Making "That's Right!"
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| Engineer Ian Schreier (left) mixing with Roomful of Blues guitarist and producer Chris Vachon. |
The band is Roomful of Blues, a 35-year-old blues institution that was ready to record its 17th album. They came to Osceola Recording Studios in Raleigh, NC, having met studio owner Dennis McGill, and were drawn by the Studer 24-track and a good rapport with engineer/producer Ian Schreier. And, because of their touring schedule, they had only a day and a half to record 14 songs.
For Schreier, the live session was like tightrope walking without a net. If a microphone was out of phase or if a trumpet take was distorted, there would be nothing he could do to change it later. Even though he edits and mixes digitally in Pro Tools, some things just can't be fixed in the mix. But fortunately, everything went right. It resulted in a recording that everyone involved loved, and the band found a new home at Alligator Records.
The album, "That's Right!", was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Traditional Blues Album category. If it had won a Grammy on Feb. 8 in Los Angeles (Buddy Guy was the winner), the band would no doubt have heard about it aboard a Blues Cruise ship in the Carribbean where they were playing because of a longstanding commitment -- a fitting place for a hardworking blues band.
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In the following interview with DMN's Frank Moldstad, engineer Ian Schreier tells the story of recording "That's Right!" with the eight-member band, which consists of Chris Vachon (guitar/producer), Mark DuFresne (vocals & harmonica), Rich Lataille (tenor & alto sax), Mark Earley (baritone & tenor sax), Bob Enos (trumpet), Mark Stevens (piano & organ), Brad Hallen (bass), and Jason Corbiere (drums).
First of all, congrats on the Grammy nomination. Did you go to LA for the awards ceremony?
No, I didn't. If the band was going out, I would have, because we could do things together afterwards, like go to the parties. But I’d just be there by myself, sitting in Staples Center for six hours, and then turn around and come home. Maybe when they decide to present me with a Grammy, I’ll go.
I looked on the band’s web site – weren't they playing on a cruise ship during the Grammys?
They were doing a tour of the Carribbean for that week, and it’s something that was booked at the end of the last time they did it. So they’re pretty much confirmed to do that, I think it’s called the Blues Cruise. It’s a cruise ship, and then they have a theme, with all these great blues artists that perform.
Let’s talk about recording the album, "That's Right!" How long did it take?
Well, the actual recording was only about a day and a half.
Wow, that’s fast.
Yeah. It took about a day to set up, because everything went live. And then once we had everything sounding the way it needs to sound, and everybody got in the proper frame of mind, once they were hot, we just kept going. Just stopped to change reels of tape.
They tour a lot, don’t they?
Yeah, they do. That’s a lot of what that music is about, it’s about capturing a performance. It’s not really about manufacturing something.
Did you do any overdubs?
There were some. I think we went back and did some guitar overdubs, and we may have gone back right after a take and redone a horn solo or something, or a lead vocal take. But basically everything was live. Of course, after it was tracked, we spent about five days mixing it. The mixing took a little bit of time, we averaged about three songs a day.
Well, if you can record the thing in one day, then you’ve got time to mix!
That’s right. And it wasn’t that we intended to do it that fast. It’s just that everybody was so pleased with how things were coming out. You know, when the iron’s hot, you go with it. Everybody was feeling good, we were getting great tones to tape and they were ready.
Had you ever recorded them before?
No, I had not. I had met them. Chris [Vachon], the guitar player and the producer of the album, had come down to check out the studio. And we met and got along real well and discussed a couple of different things. And one of the things that he was really interested in was the idea of being able to track basically everything live, to capture the mood and feel of the group. It was definitely a challenge, but it was very gratifying in the end. A lot of really hard work. Very intense.
Just setting up the mics would be a lot of work.
Yeah, a lot of phase issues, and bleed. I had stuff scattered all over the place. I had guitar amps in the lounge, I had the Leslie for the organ out in the hallway. I had three horn players stuck in a booth, which was an experience.
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