Tom Waits Glitter and Doom show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta

Before the show started there was music playing - sounded a but odd. No surprise here but it was actually coming out of this large array of megaphone/bullhorns! A mono signal with only mids, no lows or highs, sounded like a bad dream!

Tom is really on his game for this tour. I saw him last year at the Tabernacle in Atlanta and this year's show was ten times better. Great staging, sound, theatrics. Fantastic show! The band was excellent and at times sounded like a small orchestra and Tom was doing a sort of Waits only style of conducting. Sometimes reminded me of a warped Broadway production!

He was up on a small circular stage that looked like a piece of antique discarded circus equipment and the lighting circle overhead was tilted so the shadows it cast were long and eerie. Tom looked like he was a skinny 7 feet tall. Around the stage he was on were some small round lights that reminded me of a rundown midway - they were a little crooked and none of them ever seemed to be lit all at once.

Casey Waits played drums and had a huge kit with tons of odd ball things around it. The keyboard player had a couple keyboards sitting inside of a hollowed out B3 looking cabinet. Some of the sounds were bizarre as you might expect. It was actually very cool how close the sound was to the strange atmospheres on his records.

Thee was a guy out front who played sax (sometimes two at once), harmonica, and guitar. Sullivan Waits came out and joined him a couple times playing clarinet. Must be odd touring with your dad and playing "... we're all gonna be dead in the ground" every night.

The musicians were really great and the guitar player played electric and acoustic and even a couple flamenco styled things. A guest guitarist came out for a few numbers - Larry Taylor. Sorry I didn't get all the names of the members.

Tons of cool visuals in this show. A flickering lightbulb dropped down for a song, dusty powder created a fog around Waits as he stomped, a bunch of glitter rained down and later in the show he donned a mirrored hat reflected light like a like a disco ball. Waits was very animated through the whole show with his occasional odd and funny stories.

Tom played a little bit of guitar, some piano and pump organ but mostly stood in the center of his stage and lead the whole thing like a ringleader conductor. A drunk guy sitting behind me, and kept kicking the back of my seat said at one point "What the hell is that?" with regard to the pump organ, along with a bunch of other comments. One of his comments I totally agree with: "Man, Tom Waits is brilliant!"

ribbon microphones, room reverb, Brent Averill, Seventh Circle Preamps, Potluck Audio Conference, figure 8, Aphex mic, Project Studio Network Podcast

Someone emailed me a bunch of questions - here are some of the answers:

vocal chain:
I use a Rode K2 tube mic through a Brent Averill 1272 preamp, sometimes through an 1176 compressor into my Roland recorder. By turning down the attenuation as far as it will go on the Roland, I am using as much of the 1272 as possible. Ideally I would bypass Roland preamps but you can't do it on those durn things.

reverb:
I like stuff pretty dry, especially vocals, maybe a little room sound here and there on other stuff. For this CD, I hardly used any digital reverb at all and instead ran separate signals into a speaker in a large tile floor room and at the other end of the room put up a couple Oktava 012 mics. $50 each at G.C. - best deal ever but they don't sell them any more I don't think.

Anyway, then I brought up the real room reverb on a separate track so I could EQ it and control the amount. I like to change it occasionally for different parts of the song to make the choruses bigger than the verses and stuff like that.

I use the proximity effect for a fuller vocal - finding the optimum spot depending on the song.

Everybody's voice has their own mic - I have a friend who sounds better on a Shure 58 than anything else I have - through the Brent Averill of course.

I also made a bunch of pres from a company called Seventh Circle Audio and they are great.

The Fathead was pretty cool to start with but the Lundahl mod improved the quality about 30 - 35% in the highs, lows and overall clarity. I recently got two more Fatheads at the Pot Luck Audio conference in New Orleans - way cool event - next year it is June 12, 13, 14.

ribbon mics:
Ribbons work well for rounding off the edge - trumpet, tambourine, shaker, anything bright and harsh. I am planning on trying them for drum over heads because they're supposed to be really good for those.

They are also great for isolating guitar and voice when performed at the same time. They have a figure 8 pattern and the null side around the edge is deader than the deadest point on a cardiod pattern.

