Pre-Production for Apt #6S -“How to Prep For an Album”- January 12, 2000

Our pre-production space is a warehouse just outside of town. It’s where the second sock turns up. Where the dust under the rug gets swept and it’s where we feel most at home. In a high-ceilinged room, under a bright fluorescent light we play and bang and map the topography of our songs all day without concern neighbors might complain. Our only neighbors out here are tumbleweeds, a murder of crows, and a patient moon that hangs out like a fan for an autograph.

Our schedule runs each day from noon to midnight. Michael White, our engineer/producer, arrived from New York on Tuesday straight off a recording session with Whitney Huston. He’s agreed to produce our next record for a meager 18K (not AT ALL meager to me (que nail-biting) but much less than the fee he usually fetches). To soften the blow of his rate, he’s agreed to sleep on a futon in Kipp’s office for the duration of recording which we plan to track* in under two weeks. For this ambitious feat to be feasible, we’ve got to train, the way gymnasts do for an event. We need to learn and perfect all our parts: lyrics, solos, chord progressions, and harmonies. We need to memorize the shape of each song—where to bring the energy up and when to drop it back. We need to decide what reverb* and plug-ins* to use and which melodic parts are missing so we can start hiring session players.*

Michael White listens to each song. His skinny frame reverberates under the influence of Brian’s snare drum. At the conclusion of a song, he marinates in silence before instructing, “Again,” and bending his expressive nose into a question mark-shaped pointer finger. The next time we run through the song he might request an extra bar here, a bigger drum fill there, a complete drop out of all instruments coming out of a chorus. We rework each song like chefs at a culinary school until we’re satisfied the auditory recipe is perfect. Then, it’s on to the next song and the next. On average, we’re able to cook two songs a day, running each under a microscope hundreds of times before Mike agrees it’s time to move on.

Time moves inconsistently, the way it does when you’re falling in love. Every second lasts a day and each day lasts a second. Sometimes I forget I’m tired, then walk out to find a new dawn gracefully lifting the sky like a stage curtain on another day.

Before an open garage door, atop a beer and oil-stained slice of carpet, we chart the road to a finished second album. Sometimes I forget the words. Sometimes Kenny forgets the chords. Sometimes Brian forgets to eat and then falls asleep on his drum kit but Chris never forgets ANYTHING, and for that, we are grateful.

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Vocabulary

*Arranging a song means modifying it to fit a new purpose. For example: I write my songs with the intention of playing them live. Together with a producer, the band needs to come up with additional parts, sounds, intros, and outros that will bring it to life on a recording.

*Tracking: A song is made up of a series of ‘tracks’—drums, bass, guitar, vocals, background vocals, etc. Each part gets layered on top of the next like a sandwich. When an album is “tracked,” it means the recording is done. The next two phases of making an album are mixing and mastering.

*Reverb is a sustained sound that occurs when sound waves bounce off surfaces in a space. It’s a natural acoustic effect that’s present everywhere, but in music, it’s usually an artificial effect added by producers to create a sense of space and depth, making instruments and vocals sound like they’re in different environments, such as a large hall or room for example.

*Plug-ins are pieces of software that enhance sound. Plugins can be used to enrich existing sounds or create entirely new sounds.

*Session players are professional musicians hired to perform in recording sessions. They are freelancers who work on a per-project basis.