MI: Do you have any favorite effects processors?
DA: The Eventide HR 3000 Harmonizer. That’s a piece I’m a big fan of. I go nuts with that thing.
MI: What’s your position on the Digital vs. Analog debate.
DA: Well, I have both in the studio. I’ve got the Protools Digidesign format, hard disc recording. They just upgraded to 24-bit, which is a pretty significant improvement in sound quality from the old 16-bit format. Before, I didn’t like it because it deteriorated the sound. I’d record everything analog and then dump it into Protools for mixing, and boy! You would loose ambiance and harmonics, because it’s like a digital “snapshot” of music, and you can hear it! Especially on anything with natural distortion, like electric guitars, Hammond B-3, anything clean and quiet, like a flute. Now that it’s 24-bit, there’s more depth and you don’t lose harmonics and ambiance. But, with analog, there’s something about it, “a glue” that happens there. It almost makes some things sound better. For example, I’ll record a guitar sound on analog, play it back, and it comes back sounding better than it did going to tape! But, I lock it all together. I have 65 digital tracks. I’ll record everything analog, 2-inch 24-track, unless I run out if tracks. Then I always go digital for mixing through Protools, because you have total automation on everything. My soundboard has fader and mute automation, but it’s kind of cumbersome compared to Protools and Digidesign. Also, with Protools, you have everything: effects, panning, EQ, levels, everything is automated. So, I can be working on a mix and stop working on it, come back to the song two months later, and all the settings are saved right there.
MI: Is the digital format better for storing your work?
DA: Well, I have 20 hours of hard disc space plus I back it up onto 8-millimeter hard drive. I also have this software for backing things up onto CD, called “Toast”. But you know, the digital world can be a hell of it’s own. You can be working on something and the computer crashes. That happens. Just make sure you hit save!! But even so, the whole feeling that all this music, my livelihood, the people I’m working with and their livelihood, is all stored on a computer hard drive? The feeling of it being on analog tape is*.
MI: You can hold it in your hand!
DA: Ya, it feels safe. It’s there!
MI: I guess all you have to worry about is the studio burning down!
DA: Exactly. So, I’ve gotten pretty wrapped up in the digital world, at lease for automated mixing and mastering. Sonically, I prefer analog. I’ve been getting into doing more mastering as well. What you can do in your own studio now is really something!
MI: It seems as though Burlington has a pretty fertile music scene. What do you think?
DA: Well you know, Club Toast closed recently, and that was a real drag because that was the place that took the chance and brought in outside people and promoted local stuff. I don’t think Higher Ground is going to pick up that slack. It’s more of a place to see established acts like Little Feet. I hope it goes the other way though. But, getting back to your question, Burlington has always been a place that’s had quality musicians. There was this club called Hunt’s, and that place really got Burlington going. Unfortunately the owner sold it in the early 80’s, and the scene went downhill for a couple years, but, it seemed to get revived. Burlington has always had a good music scene for the size of the area. Of course, the area doubles when the colleges are in session. We have UVM, St. Michael’s, and Champlain.
MI: But, when I check to see who’s playing in Burlington, it seems to be a lot of great shows on any given weekend. It seems as though Burlington is a “must stop” on many bands tours these days.
DA: Oh, absolutely. It’s half way between Boston and Montreal, and it’s on the way from Montreal to New York City. It’s a hub. It’s also a good place to catch acts that are on their way up or, on their way down.
MI: So, tell me the story of how you got to record Phish’s Lawnboy.
DA: Well, they had won a “battle of the bands” and I was the prize. Jon Fishman had jumped out of the rafters without any clothes on and the crowd went nuts. So, when they came in to record, I knew the boys from the neighborhood. They first came in and did Split Open and Melt and Bathtub Gin. A couple of weeks later Trey called me up and booked more time to finish the album., and that was right after the Paradise New Years Eve gig where John Paluska rented the place. It was cute. They would go in and do a take, come back and listen to it and say, “Well, it wasn’t as good as The Paradise”. I was a great show!
MI: What recording techniques did you use on Lawnboy?
DA: Well, I had to isolate them all. I put John in a booth and Trey in a hallway. You’ve been to my studio, you know the hallway.
MI: The one between the control room and the band room? That tiny hallway?
DA: Yep, that’s it. And I think for a couple of songs, I had him in the bathroom. And then I had Mike and Page in the main room together, because I had to have the piano separate from the drums. So, I got them all hooked up, got all their sounds going, got their headphone mixes going, got everything up and running, and got everything ready to record. I hit record, said, “Let her rip boys!!”, and they let it RIP! I listened to them and said, WOW!
