuckin’ punch, bro.” [laughter] r not an all-consuming thing with me. I do get www.subpop.com/bands/shins obsessed when I get on a project. But when I’m not www.darkcoupon.com recording, I don’t think about recording. I don’t read Kyle & Matt run Studio Neal in Portland. catalogs and learn about new gear at all. It’s when I www.pdxbands.com/studioneal have a problem. It’s, “Oh shit, this doesn’t sound right, what can I get to make this sound right?” That’s when I become curious about what else is out there, what can I get or buy to make this sound right. But www.tapeop.com basically, the reason that I record myself is that I’m free subscriptions online! not a proficient enough musician to be comfortable going into a studio and having a week to record an album. I have gotten a lot better at my instrument, but it’s the comfort of being able to mess with things.