2024 #9: Dec 31

Hello! Writing to you this time from a beautiful live/work space in Charlestown, Boston, MA — my friend Nico from The Most lives here, and graciously offered their space to work out of. I’ve been here since last Thursday - the first of two stops on my first Recording Tour. Unsurprisingly, have hit a few snags, but managed to work thru all of them.

First on my schedule, was recording an LP for Night Moth - a band comprised of some great people with long-standing friendship at the core of their music. We tracked all of the basic instrumentals live in 4 days and they’ll be doing vocals on their own. If you’re familiar with Squitch, this is their new band. You can hear a demo of one of their tunes here on bandcamp.

Something unique about recording this particular band, in this particular space, is that it was here that I heard their music for the first time! They were kind enough to hop on a bill last-minute, that I was playing on my solo tour in May. I was immediately blown away by the depth, patience, and explorative nature of their music. To get to record them in that same space, has been a real treat.

I’ve been referring to recording here, in a warehouse by the highway, as an Environment Recording - in that there are noises related to the environment in the background, including trains, wind, windows rattling, rain, trucks, cars, etc. Kind of a joke, kind of for real.

We had a rule in place, that the beginnings and quiet moments of songs should be free from substantial ambient noise, but loud moments and endings of songs are OK. For this music, I think that tracking somewhere that feels (and is) lived-in, adds a really neat ambience to the whole thing. While there are certainly advantages to recording in a proper studio, Bringing The Studio To You has really got me excited about the future of what this kind of project could hold!

Drums were recorded in the main room of the living space (the living room?), bass was tracked with a DI (and reamped later), and we put each guitar amp in their own rooms. The isolation was nearly perfect, and allowed for the room tone on drums, to reflect the openness of the space without interruption from guitars.

A limitation I encountered during the tracking of the Night Moth record, was that my interface (an Apogee Symphony I/O) is only able to operate with 16 inputs via USB - and I really, really wanted to get a big room sound on the electric guitars. To remedy this, I wound sending the guitar signal thru a large PA speaker, and recorded that using an omnidirectional mic about 15 ft away, in the large main room. Wound up sounding excellent, and adds a neat additional ambience to the whole record. Since I recorded the drums with 3 room mics, and the acoustic guitar included a stereo pair of omnidirectional condensers, it felt right to wrap it up neatly with the electric room mic reamps as well.

Next up, I tracked drums for my bud Max Goldstein, one of the best drummers alive. We tracked his parts for one tune, for his two-piece noise rock freakout band Fred Cracklin. Despite hitting a snag with a neighbor having issues with the volume, we were able to complete the tune to both of our satisfaction the next day. The drums really sang in this space, and I set up both a stereo pair of omnidirectional room mics (two Audio Technica AT801s) and a big ribbon (Cascade Victor) placed farther away. One of the cooler room tones I’ve gotten over the years!

The last project for the recording tour, was finishing up tracking an EP for The Most, who drove out to Chicago in July to record with me at Ohmstead. We started first with Nico’s nylon string guitar parts, until Conor showed up — we had about 7 hours to get his parts done (Nylon guitar and Vocals), and we completed the task with about 30 minutes to spare. For one tune, we had initially intended on recording steel string guitar, but when we ran into fret buzz issues with it, we decided to try something different. Nico had an old tascam 4 track cassette recorded, which we plugged a beat up Squier guitar into, cranking the gain all the way up. We ran that into my Neve preamp - the whole thing sounded fuzzy and twangy and scuzzy, making for a really nice subtle blend-in with the live amp electric guitars… it felt right to all of us.

After finishing up Nico’s guitar parts, I spent the next few hours packing up my setup, saying “thank you” to the Space itself, and tried to catch some sleep. The next day, I drove down to Meriden, CT and loaded my rig into The Most’s practice space, to record percussion and sax. We spent the day recording shaker and tamborine - Adam (who plays drums in The Most) knocked it out of the park, and we had a great time coming up with juuust the right arrangements for the tunes. Our work for the day ended with getting mics set up for sax tracking the next day - this included a Stager SR1A right up on the mouht of the instrument, a Sony ECM 377 as a mono room, and a pair of Audio Technica AT801 omnidirectional mics, spread as far as the walls would allow, for even more room-tone goodness.

I figured I’d head right to bed, but the crew had other plans — after enjoying some pizza and a couple beers, we walked up the block to the craziest christmas lights display I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding folks, this was something else… if you’re ever in Meriden, CT around holiday season, do yourself a favor and check out the display. We walked around the permiter of the park for about 30 minutes, beautiful light-sculptures covering everything as far as the eye could see.

The last day of tracking was a total joy - recording Mike and his brother Matt was a blast! We tracked Alto, Tenor, and Barritone Sax, plus Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, and Flute. We did a listen-thru of all the tunes, congratulated each other on our collective hard work, and packed up my recording rig once again. In the morning, I stopped by Fancy Bagel Express to get some goods to bring back with me, and began the long drive home.

All in all, a pretty excellent first Recording Tour. I will definitely be doing this again, and I’ll share information when the time’s right.

Music stuff

Live:

• Options is doing a special 6pc band show in January, opening for This Is Lorelei and Youbet at Schubas. The date is 1/17, and I feel certain it’ll sell out. If you want to get tickets, you can do so here.
  This is a one-night-only sort of thing — I’ll be joined by friends Cameron Wisch (Cende, Porches, Dust Star, etc) on Drums, Wilson Brehmer (Patter, Joey Nebulous) on Bass, Joe Suihkonen (Moontype, the Deals, Patter) on Guitar, Andy PK (Red PK, Free Range) on Guitar, and Michael Seidenfeld (Options live band 2023, El Silver Cabs) on Percussion. This is gonna be a blast and I hope you can make it!
  

Releases:

• Nothing new at the moment to speak of, but finishing up some personal projects!

• You can always keep up to date via my website

Recording:

• Books are open for February and beyond! Please shoot me an email if you’d like to inquire about tracking, mixing, or mastering.

• I’ve reconfigured the recording setup at my practice space (known as The Owlery), into something much more accessible. It’s been really nice working there again, mostly on personal projects, and I’m excited to keep the music flowing there this winter.

  You may be familiar with the sound of the room, as heard on AOID by Ratboys, the alt version on bandcamp of Problems by Pinegrove, Options’ Maxed Out and Driftwood Metaphor, Slow Jams by Coaster, Despondent by Nnamdi, and many others. If you peruse my website from 2013-2016, most of that material was recorded there. There are a few video sessions that were recorded there, too.

  The room is located in an old warehouse (hilariously, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) in an industrial corridor in East Garfield Park. One day, I’d like to write a detailed history of The Owlery, but that day is not today.

Wishing you all a productive and peaceful new year.

Thank you for signing up for my newsletter - it’s very cool to be able to reach folks directly, and I intend on using this more often in 2025.

- Seth