Beyond our jazz band jams, what sparked your interest in pursuing recording?
Being in high school bands and getting a Fostex X-28 4-track [cassette recorder]. It was unique in that it had eight channels despite only having four tracks. We could do sub-mixing and blending on the way in. I remember you had your Fostex X-28, and we were the only two people in town. “Oh, you have a 4-track? I have one too!” Then we started “4-tracking” together whenever possible. Making music with friends was more important than whether the band was going anywhere. At various times, so many would pass through my parent’s basement to record: Jason Ajemian [jazz bassist], his brother Lucas, Keith Wood [Hush Arbors], and our late friend, Thomas Bateman.
You got much better drum sounds than I did.
I had a Radio Shack Realistic PZM overhead mic taped to the ceiling, and a Shure SM57 on the kick drum. The book I had on recording said if you only have two drum mics that’s where to put them. It took me a long time to get an AKG D112, and then I got a pair of Shure SM81s and an Audio Technica AT 4033. That was my mic collection before I started working in professional studios.
You went to Middle Tennessee State University for audio engineering, and you would send me CD-R mixes of all these bands you’d recorded. Everything from country to the hardcore band From Ashes Rise.
I did like it there. It was a laid-back vibe, with great facilities and staff. I didn’t know much beyond 4-tracking before I went. In addition to assigned projects within the program, we had a house with a bunch of people. I put a Tascam DA-38 and a Mackie 4-bus mixer in the garage, so we were inviting bands to come and see what we could pull off. Then I went to my first internship at Dark Horse Recording. It was amazing to be there, with Brent King [Ricky Skaggs, The Statler Brothers] as the engineer. It felt like the pinnacle of Nashville professionalism. They were using ADATs with an Alesis BRC [Big Remote Control], and then going back to punch in on the fly. The assistant would write down timings on the chart so the engineer would know exactly when to punch. Recording moved on to the DAWs soon enough that I never mastered that, but they were super quick and efficient using that system.
When did you first enter the picture with the Dave Matthews Band [DMB]?
My first credit with them was on The Central Park Concert [live album in 2003]. I had been working with them live before I entered the studio. I’d known some of the other band members for a few years, engineering local Virginia projects for pianist Michael Sokolowski with LeRoi [Moore, former DMB saxophonist], as well as various projects with Carter [Beauford, drums]. Slowly but surely we all got to know each other, and working on recordings is such a bonding experience. Next, I was assisting Mark Batson on [DMB's 2005 album] Stand Up, meeting him and Dave [Matthews] on the same day at Haunted Hollow Studio. It was an exciting time!
Who are some of the other ATO Records artists you recorded at Haunted Hollow?
I worked on a couple of records with the English group Gomez, and thought those guys were super creative. Their English perspective reminded me so much of the classic rock we all love. We made A New Tide with Brian Deck [Tape Op #36] coproducing, and I liked Gomez's Whatever’s on Your Mind as well. Working with Taj Mahal producing Vusi Mahlasela’s Say Africa was an honor. He had an all-South African band, including Paul Simon’s bassist, Bakithi Kumalo. Virginia reggae band SOJA [Soldiers of Jah Army] are great, and we recorded Poetry in Motion there. I also made some fun records with Mariachi El Bronx and Danny Barnes when I was there.
How has your setup and workflow changed since relocating to Seattle?
I designed our current studio setup with a Mac tower, Pro Tools, and the Avid S3 [controller]. For outboard gear, I can’t say API enough, but we also have Neve, Chandler, and Universal Audio units. A majority of the time I’m mixing live sets, but it’s not uncommon for Dave to want to work on an idea, and that’s always exciting. We’ve gotten comfortable enough that I’ll give an opinion, but I also like that he’s not afraid to disagree with me. He has a great sense of himself as an artist; open, but also confident. After recording Dave's initial demo of “Looking For a Vein” he enjoyed the vibe so much that he wanted to preserve it through the final production of Walk Around the Moon.
What’s your go-to recording setup for Dave?
