Bottom-End, Writings and Reviews from Music Producer Pete Strobl

Building an effective vocal track is essential to any recording whether it is a writing demo, a demo intended to showcase an artist, or a finished master. Re-reading the last sentence I realize I’ve stated the painfully obvious, but the truth is that the painfully obvious can become the painfully impossible to accomplish when putting theory into practice. One of the most useful tools in building a great vocal is the instrumental track itself and here are a few tips on how to use it effectively.

Singers can be the laziest of musicians. They have no buttons to push, no keys to depress, no strings to strum and no finger positions to learn. And, in the case of my protege Theo, pictured above, they sometimes learn their craft without the aid of opposing thumbs. They just open their mouths and “Thar she blows!” Singers can hit the ground running whereas instrumentalists have to master a modicum of physical tasks before they can make anything resembling music. Unfortunately, and as is usually the case, the easier it is to get started, the less one is likely to work out the details that result in masterful technique. A reasonably competent singer can hear a melody and recreate it immediately without ever having to learn the rudiments of musical notation. But it’s been my experience that any vocal performance can be improved upon by fine-tuning the grossly ignored apparatus protruding at opposite poles of the cranium known as the ears.

A vocal performance, unless performed a capella, must exist in relation to the instrumental track. In building an arrangement, we normally take great pains to build a track from the bottom up. We align the bass and kick drum parts rhythmically as well as sonically and all the subsequent instrumental parts have unique relationships with the bottom end. Consequently, it makes a lot of sense to make the bottom end the focal point when working on a vocal as well.

When I was in school studying voice, I spent days, hours and years learning all the usual technical exercises, sat through hours of students wrestling Italian songs to the ground and reading every book on the “science of singing” that I could get my hands on. Soon I was giving lessons on my own and one day I made a great discovery that had not been addressed in my formal education. I had just moved house and my piano was too horribly out of tune to give a lesson. During my time in Vienna, Nikolaus Harnoncourt had used a small cello to teach us vocal lines. Well, if it was good enough for him, who was I to quibble? The nearest thing at hand was my old Jazz bass so I started to vocalize my student, a competent soprano, using my bass as accompaniment.

I was surprised to find that she had trouble matching pitch with notes played two octaves lower than those to which she was accustomed! Up to that point, I had always played exercises in the same octave they were to be sung but this was really interesting to me. Student after student, I found that singing in relation to the bass was completely out of the comfort zone. Applying this discovery to pop songs, I found a parallel in the songs of Franz Schubert. Schubert often shifted between major and minor keys and sometimes omitted the third of the chord from the accompaniment. This left the singer completely responsible for the quality of the chord. If singers aren’t focused on the bottom end the intonation will suffer.

Many pop vocal tracks are recorded with the aide of guide tracks which lay out the melody. When the guide track is not used, the singer usually relates to piano, strings or perhaps guitar lines that lie in the range of the vocal line. Although reasonably effective on the surface, I don’t think that guide tracks or instrumental cues go far enough in giving the singer a focused image of where to lay the vocal. After all, if you really want to play guitar like Jimi or Eric, listen to them, but study and play close attention to the music and players that influenced them. Applying that same logic, rather than just listening to parts built upon and influenced by the bottom end, why not go to the source and build the vocal on the same foundation.

So, here are some helpful household hints. When I record basic tracks, I always like to have the singer lay a guide track for reference and to give the band some inspiration. And who knows? Sometimes you catch a break and get a performance that turns out to be a keeper. Then, when it’s time to start working on the vocal, I might warm up the singer at the piano just to make some sounds and get comfortable. I might move over to guitar and play either exercises or song fragments to get one foot out of the comfort zone and acclimate the vocalist to something a little different. And finally, without lecture or purpose, I’ll just casually pick up the bass and continue to work in a very relaxed way. Without having to think, the singer has become comfortable singing to a completely new set of references.

