The EM Poll

The Great Escape

Aug 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By Heather Johnson

           

Recording acoustic instruments requires a certain level of technical prowess and an acoustically sound environment that has good isolation. Guitarist Dave Wood challenged these conventions, however, when he recorded and mixed his debut album, Échappée (Music Evolutions, 2004), in his bedroom. Échappée marks Wood's first foray into playing and engineering simultaneously.

Wood works as a musician in New York and has played with many improvisational jazz groups, including one with Norah Jones in the early stages of her career. “I never saw myself doing this sort of thing,” Wood says of DIY recording. “But I started teaching myself, and it just became more complex. I enjoy having more control in all aspects — not only playing, but knowing how to mix things a certain way.”

Échappée offers an improvisational blend of jazz, funk, and rock, and has a dramatically rearranged cover of Thomas Dolby's “She Blinded Me with Science.” The album features Wood on six- and eight-string guitar backed by upright bassist Dave Hertzberg, drummers Chris Michael and Doug Clark, trumpeter Matt Shulman, tenor saxophonist Andy Parsons, vibraphonist Nick Mancini, violinist Christian Howes, and backing vocalist Roland Satterwhite.

“I recorded three songs by myself, tracking and playing all of the instruments and then bringing in violin, viola, and baritone violin,” Wood says. “Five songs were recorded live during a one-day session with drums, bass, and guitar. We put the drums in middle of the room, and I stood at one end next to the gear,” Wood says. “We were in a triangle formation facing each other for eye contact. Three other tracks were recorded on a separate date with drums, bass, guitar, sax, and trumpet.” Wood's bedroom studio required makeshift isolation techniques. “We put a queen-size mattress between the drums and the horns to get a little bit of separation. We used moving blankets and pillows to get separation between the horns. I'm still surprised that helped out and that there wasn't much leakage.”

Échappée was tracked on Wood's 800 MHz iMac in MOTU Digital Performer 3.1. Wood used a Mackie 1402-VLZ Pro 14-channel mixer, mainly for its mic preamps, paired with MOTU 828 and 896 audio interfaces. He recorded sax with an AKG C 3000 condenser mic, strings and upright bass with a Marshall MXL V69 large-diaphragm tube condenser mic, and drums with Shure SM57s and Marshall MCA SP1 condenser mics. Wood ran his guitars through vintage Fender Vibrasonic and Princeton amps miked with additional SM57s. Mic placement was essentially done on the fly. “We didn't have the time or the means to really experiment,” he says.

Wood recorded trumpet with a Neumann U 87 and faced a particular mic-placement challenge. “Shulman plays with a microphone attached to his trumpet, and he has this tiny lunchbox-size amp and a volume pedal with all his effects,” Wood explains. “We tried to take a direct signal from that, and it didn't sound as good as it did from the amp. For ‘Stares’ and ‘She Blinded Me with Science,’ we positioned his amp so that his main mic would pick up his amp and effects. It made it harder to manipulate during mixing, but I had no choice.”

Wood mixed Échappée using a stack of CDs as reference sources. “I would sit with a legal pad and do mix after mix, constantly correcting and trying to improve the sound,” he admits. “I made 25 or 30 mixes. But overall, we were lucky. We got high-quality sound right off the bat. I was totally blessed.”

For more info, contact Music Evolutions, tel. (877) 257-0872, email dave@musicevolutions.com, Web www.musicevolutions.com.