These guys are in different rooms with headphone mixes on and they sounded like they were playing in front of ten thousand people. I mean the energy they were putting out*..because when your all isolated and you’ve got headphones on, it’s like the opposite of playing in front of an adoring audience. You don’t have that energy, and it sounded like they did. Trey was in that hallway ripping his head off, he was so loud.
MI: You had everyone separated to prevent the sound from everyone’s amps leaking into everyone else’s, which can create problems when mixing. Do you always record that way?
DA: These days and the past couple of years, I’ve been working the opposite from that. I’ve been trying keep people in the same room, recording it live, trying not have headphones. Just doing it the way you normally play live.
MI: But what about leakage?
DA: Well, with my studio, I can use baffles and get enough isolation. There are potential problems you can run into in various situations. I just always try and prepare for them. If I see a potential problem, then I’ll move somebody into a separate room for a song or, whatever it takes. Also, I like to have people record in the control room, because you can stand there and talk to each other and see each other.
MI: What about feedback from the amps in that situation?
DA: I’ll have the amps in another room. Sometimes I’ll have just have the drummer in the band room, and everyone else in the control room. That’s how I recorded Strangefolk and some other bands. No one had to use any headphones and we were all sitting around together hanging out. You know, you can communicate better with everyone.
MI: And you can roll around on the hardwood floor in those nice chairs that you have in your control room!
DA: Exactly, it’s a nice hardwood floor, you can roll around, and I can give people a hard time. But getting back to Lawnboy. That recording was really a “party atmosphere” recording.
MI: How much time was spent on it?
DA: All in all, it took about three weeks and we blasted through it. We probably did all the recording in about twelve to thirteen days. Then they went out on the road and I get a call from Trey out of nowhere asking me to do the next album. But, they ended up needing a “Neve” brand console and they had one down the street at White Crow Studios.
MI: Any recording secrets you tell us from the_Lawnboy_ recording sessions?
DA: Well, one song had a bizarre ending. It was the ending of “Bouncin’ Round the Room.” At the end you hear this, “Da Da Da Daaaaa”. It’s actually the ending of another song that had been taped over. The ending of the precious take was intact on the tape and it happened to be right at the end of Bouncin’, which would have taped over it, but I stopped recording in time. It sounds like it belongs there! It tacked itself on. So we said, “what the hell” let’s keep it there.
MI: What about the mixing process for it?
DA: Trey and I mixed the whole thing in about one weekend, by hand, back before I had a lot of the equipment I have today. We sat there around the clock and plowed thought the whole thing, because we thought it had to be done by Monday. It actually ended up coming out six months later.
MI: Let’s talk about the other large projects you’ve worked on. You did Jazz Mandolin Project’s self-titled debut album, which received great reviews.
DA: That was fun. I like the way that came out. And that was recorded all live, all in the same room. Of course, there’s no vocals, so that makes it a lot easier. You know who I’ve become a big fan of? Jon Fishman brings in his side-projects. One of them is J. Willis Pratt. He’s a mold-shatterer. He not only breaks the mold, he shatters it. There is nothing like him, and I really don’t think there should be. One’s enough! It’s kind of a “bumped head, left turn” approach to music. There’s no groove anywhere, and as John Fishman describes it, playing along with him is like “jumping from rock to rock crossing a brook”. It’s like getting on a wild horse and holding on for dear life.
MI: I saw him open for Phish in Albany, last year.
DA: Oh ya, he was funny. I saw him after the show and he said, “Dan, I don’t understand this. I just played in an arena, and I only sold four CD’s.”
MI: Can describe his music?
DA: Well, you’ve heard of easy listening music. This is difficult listening. He’s an artist though, and he’s quite a songwriter.
MI: Is he from Vermont?
DA: Oh, he is a Vermonter! He is a real, real Vermonter. You’ve got to hear his last album, Bleeding in a Sharks Tank. It’s great. People are either amazed by it, or it makes you nauseous. If somebody wanted to cover some of his songs, he actually writes “hits” in a way. They have all these hooks in them, but there’s no groove, and no sort of structure. And the bizarre thing is, he can play all these songs the same way twice! I don’t get it. You’ve got to hear it. Jon loves him, and he appreciates his artistry and sees all the goodness in Willis, and gets right behind him. It’s a great thing.
Oh my God, Denver just intercepted it. There up to about 40 to 3. I think that’s pretty much it for Miami.
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Matt Iarrobino lives in New York City where he works in the television/film industry and is a DJ/Lighting Designer at The Wetlands Preserve. Of course, this is all until Phish tour starts up again.
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