I got into New York on Friday 14th. It's good to be back. It's the greatest city on the planet.
Our apartment is like a time capsule. Everything is where it was 8 months ago. Nigel was the last to stay there back in November. He had left a life size toy sheep as a thankyou. Thoughts of Gene Wilder sprang to mind. She would keep me company during the coming lonely nights. I say she but there was really no way of telling.
I met Emery and we ate at Lil Frankies on 1st and 1st then wandered back. Bumped into my neighbour Regina so we all sat and drank some whiskey and caught up on building news and general blah blah.
On Saturday morning, I rode my bicycle to the studio, master reel strapped to the front rack, back up reel strapped to the rear rack. Emery was waiting when I arrived. I hadn't considered how odd I looked until Emery started laughing.
The masters were handed to Noah our studio assistant, and he got to work setting it all up.
Emery soon began mixing Chinese Blues. Simply pushing the faders up, no EQ, it sounded great. I went out for a wander and let him get on with it. When I returned afew hours later, he had finished.
I asked just out of interest, to hear the monitor mix. That is, the mix that we had done in RAK studios when we recorded and my suspicions were confirmed. The RAK mix had the edge... it seemed less refined, more ballsy, rough, but still super hi-fi. Emery agreed.
Sometimes this happens when the monitor mixes have that extra something. We put the mix onto 1/4 inch tape anyways and made a version with no vocals incase some tv station is looking for a mime :) or maybe we go into the kareoke business...
Next track up was J. Smith so Noah set it up so we could start first thing in the morning. It was a long first day. We left the studio and wandered downtown. It was SO cold. I only brought a wee thin jacket. Diddy!
When I arrived at the studio today Emery was already tearing into J. Smith.
This song is, for me, where the whole record turned a corner during the writing process. It came from a riff I played whilst trying out a guitar pedal, sitting on the bust up old sofa in the vintage and rare guitar shop in Denmark Street, London.
I had picked up a Fender Telecaster copy and had it going through a little practise amp to test some pedals. The first thing played was the riff that became J. Smith. It came from nowhere. The strange thing was, I knew immediately these chords were important in some way. They came exactly as they appear in the song, in order and rythmn.
A week later I got delivery of a new Vox AC30 amplifier. It sounded awesome. The first thing I played was the chords from vintage and rare a week before. They sounded even better. When Neilly arrived I played the chords and he played along and instantly played the pattern. It is the best drum line neilly has ever done. Then during this, Dougie came in. As he was pulling on his bass, I heard a melody in my head that sounded like it would make a great vocal. It came with the lines ..."theres a man on the street and he da da da dee from his window..." so I jumped across the room and started the protools rig recording through the couple of mics we had up around the room, incase I forgot anything. Dougie then picked up the bass line like he'd been practising it all week yet he hadn't heard this ever. It was weird. With the bass and drums locked in, the rest of the song began to roll out, lyrics and all.
Andy arrived in the middle of this and casually switched his amp on and sat listening for a couple of minutes before doing his first screetch on guitar, kind of Jimmy Hendrix vibe, sparse then picking it up with some really gentle arrpegio to later unleash the beast that has been locked away since the solo of All I Want To Do Is Rock.
The song kind of wrote itself after that...My favourite line is "...and he swears at the sun and he curses the moon for his shadow". There isn't a bit of fat on the song. Every note, every beat, is perfect.
Back to the mix and within a couple of hours Emery was done. We asked the studio manager, Lee to come and have a listen. He looked dumbstruck. "Can I hear that again...it's awesome..."
Such alot happens in this song in a very short space of time. The main body of the song is 2 and a half minutes and the outro takes it to 3 minutes... and it leaves everyone that has heard it with the same puzzled face. Luke from the Kooks said it was mental. Paul McCartney said it sounded like nothing else we had done.
The title came about whilst driving through the fog towards Stanstead airport one Saturday morning a couple of days after it was written. I was thinking the song is about a guy, a nameless guy. What could I call him...I wondered where Bowie had got Ziggy Stardust from, I wondered who this character could be. What was his story. As the mist cleared I realised the best name to give him was the most mundane, common name possible. So he was christened J. Smith and as the song is about him, it too got saddled with that name. To name our most elaborate almost dare I say proggy song to date with the most run of the mill name is quite cool I think.
The album is called Ode To J. Smith partly giving a heads up to the key song and partly because all the songs are written about nameless characters or to nameless characters.
Anyways the mix rocked. The next song up... Something Anything.
Just a quick timescale check. The first mix session was three days long, going from Saturday the 15th of March till Monday the 17th.
Day 1 saw Emery plough through Chinese Blues and make a start on J. Smith. Day 2 had him finishing J. Smith and moving swiftly onto Something Anything. Still on day 2, he finished Something Anything and began the mix on Long Way Down.
