Primarily known as a visual artist, Dan Reeder ā born in Louisiana but residing in Nuremberg, Germany for four decades ā is the epitome of a Tape Op interview subject. He builds his own instruments, microphones, mixers, and computers. Additionally, he also engineers, mixes, and masters his own records. He even does all the artwork! It was a joy to pick his brain.
Primarily known as a visual artist, Dan Reeder ā born in Louisiana but residing in Nuremberg, Germany for four decades ā is the epitome of a Tape Op interview subject. He builds his own instruments, microphones, mixers, and computers. Additionally, he also engineers, mixes, and masters his own records. He even does all the artwork! It was a joy to pick his brain.
What came first? Was it visual art, or was it music for you? What was the spark?
It was visual art. I went to college and studied painting. Then I moved to Germany, and I was painting. They've got these artist prizes here, from the city of Nuremberg, and I won one of them at the end of the '90s. I was sick of the art scene at the time; a friend of mine knew that, and he also knew that I had 10,000 Deutsche Marks to spend. [laughs] He came over with a book called something like Build an Acoustic Guitar, knowing that I would jump all over that shit. I took money that I won from a painting prize and started making guitars, and that's the guitar I made my first record with [Dan Reeder].
It looks likeĀ The Simpsons designed a guitar. [Or Pablo Picasso. It's very asymmetrical. -Ed.]
I'm going to explain the shape of that guitar: This friend of mine, who's also a painter, wanted to make guitars too. We bought some sides; I bent one side, and he bent the other. That's the two shapes that you see on that guitar.
After you built the guitar, did songs start forming?
Actually, what turned me into a songwriter was the computer. Another friend of mine gave me a computer. It was an old IBM 286 and had two megabytes of RAM. I could run Windows 3.0, but just barely, and it wouldn't do sound at all. I kept improving it, putting in different motherboards and faster processors. When it got to Pentium 100, I could start recording audio. I bought a program for audio. The guy said, "If you want MIDI, get [Steinberg] Cubase. And if you want audio, get [MAGIX] Samplitude." So, I bought Samplitude for my birthday and started recording audio.
Is that when you started writing songs, once you had the ability to record?
Yeah. I always sang harmony with my brother at home; our whole family did that. We sang four-part harmony. We would be driving in a car and my parents discovered that if we sang together that we didn't fight. [laughter] My voice is weird and quiet. But with a computer I could sing with myself, and it would work. I could sing as many harmony voices as I wanted to, and it was wonderful.
What's the weirdest material you've used for an instrument?
I made a PVC clarinet. Oh yeah, and I made a cardboard saxophone. I'll never do it again! It was a mistake, but it's not that bad. Imagine a long, skinny pyramid out of papier-mĆ¢chĆ© and cardboard. I put a saxophone mouthpiece on it, blew into it, and it made a resonant, nice sound. I started cutting holes in it, and I cut plywood keys. Then I had to make the keys airtight. If you don't make them airtight, they don't work at all. When you start cutting holes in the papier-mĆ¢chĆ©, it quits being resonant. It's not very musical, and I'm constantly having to repair it. I don't recommend building saxophones! [laughter]
Are you researching some of these builds on the internet first? Or are you thinking, "Okay, I want to make a sax. How would I attack this today?"
Most things, like stringed instruments, I don't really have to think about. The fret spacing, or what I make the frets out of, is all pretty standard. You've got the "rule of eighteenths." It's actually 17.817. If you take a length and divide it by 17.817, then that'll give you a number. You subtract that [from the length], and that's where your first fret is. Then you take that new length, divide it by 17.817, and that'll give you your second fret. What'll happen is that your twelfth fret will be exactly in the middle.
Wow.
You can use that for pretty much anything. With a steel string, you're going to have to move the bridge up four millimeters for the bass string, and then it's going to make a little zigzag. It's going to be four millimeters, three millimeters, two millimeters, and then it starts over. Unless you're using a wound third string, and then it's going to go four millimeters, three millimeters, two millimeters, one millimeter, and then back up to four. That's to make up for when you press down on the string.
Is there a favorite instrument you've built?
Before I built the guitar, I built a bass. It's like a stand-up bass; I loaned it to some guys, but they never brought it back! That was a pretty good instrument. The paper banjos I like because they're always fun to play.
Which was the hardest instrument to make?
I made a cello out of hardware store plywood, and I made it with a rounded fret board. If you put two strings on, you don't need to round it, which makes life a lot easier. That was probably the hardest to get right.
Is there a song the listeners could listen to and hear that cello on?
I don't think I've used that on a song that I recorded. But the funnest instrument you can listen to, on "The Weather is a Dead Man," is my "can" guitar. That was the funnest one to make.
Decades ago, you mailed a homemade CD to songwriter/singer John Prine, and he'd started his own record label, Oh Boy. What was the inspiration for that?
