Behind the Music
The Birth of a Basement Recording Studio
Humble Beginnings
It started, innocently enough, with an advertisement in the local newspaper.
Best Buy, the national electronics chain, included in its Sunday sales supplement two interesting items:1) The M-Audio Fast Track USB guitar/microphone PC interface, and...Each was offered at a sale price of $79.95 and each included a copy of Session, M-Audio's Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software.
2) A Session KeyStudio 49-key USB MIDI keyboard, also from M-Audio.
"Okay," I thought. "This could be fun." Little did I know...
A (Very) Brief History
Long ago...in a lifetime far away...I was a professional musician.
It was the infamous 1970s and I spent the greater portion of that turbulent decade in a country-rock band named "Heather".
"Heather", circa, 1974.
That's me, the second from the left, in my (much) younger days.
We never made much money, to be honest, but we did make some pretty decent music. And we made it, primarily, by shelling out anywhere from $50 to $100 an hour to lay down tracks in a "traditional" recording studio.
3" audio tape...16-track mixing consoles...acetate master disks...vinyl LPs... ah...the "good ol' days"...
Fast-Forward, 35 Years
I was probably somewhat naive, thinking I could cobble together a rudimentary digital recording studio for the same amount of money that approximately two hours of studio time cost, during the halcyon days of "Heather". Surprisingly, however, I was only "somewhat naive" in this assumption.
To my initial investment of $160 I ultimately added $240 for a personal computer with slightly higher performance specifications than any of the systems I owned at the time. (It turns out, digital recording and mixing demands a lot more in the way of PC resources than I originally anticipated.) I spent another $100 or so on various incidentals...a microphone, a couple of new guitar cords, various percussion instruments, a pair of Sennheiser headphones, etc.
In the end, for around $500, I managed to pull together everything I needed to begin making music within the comfortable confines of my own basement.
Or so I believed...
This is not your father's recording studio.
The Hard Part of Software
It didn't take me long to realize that, for all of its positive points, Session, the DAW software bundled with my M-Audio purchases, fell woefully short of what was required to record what would be, I hoped, high-quality audio. Session is intuitive to learn and can emulate amazingly "true" instrumental sounds, using the KeyStudio MIDI keyboard. The problem is, it's also an incredible resource hog.
Simply laying down a few basic rhythm tracks and a lead vocal pushed CPU usage on my new, Pentium 4 PC to over 90%. Without getting overly technical, this tends to generate random "pops" and "hisses" on any recorded tracks and, at times, even freeze up the system, as the CPU struggles to accept and digitally process incoming analog signals.
Clearly, I needed to find an alternative to the Session software, if I wanted to seriously pursue what was quickly becoming an obsession.
(M-Audio needs to send its programmers back to the drawing board to rewrite and tighten up the Session code. If they do, they'll have a truly amazing program to offer their customers. I still use it to overdub most of my MIDI-created drum tracks and virtually all my string and other orchestral arrangements.)
Enter, Tracktion
After some intensive on-line research, I decided to try Tracktion 3 music production software, from LOUD Technologies, Inc.
(More honesty: Following my disappointing experience with Session, I initially downloaded from the Internet a "hacked" version of Tracktion 3. After only a couple days of using this incredible program, however, I headed out to my local Guitar Center and plopped down its $99 purchase price. This may well have been the most wisely invested hundred bucks I've ever spent!!)
Tracktion in action.
I can't sing loudly enough the praises of Tracktion!! (No comments, here, about how the world would be a better place if I didn't sing at all...loudly or not...please!!)
Sitting at my keyboard, using Tracktion, is a lot like sitting at that "traditional" 16-track recording and mixing console I alluded to, earlier; all of my long-dormant audio-engineering instincts quickly resurfaced. Switching from an analog to a digital paradigm takes some getting used to, to be sure, but, once you make this transition, Tracktion places literally at your fingertips all the power and flexibility required to record, mix and master truly professional-sounding audio tracks. And it does so without pushing your PC to its operational limits. If you're seriously interested in digital recording, you need to seriously consider buying Tracktion.
Finally, It's Time to Make Music
Finally, after almost a month of gathering together all the technological "toys" required to construct my basement studio, it was time to dust off the old musical instruments (along with a few even "dustier" musical skills) and start laying down tracks...actually recording the first new songs I'd written in over 30 years.
Like most ex-musicians, I had held onto many of my musical
instruments and amplifiers, through the years.