By the start of day 3, Long Way Down had a couple of hours left of fiddling, then Friends came next and was completed at 7pm.
We only came out on this first mix session to do Chinese Blues and J. Smith but Emery got on a roll and so we just went with it.
So...to Something Anything... generally when the mix is happening, there's not much for me to do so I go for walks and run errands. Today I went to Macy's for underwear...I absolutely adore lace (Joke) and Urban Outfitters for some jeans.
I also travelled over to the lower east side to a spectacle shop called Fabulous Fannys on a tip off from one of the boys from Grizzly Bear (fantastic band on WARP, their latest album Yellow House is beautiful) I bought a nice set of clear frames. Then I met my friend Josh and his daughter Harper. She is very cute. Josh shot and directed the video for 3 Times And You Lose. I love this video.
Anyways we wandered back to the studio and showed them about. Harper stood, gazing, hypnotised by the large bank of flashing lights before her. You could tell she was one computation away from twiddling and pressing all the buttons but Josh distracted her and she wandered off.
The mix of Something Anything was banging. It's the shortest song on the record at just over 2 minutes...maybe 2 and a half. Andy's guitar solo is off the scale. He screams into the final chorus like his life depends on it. Exhilarating.
This is Andy's most accomplished Travis record to date. From the delicate arpeggio of Friends to the howling clatter of Before You Were Young and everything in between, he nails it. And nails it in single takes and live takes to 16 track analog tape... no tricks.
Get your air guitars ready people.
After Something Anything it's time for Long Way Down. More of that later.
I wandered to the studio today in a daze. Man it was cold. New York City weather can be harsh. Those avenues are like wind tunnels. I only brought a little jacket with me so the walk is painful.
Emery was finishing Long Way Down when I got in. It sounded amazing. He was about to "put it down" when I asked, just to be safe, could I hear the monitor mix.
"Put it down" means transfer the mix to 1/2 inch tape. Once it's on 1/2 inch, the mix is over. You are puting the mix to bed. It's forever. Never to be tampered with again unless you are asked to revisit the mix on the classic album show :)
The significance of tape at this point is huge. Tape is physical, and, unlike the digital universe we find ourselves increasingly sucked into each day, it has a certain depth which just cannot be matched by anything other than tape. Like darkroom photography and digital photography, the difference is so subtle, yet no digital camera will ever recreate the richness of film.
Digital is zeros and ones imitating, and anolog is physical. When you hit tape it is solid and, if you get the right tape machine it sounds amazing.
Soooo Emery was just about to put it to bed when I asked to hear the monitor mix. As with Chinese Blues, the monitor mix of Long Way Down had something that this desk couldn't give us. Emery agreed, so we put the monitor mix onto 1/2 inch tape and that was that.
We had already decided that the monitor mix of Broken Mirror was perfect so we moved straight on to Friends.
This was an interesting one because of the way it came about. More tomorrow
Not sure if Dougie went into any details about this but Friends was hard to record. The first attempt was marred with late night jitters. We were all tired and I think because we had recorded a heavier song before, playing this delicate arrangement was impossible so we called it a night and agreed to come back to it the next day.
24 hours later we were all ready. There was room for 3 takes on the reel. At the end of the 3 takes, if we didn't think we had the one, we rewound and started over with another three goes. It took 2 lots to get a take we were all happy with.
We came in and listened. It was agreed that 2 of the takes were really strong and we would likely take the first part of one and edit it together with the second half of the other. They seemed to have the same tempo so the edit would work. However we left the edit for another day and moved on with tracking (tracking means recording a song)
A couple of days later, Emery dumped the 2 takes onto the computer to do the edit. Emery said there was very little between the two takes and that we wouldn't need to do the edit, instead just choose one.
As a joke I said to him put one take the left speaker and one on the right speaker. This shouldn't work. It should have all been out of time, as we didn't play to a click. But when we played it back, miraculously it was all in time and only began jiggling about at around the one minute mark. Emery corrected this and it only flammed a couple more times.
After correcting these, the two takes were nearly identical. It sounded mental. 2 drum kits, 2 bass guitars, 2 lead guitars and 2 rhythm guitars, 2 vocals all playing together...
We took out one of the vocals and made one of Andys guitars more dominant but apart from this it was left as is. So when you hear this song and you want to hear two different takes of the same song just disconnect whichever speaker you don't want to hear and you'll get a full take coming through.
Today Emery did a great mix. I don't think I have heard of an entire song being double tracked in this fashion so it could be a first. This was the last song to be mixed on this session. Not bad going. Because we used 16 track, it makes everything alot quicker in the mix.
1/2 way.
ohhhyyyeeesssss.
I flew into New York on a Delta flight from Berlin a little over a week ago. This is the final push.
Monday Morning- I ventured to the art store on Bond Street to gather some pens and some art material for a doodle I was planning to do while Emery was mixing.