I don't know about the Cascade turbo thing but the ribbons need a lot of clean gain and tube pres can be noisy so I wouldn't recommend those. There is a way to use a Mackie mixer coming out of the inserts and not going through all the electronics - pretty clean way to go and not bad - cheap.

AT 4033:
The 4033 is a great all around mic - I think it has only one pattern. It's pretty bright, can take a lot of SPL, built well. I got one of those new from the factory from a seller on ebay for 225.
4033 runs on phantom power, Fathead doesn't. They really are totally different.

There is a really cheap condenser called an AT 2020 or a Studio Reference or something - $99!

Also Aphex makes a tube mic that sells for around 150 or so that is very close to a $3000 Telefunken. Check out PSN's podcast for info.

A stupid solder maneuver

I mentioned the delay in the last post. Well, when I dug it out of the mothballs, the battery was dead and it wouldn't hold any settings or presets. I do quite a bit of electronic type suff so i thought shoot, I'll just replace the battery. I ordered it from Mouser- a great supplier and proceeded to do one of the stupidest things ever. I tried to solder the tabs directly to the battery! NEVER DO THIS.

I couldn't get the solder to hold so I looked up some stuff on ye olde internet. That's when I was reminded batteries can explode when heat iss applied. My face was about a foot away and I was not wearing goggles. STUPID MOVE. By some incredible stroke of luck the battery did not explode and I still have my eyesight. This move continues to haunt me though. Please be careful.

I ended up ordering another battery with solder tabs especially mde for this, soldered it in wearing safety goggles.

DIY face-up -rackmount for keyboard stand shelf

I play keyboards and sax in some situations - quite a bit lately with a really good band - check us out at jangomonkey.com . It's sort of a rock band with lots of room for improvisation. I have this digital delay from a long time ago, you know, around the time they first came on the market? Anyway, I was trying to figure out a way I could control it and had it sitting on a shelf on a keyboard stand. Trouble is all the buttons and knobs were at waist level and it wasn't so easy.

I tried to figure out a way to prop it up so the controls would face up. That's when I realized, after a little measuring, I could cut a slot in my shelf the same size as the delay minus the rack ears which would keep it from sliding all the way through. So now I have a shelf for my mixer, delay, set list, flashlight and maybe a beer. The delay is 25 years old so this isn't a huge risk. I will try to remember to post a couple pictures of it very soon.

One of the best pieces of studio gear

Herman Miller Aeron chair. Now I can sit in the studio at the desk for 10 or 12 hours with no soreness! It's been really amazing. I've heard folks grumble about these but if you get the right size they are fantastic. I got a bargain on mine from a used office furniture place on craigslist.

Recording clean esses or tees on backing vocals

I'm amazed more people don't use this technique and you hardly ever hear about it. I even heard a James Taylor record where it wasn't used! It drives me crazy when I'm listening to a song and there are a bunch of vocals stacked and there is a word at the end of a phrase that ends with an "s" but every body cuts it off at a slightly different time. The listener hears this horrible flamming of esses. (Even if everybody cuts off at exactly the same time the esses start to build up way too much.) It doesn't have to be that way! Let the lead vocal do the "s" and the rest of the vocals take the "s" off the word. Simple! Same for any word that has a consonant like a "t" or a "k" etc. Have the backing vocals soften the attack or release. Individually they may sound odd but together they will sound much better.

Stompbox Cookbook

Some time ago, I got into building guitar effect pedals. It's a great hobby and I've actually used a lot of the boxes I've built. For over two years I've been looking for the Stompbox Cookbook at a reasonable price. It went out of print a while back and shows up occasionally on Amazon or Ebay for 2 or 3 or $400. After using Google book search I got a list of libraries that had the book in stock and participated in the interlibrary loan program. One week later I was able to pick the book up for free at my local library! I have it for a couple weeks and the only drawback is copying the book is illegal. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Podcasts and marketing music - free!