When I set up the vocal session, I will start by letting the singer decide what should be in the headphones. I try hard to remove any time constraints or pressure from the session as these always end up costing more time than they are worth. I’ll run the song, always recording, as many times as it takes to get the singer comfortable. And then, when it’s time to go for keepers, I’ll start to thin out the upper instruments. I’ll put the bass up a bit more than what a final mix might be and also get the kick drum in there big and fat.

Getting the bottom end dominant in the cue mix is not a matter of sheer volume. I want the singer to be influenced by the bottom end without having to think. I’ll play with equalizers so the kick is warm and comfortable and not loud and snappy as it might be in a live floor monitor. The idea is to replace the upper register comfort zone with something rhythmically solid yet warm and comfortable. If the upper parts are too prominent, the vocal can get lost in the mix. The usual tactic is to turn up the vocal, then crank up some keyboards for pitch reference, then try to fight through the frequencies and turn up the vocal some more. With the bottom end as the focal point of the cue mix, there is less for the singer to fight through. When the pulse is felt more than heard, the singer will tend to sing more in tune with the foundation of the track.

A welcome side effect is that the vocal will find a more comfortable relationship with the rhythm of the track. When a singer struggles to cop a feel, the result can be close but often uncomfortable. Over-thinking tends to be constrictive to feel. By creating an audio environment in which the vocalist can perform instinctively on a more primal wavelength you may find that the finished vocal performance will even inspire you to revisit some of the upper parts.

To summarize, singers should practice and become accustomed to listening to the bottom end. Singing teachers should address the ears of their students as well as the singing apparatus and spend some time accompanying exercises in lower octaves. And if you are working with a singer at any level of recording, try building the vocal from the bottom up. The results might surprise you.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of recording one of my all-time favorite singers. I’m finishing up the SolidTube tracks and we will begin mixing the album in a few days. While in Vienna, I had Mandana sketch out the background vocals but another voice will really add some meat to the tracks. And I know of no meatier voice than the one that lives inside Angela Carole Brown.

I met Angie many years ago at a cabaret in Los Angeles. Steve Haberman, Jim DiJulio Jr. and I were the house trio and one night Angie turned up with a pile of charts. We played a set behind her that night and from the first note, I knew that I was hearing something special. Angela’s rich voice oozes effortlessly and makes its way to the listener’s ear on waves of pure and honest emotion. I know, I know…the last sentence sounds a bit over the top, but if you go to her website or check out the video of “Slow Club” you will understand my lack of adequately descriptive vocabulary. So rather than try to put her abilities into words, give her a listen and see if you can come up with something better.

The first time I heard Mandana sing, I thought of Angela’s voice. They both have a rich and sonorous low range…this is a gift and cannot be taught any more than you can teach a young athlete to be taller. Stronger? Yes, but size is a natural attribute and both Angela and Mandana have big natural voices.

I had hoped to do the background voices for the SolidTube album with the guys in the band in combination with Mandana, and some of these tracks may ultimately find their way onto the album. But when we cut the guide tracks for a song called “Home” I knew that there was only one direction to go. I emailed Angela from Wild One Studio and begged.

One look at Angela’s website and it will be obvious why I begged…Angela is definitely not your average background singer. She is a published novelist, a composer and arranger, has produced her own albums and is a must see at her jazz gigs in the more popular LA nightclubs. But, she has always graciously stepped into the breech for me when I have needed her no matter what the gig.

Working with Angela is the ultimate experience in professionalism. She will stand in front of the mic and work all day to give you just exactly what the track needs. If you need ideas…she has a pocketful. But she’s just as ready to duplicate whatever parts are needed. Want vibrato?…sure. Straight tone?…no problem. Double the track and sound like someone else?…yep. Angela has all the tools of the trade and then some. And she is so good at what she does that ego never enters the room.

Doing vocals with Angela is a little like doing a photo shoot with an experienced model. All you have to do is say a few words, point and shoot. She makes subtle adjustments so fast that you just need to keep the machine in record and catch each take. We did five songs in two hours and I never felt like we were working too fast. It’s just that every frigging take is a keeper. Normally, there are takes that are better than others, but when she is at the mic, there just isn’t a lot that isn’t usable.