Ten Weeks...Ten Songs
Luckily for me, writing, arranging, playing, recording, mixing, and mastering musical tracks really is a lot like riding a bicycle; once you learn how, you never forget. And with a digital recording studio just down the basement stairs, I could pursue these newly rediscovered pleasures any time of the day...any day of the week!
With hardware and software finally in place, it's time to start creating "note-ware".
And I did! I wrote...and I arranged...and I played...and I sang...and I recorded...and I mixed...and I mastered...virtually 24/7...for the next ten weeks.
Ask anyone who knows me about my...um...somewhat obsessive-compulsive personality, and they'll quickly explain to you that this kind of determined pursuit on my part of a personal goal is not at all surprising. Obnoxious? Yes. Difficult to tolerate? Definitely! But surprising? Nope. Not at all.
The result, ten weeks later, was a collection of "minorpieces" I initially called "The Basement Songs". Over the next several months, following that first frantic wave of creativity, I added ten more songs to this list until, ultimately, I ended up with enough original material to comprise what I felt was a legitimate CD...which I titled, tongue planted firmly in my cheek, Too Old to Rock & Roll. Here are those songs, with a brief explanation of how each of them came about:
Too Old to Rock & RollThey say all songs are biographical in nature. I don't know how true that holds as a general rule, but this song certainly qualifies. Listen closely to the lyrics of Too Old to Rock & Roll and you'll pretty much hear my musical history.Fog of War
I really did "cut my teeth" on the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction, it being the first song I ever played "on stage" with a band. I was 15 at the time. The band's name was "The Gateways". This was the era of The Beach Boys and the "Guru-suited" Beatles and we actually performed wearing tan slacks, matching blue shirts and maroon sweaters. (Believe it or not, this was considered "hip" at the time; the cultural revolution of the late '60s was still fermenting and took several years to reach fruition.)
The only real liberty I took with the narrative of this song was to change from '94 to '84 the year I packed up my instruments and started my fifteen-year musical hiatus. '84 simply worked better, lyrically. The rest, as they say, is history...both figuratively and literally.
And, yes, it really was an innocent comment by my son (more on him, later) that persuaded me, a decade and a half later, to once again dip my toes into the shallow end of musical creativity. It's all there in the lyrics of Too Old to Rock & Roll. Honest.Fog of War is one of two songs on this CD that represent an interesting experiment in modern technology. Each was recorded through a collaborative effort, exchanging musical ideas and recorded tracks exclusively over the Internet. My "virtual" band-mates, in various combinations on these two songs, include: Minime C. (from Germany), Lorf Page and Aledelu (from Italy), and Gil Wayne (from Texas). An eclectic mix, making this, truly, "World" music.Time of Parting
Specifically, Fog of War started out as an instrumental track with some amazingly haunting female vocals, created by Lorf and Aledelu. The first time I heard it, the melody and lyrics for "Fog of War" formed almost instantly in whatever part of a songwriter's mind is responsible for discovering and expressing such musical ideas and concepts. Over the next several days Lorf, Aledelu, Gil, and I passed back and forth suggestions, comments and, yes, computer files...until, finally, the four of us felt we had come up with a very evocative song about a very emotional topic. Of all the songs I've written or co-written over the past year or so, I'm most proud of Fog of War...a statement I can make without fear of sounding overly egotistical, given that it represents a truly collaborative effort among four musically diverse and geographically dispersed musicians.I love it when a song comes together almost effortlessly. This one took three days, from start to finish. I also love "layered" songs, arrangements that start out simple and keep expanding, adding new instrumentation and harmony parts as the song progresses.So Nice When You're Around
Time of Parting started with only an acoustic rhythm guitar and the lead vocal, the very definition of "simple". Everything else was added as inspiration struck. By the time I reached the final fade-out, a lot of inspiration had found its way into the arrangement. And yet, it remained "simple" - maintained its original, acoustic feel.
