By Kyle Sheaffer & Matt Mair Lowery Photos by Matt
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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? Sub Pop 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 The Shins debut album, 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 James Mercer, 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 Phil Ek. 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 New York City. 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.