The Making of Miracle Level
Exactly one year ago today, I jumped in my car and drove from No Fun Club in Winnipeg, Manitoba to John's house in Minneapolis, MN after exporting the final mixes for Deerhoof’s “Miracle Level” LP. It was 11 pm on the 4th of July as I was driving through downtown Minneapolis, the new record on full blast, fireworks exploding literally a few hundred feet from my car as I was cruising over a bridge on the freeway.
I cut together a 10 minute video of footage from the session that goes into great detail about making this record, plus a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage including some mixing clips, overdubs, and an eclectic selection of wondrous dances performed during the session.
This video here is just a short teaser, you can watch the whole in-depth video on our new YouTube page here: https://youtu.be/-ULGDLBAbnY
Durand Jones - "Lord Have Mercy" - Live at Russian Recording
Here’s a sneak peek of TONIGHT's incredible storytelling performance by Durand Jones for our inaugural Small & Mighty Concert Series. It airs tonight at 8 pm ET at https://veeps.events/SmallAndMightyConcertSeries - but tour ticket allows you to watch it at any time for 90 days after tonight's broadcast.
100% of the net proceeds benefits Lil BUB's Big FUND for Special Needs Pets and Girls Rock Bloomington.
As a rescue pet owner, contributing member of the animal welfare community and a recording engineer, producer and studio owner of 20 years, this concert means so much to me on so many different levels by directly supporting special needs pets, enabling underprivileged youth, supporting our creative community, and utilizing my studio to its fullest capability in support of our local music community, the art of recording music, and supporting those that need extra help to succeed (pets and people).
What is most inspiring about this concert is Durand Jones and his band’s commitment to their music and art - this performance in particular. Durand’s storytelling is second-to-none - hearing him talk about the process of writing and recording his record from the room the record was produced and recorded in while being backed by the band and producers that made the record is a rare treat.
The amount of hard work and logistics involved in taping, recording, editing and mixing a seven-camera, sixteen channel shoot/recording of a 90 minute performance by a six-piece soul group in a 600 square foot live room with an audience of 40 people and a crew consisting exclusively of over a dozen volunteers is staggering.
What is most inspiring about this concert is Durand Jones and his band’s commitment to their music and art - this performance in particular. This entire 90 minute storytelling performance was performed 100% live in one take, and was only the band's third live performance ever. Hearing Durand talk about the process of writing and recording his record
To celebrate today's release of another single from Deerhoof’s Miracle Level, “Phase Out”, I’ve put together one final video that features the band playing the actual take from the record, live. As the song plays, I solo each individual mix stem in the sections where that instrument really shines.
This is one of my favorite songs on the record for a number of reasons - the main one being that it rips. But also, it contains my favorite drum sound I’ve ever recorded, which is mono using just three mics (kick, snare, kit mic) - you’ll hear it in the video. It’s one of those times where the part, the playing, the instruments, the room, and all of the mics and knobs align perfectly for a few measures. This song also features some of the interesting effects using the various room mics we put up (no effects processors were used in the making of Miracle Level), as well as every overdub that appears on the record: claps, organ, synth bass, and piano.
Please note that this is an abridged version of the song. You can hear the whole thing by watching the amazing new video animated by Nespy at think in our comments.
And you’ll be able to hear Miracle Level in its entirety tomorrow, cause that’s what it comes out. Thanks for watching these videos, they have been fun to make.
Recording Deerhoof: Satomi's Bass and Greg's Piano
Here’s a one-two punch: recording Satomi’s bass and recording Greg on piano.