Recently I got an ipod nano and started checking out podcasts. I almost never listen to the radio any more because as Brian Tracy recommends - I've turned my car into a rolling university! Sounds corny but it's really cool and here in the Atlanta area where traffic is hell, it makes the drive so much easier when you feel like you're learning something instead of just wasting time crawling down the highway.

One of my favorite recording podcasts is the Project Studio Network. Sort of like Car Talk for recording geeks. Great reviews, interviews, and links to free stuff, which they somewhat annoyingly always announce with a freeeeee exclamation.

Car talk has a podcast and so does Garrison Keillor with the Prairie Home Companion. All free!

CD Baby has one - covering marketing, recording, performing, touring. CD Baby is a great company by the way for distribution of your CD or arranging downloads on iTunes etc.

Song School/ Folk Fest in August CO style!

If you are into songwriting, playing guitars and camping in some beautiful surroundings, check out Song School in Lyons CO - about 40 minutes northwest of Denver. What a great time! Many of the attendees go every year including me - this will be my 6th or 7th time. Classes are very good and rather loose and held in big tents . Instructors are fantastic and every night after the "open stage" song circles break out all over the campground.

Se in a red rock canyon with an incredible starry sky every night, it's impossible to beat - highly inspirational and plain fun! Only a short drive from Rocky Mountain National Park which is spectacular to see.

The school goes on Mon. - Thu. and then the festival happens Fri., Sat., Sun. Past performers include Steve Earle, Norah Jones, Randy Newman, Greg Brown.

Checkout planetbluegrass.com got more info - it often sells out - not surprisingly.

Danelectro U2 reissue intonatable bridge mod

I'm starting to see a pattern here with the mods. . . Any way, I really like my Danelectro and it had a rosewood bridge that looked like it was collapsing, not to mention the intonation on some notes was a bit questionable. I bought an intonatable bridge from allparts on ebay for about $45 and it went right in place with ease. They make one that fits a bunch of different Danny guitars and no modification or drilling was needed on mine. I even used the same screws to set it on the body. I did find that when putting on the new strings I had to slowly tighten up one side and then the other so as to keep the bridge in the correct position All in all it was about a 20 minute job requiring no special tools.

I had heard that such a mod might change the tone but this was not the case at all. One additional bonus was the string windings no longer cut into my hand. I'm thinking about filing the setscrews down a bit to make that more comfortable too.

Fathead Ribbon Mic Mod

The Fathead Ribbon mic is a great deal. Sure a Royer or a Coles is going to sound better - a little, but they're also going to make your wallet thinner - a lot.

I got mine for $159 and the price is $199 now. (http://www.cascade
microphones.com/cascade_FAT_HEAD_II.html)

I listen to the Project Studio Network podcast quite a bit and they had a couple shows dealing with ribbons. I already owned the Cascade Fathead and was interested in what they had to say. A guy named Slau was very complimentary and when I heard the comparison of a Coles 4038 to a Fathead with a Lundahl transformer, I knew I had to mod my own. I got the new tranny a Lundahl 2912 from K&K Audio for $70 with shipping. (http://www.kandkaudio.com/transformers.html) Cascade will also do the mod for $150 or you can buy the upgraded model from them.

The mod took about half an hour. Very simple. You unscrew the bottom of the body, pull off the shell, take out the screws holding the old one in place. Keeping track of where eveything goes is easier with a digital camera, but there are only four places to solder. K&K provided great instructions also. Basically the thin white wire connects to pin 3 of the XLR (center pin, and the thicker black wire will connect where the red wire was on the PCB. Connect the other two and that's it. Put it back together and you have one heck of a great sounding inexpensive ribbon mic.
For me, the total was $239!

TV and film music conference sponsored by Billboard magazine review

So I attended the conference - had heard about it and planned to go for the last couple years - finally made it. I had hoped it would offer some insight to getting music into TV and film, and had many questions: Can you do it from somewhere else other than L.A.? What kind of package should I send if at all? Does stuff get listened to? What kind of money is involved?Any help in making contacts? Can I make contacts at this conference? Is anybody accepting CDs or demos?