I’m really looking forward to mixing this album and am so proud to have been able to include Angela’s talent. I only wish that the SolidTube gang could have watched her work on their tracks. I know that her level of expertise and professionalism would have been an inspiration for them.

If all goes according to plan, the SolidTube album will be available in late May. I hope that you like it…I already do. And I’m a hard sell.

Goddamn! It has been a busy spring for me and I finally have some time to write. Many great stories, thousands of miles traveled and two fun projects signed, sealed and delivered. I’ve just delivered the masters for the ConFused5 album “Out of Confusion” which Ron Hitchcock and I mixed at RixMix here in the LA area. Man, what a great room. The place belongs to our pal Rick Ruggieri, a phenomenal studio designer and a fine engineer as well. As a matter of fact, Rick’s latest Grammy award arrived during the time we were working. He placed it on a pedestal between the Mastering Lab monitors so we had to stare at the damn thing 12 to 15 hours at a stretch. I’m really happy for him, but that was just too cruel.

Working in Rick’s room was a godsend for us. First of all, he doesn’t let a lot of projects in to begin with because it means that either he can’t work, or he has to go rent another room somewhere else. Secondly, he designed and hand built the place…and any studio that Rick has a hand in is always dead-nuts on the money when it comes to mixing accuracy. What you hear is exactly what you recorded and there is not a decibel of bullshit in the room. I know that when I take a mix out of RixMix there simply will be no surprises. Plenty of rooms can make a mix sound amazing, great bottom end…sizzling highs etc. But when you take the project for mastering you realize you’ve been fooling yourself. Ron and I were confident that whatever we took out of the place was accurate and exactly how we intended it to sound prior to putting the final mastering touches on.

Another point in the room’s favor is that, being a relatively private facility, there is not the usual parade of clowns walking through the control room to tell you how they would have dialed in the Fairchild or panned the vocals. Although Rick made himself available whenever we had need of his expertise, Ron and I could work in peace and give the sessions our full concentration. Ron had his granola bars, I had my new espresso machine and we just hunkered down and got to it.

We did have one visit with a notable musician that turned out to be fruitful. Ron has a boutique record label of his own and one of his artists is the well-known jazz guitarist Don Peak. For the unaware, Don gained notoriety as the guitarist with the Everly Brothers and now composes TV scores as well as continuing to play his ass off. Don had some business with Ron so we took a short break and visited a while. As Don was telling us how little time he had and how he had to rush off he made the oldest mistake in the book. He asked us to play him a bit of what we were working on. Everyone knows that this always results in at least an hour’s worth of “dig this…no, check this out…what do you think of this?” And whatever Don was in a rush to do went right out the window.

We had just been working on a ConFused5 song that had gone through some heavy changes during the recording process in Austria. The vocal had been transposed down an octave ala Henri Salvador, and the rock band that played the rest of the album had been replaced by a well-worn New Orleans jazz/blues combo. Oh…it was still the same guys, just a completely different approach. At that moment we were listening to the guitar solo which had originally been played with a solidbody PRS and a high gain boutique amp. The band’s guitarist, Markus Melms had acquired a lovely vintage ES345 recently and I had been dying to prove to him what a fantastic guitar it was. I plugged the beautiful thing into an old Fender Twin Reverb amp and we proceeded to spend the better part of a day creating a whole new vibe for the solo.

As we played the take for Don he looked up and said, “I thought you said you were doing a rock album… this is really interesting.” And I have to say it really is…interesting. Playing a substantial guitar like the 345 through a clean vintage amp was something Markus had probably not done in a good long while. A rig like that doesn’t play itself, you have to pull the music out with your bare hands. But once we got into it, Markus really put together a nice solo. It had interesting content, beautiful tone and most importantly, it was played with conviction. This is what caught Don’s ear…and he spent the next 20 minutes or so showing us what effects and equalization he would use on the track. You see, when you get a performance like that on a recording, you want to make damned sure that the intentions of the player reach through the speakers and tap you on the shoulder as if to say, “Hey man, lend me an ear, I’ve got a story to tell you.”