Typically, for vocals I use a Shure SM7B, and on the acoustic guitar I have Schoeps mics in a mid-side configuration. That’s a technique where I use a pair of CMC 6 U xt bodies fitted with MK 41 cardioid capsules pointing straight ahead, and a [Sennheiser] MK 8 bi-directional mic on the sides in a figure 8 configuration. There’s a way to decode it where I pan the bi-directional and reverse the phase, with the cardioid in the middle. As I bring up the level of the bi-directional I get a stereo image, and as I raise it, it localizes as if I'm widening an X-Y pattern. It gives a certain amount of phase cohesion, and if I don’t want it to be stereo, I still have that option.
How did you come up with this technique?
We recorded a cover of Hazel Dickens’ “Pretty Bird” at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, and we set up a laptop to record. Jeremy Bowker, the engineer there, used this technique with the same mics and I loved it so much that I told Dave I’d love to re-create that setup. So, we got our own set [of mics].
I was expecting something more boutique for Dave’s vocal mic. Is the SM7B just compatible with his voice?
It’s a very common mic, and a lot of people use it for vocals. It’s a classic sound, and it’s tight. If he’s singing into a Telefunken ELA M 250 it tends to pick up the acoustic guitar. It’s a beautiful sound, but it’s pretty wide. With some mics you hear too much of the room ambiance. It’s nice to have more control over those volumes with the SM7. I have a tendency not to call something a “scratch” vocal, as I’m hopeful to get the real thing, especially when he’s singing so well. I have a number of preamps, but I love API and their consistency from unit to unit. Same thing with the SM7.
Would the two of you be in the room together while he was writing songs for Walk Around the Moon?
For the title track, a lot of the acoustic guitar and vocal was laid down before Carter played along to it. He always adds so much life. We had started the song in mid-July 2020, and we got so excited that we called him to play on it. It felt like a great DMB song.
I love the horns.
Rashawn Ross [trumpet] and Jeff Coffin [sax] will layer multiple horns, sometimes doubling. Jeff also plays flute and handles all the woodwinds. My son, Thomas, even got to join in on trombone for “Madman’s Eyes.” The flutes on “Walk Around the Moon” started out on a Mellotron and developed into the flute solo Jeff played. During the pandemic, we met them in Virginia at Haunted Hollow so they could work out their parts together. The horns on “All You Ever Wanted was Tomorrow” were inspired by something Dave was scat singing as he walked around the studio. He was present for all of the overdub sessions that we did at Haunted Hollow. It’s a beautiful studio, and I love being back in Virginia to visit family.
We have to talk about Carter’s drum sound, and his snare, in particular. Does he switch that up from song to song?
He’ll use the same Yamaha Custom Maple kit, but he’ll sometimes switch out the snare with the guidance of his drum tech, Henry Luniewski. Carter’s snare collection is vast and varied, but in general he likes a tight snare. We used a looser sound for “Walk Around the Moon,” which gave it a bit of a psychedelic ‘70s sound. The next song, “Madman’s Eyes,” has a more modern rock snare sound – like a gunshot or a cannon – befitting the subject of the lyrics. That gives a nice contrast.
After all these years, do you have a standard procedure for mic'ing the drums?
I’ll use a [Shure] Beta 52 on the kick. For this album, we added a large, sympathetic drum [outside the main drum] to give the kick more decay, and we mic'd that with a Neumann U 47. Depending on the song, we scaled back the amount of the sympathetic signal. For the snare, it’s a Shure SM57 on the top and bottom, going through an API preamp. I use an AKG C451 on the hi-hat and Sennheiser MD 421s on all the toms. For overheads, I’ve used a few mics, but I do like an AKG C24. It’s a large diaphragm stereo tube mic with a nice top end boost that suits Carter’s cymbal work. It’s a pretty special microphone, and Dave had a great microphone collection by the time I started working with him. In addition to the C24, he also has vintage Neumann U 47 and U 67 mics. His API mixing board came from the legendary Music Mill studio in Nashville.
