hotel2tango | TapeOp

For several years now, the notion of Montreal as a hub of avant- experimental music has grown judiciously in the mindset and record collections of its followers. If you break this down further in the context of a medium to large North American city, it's apparent that most of these sounds emanate from a comparatively small community within Montreal known as "the Mile End." It is here that labels such as Constellation and Alien8 Recordings release music of an uncompromising, intimate and honest nature, inspired, in small part, by the relationship of community, activism, multi-culturalism, the surrounding architecture, train tracks, community run cafes, eateries and music venues. Peel away yet another layer to reveal the fulcrum of this sound, and invariably you'll find the name of Howard Bilerman, Efrim Menuck, or Thierry Amar at the heart of most of the Constellation recordings, as well as other local acts such as Molasses, Hrsta, The Arcade Fire, and The Dears, to name a few. Consequently, The Hotel2Tango has begun to attract people from outside the Mile-End community, from places like Toronto, New York and Boston. Since 2000, all three gentlemen have coaxed intimate mini-symphonies, esoteric art-rock and majestic avant- pop from eager musical hands of peers and friends, from within the ramshackle, humble environs of the Hotel2Tango. Although all three have a deep understanding of recording methodology, their real art is the humility, grace and reverence for capturing the true sound that blood, bone and human hands create without artifice. Their abilities to create an environment of trust, support and willingness to forgo the trappings of modern trickery embolden every project, record and artist they work with.

Before the Hotel2Tango studio existed in its present incarnation with the three of you, you [Efrim] and Thierry worked primarily in an 8-track studio environment with your own gear, and Howard, you had your own studio. What kind of gear were you all working with at the time, and was this an entry into learning about the recording and engineering process?

Thierry: Actually we worked on a Teac 1/4" 4-track before getting the Tascam 8-track. The first Molasses record was done here at the Hotel on the Teac 4-track with a Tascam board and Dynaco speakers, and that was it.

Efrim: We did a lot of tinkering on borrowed 4-track machines for a lot of years, headphones as microphones and obsessive track bouncing. Recorded a pile of little things on 4-track when Thierry and me still lived at the Hotel. Later on we bought a Tascam 8-track and an Allen & Heath 24- channel board from Carter, Labradford's keyboard player. Labradford and godspeed were touring together and Carter had the tape machine and board laying idle in his apartment and offered to sell it to us. We recorded the first Silver Mt. Zion record on that gear, eight tracks feeling like so many sprawling, luxuriant acres at the time.

Howard: I had a 16-track studio in Old Montreal called Mom & Pop Sounds. I had majored in sound in university before that, although I knew how to record bands already. I just enrolled to use the studios for free. They had an 8-track 1/2" studio with lots of beautiful AKG mics. In 2000, when I was looking for a new space, Thierry and Efrim were looking to buy some new gear, so we just brought my gear over here to the hotel.

What kind of console and tape machine does the Hotel use now?

H: Because Molasses electrocuted our MTR 90II, we're now using an MX-80 24-track 2" machine and a Neotek Series II board. Our mixdown deck is an Otari MTR-10 1/4".

People who record bands often differ wildly on the use of compression. I was wondering if you could talk about your take on compression and the different situations where compression can be hindrance or help.

H: I think what makes a recording exciting is dynamic range, and when you over use compression you're getting rid of that dynamic range. I think a lot of people use compression on drums by default... like somehow that's what you are 'supposed' to do. I mean, drums sounds don't come from boxes, they come from players. The best drum sounds I've ever heard are by great players, like Michel Langevin from Voivod who played on Elizabeth Anka Vajagic's record. You don't need to compress those drums because they already sound great.

T: I try to avoid it actually. I mean, it can be useful if you want something to sit in the mix properly, but to me you either use it transparently or you use it creatively. I'm just starting to appreciate compressors for creative means.

H: It's interesting to just run a signal through the compressor, without actually compressing it. It changes things sometimes in a really nice way. The difference between the 1178 and the LA5 and the DBX are like night and day in that regard.

What compressors do you guys have here at the Hotel?

H: Well, there's the two UREI LA5s, two DBX 163Xs, a Langevin Photo-Optical compressor, a UREI 1178, a bunch of Valley-People dynamites, and the RNC 1773 which is really quite versatile — does subtle well and over-the-top really well too.

Do you all tend to record in 15 ips or 30 ips, and aside from the obvious, how do they differ for each of you?