The bass setup remained the same throughout the record, although we adjusted the tone as needed for each song. Her bass was split three ways. One signal went to a DI, which was then converted into MIDI (by our main man Riley, house engineer at No Fun Club) for some bass synth stuff on a few songs. The second signal went to a 70’s Ampeg SVT for a full bodied clean tone, and the third signal went to a Japanese Evans Vocal Echo tape delay/solid state amplifier. The tape delay on it is truly amazing, but I quickly discovered that the amp itself sounds great when you really blast it. This was used for some distortion and bite, and was blended as needed during the mix. Just a little bit gave it presence, a ton gave it growl. This video highlights each of the different sounds (no snyth bass, sorry) on the song “Little Maker”. I’m still trying to confirm if that'’s a Dune sandworm reference - a perfect question for today’s online listening party at 4 pm ET (SOON!) and Q&A at https://deerhoof.bandcamp.com/live/miracle-level-advance-listening-party-q-a
Second half of this video is Greg playing piano - he played the piano live on two of the songs on the record. He specifically want an upright with a damper pedal for that dark and moody sound. This is a challenge to record! It’s super quiet, and picks up all the mechanical noise of the piano. BUT - this is what we loved about the sound, it sounds like you’re on an old creaky pirate ship. I used a rare LOMO 19a53 stereo mic for the hammers, and our trust pair of Sony C48s on the sound board. It required quite a bit of EQ in the mixing process, but resulted in a really unique piano sound.
You can listen to Miracle Level in its entirety today at 4pm ET followed by a Q&A with the band and me:
https://deerhoof.bandcamp.com/live/miracle-level-advance-listening-party-q-a
Recording Guitars with Deerhoof: Part One
The Deerhoof Miracle Level session was the most complicated guitar setup I’ve ever encountered, and it’s all John’s fault (idea). It took a full day to get working properly and sounding good without any hum or life threatening ground loops. It was well worth it though, because the guitars’ distinct tone defines the sound of the record.
When we first started discussing the sound of the record before entering the studio, the band referenced a demo that John had made where he mic’ed a hollow body electric and ran it into a guitar amp, explaining that this was the guitar sound they were going for. I suggested that we also record the guitars in the traditional way (directly into some pedals and an amp) to be safe. When we arrived at the studio, both Ed and John wanted to use the 1958 Tweed Bassman so Greg complicated things even further by suggesting that we also sum both guitars together into the Bassman so they could both use it, resulting in five vintage tube amps playing simultaneously in one room. The point was to have options during the mixing process, but we quickly discovered that the correct blend of all five amps and the room mics was the ticket. We adjusted and changed the settings to suit each song, resulting in a wide variety of guitar tones throughout the record.
The Setup: John and Ed each played a semi-hollow body guitar in the dead room, with each guitar split into three separate signals: one directly into an amp, one from a microphone pointed at their guitar fed into a second amp, and one direct signal from each guitar that was combined and sent to a fifth amp. All five amps were set up in the big live room No Fun Club's Studio A to create one wildly unique guitar sound. Swipe for a signal flow drawing and photos.
The song in this video is called “Everybody, Marvel”. The audio in the video alternates between the final master and each individual mic solo’ed up as it appears on the screen - this is best experienced using headphones.
Mi
We began recording Satomi’s vocals for Deerhoof 's *Miracle Level* on day 6 of our two-week session at No Fun Club last June. We spent most of the first day auditioning vocal mics and settled on a Sony C37a as the main vocal mic (used as the primary/only vocal sound for 90% of the record), an RCA 77A as a secondary mic for blending, backups/doubles or as a secondary option, an IRPA MK14 stereo tube mic (a Soviet SM69) as a room mic, and added a rare Fostex M86rp which was fed to a JHS Color Box pedal whose output was split off to two different guitar amps in the big live room. The first amp was a Harmony H304, and was mic’ed directly. The second was a cranked princeton reverb sitting on top of the grand piano firing down at the strings. I placed a dumbell on the sustain pedal, and taped a pair of Altec Coke Bottles to the soundboard to pick up the sound of Satomi’s voice resonating strings. A Fostex M22rp M/S Stereo Mic was placed in the live room to pick up the ambiance of the amplfiiers. While the C37a and stereo room mic were used regularly throughout the record, the 77A, amplified vocal, resonating piano effect and amplifier room mics were used pretty sparingly for effect as needed. No artificial reverbs, delays or effects were used on this record, so any vocal effects (or otherwise) heard on the record were generated by using the sound captured from the mics you see in this video.