At first I made cassettes. Then I got a CD burner and started burning CDs. People were buying them, which was really the perfect crime. At the time, I could buy a blank CD for 50 cents and sell it for 15 euros. It was fantastic. But, at some point, the sales slowed down, and I didn't know how to market it any better than what I was doing. I was just word-of-mouth, but I had sold quite a few. I was going to send copies to Bruce Springsteen and Dolly Parton. I had a whole list of people that I wanted to send a CD to, sort of as a thank you. John Prine was the only guy who had his address where I could find it. That's why I sent it to John Prine!
How long was it before you heard back?
It wasn't that long ā a couple of weeks. Al Bunetta called me. He was John Prine's manager at the time, and John called him the "daytime president" of Oh Boy Records. I'd gotten home from the pub; I was actually drunk, and the phone rang. It's two in the morning. I'm going, "Oh shit. What is this?" It was Al Bunetta, and he said, "We would like to put your record out on Oh Boy Records." I didn't even know John had a record company. I seriously didn't know anything. [laughter] It's a crazy story. I've been told that doesn't happen. And I said, "Well, yeah, it does."
Now you're Oh Boy's longest signed artist.
Yeah, I guess.
What was it like to know that John had heard your songs, loved them, and wanted to put them out?
Well, I broke down and cried.
When you're recording and writing, how do you know when a song is done?
When I know I can't fix it, and I can't make it any better. [laughter] I just sort of know. It's the same with painting a picture. I'll look at it and either go, "Yeah" or, "Nah." Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
There'll be something that's wrong with it still, but I'll think, "If I try to fix that, it's going to look neurotic." Or, "It's going to make it worse. It's done." I can always sing it again. If I hear something funky with it, I can play it again, redo the vocals, or do multiple vocals. What I do is what I call "crap averaging," where, if something sounds wrong, I'll sing the same thing five times. Then Iāll layer them, and it turns out okay. I'm talking about ways to fix songs, but I do that a lot.
When you record, I assume you start with acoustic guitar or piano and vocals. Is the next step doing all the vocal harmonies?
I'll listen to it, and I find out what I'm doing. If I find myself singing a harmony to it, then I'll do that. Or maybe there's something structural that needs to be changed. It might need a solo in there or something. I might hear it as I'm doing it. Another thing that's a problem is I've gotten into a habit of singing two or three voices of "ooooooooohhh," which is also kind of boring. But I haven't figured out a way to beat that.
You've done your own mixing and mastering since the beginning.
I probably shouldn't master; I don't think I'm good at it. The way I do it is I mix it, and what I noticed was that I tended to mix quiet. I don't mix loud; that means in the next step that I have to push it. To avoid that problem, I do try to mix louder now. I'll turn down my headphones a little bit so I can't hear that I'm making it louder, which also causes some problems. When I master, what I end up doing is making it a little bit louder. If there's something that sticks out, maybe I'll fix it. But usually the mixing is where it all happens, in my way of doing it.
Are you mostly working on headphones, or do you have some speakers?
I only do headphones. That's probably a mistake, but I've got people down below me here who do massage so I can't have the blasting loudspeakers. All this expensive gear, like the [Universal Audio] Apollo [interface], the good Austrian Audio microphones; all that shit doesn't actually make my finished product any better. But it does inspire me to sing. I don't want to sing into a microphone that's constantly going ssst, ssst, ssst! That's why these Neumanns are so nice, because they sound like the real world. I made some ribbon microphones; they're maybe a little bit dull, but they sound like reality. When it comes to mastering, in the case of my voice, it always sounds like me, no matter what I use. I'll record it as well as I can, using the equipment I've got with as little noise as possible. Iāll try to EQ it and everything. In the end, people listen to it over earbuds as an MP3 anyway. I have to say, compared to the MP3s when they first came out, I can't hear a difference. Maybe it's because I'm old and deaf, but they're good. All of the extra froufrou is to make me feel like singing. It doesn't make it any better in the end!
Have you ever gone into a studio and recorded?
I've done a few things with other people. They've invited me to go to a studio here and sing.
What was that experience like?
A little bit embarrassing, because I didn't know what they wanted from me. I was not in control. The times I've done it, it's turned out okay. They had a nice microphone; I think it was a Brauner Phantom. I could hear myself over that and it was like, "Oh. Okay!" But I haven't done it very much.
Is the humor part of your writing or your painting? Is it harder to write the humorous song, or to nail the right amount of it?
I've got strategies, and one of them is to notice something about myself that's ridiculous. That's pretty easy to find, usually! It works with painting, and it works with songs. Another strategy is to try to make something really sweet and pretty. It ends up being the nastiest shit I can think of. [laughter] Every time! I don't try to write funny songs. I write normal songs. They're not humorous, they're just normal. That's ridiculous right there, of course!
Is there anything else you want to touch on?
No. Well, I mean, when it comes to gear, I think we actually got down to the philosophical center of gear. That is to say: It really matters a lot, and it doesn't matter at all. [laughs]
danreeder.com