H: Both. There's a pretty huge difference between 15 and 30 ips, in particular how the transients sound. For things like drums, you don't need to EQ in mixdown as much when you record at 30 ips. Having said that, at 30 ips you lose the low end a bit. The flip side to that is that it doesn't get muddy down there, and the lack of 20-40 Hz actually makes things like kick drums and acoustic bass sound much better to my ears. Normally people's beef with 15 ips is that it's noisy or hissy. Our workaround to that is that when we record at 15 ips we don't use the NAB standard. We add 2 dB more HF pre- emphasis with the record EQ, and then take away in playback with the Repro EQ, so 15 ips is a bit quieter than it normally would be... kinda like a hybrid of NAB and CCIR. Recording that way actually compresses the high end to tape a little sooner too, which is nice. When we mix to 1/4" we do it at 15ips CCIR.

T: Efrim and I were doing rough mixes for the new Hannah Marcus record, recorded at 30 ips. We made a lot of judicious mic choices. She's got great gear and great instruments, and she's a great musician. We just put up the mixes and we ended up not having to really do any EQ-ing.

E: The first Hannah Marcus record, Desert Farmers, was done at 15 ips and we had to EQ a lot, although I don't know how much of that ratty EQ-ing was a product of recording at low speed.

There's a certain immediacy to the H2T recordings that's missing from more slick productions. It seems that much care is taken to preserve a chair's creak, a tube amp's hum or a foot engaging a pedal on a piano. Why is that and what does it add to the overall recording?

T: We've been in situations where we've actually had to remove that stuff, and I think there are times when people want that creaking chair or that foot on a piano pedal. I think it's beautiful all the time, myself. But it's something that's there by choice.

H: I'm reading this Neil Young book in which he subscribes to something called Audio Verité, similar to Cinema Verité — you just capture what's there. It was inspiring to read that because it flies in the face of how most people make records today where it's not really "verité" at all, it's predominantly artificial. So if there's a chair squeak, or an out of tune note or amp hum, to me... it just warms my heart.

E: I think musicians can get insecure about things they hear during playback the same way people get insecure about the size of their noses. So when people get this weird insecurity about pitch or whether the recording is sounding slick enough, you can feel like you're saying to someone you love, "No, you're really beautiful." But instead you're saying, "No, that was a really fucking excellent vocal take," or, "Goddamn, I love the way that song is coming together." It always breaks your heart a bit when you lose those debates and some tiny perfect moment gets undone.

What are your thoughts on the use of computer editing gear like Pro Tools as opposed to working exclusively in an environment of analog gear and recording to tape?

E: I think that stuff is dangerous. It can be like carving a piece of wood until there's nothing left and I think you hear that on recordings more and more often — those bland, seamless vistas. I think it's also troubling that people's understanding of frequencies of instruments is becoming totally fucked. Like people's understanding of how an electric bass or kick drum sounds. People's ears get [acclimated] to this sub-bass thing and I worry about that. Also, I think there's something to be said for recording with limitations, whether it's time constraints or track constraints or gear constraints. Again, I think musicians are mostly insecure, worried creatures, and 133 hours spent on unnecessary "point and click" tweaking doesn't make you Brian Wilson, hey?

H: Computer recording is doing to musicianship what the word processor has done to penmanship. You know when you find a postcard that someone wrote to someone else in the '30s... how beautiful it is, just to read their handwriting, and see how they used language back then. The computer has killed all that. Somehow I can't see people 70 years from now getting so sentimental about our e-mails. But more to the point, as computer recording becomes more popular, I'm finding that more and more young musicians — like in their early twenties — can't get through a song from top to bottom. And sometimes it gets frustrating. And I find that people who have solely recorded on computer sometimes just get lazy or scatter- brained. I think it's a fallacy that computer recording saves time — I think it just makes people not commit. I personally like the limitations of tape because it makes you focus on the end from the beginning.

T: Last year I went to do some overdubs on a Shalabi Effect record, I don't know what they were using, but they had 36 tracks and up to five or seven takes per track. I mean, they made an amazing record and they were great to work with, but can you imagine having to take the time to weed through all that... "Which take one goes best with that take seven? Which do we all agree should be the keeper?" And then you have to repeat that process.

Howard, do you have a prerequisite list of mics you generally use on the drums, or does the type of band usually dictate mic choice and placement?

