(Originally published on Medium)
RECORD RECORD 1
04.10.24: Batwich with Satan
FIZZ
Mark: “After I imported your new tracks, they were way off the beat . These files are 44kHz. All the other projects are 48, and the template I use is set to 48. Did you want me to change the song to 44kHz for some reason? “
Me: “What? I’m sorry, I don’t know how that happened.”
Mark: “It happened when you exported the tracks.”
This was several weeks ago on a voice call. Mark is in North Carolina. I’m in Georgia.
Me: “Logic Pro must’ve screwed up the settings. Maybe it’s a default and I just missed it.”
Mark: “Uh huh. You also have a lot of compression on the vocal. It gives it a fizzy sound. I can give you some suggestions for the settings on your Drawmer.”
Me: “Fizz? You told me to buy that thing.”
Mark: “Well, I suggested it. You bought it because I reminded you that Dixon swears by it and carries one everywhere in a flight case.”
Mark Williams is a mixer and producer without peer who has been in the recording business since the late seventies. We met when he and Don Dixon produced Guadalcanal Diary’s last studio album “Flip-Flop” back in 1988.
We’ve been friends ever since and worked together on other projects over the years, but this is the first one in three decades.
The last ”real” recording sessions I did were in the mid-nineties while I was still signed to Geffen Records. These were for my second solo album and were produced by Don Dixon and engineered by Mark Williams.
The sessions included a lot of great musicians- Dixon (on bass), Peter Holsapple and Will Rigby of the dBs, Bill Bonk and, later on, Rhett Crowe, John Poe and Jeff Walls, my former Guadal bandmates. Marti Jones and then Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls sang some swell vocals with me. Mitch Easter did a strange Foghat-inspired guitar solo on a song. The brilliant percussionist Jim Brock banged on some bones and an ice tray.
We recorded a ton of material and finished most all of it, enough for two full length lps. Unfortunately it was never released because record labels work that way sometimes.
I left the music business around that time, after negotiationg release from my contract. It wasn’t a tough negotiation. I wasn’t sad and they weren’t either.
This was soon after the birth of my child and staying home to be their dad sounded very good. At this point I started, and still run, a boutique website development and hosting business.
I didn’t completely shun recording. I did some film scores along the way, and in 2019 and 2020, I produced two seasons of a podcast.
VISUAL PURPLE
The waveform on the screen shimmied. It filled my retina, and I squeezed my eyes shut. The afterimage remained. The awkward term”visual purple” popped into my head, jerking me roughly back to my fourth grade class.
Our teacher, Mrs. Missus, told us that this effect was called “visual purple”. She had a pronounced anti-bellum accent, so that it came out as “vishwul puhpel”.
Mrs. Missus taught us about the Arctic Circle too, but called it the “Octic Suckle”. Most of us kids could see that the spelling indicated a pronunciation closer to “Arktic Surkel”, but she was adamant, so she bullied a class full of 4th-graders into calling the area at the top of the globe Octic Suckle.
The waveform afterburn in my eylids was, in fact, purple with some chartreuse highlights, like the Aurora Borealis, which can often be seen up around the Octic Suckle.
Disconcerted, I opened my eyes, pressed play and watched the playhead sweep across Logic Pro’s track window. The waveform- my vocal- still didn’t sound like me, at least not the 27- year-old me.
BATWICH & SATAN
I wondered if I could catch a bat. Legend has it Ozzie ate a bat’s head. Legend has it Cass Elliot choked on a sandwich. We know that everyone important joins the 27 club.
Thus: I choke on a bat head sandwich and I’m 27, but instead of dying, I sing.
(I know Ms. Elliot didn’t choke on a sandwich, but instead had a heart attack, which was sad because she was great.)
There were no bats around, so I just re-sung the vocal. Batless, it was a still little better. I sent it to Mark.
Mark: “It’s better.”
Me: “Yeah.”
Mark: “Some spots are a little pitchy.”
Me: “Definitely. I’ll keep trying.”
Mark: “You know, I do have Satan. I’m not suggesting we use it, but in a pinch…”
“Satan” is our term for pitch adjustment or, as the world knows it, Autotune. Thanks a lot, Cher.
Me: “We never used it on me before, shouldn’t we keep it that way?”
Mark: “Most definitely, but if you get too frustrated, I can try it on a note or two.”
Me: “It would be a fun experiment, I guess. Plus I can’t find a bat.”
Mark: “What?”
Me: “Nothing.”
