Whatever else I do, music is a pretty big
thing for me. To the extent that I'm willing to shell out substantial
amounts of whatever
currency happens to be handy for things like electric guitars and recording
equipment. These days that means a Takamine acoustic guitar, a Fender
Jazzmaster electric guitar, a MIDI keyboard and a mac with studio
software.
As mentioned in the Swoon 23 page, I am a completely
amateur guitarist. I have a sweet
time
with
six
strings,
but
the thing
that really
turns my crank is twisting knobs. I like to mix.
During the Swoon years, I lived
in the basement studio with a nudibranch
The songs linked below are the ones I recorded during
my stay in Japan on a little digital eight-track studio setup.
Recording on the tatami
mat
A room
with
a
tatami floor is a brilliant place to record. The soft straw mats
just drink up the excess noise and you get this nice, echo-free, studio
quality sound. If I ever get rich and stupid enough to start my own professional
studio, I'm going to floor it with tatami. Musicians will have to take
off their shoes.
The main deal with producing and engineering a recording is that you
have to take all your drums and cymbals, the bass, three to seven different
guitars, keyboards, and as many vocals as the megalomaniac singer cares
to lay down, and make them all come out of just two speakers. Clearly.
My Pal Kazu Arai Sings
Just Like Kurdt Kobain with a Japanese Accent
It's not easy. If two
guitars are playing in the same tonal range, they'll sound like mud
if they come out of the same speaker, so you have to split them to
left and right.
Each part of the speaker diaphragm can only do one
thing clearly at once, and if you have the vocals
taking
up a large
part
of
the
middle
range, you'd better put that mid-range guitar in the other speaker.
Or fade it back. Or adjust it's EQ so it's not stepping on the precious
vocals.
This will always cause fights between the guitarist and the
vocalist
and that's when you want to break out the beer. Or put it away as the
case may be.
And that's the beauty of doing it all myself. All the egos are mine,
and I'm the only one to blame. If you want to hear/download any of the
results of my studio endeavors, right-click on the links below, select
"download linked file" and wait for your internet server to transfer
the song to your computer.
Jeffrey
Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent
for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and
translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon
23 in
every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger
in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis
clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the
night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has
now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a
publishing career.