Once the sounds were dialed in, we agreed that Greg should do the vocal production for the session since he’s been doing it for two decades. This sped up the process and allowed me to spend the day preparing borscht.
The song in this video is from the new record and is called “Poignant Melody”. In the video, Satomi is singing another song altogether, but this demonstrates the recording setup and process. The audio in the video alternates between the final master and each individual mic solo’ed up as it appears on the screen - this is best experienced using headphones
This is the video for “Wedding, March, Flower”, the closing track from the new Deerhoof album I recorded at No Fun Club last summer (the album Miracle Level comes out March 31st).
The footage you see in this video is of the single live take they performed of this song, and it’s the one that wound up as the final track on the album, and the one you’re hearing in the video. The bed tracks for this song (drums, piano, bass, guitar) were all recorded live, Greg’s vocals were the only overdubbed part.
I distinctly remember this performance, hearing it come through the speakers as they performed and as it was being recorded. I felt so lucky to be there in that exact moment experiencing and capturing this very performance as it unfolded in real time, realizing that this would be the take that would be shared and listened to many times by other people. To later realize that the entire performance was also captured on video and to see this incredibly moving performance take place in real-time is a real treat.
To experience and document a performance like this in its purest form is ultimate gratification for me as a recording engineer and “producer". The satisfaction of knowing that the decades of trial and error, mistakes and happy accidents, self-doubt and self-improvement, the hundreds of social FOMO moments due to thousands of 12+ hour days in the studio were all justified. They are the reason I was able to pull this off. To hear a genuinely inspired and emotionally soaked live performance come through the speakers sounding the exact way you and the band envisioned (or better) is a miracle and a gift. It's the culmination of each and every person’s years of devotion, acquired skill, life experience, specific tastes, artistic vision, and countless moments of brilliance, disagreement, and compromise coming together at the same time to produce a few minutes of magic that are captured for others to experience.
You can listen to/watch the whole song/vide
Greg Saunier of Deerhoof - Drum Recording at No Fun Club
We spent a considerable amount of time getting the Deerhoof drum sound just right before tracking, and it paid off. Greg had a very specific vision for the drum sound and it was fun working with him to lock it down. After he tuned and positioned the kit, I listened to it before choosing mics and mic placement. Once mics were placed and levels obtained, we listened in the control room and swapped out mics and changed mic placement as needed to achieve a good starting point for the drum sound. Once we were happy with the general tonality and balance of the kit, I recorded Greg playing a variety of beats with varying dynamics and tempo and looped them in the control room while Greg and I listened carefully to each mic and applied EQ, compression, dynamic shaping, polarity, and saturation as needed to achieve the feel and sound we were going for. Once everything was dialed in, we swapped the processing patches from the monitor path and applied them to the recording path to commit the sound to the recording. I always prefer to work this way, and I was happy to find out Deerhoof felt the same. Greg was thrilled with the sound in his headphones, and that undoubtedly contributed to the excitement felt in the performances, which were all tracked live as a band (drums, guitars, and bass, sans vocals).
We positioned a variety of stereo mic pairs throughout the room to have a palette of sounds to choose from. The most interesting technique used, and one that was a time consuming experiment that I was sure wouldn’t be used much if at all, turned out to be the MVP of the drum sound. We positioned a Yamaha upright piano facing the kit, taped two Earthworks omni’s to the sound board on the back, covered it with a blanket, and then taped down the keys of notes from the key of each song so that they would resonate as he played. These mics were amplified with a pair of Neve 31102 preamps driven into saturation, with a little bit of high cut. On their own they sound great, but b