I arrived at the studio round 11. Emery was there. He got straight into he mix. Get Up. At the root of this song is a very strong rhythm track comprising of a very simple drum beat and 2 riffing bass guitars. We used my angle poise lamp instead of a ride cymbal and Neilly rapped on the wooden shell of the kick drum to great effect. The vocal for this was a sticking point at the RAK session so today I'd have to sing. Nice.
The mix process throughout this record has been swift. Like I said many decisions made at the source point of recording help speed up the mixing process.
While Emery twiddles, I get down to some drawing, cutting and colouring in. He looks over occassionally to inspect my progress. The piece of card I draw on has to be measured and divided up into many different sections so that it all hangs together. I messed up the measurements by a couple of millimeters and the whole this was out so I had to start again... This was annoying as I'd spent 2 hours and had to erase much of it.
By 3pm, Emery has the mix up to a point where I can have a go at singing. The sticking points in RAK were some quite high notes which sound like a bad impersonation of Cilla Black... All the vocals on this album are very live.
We spent alot of hours on previous albums comping some uber vocals together but I really felt that, while this process results in some quite perfect performances, this time around we needed to attempt wherever possible full vocal takes and then drop in to correct glitches. This, again comes straight from the day we spent with Geoff Emerick recording the Beatles song Lovely Rita for a documentary.
The RAK vocal for Get Up was great, aside from the Cilla moments. I really felt though, I could make it better.
After 3 takes we had the one. I had a break and a drink of some hot water, then went back in and did some heavy negative Cilla moves which did the trick.
Emery mixed for another hour on the vocal EQ and the sound of the rhythm track and then it was done. Ahhhhhh...
Emery started Quite Free on Tuesday and it was pretty rocking by lunchtime.
At some stage in the day Ryan Adams popped his head in to say hi. He looked dapper. Ryan lives not far from the studio. We chatted about this and that and then I played him J. Smith. It floored him and he was still remarking on it as he left. Nice man.
My art work was coming on. I had completed the drawing part of it the day before and was now halfway through the colouring.
I had to get some super thin technical pens to make it sharp at the tricky parts. Colouring in was making me dizzy. Emery liked what he saw. As did Noah. Noah is our assistant engineer. I will try and get a picture. Emery took afew. He has them on his camera.
Anyways, by tea time, Quite Free was perfect. The snare drum was cracking and the music was sounding huge.
Alot of tension in this track which is released at the eventual chorus. Another wee thing to look out for on this record is the played silences.
Usually when a musician pauses during a take the space between the action is muted in the mix. We deliberately made a point to keep all these silences, so at times you can hear Andy positioning his fingers for his next lick or you can hear me sighing or hear Dougie laughing. There were a couple of coughs that sounded shit and were removed but scrutinizing this record with headphones will uncover some lovely moments. With very few overdubs, you will essentially be hearing us in a room just playing like you always hear us at shows except it doesn't sound like this( it sounds quite amazing) but be assured that this is what you'll be hearing.
The 16 track tape machine and the API desk along with the amazing mics we use and Emerys P Diddy tricks (Yes...he cut his teeth at Daddy's House) make it sound more than just 4 people playing in a room. It sounds like a record.
It's the new Travis record and with each finished mix it is becoming more apparent that we are in a new area. It's the hardest thing, living in the shadow of the big hits. You have to sit it out though and at some point you will emerge into some kind of new light. This is what it feels like.
Annnnyways, it's really exciting to be here and to know that we are but days from finishing the mix. With Quite Free safely onto 1/2 inch tape, we move on to the last 3 songs.
Last Words. Dougie brought this song to the band during the writing sessions.
This was one of the first songs we tackled. Really fantastic chord progression in the verse though it lacked a bridge which we wrote on the spot and the chorus which had "Last wooords''at its core sort of expanded when we started playing it. The opening lines are some of the best lyrics Dougie has ever come up with.
"Try to shine a light into the dark, Corners of your mind and of your heart..." Then he said that he was unsure of the next line but it was the best bit "Find out what you're carrying around...Things you can't rember having found"
Beautiful.
In the developement of the song, as we ran through it in the rehearsal room, I changed the line "corners of your mind and of your heart" to "corners of the mind and of the heart"...I think there seemed like to many "oo" sounds...or maybe the use of "the" widened the idea to take in everyone or something or maybe "the" was a shorter 1 syllable word than the longer "your" Who know's but Dougie is gracious with this, and lets me fiddle with the lyrics. Danke D.
Anyways this sounds like it could be a single... When D played it to me, I picked up the banjo as it was the nearest guitar to hand and played along... it gave the songs a looseness and when Andy came in, he played this crazy riff over the top that sounded like a roosters wake up call. This led to another astounding guitar solo later on. Neilly did this cool little fill at the top which really grabs the attention and the groove is just super laid back and the bassline would make James Jamerson weep.
