All The Way In The Zone

With the drums done, I spent a little time stitching the tracks together, then did the acoustic guitar recordings. I used two Rode NT5s in an xy pattern about eight inches away from the twelfth fret of my Martin DC-16GTE. I then panned these about twenty percent each way, as the listener would hear them. I found I get an interesting effect if I solo the left mic of one take in combination with the right mic of another. The timing of the strums don't match up exactly and it makes for a less biting, more textural sound.

 I'd done the demo recordings when this set of strings were new, and I found it a little bright, so I left the old ones on. I usually like to really dig in with a medium heavy pick (I'll probably have a hole above the pickguard soon), but I used a very light pick and held back a bit on the recording, hopefully giving the parts a bit more dynamic range. Even so, the preamp rattled a bit on some notes when I really got strumming, and I hope I'll be able to bury it in the mix.

Then I moved on to the bass parts, using a Fender Precision from the early '70s running through a Traynor YBA-1 Bassmaster. There's all sorts of things in the room that rattle around, so I kept the volume at about 2 and used the instrument's tone knob to control brightness. I've always DIed bass in the past, so I experimented a bit with the mics I had on hand. I found that I liked the scooped sound of the AKG D112 right on the cone when coupled with a Rode NT1a about three feet away. I also kept the DI signal for good measure.

Next I'll fill out the rhythm section with piano and percussion, correcting timing problems as I encounter them.

Still Not Making It Easy

Right. So I wanted to make a new album for myself as a solo musician, which I codenamed "Settlers' Effects" after a tax exemption that applied to me upon my return to BC. I wanted a record with a more cohesive sound and structure than I'd achieved with the Argyles. So I consciously set out to guide the process a bit this time round.

I had a few ideas for songs that I'd been collecting in my notebook as they came to me, and I tried to execute those ideas as best I could. I attempted to write a song a day for three weeks, just me and an acoustic guitar all morning and afternoon, rehearsing and refining the previously written ones when the next one wasn't coming easily.

This resulted in thirteen songs that I liked. Then I set about recording demos of each: again, just acoustic guitar and voice, seeing if the song structures made sense and whether they fit with each other. I decided that three of them were too thematically/stylistically divergent to be included on the same record, and set to work arranging the instrumentation for each of the remaining tracks.

I picked a couple artists for each whose sound I thought would compliment the songs, as a way of aiming my arranging. Then I set to work experimenting, adding drums, strings, horns, and keys. In retrospect, I found Mean Times a very harsh and tiring record to listen to, and put this down to the electric guitars and the cymbals. So for this record, I decided there would be no cymbals, and very sparing electric guitar. The lead parts wound up being mostly trombone and violin, as those were instruments I had close at hand and I found I liked them together.

Finally, after I had done mock-ups of each of the songs, I set up a kit in my bedroom and started recording drums in earnest.

I rented a Mapex MPX snare; the kick and the floor tom are no-name Taiwanese drums, and the hi-hats are entry-level Zildjians that I prefer to my B8s.

I also rented Rode NT5 overheads and a D112 for the kick. The snare is miked top and bottom with an SM57/545S, the floor tom is miked top and bottom with an SM58/NT1a.

The little keyboard behind me is set up to control my computer so I can engineer myself without having to get up all the time.

And hey, we're up to date, so more on this as it progresses.

Staying Respectable

Okay, update. I finished the Argyles' second album Mean Times in late June 2012, and made a thousand copies (most of which are still in my possession). It can be LISTENED TO / PURCHASED HERE, on our bandcamp.

I also made a couple of videos, one for the song "Low Point":

We shot it in Mile End, in an abandoned warehouse. I borrowed the fencing gear from Escrime Mont Royal, but the balloons were expensive. But I'd always wanted to have my own helium tank, so I think it was worth it.

I knew I didn't want to stay another year in Montreal, and everyone else in the band was heading off into the world as well, so I decided we should have a going away tour which would simultaneously get me to Vancouver. I got my friend Martin and his band Alexeimartov into it as well, and on the eve of our departure we shot the footage that eventually became the video for "Blackjacks to Blackout":

The first part was footage of a concert I played at the Green Panther, a vegan restaurant in downtown Montreal that I'd been working at part-time while making the album. We took as many people as we could to our favourite bar, Le Black Jack in St. Henri, after the show, and the ensuing shenanigans are captured for all to see.

Then the next day we were off on our cross-country trek, which went from Montreal to Vancouver with a significant dip into the U.S. to visit Indianapolis. It was a blast and is well documented on Ryan's blog, http://theargylessummertour.blogspot.ca/

Here we are at Lake Louise for some reason

Afterwards, we parted ways, and I sat around in Vancouver wondering what to do with myself. I felt like keeping the Mean Times songs as Argyles songs, so I wrote some new ones just for me.