Thursday, I arrive at the studio and begin shoveling snow to clear the covered parking lot. Don Bearie and I take turns shoveling a walkway for the oncoming clients. Subtly, he asks me, “Did anyone tell you about the session this weekend?”
“No?” I said, “What time should I be there?” We only spoke briefly about the session, because we were both scheduled for a video shoot in Studio W that afternoon. But as an intern, you always have to be ready. Sometimes someone is sick or just can’t make it for a session. In fact, that is exactly how studio owner, Kevin Clock, got his start in this business. Don promised me we would discuss the session in depth later that day.
That evening, Don and I are setting up Studio A for the mystery session. I learn then that the artist’s coming in are Adam Perry, the bassist from Perpetual Groove, Jason Huber, from the Electro-indie duo Cherub, and Adam Deitch the drummer of Lettuce. We are using 32-inputs on our Neve 5088 Console; to record the following: two drum sets, vocals, grand piano, upright piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and more. We spend an hour or two extra the night before the session to get all the cables clean and keep the studio set-up and presentable for the artist when they arrive the next morning.
Friday, Don prepares the Pro Tools session and gets a template put together. I clean the studio, make coffee, finish plugging microphones in, and making sure everything is labeled. But it’s important to remember that no matter how prepared you are, you can never be prepared for everything. Adam Perry and their producer Whit Hawkins arrive and Don and I help them set up a couple of new additions they brought with them, including a String Ensemble keyboard for which we didn’t have an available input.
Then, we encountered the biggest issue of an otherwise perfect session. The artist’s session included plugins which the studio does not have. We attempted to troubleshoot for about an hour, before we decided to freeze the tracks and import them into our session. Luckily, the artist had scheduled a couple of extra hours up top for troubleshooting purposes! The downside to our solution is we could not tinker with the plugins and find more sounds the artist liked, or recreate exactly what they had on their demo tracks.
But, in the grand scheme of things, the plugin issue was an imperceptible flaw in a flawless session. We recorded an orchestra of cello played by the amazing Jordan Polovina, and an entire choir with the vocal talents of Montana Waters. Adam Deitch came in and absolutely crushed his egg shaker and tambourine parts (and the drums parts, obviously!). The drums were recorded all day Saturday, and on Sunday we finished tracking drums, extra vocal parts, Wurlitzer, acoustic guitar, and bass.
Adam Perry told us that in his twenty years of playing music, he has never had a better experience. The entire three days came and went and the studio has moved on to the next session. Adam and Jason have gone home to Georgia and Tennessee, respectively. But this was my first experience as an assistant engineer, and I will never forget it.
Written by Kyle Dean