Ray LaMontagne's 2010 album, God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise, may have won a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, but I'd refute that narrow categorization. It's an album of honest songs, real performances, and some real feelings. Ray self-produced the album, but he brought in Ryan Freeland as the recorder and mixer. I had the opportunity to join a group of attendees at a Welcome to 1979 Recording Summit, where we had a listening party (off 180 gram vinyl) and then a live interview with Ryan to discuss the making of this fine album.
So God Willin'... came out in 2011?
Yeah, we recorded it in March of 2010.
Where was it recorded?
It's all one room. Ray bought the former ambassador to Russia's [William C. Bullitt] old farmhouse in Ashfield, Massachusetts. There's a 'great room' the size of a barn, and that's where we did it [The Big Room at Apple Hill]. It was all plaster walls and wood flooring. Ray wanted to be in the middle of the room, where he could look at everybody. I put the drums [Jay Bellerose] right in front of him, Greg Leisz [steel, guitars, etc.] to his right, Eric Heywood [steel, guitars] to his left, and Jennifer Condos, the bass player, sat on the floor. That last track, "Devil's in the Jukebox" was the first track we cut. That's a big track. I was shitting my pants because I'd brought all my gear out, and getting it set up was hard. I was like, "Okay, let's start slow. Maybe we should tent the drums a little bit." They pull out "Devil's in the Jukebox" and it was sink or swim! I thought, "Either this room is going to make a recording that's great, or I've made a really bad decision to agree to do this."
Is that completely live?
There are a lot of edits, but they're all edits between live takes. No click.
No grid?
[laughter] Yeah right. Pro Tools is the most fabulous random access editing system ever devised. The idea that you'd need a grid, or need somebody to be like, "There's the beat," is ludicrous. You can see it! It's all there, and you can move it wherever you want. Wherever the beat drops and feels right is where the groove is.
What gear did you bring out there?
I had to bring my whole studio, including mic stands and headphones.
You live in Los Angeles?
Yeah. Now it's even more mobile. I've got six big racks: two compressor racks, a pre rack. A Pro Tools rig with all Apogee I/O. It's like a 32-channel console, done in a mobile system. But back then, because I was moving it myself, I had it all on eight-space racks because that was as much as I could carry and load in my car. The records I was doing couldn't afford cartage at that time. I had it all in these racks I was moving around. I'd go to Joe Henry's house, or I'd go to somebody's closet. Wherever somebody needed a studio. Ray called and said he wanted to do it at his house. So the truck showed up, and I watched my life's investments get loaded in. Just the mics alone...
Audience: Do you do a lot of recordings this way, where you go somewhere else to make a record?
I do it, but not as much. This was the biggest, because it was all the way across the country. But I do take it to Joe Henry's house a lot, which is half an hour away. It seems silly. Every time I do it, I ask myself why I'm ripping apart a perfectly good studio to move it 30 minutes down the street and spend a whole day setting it back up again. But I love Joe, and that's what he wants to do. It gets me out of the house. I didn't have nearly all the mics I have now, but I had some pretty good ones, even back then. I invested in mics. I feel microphones are the hardest modern gear to replace. The boutique pres and compressors have a great vibe, but when it comes to reissues of old microphones, the old ones sound better to me, so I've bought a lot of vintage microphones. I've had a few too many really obscure and cool pres and compressors die on me in the middle of a take. If a microphone dies, it dies in a different way than a compressor will. If a compressor craps out in the middle of the take, it's really ruined.
What mics did you bring out for Ray's record, at that point?
I had my [Neumann] M 49. I used that and a [Shure] SM7 on Ray at the same time. It's mostly the M49 in the mix, but I messed with it. I knew that Ethan Johns [Tape Op #49] had used the Shure SM7 [on vocals], and I wanted to make sure that was the way to go. It was a different time for me. I was still thinking, "Oh, I've got to honor this." Ray has a big tradition of working with Ethan. I had a [Neumann] U 67 on the acoustic, and I had a lot of Royer ribbon mics. The main drum sound is Royer overheads. I stopped using them a few years ago. I kept having to compensate for the darkness; so I figured why not put up a slightly brighter microphone? But I still use the Royers on every session.