So Markus, meet Don. If you don’t like the sound of your solo, it’s all his fault. If you dig it, just remember, it was all my idea in the first place. The public can decide what they think when “Out Of Confusion” is released on the Sellaband label on July 4th.

FUCK!…always wanted to start a blog like that. The universal plosive monosyllabic attention getter…and a word with deep hidden meaning. But I digress. What I meant to say was, Fuck, I really don’t want this to be over. Went in to Sonic Flow Studio and ran up some work mixes and suddenly it began to sink in that the recording sessions for ConFused5 are history. As Sammie Davis Jr. might have said, “I dig this not, man.” I haven’t had this good a time since…well, since last month in Vienna as a matter of fact. So I guess I should stop whining.

Recording with ConFused5 drove home something that came to light as I was working with SolidTube last month and was also the theme of my article in yesterday’s Sellaband Tribune. The greatest single product that this new thing we call Sellaband can offer the artists on their roster is genuine artist development. If the truth be told, the recording budget does not allow for an all out recording/mixing/mastering package without some huge favors and vigilance on the part of a project manager. But it is sufficient for a band to get a good taste of what studio recording can be. Yeah, yeah. Of course you can make an album for the price of a happy meal with your godamned laptop. But that ain’t studio recording with a full band, pro engineers, pro gear and an eye looking in from the outside to help get the most out of yourself.

This album will be really good because the guys in the band allowed me to look deeper into their music than they themselves may have. They also, to their credit, are good enough musicians that they can try different approaches without losing their identity. Musicians can be stubborn and inflexible but I find that this usually stems from insecurity…perhaps they don’t have the chops and are afraid to admit it. Or their egos won’t allow them to see things from alternative angles. This was not the case with ConFused5. Their attitude was, “We’ve demo’d the songs, and this is as far as we could take it. Now it’s your turn.”

As someone who believes in artist development, I believe some of the best work toward a record will happen in a rehearsal room. We tore these songs to pieces and the guys themselves discovered how to put them back together in a way that every part and every note became intrinsic to the track. Time was short, but I wanted the band to really believe in themselves. And that meant that they had to relearn the motivating force behind their parts. These are seasoned guys, but they had to turn off the automatic pilot and fly the plane without instruments so to speak. It was amazing. As the parts became simpler, they began to play with real conviction. And suddenly the vocal melodies started to leap out of the tracks.

The other area where the band really grew was in taking a very organized approach to orchestrating the songs. Once the rhythm section was cleaned out, the parts, though simplified, had greater impact and we discovered that there was now much more room for the keyboards and single line guitar parts that give these songs so much character. Markus and Alex play great harmonic single line parts together and featuring them in a mix can be difficult unless there is room. Many times a band can slip into the habit of playing over other parts which are in the same frequency range. It’s good to adopt the philosophy of Willie Keeler. He was a baseball player known for his ability to get a base hit whenever he needed one. When asked how he did this he replied, ” I just keep my eyes open and hit em where they ain’t.” Keeping this in mind will definitely make you a more valuable musician in a group setting.

Recording guitar solos with Markus was great fun. We really got into the rhythmic aspects of soloing and with the rhythm tracks as simple and forceful as they were, he found that he had so much more room inside the tracks to really express himself. Beda and Kurt had provided a great bottom end on which to build. The solos in this music are mostly composed more than improvised so it took a while for Markus to relax into the groove these guys laid out for him. But once he let go of the old habits the shit started to catch fire.

I’m so proud of all these guys. They really stretched their musical horizons and played some great music. And it could only happen because they weren’t afraid to change. That is the key to developing as a band. You just have to be willing to try other things and to keep an open mind. There are no limits to what you can pull out of yourself if you are willing to say, “Fuck it…I want to be better today than I was yesterday.” Not every musician has that kind of courage.