H: I'll gladly tell you about all the mics I've used on every single session, but the danger of going down this road is that someone reading this might get the impression that, if they buy this or that kind of mic, they will accomplish the same thing. Testament to that is, all three of us have recorded records here with the same mics, cables, board, and outboard effects, and those records sound completely different. So it's almost irrelevant. But if you want to talk specifics, generally I'll start with an AKG D12e inside the kick, a condenser — usually a Rode NT2 — outside the kick drum. Snare is usually a Beyerdynamic 201 or an SM57, maybe an SM57 on the bottom, but less so recently. For overheads, either a pair of Oktava MC012s or AKG 451s with the CK5 capsule. On the toms, Sennheiser 421s, and room mics are usually a pair of Oktavas as boundary mics off the floor.

I appreciate the laundry list, but having heard the first part of your answer it seems probably more pertinent and a really valid point.

H: Well, when I started buying equipment, I'd read reviews about pieces of equipment and I'd look at them like the Holy Grail. So I'd save up money and buy the new condenser mic that everyone was talking about. I'd bring it home and go, "Eh," [shrugs] "it kinda just sounds like any other mic." I've found that how you use the mics you have, where you put them, is going to make a bigger difference than buying something new. Move a mic three inches back from where you normally put it, and it's a brand new mic. Having said that, I do love buying mics!

E: Can we all agree, however, that the Rode NT2 is an excellent mic?

H: Yeah, and can we all agree that the price on eBay just went up by $100?! [laughs all around] We put the Rode side by side with a U87 that someone brought in to record with.

A Neumann U87?

H: Right, so basically a mic costing about four times the price of the NT2.

T: Yeah, and we tested them for about an hour with different voices.

E: I mean, A/B-ing it, you could hear the mute switch, but otherwise you couldn't tell the difference. Mute switch notwithstanding, the difference was inaudible.

Thierry, the new Fly Pan Am record is quite a dense affair with what appears to be a lot more sample-based found sound and collage experimentation. How much of the album was the band live and how much of it was sample-based? How difficult was the mix process.

They had a pretty good idea what their samples and sound collage stuff would sound like before we started the recording. Some of it was already recorded and bits of it were mixed. They played me a rough sketch of the material that would overlap with the music and because a lot of it wasn't finished and we needed a lot of tracks, we decided that it would be a good idea to put all that stuff together at the mastering stage. There's a ton of other material that doesn't overlap with the actual songs that I've only recently heard. So in total I'd say it was about 50/50. When there's an actual song involved I'd say it's about 90 percent band and 10 percent sample material. The abundance of really loud and dense overdubs was a real challenge. It made the mixing process really arduous despite the fact that I didn't have to deal with any of the samples. If I had to do it all over again I would want to mix the tunes with the samples in order to preserve the integrity of the song and make sure they can coexist without detracting from each other. I would have mixed it differently. In the end it's a moot point because they weren't done working on the material. But I should have played back or previewed the mixes in tandem with the rough sketches of the tape loops just to make sure we were in the right ballpark. So I learned a lesson there. That little 10 percent is really dense and to my ears makes the band sound small in some instances. I'm making it sound bad, but it isn't. I think it's a great record, probably their best. I just wish I had done things differently. They love the record and that makes me happy.

Thierry and Efrim, one of my favorite records that you guys worked on was the Hannah Marcus Desert Farmers album. What brought you all together, and did she have any set sound ideas on what she wanted for this album?

E: The guy who books godspeed in Europe is a friend of ours. On one of the mix tapes that was constantly kicking around on the van, there were two songs from her and we just really loved those songs. Then she played some shows with us over in Europe and we met her through that. We then asked her if she would be interested in recording up here [at the Hotel], and she was into it. Like a lot of people, I think she had more ideas about how she didn't want things to sound.

You guys also contributed a lot musically to that record, aside from recording it.

T: Yeah. Well, I think on the tour she had mentioned that we should play on it. Will and I tracked some beds [with drummer Will Glass]. But mostly it was overdubs where Efrim and I would swap, I'd be at the board and Efrim would do an overdub, and we would just switch around that way. That was really fun.

Howard, you just recently recorded the debut Arcade Fire record, which has been garnering some pretty intense rave reviews. It sounds like a lot of time, energy and sweat went into recording that record. Can you elaborate a little on the whole process?