They capture sounds in a great way.
Yeah. So there were those, and then I had a pair of RCA 77s. Now I have pairs of mics; a pair of U 48s, a pair ofM49s,andapairofU67s.Itwasalotof prioritizing on this album. My whole career felt like I was stuck where I had 16 channels of Apogee, and then 8 channels of crappy conversion. I always was trying to figure out who gets the good channels, and who gets the not-so-good. I always had to do that. It was the same with microphones. Now I'm at the point where it's 32 inputs, and I'm not sitting there saying, "Oh, it's a keyboard DI. Fuck it." On this record I was still managing that.
How long did you have to put all your gear in place?
I think we did a full day. I was really sweating. I could tell it was too live, even though we hadn't recorded yet that first day. We were sending people out to Home Depot to buy tents — like for picnics. We'd put them up, and then I'd get packing blankets and put those over it so that I could at least control the drums a little. Then I tried to baffle off Ray as much as I could. Everyone was in the same room on headphones. What I really learned was that Jay's hearing his drums back through Ray's vocal mic. So he knows what's going into the vocal mic and back into his headphones; he's playing to the room, and what I'm recording. I was really aware of how symbiotic it was.
Did you co-produce?
No, Ray produced it.
You must have felt like, "I want to do a good job, but I don't want to interfere."
Well, everything I do is that. I'm not trying to manipulate anything. People who've played a lot hear themselves in a certain way. Drummers and guitar players have been hitting, or tweaking knobs, for years to get these sounds. If you can be the guy who can make that sound get into speakers or earbuds, and get the musician to say that it sounds like they think it should, that's the whole gig. You're trying to make them sound like the best version of what they think they sound like. I hear it too, so I'm not trying to say, "Hey, have you considered tuning your snare drum down?" I don't do that. If someone has a question about it, we'll talk about it. I'll maybe offer suggestions about something that's interfering.
With a less-experienced player, you might have to take that role.
It happens with drummers a lot where you tell them, "If you bash that hard, there's no way that it's going to sound good." It doesn't happen with me that often, but you do have to take that role sometimes. That "capture it" recording technique doesn't work with guys who don't know how to balance their own playing. You can compensate, but you need a guy who really has that experience and knows what he's doing.
Was it trial and error, where you'd play songs back to them to see what they thought?
No, there wasn't any of that. It was me running around frantically on take one and making small adjustments. I went with my gut. I thought it was going to work. Luckily that first song was probably take four or five, so I had a good two or three takes to tweak the setup, an inch here or there, or throw up some more blankets. I had a good 15 minutes worth of that.
Where were you located? Were you in the same room?
Yeah, I was directly behind Ray.
On headphones?
Yeah. I was using Sennheiser HD 650s.
It's hard to get the exact reference when you're in the space where the music's happening.
Yeah. If you do it for enough years, you get used to it. I've been using those Bose noise-canceling ones recently. Those are crazy weird; but when you get used to them, you can figure it out. Plus, when you get enough experience you know that some mics will be fine when you switch to speakers, and that it will translate the way you're expecting it to.
Audience: What headphones were used for the musicians.
They were using Sony MDR-7506s. They're bright. When people spend a few takes with them and take them off to listen, I always wonder whether I should get them something else to listen with. I don't want my playback reference to sound less exciting when they're used to hyped-up and bright on the Sony headphones.
What monitors did you bring?
Just my ProAc Studio 100s. I brought a subwoofer too, because Jen always wanted more bass. I'd turn the sub up until she was happy, instead of messing with my rough mix.
Where did you do the mixing at?
At my old studio [Stampede Origin Studio]. I've got a new studio space now, both in Los Angeles.
What was your mixing setup?
I guess it's modified a bit, but I've got API 8200 summing mixers. One of my racks is my replacement for an analog 2-track. Its compressors and EQs are dialed in a certain way to give me that sound. I can adjust what goes first; maybe a little light here, then a little dark compressor, and I mix and match. It's my equivalent of saying, "I'm going to use this tape stock and this tape speed." All of those things that, throughout history, you've done with a 1/2-inch master.
Is that what you use the Maselec mastering console for?