Oddly enough, after spending a bunch of money on plane fare, hotels, rental car, and the conference itself, I have all the same questions. It was a big show and tell type of event - interesting but not very informative. There were a lot of panels that were basically the same thing - a composer being interviewed and talking about their incredible scoring talent - with a few exceptions.

There is supposed to be a one year subscription to Billboard included in the cost but I paid for the conference months ago and have been back in town for 6 weeks as I write this and still no sign of the first issue. (Correction on 12/29/07 - Just got the first issue - almost 2 months after the conference!)

I decided to write this review because when I was originally looking around to try and decide if it was worth it, I couldn't find any info anywhere other than the Billboard site.

Little Labs IBP - a great little problem solver

Recording vocals and guitar at the same time

Singer/songwriters love to sing and play at the same time. Many engineers think this is a lot of trouble because it makes their job harder. I had one guy in the studio who told me an engineer told him it couldn't be done! Amazing!

The person who has the hardest job is the one performing the song. They're the ones who are trying to express something and open up. Since they are always playing and singing when doing a gig or writing a new song, it stands to reason the most comfortable way for them to record would be the same.

I've had great luck with the previously mentioned mid side technique but also using a couple different mics. The Shure SM7 is pretty directional and sounds really good on some voices. If you usually use a condenser on the guitar like a Shure SM81 or and Audio Technica 4033, maybe you've encountered phase problems.

A cool box to correct this is made by Little Labs - it's called the IBP. Infinitely variable phase, not just 180. You can dial in the exact phase location - it's like having the capsules completely lined up. It's also a super over engineered little box - very high quality.

Rode K2 and Shure KSM 32

mid - side microphone technique

I've been doing a lot of mid - side mic stuff lately. It's really cool on guitars and works well if someone wants to sing and play at the same time and have stereo tracks. Done correctly it's rock solid and the musician can move their head but the voice is still centered in the mix.

I use a Rode K2 in figure 8 position on the bottom and a nice condenser like a Shure Ksm 32 on top. The null side of the figure 8 mic is aimed straight at the guitarist / singer and so is the condenser - cardiod is fine. The top of the K2 right side up and the top of the Ksm 32 upside down will almost touch.

The condenser is routed to one track and the figure 8 is routed to two tracks, with one track phase reversed and both figure 8 tracks panned opposite each other. Great stereo image, no phase problems and the width can be controlled by raising or lowering the figure 8 levels.

Shubb partial capo

YOUTUBE partial capo videos

Maybe you're interested in doing something a little different on your guitar but retuning is a pain. Ever try partial capos? Shubb makes a great one that goes over three strings and allows you to play many of the same chord voicings but with a different sound. Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/billkahler

Akai E2 Headrush Looper - click track idea

recording to a loop instead of a click track

In the studio I have quite a few singer/songwriters come in to do projects. Often we will start with them and add the band later so there is the need for a click track. I abandoned the straight click track idea a long time ago and have been using a drum pattern with a kick, snare high hat or some combination of those - maybe a shaker or whatever. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me to add a person-played shaker to humanize it a bit.

The biggest revelation came when a guitar player was having a difficult time with the machine rhythm and we tried the Akai E2 Headrush looper. He played a few bars of the tune and when he had the tempo, he muted the strings and I looped a bar or two with the E2. Just like that we had a very human track to play along with - in fact he was playing along with the most natural rhythm possible - his own. We used the same method for all the tracks and not only did it work well, it was way faster than programming a machine and deciding on a temp etc.

New CD is available

"Love Handed Down" is my latest CD and as usual it is in a sort of folky rock vein. This time one of the big changes/challenges was I played all the instruments, recorded it, mixed and mastered it and even did the art work. This is my fourth title and all cds are available at cdbaby.com/all/billkahler though it may be a couple weeks before this one shows up there. I am also trying a few new things that fly in the face of traditional music marketing. Very soon all of my CDs as well as random songs will be available on my website billkahler.com in the form of an honor system download.

This blog is a new step for me as well. I have some ideas about recording, songwriting, and various miscellaneous things that don't seem to fit anywhere else. I also think it may be a point of contact to meet new people - musicians and music lovers.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to bookmark it as I will be putting stuff up here often.