Nashville is still a place of legend when it comes to music. Although overall sales of the city's flagship genre, country music, have dipped somewhat from their mid-'90s peak (when Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood ruled pop charts as well as country listings), Nashville still has a recording legacy matched by few cities in the world.
Several things set recording sessions in Nashville apart from other cities. First and most obviously, most country music basic sessions are done ensemble, with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and other instruments all playing together. Strangely — and not a little sadly — this approach to record-making is no longer the norm anymore, when most pop sessions start with drum loops and are padded out with MIDI instrumentation.
Secondly, Nashville remains true to acoustic instruments — and that includes the studio itself. The city has dozens of studios which are as desirable for their acoustic properties and room sounds as they are for their technology. As music recording in cities like New York and London continues to migrate into people's homes and private studios, due as much to the cost of real estate as to technological tastes, 'Music City' remains a redoubt of large tracking rooms that can hold entire bands.
Get Some Acoustic Guitar Recording Tips From A Nashville Studio Master
This collaborative culture has other less obvious implications for record making. For starters, it probably contributes greatly to the high level of accomplishment amongst Nashville musicians. It's one thing to get a great solo on your own in the privacy of a home studio, since no-one can tell if you took all night and 500 punches to get it; in Nashville, your chops are out in the open on every session, with five or six other musicians watching your every move. It's an ego thing. Besides, when someone is paying double scale to half a dozen players and more than $2000 a day for the studio and engineer, it greatly behoves you to get your part right on the first pass.
Another factor that comes from ensemble playing is enhanced creativity. Studio design in Nashville has always emphasised clear sight lines in the tracking rooms. Eye contact is critical in the middle of a take, and some of the 'A' list of musicians for which Nashville has become so renowned have gotten to the point that non-verbal communication is a complex language of its own. A subtle nod or raised eyebrow at the right time can put a perfectly orchestrated fill or break into a song that wasn't on the chart, but which the moment and the song just seemed to call for. Nashville musicians don't get the arrangement credit that they deserve, but in the last city on earth where it's still possible to play on three sessions a day, no one has time to get too annoyed.
This same culture also has its effect on recording and mixing engineers. The 'aliveness' of the process has made them as creative as the musicians — their chops are just as much on display. When magic starts happening with a group of inspired musicians, the engineer had better be ready to catch it flawlessly. I talked to five of Nashville's best board jockeys, and they shared a few of the tricks of their trade.
Home Studio Gear For Recording Great Sounding Fingerstyle Guitar
Bob Bullock has worked with artists including Shania Twain, Waylon Jennings, Crazy Horse, Reba McEntire, Patty Loveless and George Jones. Like many of this generation's crop of Nashville studio rats, Bob Bullock came to town from Los Angeles, where he was a fixture on many rock and pop records, going back to the early '70s with work for Crazy Horse, Neil Young's first backing band. In Nashville today, he is known best for his work on both Shania Twain records produced and co-written with her hubby, the reclusive genius Mutt Lange. This includes the global hits 'Man! I Feel Like A Woman!' and 'You're Still The One', and Bullock has also done records for country artists including Reba McEntire, Patty Loveless, George Jones and the late Waylon Jennings. It says something about Nashville that Lange, a South African native who lives in Switzerland and who guards his privacy more assiduously than Greta Garbo did, will trek to Nashville to assure that his country records sound authentic. Mutt's quite brilliant as a producer, and when he came to Nashville to make Shania's records, he let us do what we do best, says Bullock. He wanted those Nashville elements on the record.
A natural yet spacious acoustic guitar sound can be created by using a stereo pair of microphones in XY configuration. Small diaphragm condensers such as AKG C451s or the Neumann KM84s shown here are usually preferred. Acoustic guitars are a staple of the country idiom, and perhaps the best illustration of how country records are different from pop recordings. In pop, you're usually creating an illusion, says Bullock. In country, you're trying to capture reality. You're going for more organic, earthy sounds. To achieve that on acoustic guitars, Bullock likes to use two microphones, preferably a matched pair. Favourites include the AKG 451 or 460 and the Audio Technica 4033 for single miking. Microphones with larger diaphragms can be set back a bit further from the guitar, he explains, and work well for a natural guitar sound. But I also like to set a pair of AKG 451s in an XY pattern about four to six inches from the sound box and neck. This does a couple of things: it lets me get the sound of the low and high strings with more definition, which also means I use less EQ, and it gives me a good combination of room and guitar resonance. Secondly, I can bring them up on the console the same way I would a piano, with the lower frequencies on the left and the higher ones on the right, which creates a fuller, but still very natural sound. Interestingly, for 12-string guitars, he prefers to use just one microphone, usually an AKG C414. A 12-string is putting out a lot of information, which is better controllable through a single microphone, he explains.