I had everything patched in with XLR cables. Now I have the Maselec MTC-1, which is fantastic. You can switch the order of gear with the touch of a button. I love it. You can change the gain control to the whole 2-buss system. If you want to hit it softer when you're in-line, it's crazy. You can hit the first one softer, but you're constantly in a catch-up game. With this, you can hit the first one softer, but make it up on the back end. They also have a blend. I've got a Retro Instruments 2A3 "Pultec-style" EQ. You can really crank the EQ, but blend in a little. It's totally different to blend in a lot of EQ, as opposed to putting a little EQ.
That's kind of the way the Mäag Air Band EQ works.
Yeah. So much of this great new gear coming out has parallel processing.
Do you set up so mixing is recallable?
It's all very recallable. The majority of the sound comes from the 2-bus. The 2-bus is where I figure out brightness, compression, and darkness. You can get your general vibe there and decide whether it's good or not. Mixing with all the plug-ins is fairly... I don't want to say minimal, but you're mixing through the 2- bus gear. You've already made those decisions, and the plug-ins help that along. None of it's radical. It's all a touch of bright, a touch of dark, a little fuzz, or a little high-pass filtering.
You end up with a record that sounds like people are in there, playing songs.
Yeah. People playing together in a room is special, even if you do edits. Once again, Pro Tools is amazing. I couldn't believe how much I got away with. There's bleed everywhere. You smear the edit line a little bit. It's just a better version of what the good take was. That's all you want. The other option is to isolate everything, get the great take, and then replace everything you want to fix one at a time. Then you end up with this weird "chasing the tail" situation. "Like Rock & Roll and Radio" is a great example. That one's with Ray alone. He came in before anybody else showed up and wanted to put the song down. We recorded a few takes of it, and he said he wasn't feeling it. But it was fucking great. I told him to let me get the best versions of the first five takes, put them together, and play him that. He listened to it and was like, "Okay, that's the record." There he was, thinking he didn't have it. If he'd come in the next day with that attitude, he might've gotten it; but it could've also been this weird spiral where self-doubt comes in. I knew it was in there.
I would never guess it's five takes.
Thank you. In some ways, my whole career was based off this. When I was doing these Aimee Mann records, she hired me right out of working at Bob Clearmountain's [Tape Op #84]. They'd be recording all day; and when they left, I'd stay late. When they came back the next day, they'd want to listen to what they did the day before. I'd play it for them, and it sounded better. They'd say, "Shit, I didn't think we had that, but it sounds really good!" I'd try to make it the best it could be. If you're in control of it, try to give people back the best version of what they're trying to do.
How did you end up working at Bob Clearmountain's?
I went to the recording program at Cal State Chico in Northern California.
I graduated from there right before the recording program started.
The professor there had worked for Gary Belz, who had Kiva Studios, which is now House of Blues Studio in Memphis. They were looking for a second [engineer] for that studio. I'd just graduated, and I got the job. I went to Memphis and did the normal crap: phones, cleaning out attics, and all. I finally got into the room as a second. I had a girlfriend, who was also an engineer, and she got a call to work for David & David. They had set up a new studio in a warehouse in Hollywood, and she was working for them as their second engineer. She was connected to the L.A. world and heard that Bob Clearmountain was looking for an assistant. Gary Belz said that they should call Chico State and get another student from that program. I heard about this, and I was like, "Damn if I don't want that job myself." I called up and I didn't hear anything. I did one other call with Betty [Bennett, of Apogee and Bob's wife] for five minutes. I didn't hear anything for a week, and I needed somebody to tell me if I didn't get the job. I called them up again and they said, "We're starting Bruce Springsteen [mixing] in two weeks. Get down here." I quit, put everything back into my car, and drove to L.A. Bob wanted to have a great studio, and I did everything I could to make that the best studio I could make it. He was great, but you had to do your best to learn. He's not a talkative guy.
Do you keep notes on the parts of different takes that you like?