H: That record was recorded on just about every format imaginable. On 2" 24-track, 16-track 1/2", and at their practice space on 8-track 1/2" and computer. Everything was then mixed down through the Neotek here at the Hotel. I'm amazed that it has the consistency that it does, considering it was recorded in so many formats. Everyone in the band was really hands-on in mixing, which was really helpful... tag- team mixing. I played on that record too, which was a really great experience just to be on the "other side" of the glass for a change, just to remember what drums sound like on that side, as opposed to hearing them through the monitors. I think every engineer needs to be on the other side of the glass once in a while.

How long did it take to record?

H: It took about eight months of "on again, off again" recording and mixing. We did it pretty much a song at a time, which is a pretty interesting way to work. As a result, nothing is mic'd the same way from song to song. One day I'd mic the drums with eight mics, another day with two. Like, on some songs the strings are recorded with a whole section playing around a Beyerdynamic M160, on others they are recorded in M- S, and double-tracked. Sometimes there's a DI on the bass, other times not... stuff like that. Once I got over the fear of not having consistency from song to song, I came to embrace the fact that each song would really have its own identity. I'd say, if a band has the patience to work that way, it's a great way to work.

I was wondering if you could all talk about recording the vocals on the Silver Mt. Zion This Is Our Punk-Rock record. I get a real Alan Lomax field- recording vibe from how the vocals sound. Was the choir all recorded together at once or in sections? Also, did you use the tracking room or the large exterior loft area?

E: We phoned up everyone we knew and Thierry and Jessica Moss from Silver Mt. Zion taught everyone the parts. Howard set up the mics and we tracked in the big room [the large exterior loft area of the Hotel]. We did it pretty quickly, rehearsing a bit and then recording right away.

H: We also set up two speakers and wired them out of phase so people didn't have to wear headphones, and then we just mic'd them in M-S. Everyone was in a big circle and the mics were at the end of the circle. I used the Lawson, in figure eight, and the Rode in cardioid.

T: The whole process was really beautiful and uplifting. Jessica, Efrim and I worked out the parts and thought we had something good but we could only sing three of the four parts at a time so we really couldn't hear the whole thing until the recording day. Plus the part was written for a large group of people, so it was like trying to look at a mountain through a pinhole. I think we almost fell down when we finally heard it. We were totally blown away by it. Twenty-five people singing in a room together is a beautiful thing. I wish it hadn't gone by so fast.

H: Thierry left me a message at 2:30 that morning, which I still have saved. He just listened to the rough mix a bunch of times, and left me this really beautiful and emotional message about how happy he was about how everything came together. It was a very special evening.

Efrim, did you have any clear ideas or inspiration about the vocal arrangements?

E: The idea actually came from Sacred Harp singing, which is shape note singing; it comes directly from the Southern Baptist tradition of hymn singing.

I understand that you all went out into the country, and into the woods, to record some choir vocals for the upcoming Silver Mt. Zion record. How did that work out and what did you bring with you?

H: Well, we dusted off the 1/2" 8-track machine, and that was nice since the first Silver Mt. Zion record was recorded on it. Efrim had the idea for this choir and harmonium piece, and suggested we should go out to the country and record it by the water around a campfire.

E: Yeah. It's because the song is mostly a capella and I was worried that it wouldn't work out as well in the studio because it was something that we were used to doing live with the Mt. Zion band.

And were there any encumbrances or sounds that invaded the recording, given that you were outside?

E: The cool thing — and it's kinda obvious, but I didn't think of it until we heard it back — you can really tell when things are recorded outside, not just because of the ambient sounds, but because nothing's bouncing off of anything. So the tone of everything is really pure and naked.

What do you all find consistently missing from most modern recordings, and what engineering trick is most often abused?

H: Oh boy, I'm afraid this might be a rant. First and foremost, honesty. I don't think the majority of people who are making music today are being honest. They are interested in an aesthetic, or what they feel is interesting wordplay, but somehow I don't believe them, and I bet they give very little thought to what they are saying. Also, there are a lot of records that sound the same, a lot of bands that sound the same, and a lot of derivative sounds. You know, there are entire recording schools that are devoted to teaching you how to record a certain way. So it's really enjoyable to hear a record where the engineer has deviated from that kind of accepted sonic standard either because they have no formal education, or because they just got so fed up with records that sound the same. A lot of it also has to do with equipment manufacturers. Somehow they pitch to big studios that if you own this very expensive piece of gear, people will choose to come to record at your studio as opposed to the studio down the street. So studio X buys this fuckin' $20,000 reverb effects box, and if you're a band recording there, you're gonna want to use the $20,000 stupid reverb box cause you paid extra for the studio with all the bells and whistles. And so that stupid $20,000 reverb box becomes a trademark sound for three or four years. Until another $20,000 reverb box comes along, and becomes the thing you have to have in your studio. In a way, it's equipment manufacturers who are dictating how records are sounding these days. Now it's all these modeling plug-ins. Can't wait 'til they have the makes-you-sound-like-another-singer plug- in. "Shall we dial in the Will Oldham or the James Hetfield for this number, boys?" The only other thing I would say that's missing from a lot of records these days is the feeling that people are really in the room together playing... probably 'cause they aren't.

