So, I read briefly somewhere about the one-take in a large room type way they recorded some of Narrow Stairs. I'm really interested in this. Can someone explain this more in depth for me? Also, which songs were recorded like this? I think I read it about Talking Bird, but I don't really remember...

do you want someone to explain to you the concept of live recording?

sigh

Basically, what they are talking about is all of them being in the same room while recording everything simultaneously. This is what live recording is.

In other words, there were probably 5 or 6 microphones on the drums, a microphone on the guitar amplifier, a microphone on the bass' amp, the bass guitara plugged into a DI, a microphone or two on the piano, and a microphone or two for the vocals. With all of those things plugged in are things like preamps and effects added to them. All of those effects and microphones were then plugged into a tape recorder and recorded simultaneously.

This is all opposed to what usually goes on in studios. How it usually goes down is that there are overdubs. An overdub is when you record an instrument (or a group of them) over a previously recorded piece of music. In otherwords, instead of recording the drum track by itself, each guitar track by itself, the piano track by itself, the bass track by itself, and the vocal track by itself, they recorded all of those at once. The risk of doing so is that if one person messes up then you have to redo it all over. And even worse, if everyone plays it right and something isn't correct in the mix (like levels) then it's all for naught.

From what I've read, live vocals is a pretty big deal (but it used to be done all the time), but live music is not that big of a deal. Bands do it all the time, but they are making a big deal out of it.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure that talking bird is not completely live save for one guitar... I'm definately hearing more than that. It is either chris doing some guitar trickery or there's another guitar plus some other stuff in there. Also, I know they said some of their other songs were all done live, but there are definately some serious overdubs in all of them.

ultrautsukushii, yer right... live recording aint a big deal... i think what chris meant in the interviews is that it was a new thing for them on an album since they were used to going all overdubs and having no backbone to the track that was a live recording of them all in a room... the guitar overdub on "talking bird" is wicked involved, ive always thought some stuff but 1 overdub must be going on... but ben always says that its just 1 overdub on a live recording

i agree but i wouldn't say live recording isn't that big a deal. In my experience you get results that you wouldn't be able to predict on paper when you record live. The end recordings usually do have more energetic qualities. It is a totally different experience plating off other musicians than playing off what's coming through the headphones. I'm not saying its better but it does make a big difference.

ooh also i don't think there is as much overdubbing as you might think. Just watch the rehearsal video of BCB.

I can't see what parts of Talking Bird (save for the semi-distorted guitar swells that were overdubbed) that couldn't be done live... their live renditions are also very true to the record.

And the gear (even though they used tape and everything was analogue) would have to be emberassingly lo-fi if the equipment they used didn't allow them to adjust simple things such as levels both before and after recording... would make the days at Chris' house dedicated to mixing pretty obsolete.

quote:

Originally posted by Kasper:
I can't see what parts of Talking Bird (save for the semi-distorted guitar swells that were overdubbed) that couldn't be done live... their live renditions are also very true to the record.

And the gear (even though they used tape and everything was analogue) would have to be emberassingly lo-fi if the equipment they used didn't allow them to adjust simple things such as levels both before and after recording... would make the days at Chris' house dedicated to mixing pretty obsolete.

I dunno if that's directed at me, but you can always adjust levels before recording. After recording, however, is not always the case. You don't always have different tracks for each and every microphone. In fact, i guarantee that they didn't individually track every drum mic on every song on the album... particularly the more 'live' stuff. That being said, they can't always adjust levels after a recording has been made.

I suppose if they used a 16 track then it would be possible... but I think that 16 track tape is a bit tougher to edit.

Yeah, that's kind of how I pictured the live recording process. It just seemed a little too sloppy when I thought of it like that. I mean you've got acoustics and stuff to worry about. I like it though. It definitely is refreshing.

quote:

Originally posted by ultrautsukushii:

quote:

Originally posted by Kasper:
I can't see what parts of Talking Bird (save for the semi-distorted guitar swells that were overdubbed) that couldn't be done live... their live renditions are also very true to the record.

And the gear (even though they used tape and everything was analogue) would have to be emberassingly lo-fi if the equipment they used didn't allow them to adjust simple things such as levels both before and after recording... would make the days at Chris' house dedicated to mixing pretty obsolete.

I dunno if that's directed at me, but you can always adjust levels before recording. After recording, however, is not always the case. You don't always have different tracks for each and every microphone. In fact, i guarantee that they didn't individually track every drum mic on every song on the album... particularly the more 'live' stuff. That being said, they can't always adjust levels after a recording has been made.

I suppose if they used a 16 track then it would be possible... but I think that 16 track tape is a bit tougher to edit.

Basically what i was getting at was that though i also think that the principle was keeping things as they were recorded as much as possible, Chris probably still spent time mixing stuff such as EQ'ing and levels, not neccessarily editing things in/out... Go to Jason's Two Sticks website for reference. A lot of old gear (amongst the sweet retro gear is a Studer 24 track 2" tape machine and the huge 1976 Quad Eight console).

I don't remember where I'm getting this from, but 99.9% of the news I got on Narrow Stairs was through this site, so I'm sure there's a link somewhere -- I'm pretty sure they bounced down to digital after they recorded it to do the mixing.

The advantage of recording to tape that way is that you can't get really futzy with overdubs like you can when you're recording to ProTools. Recording that way forces you into a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach, and forces them to sort of lock down how they're going to play it and not leave arrangement possibilities floating around. (Unless, of course, you are Geoff Emerick and the most championship pre-mixer ever. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, go listen to Sgt. Pepper.)

Also -- I'm fairly certain that tracks are not limited by the tape (to a reasonable extent, anyway) so much as the machine it's on. A pro studio like the ones they'd be working in are running on two-inch tape. I was recently working on an Otari machine using quarter-inch tape with four tracks; doing the math, if each track is using the same amount of tape space, they'd have sixteen tracks availible.

^ Yes, that's what i thought too.

And Sgt. Pepper and (beach boys') Pet Sounds would have to be my favs of the 60's and a lot of that i owe to the unbelievable production on them both... the things they did back then.

quote:

Originally posted by Kasper:
^ Yes, that's what i thought too.

And Sgt. Pepper and (beach boys') Pet Sounds would have to be my favs of the 60's and a lot of that i owe to the unbelievable production on them both... the things they did back then.

Oh, definitely! I really like that they tried to step up to a similar plate with "You Can Do Better Than Me," which I could almost swear is a Pet Sounds B-side.

EDIT: Also, for the record... Death Cab wasn't all in the same room when they recorded Narrow Stairs; not like the Beatles were when they did Meet the Beatles or anything like that. They were partitioned off from each other to prevent signal bleed -- and Chris was in the control room to make sure everything was going smoothly. The difference is that they weren't in little booths overdubbing previously recorded tracks -- they could all see each other and feed off of each other's energy, and were playing live like they would on stage.

Just figured I'd throw that in there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Groovitude,

I guess that is what "live recording" means these days. It looks like Jason intentionally designed the studio so that musicians could be in different soundproof "rooms" yet still see eachother, or in Nick's case he could be right next to Jason but be playing into a bass amp enclosed next door, just like Chris would be playing guitar in front of the console (with an open view of the other guys) with his amp positioned somewhere soundproof. I can't see any better way of getting an authentic yet convenient live recording. ... Two Sticks looks beautiful, tidy, open and inspiring as well. Must've been great.