In my experience, notes in the moment are useless. While you're doing it you think, "Wow, that was a great take." But when you listen more scientifically, and out of the moment, you always think, "Why did I like that?" I stopped making notes in the moment. As long as I'm left alone and there's no chit chat going on, I can listen through and remember what I like. When it's five takes, it's not that hard to remember the best phrases. You can edit as you go. If somebody really likes a take right after they finish it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be better when you go back and listen. You might be influenced by somebody else's enthusiasm.
How long did you spend tracking?
The basics were really only five days. We were there for two weeks, and we pretty much had the record done after five days.
What did you do for the rest of the time?
We listened. On some songs we went back and made a change. They booked us for two weeks. We were all enjoying ourselves, so it was silly to send anybody home early.
Did you do any vocal overdubs or fixes?
There were no overdub vocals. Any vocal fixes were done from alternate takes. They had to be, because the bleed had to match. You could grab a word, here or there. Nothing was consistent, but as long as there was some ambient sound coming through the vocal mic that sounded similar to what was on the other take, you could get away with it. My default would always be to take the whole band and then start making decisions. Maybe I could get away with leaving the drums or the bass the way it was. In some cases just the vocal got changed.
I assume you were mixing unattended?
Completely unattended.
Were you sending MP3s off to Ray?
I send CD quality. Here's a guy who's got a million guitars. He must have had $100,000 of wax cylinder players. He'd be like, "The only thing I have to listen to this on is my laptop with these Bose headphones." I was getting a few weird mix comments, so I asked him what he was listening on. I immediately went out and bought a pair of those Bose headphones, and I was like, "Damn. These are ripping shit apart in a very strange way — a way that I need to be aware of." You have to draw a line at some point. Like people listening on Dre Beats headphones, and you get these comments. There is a line at which I cannot accommodate anymore. I can do earbuds, Bose headphones, and car stereos. But the level of compromise to make Dre Beats sound good is not something I'm willing to do.
How many revisions did songs go through?
When I got the Bose headphones, I made a few little adjustments. After that, Ray loved it. I sent Bob Ludwig an early version of the title track, which I still love. It's one of my proudest moments in recording, the way that everything came together. He had a few comments, so I made a couple of tweaks. I ended up sending him two versions of the mixes. I was still a little close to the Clearmountain thing where I felt this little voice in the back of my head saying, "You don't want to be too far away from pop radio! It's got to cut and be bright. You've still got to have the stereo bus compression." I was so nervous about having something too heavy, or too dark. I didn't want it to sound like a pop record, but if Pink came on afterward, I didn't want it to sound weird. I sent him a thinner, brighter version; but he picked the darker, fuller one to master. It was really educational for me.
Did you get any other feedback from Bob Ludwig?
No, that was it. He's mastered a few albums for me and he's always been really great about it. He's a sweet, sweet man; the same way Clearmountain is. Great mentors to have.
With all the editing, did you get any sleep while tracking God Willin'...?
I was a little stressed out because of [the history with] Ethan Johns to be honest. I really liked those records. I was tormented with trying to figure out how much I needed to be honoring that, as opposed to going with my own gut. It's funny, because it's now an album that I get more feedback on than any other I've done. It was a turning point where I stopped worrying so much about what somebody else might do on an album. But on this album, I was still really concerned. When it got nominated, it was liberating. As long as it could still hold up, and sound like Ray and that band, then I didn't need to be too concerned about the rest of it. He was ready. He had the songs, all those little production ideas that he'd sing to people. All we did were these ten songs.
No B-sides?
No, there was nothing extraneous about the whole process.
Were there any demos?
No. Ray would say, "This is how it goes," and show us a song. Man, talk about fun. It's like the first time you hear it, an hour later it's done and there it is. There's no prep. Everybody's doing what they feel; including me.
Were there any frustrating moments along the way?
I can't think of any. With most of the players I work with, and especially these guys, is that nobody has an ego. It's never like, "Ah, if only I had it my way!" There's none of that. Everyone's like, "It's interesting. I don't hear it that way, but let me think about what you're saying." Through the conversation, you get to a point where it turns out really great. This is what I love about recording. I love hearing somebody with an idea for a song, because I could not write a song to save my life. I know what they're doing — they're tapping into this thing that's deep down. When they like the way it sounds, and everybody thinks it's what they imagined it would be — what a great compliment!
