Sasquatch? Recording

Sasquatch? Recording: Modern music production with a vintage attitude. Portland, OR and Bingen WA.

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Interview with Dave and Jason p3

Q: What can someone expect if they work with Sasquatch? Recording?

Dave:  First and foremost, the Bingen Theater offers a recording environment that no studio in the nearby area can match – the live room is far larger, and has a far higher ceiling, than anything in the Portland metro area. And speaking of the Portland metro area, Bingen is far enough outside that area to offer a removal from potential distractions. It’s a complete change of scenery, which many people find inspiring and helpful for focusing. There are several isolation rooms in two locations in the theater, so sounds ranging from a very large room to a very tight and focused dry room are available in myriad combinations. The possibilities are just about endless.

We feel strongly that we have a lot to offer as people, both individually and as a team. Between us we have decades of experience as musicians and as recording and mixing engineers. We know what it’s like to be on either end of a recording – artist and engineer/producer. We have a shared vision for the space and for music, with plenty of individual taste and perspective to keep things from getting stale, and to offer many options for direction if the artist wants that input. We both share a fundamental interest in recording bands giving performances as the primary base for recording projects. We’re both pretty mellow and easy to work with.

Jason:  Speak for yourself Dave, I’m a raging prick to work with.

Q: What’s your philosophy when it comes to engineering and producing music?

Jason: I think Dave and I have a pretty similar approach here too, and that's kind of an important distinction in terms of philosophy - and for deciding if we're the right fit for a particular artist or a project.  I'm definitely not someone who would say that there aren't any good new  rock bands or that it's all been done. I find that idea itself to be cliched and unimaginative – and I think there is plenty of evidence to the contrary – but I do find much about modern music production to be lacking in terms of capturing raw feeling, regardless of the genre. Much of that, in my mind, is related to the technology in the vast processing power in modern recording studios – or even your Ipad in your bedroom -  and it can be a double edged sword. I really think, if a performer can’t play the track the way it needs to be played - then they should practice some more until they can play it they way that want it.  On the other side of that coin, I really think that real musical performance by a real human is never absolutely flawless and shouldn’t be represented that way through digital editing etc.    I think our approach is to recapture some of the essence and technique of pre-digital recording and use the technology available in a measured way to end up with a product that sounds like an actual cohesive performance.

Dave:  I’m interested in capturing a band or artist performing music. While I have the skill to cut, paste and edit music, and have done so, I’m looking more for the excitement of a moment in time. I believe in getting the sound right at the source through mic choice and placement, less so in fixing things in the mix. I believe in a combination of careful planning and spontaneity – being meticulous up front in order to be ready to capture something randomly great and exciting. I think people can feel the honesty in a band performance, even if that performance is embellished later. People can feel the truth in that, and it’s my job to create an environment and conditions favorable to fostering and capturing that truth. I’m also a firm believer in being open to happy accidents; some of the best parts of recordings happen that way. I’m an adherent of Eno’s Oblique Strategies, particularly “Honor thy mistake as hidden intention.”

Q: What’s your favorite album of all time from production standpoint ?

Dave: Oh my, that’s a tough question! There are so many! Well, there’s the obvious contenders, like pretty much any Pink Floyd album from Meddle through The Wall, Rush’s Moving Pictures, things of that nature. Radiohead’s OK Computer is up there. The Church’s Sometime Anywhere is immaculately produced, particularly the drum sounds. REM’s Lifes Rich Pageant, Automatic For The People, and Document, each for different reasons. Peter Gabriel’s Security and Passion albums. Tom Petty’s Wildflowers. For acoustic guitar sounds, Robin Bullock’s Green Fields: Celtic Music for Cittern and Guitar. Do I have to pick just one??

Jason: I'll pick just one.  Nirvana's Nevermind.  Perfect marriage of crisp, clear production and raw rock energy.  Kurt Cobain was famously critical of the album as he felt it sounded too polished and not punk rock enough, but in the end – Butch Vig's production on that album literally defined the trajectory of rock music to this day. It’s almost funny to think about that album sounding over produced, when you compare it to most modern recordings done in the era of digital editing. The tight, yet raw and indisputably analog production made the music accessible to millions of people who had no idea what punk rock was. And interestingly, going back and rewatching Dave Grohl’s film Sound City - where Nevermind was recorded - I do get a sense of a similar philosophy in some ways in what we are getting at with our humble little operation.  We don’t have a handwired vintage Neve console and we didn’t record Fleetwood Mac, but we do have what we think is just a really killer sounding room to record in.

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Interview with Jason and Dave, Part 2

Here’s part 2 of the interview with Jason and Dave:

Q: Why did you decide to start Sasquatch? Recording?

Dave:  Pigs on the Wing has been playing the Bingen Theater for several years now. Every time we went out, Jason and I talked about how much potential it has as a recording space, both because it’s a great sounding room, and because it already had a recording studio installed. Jason eventually decided to approach the owner, Rod Krehbiel, about recording there, and Rod was very receptive being a musician and recording enthusiast himself. Jason approached me about coming on board as a technical advisor and silent partner, and I happily signed on; I was ready and eager to come back to recording after 3 years away. It’s been fantastic to get back into that mode again, both tracking and mixing, as well as working with other musicians as an engineer and sometime co-producer.

 It’s also been great to work as part of an engineering team with Jason; I’ve always worked solo, and have quickly found that two sets of hands actually more than double the efficiency of the operation. It takes a fraction of the time to do things like fine-tune mic placement and sound treatment with two people.

Jason: I had quickly outgrown the space I was working out of in my home studio, which is also the Pigs on the Wing rehearsal studio – and as Dave said, recognized what a great potential space the Bingen Theater is.  So I think Sasquatch? Recording is partly a recognition of an opportunity with the physical space at the theater. 