E: It's like so many records are just so much phony noise. It's easy to forget that there was a time when "popular music" was actually the product of dedicated, humble craftsmanship. That's not so true today. I mean, there are some Frank Sinatra records that are just fucking beautiful sounding, but there isn't a single moment on any Celine Dion record that sounds like anything but fluorescent-lit air freshener, y'know? I mean, if my ears are gonna be assaulted by overwrought love ballads every time I step outside my apartment, at least give me some violins that don't sound like digital icebergs gliding through some dull brown fog. Music is like a saving grace thing. It's like a lovely thing that clumsy humans make with their bellies, throats, brains and hands. It's a beautiful endeavor that's not such an easy thing to capture in boxes full of vacuum tubes or transistors, and whether we fail or succeed on any given day in our dusty little recording studio, I feel like we're at least always striving to honor that endeavor, to cradle it a little and coax it a little the best we can.

H: I have to say, the industry reaction to artists lip- synching at their shows says a lot about what a sad state recordings are in. All the bigwig managers and label heads chime in with this whole "people going to a show, just want to hear the record" nonsense. Well, the records used to represent what a band or artist sounded like live. Records don't do that anymore... they invent what an artist sounds like. So, one of the only ways to pull off this "invention" in a live setting is to use artificial means. But, really, this illusion started in the studio, somewhere between pitch-correction and making an SM57 sound like a U67. So to defend lip-synching by saying that people only want to hear the record is just defending one lie with another. I'm well aware of the lies inherent in recording, overdubbing and punching in on 24-track tape, but somehow these feel like little white lies compared to the complete forgeries in modern recording techniques.

Howard, the Thalia Zedek record has a really open and dry sound to it, yet doesn't lack any vibrancy or dynamics. The Thrill Jockey bio for the album actually mentions something about using "completely analog tech- niques." Does this suggest there was something other than just using analog tape and gear?

H: I think what it said was "recorded completely analog, without the use of Pro Tools," which seems like such a strange thing to put in your press release. I still don't know if it's a kind of disclaimer apologizing for any rough spots that might have been nipped and tucked in someone else's hands, or if it's an attempt to seem "old-school". It made me feel a bit strange though, like a dinosaur. I mean, that's how I work — I don't know any other way. As for things 'other than tape'...just a lot of time spent placing mics, and a lot of honesty about what to keep and what to try again. I loved working on that album. All of them were so gracious and easy to work with, and you gotta love a drummer that shows up with fresh drum heads!

Efrim, can you talk about the experience of recording Tony Conrad with hangedup? Both hangedup and Tony Conrad have such distinctive styles. How, if at all, did working with these two sets of people inspire you to stretch out a bit and try new things, and what were they?

Geez, most of that recording is like a distant blur. Mostly they just made shit up on the fly and I rolled tape on the 24-track and rough-mixed on the go, straight to DAT as a safety. They made a strange sort of trio together, like a shy, sweet blind date sometimes, all these tentative half-sentences, but then this enormous throbbing clamor sustaining itself for long swells too. In terms of "engineering," though, I mostly just tried not to burn anything on the stove, y'know. It felt like a lot of pots simmering at once, these long anxious evenings. I just did my best to keep tape rolling and stay out of the way and not fuck up too badly.

What are you all presently working on at the Hotel, or what projects do you have coming up?

H: I'm finishing up the new Black Ox Orkestar and a few other bands from out of town. In the New Year I'll go off to do location sound on my friend David Maquiling's film Another Deep Breath, then come back here to score it. I asked Mac from Superchunk if he'd write some music for it and come up here to track it, which would be great if it works out.

E: Finishing the new Hannah Marcus record, and finishing a record by a band out of Toronto called the Phonemes.

T: Finishing Jonathan Parent's record. It's a trio with Michel F. Cote and Alexandre St-Onge [Shalabi Effect], with classical guitar, percussion and double bass. It's nice to record a fully acoustic band. I'd like to do more of that in the future.