Oh, yeah. One of my old musical partners from the "Heather" years shows up, here. De Stewart (far right in that archival Heather photograph, above) lent his pristine voice to me for the harmony part in Time of Parting. Thanks, li'l buddy.Talk about a song coming together effortlessly. It took me a grand total of one day to write and record So Nice When You're Around. Twenty-five years after marrying her on the front porch of her parents' farmhouse, I figured I owed my wife, Susan, something slightly more personal than a Hallmark card and a box of Brach's chocolates. This song was her "slightly more personal" (and slightly belated) Silver Anniversary present.Distant Light
So Nice When You're Around also marks the recording debut of my newest musical "toy": a Dean BW6 Backwoods 6-String Banjo. Actually, I call it a "ganjo". It's a hybrid guitar/banjo -- a banjo head with a standard-tuning, six-string guitar neck -- the perfect instrument for a guitar picker who wants to play the banjo, but is too damn lazy to learn how. Um...that'd be me, folks. *heh heh*
I saw Neil Young play one on a televised concert and, of course, I just had to have one for myself. A week later, I did. And a week after that, it appeared in this song. Sometimes, laziness is its own reward.I went back to my country-rock roots for this one. Five chords and sweet (I hope) harmonies. That's about as pure as it gets, when you're talking country rock.Hold On
My good friend and long-time musical compadre, Jimmy "Briscoe" Gaines, came over one day and added the pedal steel part that drifts through the entire song. He also laid down an amazingly tasteful dobro lead.
How long have Jimmy and I known one another? Is 40 years long enough? He and I started performing together musically when we were both 18 years old. In fact, Jimmy's another "Heather" alumnus. He's the guy in the black shirt, standing next to me, in that aforementioned Heather photograph.
Jimmy still performs regularly with Kentucky Myle, a country-rock band based in Northern Kentucky.This is the second "World" song I mentioned earlier -- a song created entirely over the Internet. Minime C. started the ball rolling on this one with a moody instrumental track unlike anything I'd ever worked with, before. And yet, again, I heard within his initial structure a song...not the song Minime originally imagined, as things turned out, but that's part of the magic of these types of collaborations. I would never have "heard" Minime's initial tracks; likewise, he never would have "heard" my melody and lyrics. After all was said and done, we were each glad the other came along when he did. The end result of this musical meeting, Hold On, is truly gestalt, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.Suburbia Rag
Once again, Lorf and Aledelu contributed some amazing and eerily prescient instrumental and vocal parts that complemented perfectly my melody and lyrics...before they were even written. Sometimes, the synergy that exists among this group is downright spooky.My old college roommate, Thom Moon, commented that I needed to "lighten up" my music. "Your songs are so serious." he said. "Good...but serious." He encouraged me to let my "whimsical" side surface.Lazy Afternoon
His comment must have inspired me. I started laying down tracks for "Suburbia Rag" on a Monday afternoon...and finished mixing and mastering it at 4:00 AM, Tuesday morning. (I already mentioned "obsessive-compulsive" earlier, right?) So, Thom. Here's your "whimsy".Oh, Lord. I've reached that age where I've started to write "reflective" songs. You know the kind: "I think I'll sit around and musically contemplate the meaning of my life." That's actually what happened, here. And, yes, it was a lazy afternoon. And, yes, there was a summer shower. And, most definitely, there is a son I love. (Jason, whom I introduced earlier.) And, yes, there's even a garden containing flowers my wife bought on the 1st of June.When You Need Me
What? Do you think songwriters make all this stuff up??? Well, okay. Much of the time, we do. This time, however, I simply rolled with the flow and lifted virtually every lyric in this song from everything that was happening around me, that particular afternoon. Hey, if you can't steal from your own life, what can you steal from?Start with a simple rhythm guitar riff, add a couple of dramatic piano chords, blend in the bass and drums, sprinkle on some four-part background harmonies, garnish with an instrumental crescendo and fade out...and you pretty much have the basic recipe for When You Need Me.Soundscape (Into the Dream)
I wasn't sure where this song was going, when I first started writing it. That happens, sometimes. Luckily, I was satisfied with the end result. It's a strange arrangement, but strangely appropriate to the overall theme of emotional ambiquity that underlies the lyrics.I confess, this one's a tribute to David Crosby. His early solo albums still amaze me...with their atonal chord structures, poetic lyrics and hypnotic musical arrangements. Of course, having a crystal-clear singing voice and a near-perfect ear for harmony (skills Crosby possesses, which I can only aspire to) doesn't hurt.It's a Beautiful Sound
I also had a lot of fun with the guitar break on this one, after discovering Tracktion's 180-degree pan filter. That guitar break is my humble homage to the late, great George Harrison, who demonstrated that five simple notes could comprise the perfect guitar lead...provided they were the right five notes, played at the right time, in the right sequence.