The Avalon VT737SP is one of the processors Bob Bullock favours for recording acoustic guitars. Bullock generally uses a signal path of microphone, preamp (he likes the API 312), outboard EQ (just a little bit of air on an Avalon 737SP is preferred), then to tape or hard disk. He'll use the console if it's a Neve; otherwise, he stays outboard. But in country, the choice of the instrument is just as critical as the microphone. A big Gibson J200 gives you a very full, rich sound, which is great for padding the track, he says. Taylor guitars offer a sharper, edgier sound, which are good for licks and solos. Lots of modern acoustic guitars have integral pickup systems, and Bullock has no problem incorporating them into pop tracks, although they're rarely used in country.
How To Record Acoustic Guitars Like A Pro
When recording country fiddle, Bob Bullock usually keeps the mic at least 12 inches away from the instrument to get more room sound. If the fiddle is particularly bright, Bil VornDick recommends moving the microphone behind the player's left shoulder, which also helps cut down on breathing noises. Higher-pitched instruments, such as country regulars the fiddle and mandolin, get a slightly different treatment. His favourite for these is a Neumann U47, set about 12 to 15 inches directly above the fiddle, again to capture some of the room sound. You want the room, not the rosin, is how he puts it. The US version of the Shania track 'Come On Over' employs four fiddles playing together recorded in this manner, each with its own microphone, a sort of live layering effect creating a wall of sound typical of Mutt Lange. It's like power chords in rock, he says. Mandolins can be brittle-sounding by nature, so Bullock will use the same U47 and set it back a foot or so, allowing some of the initial attack to dissipate in the air and bringing in more room sound to warm it up.
The pedal steel guitar, that quintessentially country instrument, is generally taken with a split signal — one DI to the console and one from an amplifier. The amp is really mostly used to blend some of the room sound into the track, says Bullock. Steel guitars are unique in that they each have a particular sound that seems to remain intact through a [direct injection] into the console. One neat trick is to record them to two tracks (one for the DI and one for the amp), then spread them slightly in stereo; again, a fuller but still natural sound.
Brian Tankersley made country history as the genre's first high-profile remixer. His work on 1995's Boot Scootin' Boogie for award-winning duo Brooks & Dunn helped stimulate a brief but intense spate of country dance clubs — a 'barnyard Ministry', if you will. He was also the hand behind the remixes on Lonestar's chart-topping 'Amazed' from 2001, a record which he literally retracked from scratch
Video: How To Mic An Acoustic Guitar
When recording country fiddle, Bob Bullock usually keeps the mic at least 12 inches away from the instrument to get more room sound. If the fiddle is particularly bright, Bil VornDick recommends moving the microphone behind the player's left shoulder, which also helps cut down on breathing noises. Higher-pitched instruments, such as country regulars the fiddle and mandolin, get a slightly different treatment. His favourite for these is a Neumann U47, set about 12 to 15 inches directly above the fiddle, again to capture some of the room sound. You want the room, not the rosin, is how he puts it. The US version of the Shania track 'Come On Over' employs four fiddles playing together recorded in this manner, each with its own microphone, a sort of live layering effect creating a wall of sound typical of Mutt Lange. It's like power chords in rock, he says. Mandolins can be brittle-sounding by nature, so Bullock will use the same U47 and set it back a foot or so, allowing some of the initial attack to dissipate in the air and bringing in more room sound to warm it up.
The pedal steel guitar, that quintessentially country instrument, is generally taken with a split signal — one DI to the console and one from an amplifier. The amp is really mostly used to blend some of the room sound into the track, says Bullock. Steel guitars are unique in that they each have a particular sound that seems to remain intact through a [direct injection] into the console. One neat trick is to record them to two tracks (one for the DI and one for the amp), then spread them slightly in stereo; again, a fuller but still natural sound.
Brian Tankersley made country history as the genre's first high-profile remixer. His work on 1995's Boot Scootin' Boogie for award-winning duo Brooks & Dunn helped stimulate a brief but intense spate of country dance clubs — a 'barnyard Ministry', if you will. He was also the hand behind the remixes on Lonestar's chart-topping 'Amazed' from 2001, a record which he literally retracked from scratch
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