Are you mainly using the natural reverb of the studio?
It’s a combination of room mics and some artificial reverbs. I tend to use FabFilter, Valhalla DSP, and UAD plate reverbs. I’m mixing along the way, but, with the exception of the title track, Billy Centenaro handled the final mixes. “Madman’s Eyes” was the first song we sent to him, and he did such a stunning job that we decided to have him mix the rest of the album.
Was Dave consciously exploring heavier rock in some songs? “The Only Thing” has that guitar vs. distorted synthesizer duel, for instance.
The band has always had heavy songs, like “Halloween” and “Don’t Drink the Water.” On the new album, “After Everything” is a wild song that has a heavy intro. That solo section in “The Only Thing” is a great moment on the album. Tim [Reynolds, guitar] and Buddy [Strong, keys] were at the studio together, cutting heads. They often talk about inspiring each other, and this is a great example. They were going at it for a while. Buddy played that on a Moog One, and also used it on a few songs. This was the first record he was fully involved with, and he sings that back-and-forth section with Dave on “After Everything.”
As a coproducer, are you doing much with the grid to shape songs?
We’ll do it in different ways. Sometimes we’ll work on a grid, and other times we’ll program out tempo and meter changes. For “The Ocean and the Butterfly” there was no grid. It’s a vintage vibe, with Carter playing the brushes. Dave had laid down a great demo and then he and Carter recorded it together, just looking at each other for cues. Once Carter has the groove down, he’s pretty easy to follow. “All You Wanted Was Tomorrow” was also done without a click. You’ll hear that it starts out with just voice and guitar, and then it crescendos with the whole band. But it started with Dave playing and singing as a single performance. Carter played over that, and once those subdivisions created the ebb and flow, the rest of the band could play around it. I enjoy how those two songs breathe.
The band is on par with Phish and the Grateful Dead, in terms of fans interacting with live recordings. What’s been your involvement with the DMB Live Trax live albums series and the band’s archive?
Tucker Rogers looks after the live archives, but there was a time when I was hands on with it. I’ll handle mixing, and sometimes mastering, if we do post-production on anything in the vaults. Every show since 1994 is archived, and we’re up to Live Trax Vol. 65 of the series. I’ve been involved with that, going all the way back to assisting on Vol. 1.
Tomorrow night, the band is playing their Friday Night Concert Series at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, [New York]. What will your role be?
The band streams live to Sirius XM DMB Radio, and I’m the broadcast mixer. The front of house mixer is Tom Lyon, a brilliant engineer who works with UltraSound, the legendary PA company out of San Francisco, [California]. They designed the Grateful Dead’s original sound system. Greg Botimer, the monitor technician, splits the signal to the monitor engineer [the late Ian Kuhn] and recording engineer [Joe Lawlor]. We’ll also send a snake to a dressing room stage left, where I’m receiving 72 channels of audio. I’ll mix that and send it to Josh Horn at XM. Josh is the transmission engineer and technician, so he takes my signal for the broadcast.
Is it too soon to look ahead to putting together the next album?
We’ve got a running list of songs that could be on it. There are a lot of well-known songs that still haven’t made it onto an album, but it’s also exciting to come up with something fresh in the room together. I can imagine it will be a combination of old and new, but that’s neat because there’s something historic about capturing a moment. The song “Break Free” has been around, but only recently saw a resurgence of popularity live. Fans would ask, "Why hasn't this been released?" Honestly, I don’t know what it will be, but I’m excited to see what happens!
Rob and I settle up, as the noise hits peak Long Island Thursday night levels. Back at the historic Garden City Hotel, we count eight tour buses in the lot preparing for tomorrow’s show. He’s got a Yamaha Silent Guitar portable acoustic up in his room, and he plays through Leo Brouwer’s arrangement of “Drume Negrita” while I listen back on a set of beyerdynamic DT 770 PROs. Rob’s been lucky to spend time in Virginia between tour dates, and he was just there playing this piece for his dad. It feels like we’re back in the basement with the PZM all over again!