(Listen to this one with headphones, if you have them. It has some nifty stereo effects that can only be appreciated fully in this manner.)This song holds a special place in my heart. My son, Jason, and I co-wrote it. He also plays rhythm guitar and sings the majority of the lead vocals. (I was stunned by how much he sounds like me. Poor kid.) Oh, yeah. That's him playing the trumpet solo, as well.A Day Without Your Love
I am the world's luckiest father. Having been a freelance writer since the mid-1980s, working out of a home/office, I enjoyed the amazingly incredible experience of watching my son grow up almost 24/7, since he was born in 1986. It was amazing when he was young, but it's become even more satisfying watching him transition from boy to young man, over the past few years. He's more than my son; he's my best friend. Let's see. We share such diverse interests as comic books, computers (indeed, all things technological), college basketball, Cincinnati Reds baseball, a sardonic sense of humor...and now, music. What more could a father ask for?
This was Jason's and my first musical collaboration. I suspect it won't be our last.What musician doesn't want to sing one of his or her original compositions over a lush orchestral arrangement...complete with violins, a choir, and maybe even a contrapuntal cello part thrown in, for good measure? I admit, the idea appealed to me. My newly acquired KeyStudio MIDI keyboard made this musically possible...and financially feasible.You Can Fly
Back in the "good old days" we called in every musical favor we could, or paid through the nose, to add supplemental instrumentation to our songs. Now, you just hop on the Internet, find the appropriate high-quality VST (Virtual Studio Technology) modules, plug in your MIDI keyboard, and start playing your own orchestral arrangements. Ain't technology wonderful?This entire song grew out of the six-part a cappella harmony that introduces it. One day, I decided to see just how much vocal range I still possessed after almost 20 years of not exercising those particular musical muscles. You Can Fly's vocal introduction was the result of this experiment. I wrote the rest of the song around it.Love You So
Once again, "the Gainer", Jimmy Gaines, came over to lend his pedal-steel licks to this song. And, once again, he nailed down exactly what I was looking for.Playing music is all about pushing yourself, expanding your horizons, seeing just how far you can stretch your abilities and aspirations...before falling flat on your face. I pushed myself pretty far on this one, in both performance and production. (For one thing, I turned into a rhythm maniac...overdubbing six percussion parts to complement the basic drum track.) The style is certainly different from anything I've ever attempted before, musically.A Tale of Two
I'm pretty proud of the results. In the end, however, it's not up to me to determine whether or not I succeeded in these efforts. That's for you, the listener, to decide."That song is just too sad," a friend of mine commented, when she first heard A Tale of Two. Ironically, when my friend said this, I knew I'd succeeded in achieving the narrative I'd set out to create, when I started writing this song.Doo-Wop 'til You Drop (A Streetcorner Love Song)
I suspect almost every long-term relationship, at some point, reaches a turning point similar to the one alluded to in A Tale of Two. The lucky ones survive...and I'm one of the lucky ones. Still, a songwriter can distill some pretty amazing lyrics by indulging in "What if?" scenarios. It's not always pleasant, doing so, but the results can be extremely rewarding...even if they end up being "just too sad."We all know the real reason musicians perform in public, right? Besides, I grew up on Doo-Wop. Real Doo-Wop. The kind you sang in blue jeans and a white t-shirt, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, standing around on an urban street corner.All the Friends I've Known
So, if this one has a decidedly '50s sound to it, realize it was done intentionally. It ain't rap or hip-hop; it's Doo-Wop!! Doo-Wop comprised of a 7-part a cappella harmony vocal track that I'm pretty damn proud of, by the way...he said, humbly.In no particular order: Greg, "Gainer", "Moon Man", Jean, "Unca Ron", Ronnie B., De, Timothy, John, Sonnie, Nicky-Boy, "Skinner", Lady Carolyn, Mike, Russell, Bridgette, Rocky, Cindy, Ralph, Terri, Minime, Lorf, Aledelu, Gil, Jeff, Freida, Dag, Bente, OG, SK, Deb, Terry (we miss you, my friend)...and, of course, Susan and Jason...along with anyone else who falls into this category that my failing memory has inadvertently omitted...Beth
This one's for you.This is an old song...revised, rearranged and rerecorded to reflect a contemporary situation. Some melodies and lyrics just stick with you, through the years. Beth stuck with me. I always suspected I'd come back to it, someday. Now, I have.Denouement
This was also the first song I attempted, after setting up my basement studio, and before switching over from Session to Tracktion as my primary recording software. Consequently, it has a few rough edges. But, that's okay. Historically, "rough edges" are a mainstay of rock-and-roll.Another early endeavor recorded entirely with Session. (Although the final mix and mastering was done with Tracktion.) As I pointed out earlier, Session reproduces incredibly "true" instrumental tones. As proof of this observation, I offer up the cello part on Denouement. If I didn't know better, I'd swear a tuxedo-clad classical musician sat in my basement and played it. Even Jason was amazed by how realistically Session emulated this historically difficult-to-replicate string instrument.Time of Parting (reprise)Think of me as one who came to go. "That's a weird lyric...but I like it." my friend De said, when he came over to lay down the harmony tracks for Time of Parting.