Dave and I felt like there actually was a bit of niche need in the crowded recording studio market for something like this – more than a home or project studio, but not a high end commercial studio either.  The fact that we're working out of the Bingen Theater, an hour out of Portland in the Gorge, strikes us as a significant plus for many reasons: it’s a cool area to escape to for a weekend but close enough to be doable; it’s an amazing, weird, creative physical space at the theater;  and it’s a really inspiring natural area with just enough fun stuff for bands to get into during breaks in recording. We’re not really after record label work or industry-insiders; there’s not much of that anyway in Portland, and way more than enough professional studio space to meet the needs of those few bands who can afford to spend that kind of money.  Neither are we trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel to compete with the bedroom project studio crowd at the absolute cheapest rate.  

I guess you could say we’re targeting artists kind of like ourselves; which is to say, those who have found a way to make music a serious but sustainable part of their life without being caught in the ‘starving artist’ routine or completely burning themselves out touring endlessly, etc.   Artists that have figured that out are usually pretty committed to their craft, and also have at least some budget to work with, so that’s our target with Sasquatch?  Recording.

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Interview #1 with Dave and Jason

Dave and I just opened the doors, metaphorically and literally, on our new recording business - Sasquatch?  Recording at the historic Bingen Theater ( located, as you might guess, in Bingen WA).  I sat down to ask myself, and Dave, some questions about why we got ourselves into this and here’s what we came up with.  I got pretty long-winded ( imagine that), so we’re going to break this down one question at a time, one day at a time....here’s the first one:

Q:  What’s your experience with recording and producing?

Dave:  I began recording in the 9th grade, shortly after beginning to play the guitar. My parents each had a portable tape recorder with a built in condenser. It occurred to me that I could record myself playing guitar on one, then record with the other one while I played along with the first tape, and so on. I recorded covers of some of my favorite songs. I also realized that I could make my Dad’s classical guitar sound electric if I played really loud right next to the mic. Heh. A year or so later my folks got a double-cassette deck with a mic input that had a level control, so I graduated to recording layers on tapes that got swapped back and forth between decks. This was cool, but only recorded in mono. I eventually realized that I could use the RCA input jacks on the back and record stereo tracks. I started compiling riff tapes and sonic experiments. Man, I wish I had those tapes now! It would be fascinating to hear them with the perspective of everything I’ve learned in the 34 intervening years. In 2004, I got my first computer recording system – a Mac with an early version of the UAD plug-in system and an RME interface, along with my first condenser mic. My recordings at this time were still limited to me recording myself one track at a time playing guitar, bass, keys and vocals, so the system was limited to, I think, 18 inputs, which seemed hopelessly extravagant – “I’ll never in a million years need all of those!” Needless to say, that happened in the next two years. Over the next few years I started accumulating more and better gear, shooting for variety and depth. I picked up a tube condenser mic, large and small diaphragm condensers, a variety of dynamic mics, tube, solid state, digital and hybrid mic preamps, and all sorts of quirky stuff. I found ways to use a pair of tape echoes I’d picked up for my guitar rig in the 90s. And I was experimenting with every part of the process – mic choice and placement, effects, looping, editing, sound and time manipulation, analog and digital signal processing, you name it. I tried everything the standard way and my own way, planned and random. I also began recording other people’s projects, including Jason’s band, Oxcart, for their Beekeeper Constellation album in 2011, which funded an RME interface that is in use to this day, currently as the main interface for Sasquatch? Recording.

Jason:  My experience with recording is kind of similar; I recall trying to figure out how to do multitrack recordings without a multitrack recorder in my bedroom closet in high school . That would have been the early-mid 1990s, so definitely pre-Pro Tools era.  I have boxes and boxes of 4 track cassette tapes that I'm afraid to listen to – but I do recall 'engineering', if you could call it that, my high school metal band on a 4 track with a crap old mixing console which – I shit you not – I found in the town dump.  I pulled it out of a garbage pile, brought it home, took the cover off and put a new power cable on it, and it worked....for a while....it caught on fire eventually but not before that album was done.

Since I moved to Portland in 2001, I dabbled in home recording and did a few demos for my bands on 4 track, then digital 8 track, then eventually on Garage Band, but was really not too focused on the production side of music creation. I think more crucially for me, I spent some  time in professional studios, most notably in Billy Oskay's Big Red Studio where Oxcart recorded our second album. I was also fortunate to play in a band where 2 members were also formally trained professional studio engineers.  I learned a lot from those sessions, and also from working with Dave when he produced an album for us. 

 In the past 3-4 years I have rapidly expanded my technical knowledge and experience as a producer and engineer, but my point of reference is definitely as a musician.

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Jennifer Sweet EP in production!

Sasquatch?  Recording is honored to be working with Portland artist Jennifer Sweet on her new EP....some photos from the first tracking session at our new home at the Bingen Theater!  

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Here’s a track from Erik Withak’s new album being run through the 1/2″ tape machine...

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Welcome to the World of Tape

Reel-y? Yep, really.

We just picked up our first reel-to-reel tape machine, a Fostex E22 ½” 2-track deck, sold by the affable and very skilled Gus Elg of Sky Onion Mastering here in Portland. Is this a beaut or what:

We are excited about the possibilities for the newest member of our gear family. Mostly we’re intending to use it to add a little warmth and – dare we say – magic – to 2-track mixes prior to sending them for mastering. Down the road we envision reamping, submixing, even using it as a mic pre of sorts, as possibilities. And did we hear someone say “real reel tape flanging?” Maybe that’s just wishful thinking…whatever.