We nailed it in the studio too. Sally Herbert, who did the strings to Slideshow and Battleships, came in with her husband Ian and did a brilliant string arrangement.
And Emery's mix really sealed the deal.
Song To Self was a fragment of an idea that was hanging around for a while. Deriving from the term "note to self". It's a big balls out rocker that we thrashed to pieces in the studio. The cool thing about it is it changes up after every section. Intro, Verse, Chorus, Middle 8, Chorus, instrumentalbreak and final chorus followed by a very short outro.
I remember listening back to the take we decided to use and thinking it sounded like there were loads of other people playing but again it was just the 4 of us...oh...and Claes.
Claes (pronounced Claus like Santa Claus) plays the piano for Travis when we go on tour ( he has a growing fanclub and even some tee shirts printed in his honour see 23 July 2007 in Lawrence in the archive section) and is a brilliant musician as well as a fine producer in his own right having scored a recent number 1 in the swedish pop charts. We asked him to help in these sessions because we would be needing all hands on deck in an attempt to reduce overdubs. We have never had anyone else come in and play on sessions, instead choosing in the past to do piano parts ourselves (mostly Andy, sometimes Dougie and sometimes me) but Claes has the cut of our jib, knows how we like it and has a feel and a mind of his own. Throughout this session he has pulled out some great performances when it mattered. On Chinese Blues he is the pounding piano that ties the whole track together. On Long Way Down his solo is inspired, despite me emptying the entire cutlery drawer on the strings of the piano.
On the introduction of Song To Self we needed some nice floaty synth sound from which the song explodes. He twiddled about and eventually was happy. At the beginning of the take we chose, there was some quite funny out of tune bits which gave me a fit of the giggles in the middle of trying to sing "I'm singing a song to myself..." In the mix we shaved off the out of tune bits. As this was a guide vocal the giggles disappeared too. It was nice though, to hear how relaxed we all were during this one.
This is another potential single and Emery mixed it accordingly. A friend popped by and after hearing it, said it sounded like we were playing 96 tracks of music. When you hear this, and it sounds MASSIVE, you'll be listening to 12 tracks of music. It doesn't make sense. 4 drum tracks, 3 electric guitar tracks, 1 bass track, 1 vocal track, 1 backing vocal track, 1 string tracks and of course Claes, and on the string tracks we play some accoustic where there was space on the string track to save space.
The mix sounds epic. Emery is fire.
Oh and I finished my art project. I'll show you when I can scan it. Before You Were Young is next.
The last song of Ode To J.Smith. This was a very straight forward mix for Emery. He put it to bed in a matter of hours. This is the gong song. The gong we learned is actually called a tam tam and is used to great effect on this track. There is a 45 second drum fill at the end which brings the album to a fitting finale, like fireworks exploding. After backing everything up, beers were had. It felt strange not to have another song to mix.
The next day was Tuesday. This was 4 days ago. Emery and I boarded our flight to Portland, Maine. This is where the worlds greatest mastering engineer has his studio. His name is Bob Ludwig.
The hallways of the studio have not a spare inch of space, covered as they are in hundreds and hundreds of gold, platinum and diamond discs. Nigel came out here to master the last Radiohead and more recently I think Chris went out to master the new Coldplay record.
There was a cool coincidence as well out here in Maine. Emery is getting married next month to Andra. Her brother, William builds super high end speakers, which he names after his friends and relatives. Bob has been using Williams speakers for some years now. He swears by them. They stand some 6 feet off the ground and are encased in granite, ensuring no vibration. They sit on either side of the room and in between is a smaller speaker, 4 feet off the ground. This is called The Andra... Bob was tickeled when Emery told him.
Anyways we got there at 11am and left at around 5pm. The cut is the final stage of the record. This is where you do the running order, put all the spaces in between songs and Bob listens hard to everything and brings a bit of bass up here and treble up there and boosts the overall volume a bit. His equipment is very state of the art. It's like framing a painting and polishing the glass.
We sat and listened back, made some notes, then Bob added a second here and a half beat there to the gaps between the songs and then it was done. The album was complete.
It sounds amazing.
We wandered back to the hotel feeling a little down that everything was finished and there was nothing left to do. This downer always happens at the end of a record.
The next day we flew back to NYC. The sun was blazing in the sky as I walked from the cab back to our apartment listening to Ode To J. Smith. I think you're going to like this record.
Speak soon
Fran
MIX SESSION TWO BLOG FOUR coming soon!
Stay tuned for the next gripping installment from in the mix!
Songs still to be mixed are:- Song To Self and Before You Were Young.
MIX SESSION TWO BLOG FIVE coming soon!
Stay tuned for the final gripping installment from in the mix!
Song still to be mixed is:- Before You Were Young.