So did I. In fact, I liked it enough to rearrange and reprise that small segment of this earlier tune as a coda, of sorts, to this, my first musical offering in 35 years. Unlike this final song, however, I don't plan on fading out, now that I've finished Too Old to Rock & Roll. All this stuff is just too much fun to play with, to wait another three decades before making some more music. (Besides, who would possibly be interested in a new CD from a 99-year-old?)
Post Script: Making It Official
After several months of making music in the fairly austere environment of an uneven concrete floor, foundation walls, exposed floor joists for a ceiling, extension cords for power, a furnace and heat ducts for ambiance...well, you get the picture...I finally decided it was time to make my now-functional recording studio an "official" room, within Chez Nims. And so, somewhere between recording about the twelfth and thirteenth songs, I believe, I temporarily removed my musician's cap, donned a hard hat, and set about finishing approximately half of my previously unfinished basement.
Once again, an obsessive-compulsive psychology asserted itself. Within a few weeks, that concrete floor had been leveled (Well, almost leveled; it was really uneven.), a subfloor installed, walls had been framed and insulated, electrical wiring run, an acoustic ceiling was dropped, drywall hung and finished, paint was spread, carpeting laid...and, finally, after relatively minor expenditures and a major investment of "sweat equity," I had a very comfortable space within which to flex my musical muscles.
During this "construction" phase, I also upgraded some of my recording equipment. Specifically, I bought a couple of condenser microphones to, hopefully, improve the quality of my vocal tracks. This, in turn, forced me to upgrade to M-Audio's Fast Track Pro, in order to provide "phantom" power for my new microphones. I also added a couple of high-end Polk Audio speakers, along with a 15-band equalizer that not only allowed me to "tune" my new speakers to my new room, but also incorporated two vertical banks of blue LED lights to indicate audio gain, by stereo channel. (Hey, no recording studio is complete without at least a few flashing LEDs!!! Trust me on this one.)
This new equipment...along with a few more incidentals like an effects pedal for guitar work, a "pop" filter for my new microphones, some guitar stands and hangers, and so forth...set me back approximately $600, all of which brought the total expenditures on my basement studio (not counting construction costs) to just over $1,200. It was a bit more than I set out to spend, initially, but still a heck of a deal, considering the sound quality of my subsequent mixes. Okay, so Chez Nims ain't quite Electric Lady Studios, to be sure, but, dang, it's nice to be able to pursue my creative endeavors within a "real" room...with, don't forget, real, flashing LEDs. *g* (And, you have to admit, my guitars look cool as hell, hanging on the walls like that!!)
The new and improved Chez Nims Studios. I have to confess, this environment is much more conducive to creativity.
Only the Beginning
So, there you have it...the story behind Too Old to Rock & Roll.
Barring the invention of an H.G. Wellsian time machine, I realize we can't relive our past. But, boy, do I wish we'd have had these digital "toys" back in the "Heather" days. If I can pull together music like this, sitting alone in my basement, it's scary to think what the five of us might have accomplished, lo, those many years ago!
Oh, well. As the old saying goes, "Better late, than never."
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed these initial offerings. There will be more to come, I promise. (Or is this, more appropriately, a threat? I'll let you decide.)All songs © 2008 & 2009, Jack Nimersheim, except
"It's a Beautiful Sound" © 2008, Jason & Jack Nimersheim;
"Fog of War" © 2009 Lorenzo Declich, Alessandra De Luca & Jack Nimersheim;
"Hold On" © 2009 Minime C. & Jack Nimersheim.Copyright © 2009
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