Well, tonight the band and I got together for a farewell dinner. I had so much fun here and hate to leave this town. But, as much as we’ve grown together as a production team, I think that if I push the talk back button one more time and say “Perfect…except…” they’ll be packing my bags for me. I also should send a big shout of thanks out to Wolfgang, Max and Spanky at Sonic Flow Studio. They were all great guys to work with and really know what they are doing…when they’re not mounting vacuum cleaners and meat grinders on the wall. Spanky’s name is actually Harry but Spanky is his new nom de guerre…I’m hoping it sticks.

So…onward and upward! Tomorrow it’s back to Vienna for a quick beer before flying home. Thanks Markus and ConFused5, it’s been a slice.

During the years that I was associated with Shangri La Studio, the studio owner very wisely invested in vintage microphones. Working with engineers like Jim Nipar, Chuck Ainlay, Ethan Johns, John Porter and John Hanlon, among others, was my education in the subtle nuances intrinsic to the various makes and models of vintage microphones available at the studio.

Every engineer has preferences as to how best to mic a guitar amp, which is the best vocal mic or which array will best capture the colors of a drum set. The single factor common to every great engineer, however, comes down to one word…EARS. Every engineer seemed to have a formula for quickly getting a sound up on the mixing desk. And although every engineer has a “secret weapon” or signature approach to mic strategy, engineers are always ready to try new approaches and different gear in their quest for the ultimate acoustic guitar tone or magic snare drum.

I remember setting up drum mics for a noted engineer and while we plugged in a pair of Sony C37a mics as overheads, I mentioned that “So and so” had just done a session and had preferred a pair of C-12s. After hearing about how “So and so” didn’t know shit about how to mic up a drumset, we put up a pair of C12s and made comparisons. Engineers can be stubborn, defensive and secretive of their methods, But they are also open-minded enough to listen and appropriate more effective methods.

One of my favorite engineer/producers has a much more open approach. Sammy (not his real name) has been making great records for over thirty years, and he reminds me of the magician you may have read about in a previous blog. Sammy had no secrets. He would tell you every trick in the book, how it worked, and how really simple it all was. And Sammy hipped me to a piece of kit that should be in every recording environment, from major studio right down to the most humble home writing rig…the venerable and extremely affordable Shure SM7 microphone.

Sammy came to Shangri La to produce a record that would ultimately be nominated for a Grammy so I was eager to learn from him. When I asked him about mic preferences he answered that the fine collection at the studio would suit his needs adequately and that he would be bringing his Shure SM7 “just in case.” We had C12s, M49s,M50s, U47s, U67s, 251s…anything an engineer could want, anything but a Shure SM7.

In talking to Sammy in the off moments, I would ask an occasional question…like “What would you use on an acoustic guitar?” or “What do you like for a vocal mic?” and in almost every case, he would answer with two or three options but would always end with “But an SM7 would work just fine.” During the course of the sessions I set up the SM7 on guitar amps, bass amps, Leslie rotating speakers, drums, acoustic guitars, pianos and to my surprise, the SM7 had the inside track when it came to recording the lead vocals.

I’ve recently set up a small writing/recording environment in my home. I record on an iMac using Cubase4 and the mic locker at Shangri La is a distant memory. When deciding on which microphone would best suit my needs, I researched all the usual suspects from the new affordable condensers to the USB models that would eliminate the need for expensive mic preamps. By chance, I had Sammy on the phone one day and asked his advice. “What’s wrong with you…get an SM7 and leave me alone!” were his words of encouragement.

This microphone is the best $250.00 I have spent on gear…ever. There are just no issues with it. I can’t remember cutting a track that didn’t work. It does exactly what it is meant to do and does it without offering an opinion or whining. The perfect partner in crime. I have used it through a really good mic-pre and have also plugged it directly into a Pre-sonus firewire interface with equally impressive results. And without getting into the technical minutia, I can say that the most important question…”How does it sound?” has been answered in a positive way every time.

It seems that everyone has a studio at home now. The industry catalogues are rammed full of the latest in technical breakthroughs that will allow the home-recordist an opportunity to realize the creation of a masterpiece. You can buy lots of shiny crap for $250.00, or you can invest in the real thing.

As so many producers and engineers have said, a recording can only be as good as what goes into the mic. So go practice, get really good…and put it through an SM7.