This month has flown by. Quick run-down of what happened:

• Turned 31 on Feb 5
• Tre Orsi played two shows with Nina Nastasia, which were really really great experiences
• Worked with The Great Tyrant, American Werewolf Academy, Drink To Victory, Notes from Underground, and Douche
• Started ramping up for the next Works Progress release

Tre Orsi is playing at Rubber Gloves this Saturday with Joe Lally and Edie Sedgewick. March is mostly devoted to finish The New Year’s new LP. April is a quick Tre Orsi tour, then recording.

Ok!

Did yet another overnighter in the studio last night, sneaking in around 10 PM after Dave’s session was over so that I could mix Deep Snapper’s new LP. We started tracking last weekend, giving ourselves three days to record and mix 12 songs. As is often the case, we got behind schedule and had to find a gap, however brief and ill-timed, in the studio’s calendar to finish up. We started at 10 PM and the band was out the door, master tapes in hand, by 9:15 AM. Rather than drive through a dense fog (”throoough a dense fawg”, as Complete would say), I crashed in the studio apartment for a few hours.

Mastering for Shearwater’s Rook LP was last Friday at Sterling Sound with Greg Calbi. Jonathan offered to fly me up, but I felt it best to stick around Texas and catch up on housework and hang out with the wife. Apparently it went well — the band and label are happy — and the masters required very little in the way of rescuing. I’m going to wait until the vinyl is in my hands before listening, though — after months peering at this record through a microscope, I need a break. I’ll try and write another follow-up post on this album by the time it hits the street.

Starting this weekend, I’m recording a new LP for The Great Tyrant, then afterward finishing up American Werewolf Academy’s new one. Come March, Bubba and I will be finishing up the new New Year LP, and there’s lots of potential stuff, unconfirmed as of yet, on the horizon past that. It’s looking to be a good year for me, studio-wise.

Tre Orsi will have a busy spring: we’re playing shows in February with Nina Nastasia (Ft. Worth and Austin) and Joe Lally (Denton), then a 5-date run through the Midwest with Minus Story and the Coke Dares in April, followed by more recording. For those with an interest, we keep up with such things on the Tre Orsi web site.

Due to scheduling crunches and other constraints, I’ve started mixing Rook on my partner Dave’s Cubase system. Dave and I mix the songs, then send references to the band. They make notes, and I make modifications to the mixes and send more references. This goes back-and-forth until everyone is happy and confident in the final result. In January, Jonathan will come up and we’ll spend 5 days in The Echo Lab, running the mixes through our console and outboard gear and onto 1/2″ analog stereo tape.

This process is convoluted, but for a record as complex as Rook (so many harp overdubs!) and with so many logistical constraints (people in 3 different cities, a completely packed studio calendar) it makes sense. It gives the band members time to become comfortable with the mixes before signing off on them.

Typically, I prefer to record and mix records fully analog, tracking to 2″ and mixing to either 1/2″ or 1/4″ stereo tape. (Which format to mix to is usually a question of budget.) Since most records I make take between 3 and 5 days, and are basically documents of a band’s live sound, this is a really efficient way to work.

Rook is a different beast. Because the band is spread out across 3 cities, they only practice before tours. Of the 14 songs we initially tracked, they had played maybe 5 of them as a band before. Arrangement decisions were being made in the studio, rather than during practice. Lots of overdubs were added to fill out songs. It’s very much a studio creation, rather than a document of a living band. Because of this, mixing is more complex and requires a lot back-and-forth to find the right mix.

Quickies:

• Been knocking out vocals. Soundelux 251 is ruling for the croony stuff.
• “Century Eyes” now sounds like Suicide meets The Ex meets Yo La Tengo, sorta. Still waiting for the Half Machine Lip Moves moment, but oh yes, it will come.
• “Jolene” by Dolly Parton sounds INCREDIBLE vari-speeded down two and a half steps. Unreal. Definitely releasing this into the wild.

Friday night, Howard and I went out to the studio to go over the existing takes, talk about overdub ideas, and free up tracks to make room for said overdubs. This involved erasing unwanted takes (extra vocals, misguided cowbells) and sub-mixing some drum tracks. (The original drum recording used separate tracks for the toms and cymbal microphones. These 4 tracks were mixed down to 2 new tracks, then the originals were erased, leaving us with 2 more free tracks.)

On Saturday, Thor and Elaine (the harpist) arrived around 11:30, and we got started on harp overdubs. We tried a few different microphones in various positions before settling on two Avenson Audio omnis taped to the soundboard of the harp and an Audio-Technica Pro37r about 10′ away for ambiance. (Steve Albini used a similar technique on Joanna Newsome’s Ys album, but used four Crown GLM-100 mics up and down the soundboard for increased detail.) These were all run through John Hardy mic preamps and bussed through our Manley ELOP limiter to a single track.

Elaine ran through 7 songs in a matter of hours. A really wonderful experience for me, this being my first harp recording and all.

After we finished the harp overdubs, she packed up and we headed for dinner. 5 bowls of curry later, Howard and I returned and started in on his large list of overdub ideas. For the first time in my life, I recorded a flanged tambourine. (I feel liberated, honestly). We did a lot of extra guitar and organ bass pedals before calling it a night at 3:30 AM.

I’m ready to get back into working on “Rook”. Jonathan, Thor, and the harpist are driving up tonight, and we’ll commence overdubs tomorrow morning.

During the break, Jonathan and Mark Sonnabaum (our string/woodwinds arranger) have been piling on the arrangements, and our to-do list of overdubs has become, shall we say, ambitious. We are recording through the 9th and reconvening for final mixing in January. Dave Willingham is going to assist me with mixing, which will provide some much-needed perspective and oversight after spending more than 4 weeks in the studio working on these songs.

Last night, Bubba Kadane came up and we did some guitar overdubs on The New Year’s new record. In between our mixing sessions in September and October, he and Matt went back to Electrical Audio for three days w/ Albini and tracked 4 more songs. Matt will be in Texas for Christmas break, when we’ll do his vocals and extra guitars, and start mixing the remaining songs. All told, we’ll have spent maybe 15 days in the studio just mixing and recording overdubs.

I’m very excited for 2008: both Shearwater and The New Year will release these new albums, and hopefully I’ll be along with them both for the tours to follow. On top of that, I’m doing new records for Deep Snapper, The Great Tyrant, and American Werewolf Academy — all great bands I’ve recorded before, and all of the records much shorter affairs than The New Year and Shearwater, much to my relief.

Howard and Bryan both have new Tre Orsi songs in the pipeline, which we’ll work on tonight. We’ll start recording in March or April, w/ Bubba wearing the producer’s shades again.

Today is our last day in the studio for a little while. We’ve been steadily knocking out remaining overdubs, some planned and others made up on a whim. Jonathan has turned in some great vocal performances so far, but we still have quite a few lead vocal tracks to go. Howard and I are going to pack him up and send him back home to his lovely girlfriend for some well-deserved time off. (He’s spent most of this year on the road with Okkervil River and Bill Callahan.)

We’ll reconvene on Dec 1st to do strings, woodwinds, brass, and any remaining overdubs. Then we mix and put it to bed. In the interim I’ll be doing a little more work on the new The New Year album. And sleeping.