Steve Griggs - Reviews

Studio Sciences - Part 1

By Jason West (Earshot Jazz, November, 1998)

In this, the first of a two-part series on studio recording, Jason West focuses on the recording experience from the point of view of the jazz musician. A later installment will feature various local studios, engineers, and producers and examine their role in the recording process.

Interesting, to think of our ears as microphones, and to consider that how we hear music depends, not only on its frequency and pitch, but also on the size and shape of the room we're in, and in fact, where we are in the room. Even more interesting is how we hear music that's been recorded in a studio - an altogether different room or rooms, often containing a number of delicately placed microphones. Viewed this way, studio recording is a very complex process indeed, yet, most music listeners never consider it. Our job is easy, we simply press Play.

For a jazz musician, however, transferring exactly the sound and the spirit of one's music onto a recording is not so easy. Everything matters and there is much more to consider besides just the music. Where to record? Who's the engineer? What's my budget? These and a multitude of other important questions face the musician who chooses to record.

To find out more, I questioned four local musicians/composers - Jim Knapp, Lynette Westendorf, Steve Griggs, and Jay Thomas - about their recent studio projects. All were kind enough to share their thoughts and provide valuable insight into the recording experience.

It was hit-'n-miss for a while, but, as featured in Earshot Jazz's July issue, the stars were aligned for three days in May when Steve Griggs played original compositions alongside his favorite drummer, Elvin Jones. Recorded at Bear Creek Studios, with owner Joe Hadlock engineering, the date included Milo Petersen on guitar, Phil Sparks on bass, and Jay Thomas, trumpet. The CD should be released sometime next year.

Jason West: Are all studios the same? I mean basically they have the same stuff.

Steve Griggs: They don't. Something I learned when I started to record here (in Seattle), is that it's real important to go look at all the studios. Lots of them have a printed list of their equipment - it's a big investment - and different equipment sounds different ways. Some studios are set up to be all digital, some have a lot of analog equipment and different brands of equipment have different sounds. If part of what you want to get on tape is the sound of the room, then is the room wood? How big is it? How high is the ceiling? Is it brick? Stone? If you're miking things so far away where you're getting more of an ambient sound, then the room is that much more important. And another thing - that I didn't have to worry about a Bear Creek because we decided to play so that no one needed to wear headphones - is how studios handle their headphone mixes. If you have to spend time making sure that everyone can hear what they want to hear in their headphones, then it's not creative. Bear Creek has it set up really nice where each musician can have their own mixing board right there, and they can mix it themselves, which seems like the most optimal situation if you're going to use headphones.

The engineer makes a big difference, too. What kind of music do they listen to? What kind of music do they record? I would recommend to anyone trying to record that they go talk to the engineer. It's really helpful to take in recordings that you like and recordings that you don't like because, as a musician, you may not understand technically how the sounds are achieved or what can be done at that studio or what equipment they can get their hands on to achieve that effect.

JW: Of course you recorded at Bear Creek, but did you look at other studios?

SG: I had a problem in that, due to Elvin's schedule, I had to put the session together really fast. I was going to studios trying to find which ones were available for a three day block, which is hard. So I had to find the best that I could with what was left. I looked at several studios and when I got to Bear Creek, I mean the room is really beautiful. If you're going to have to be an artist out there it affects your spirit. I went to some places and they were real cramped, hard to get in and out, and they had a totally different vibe. Plus, Joe (Hadlock) spent a lot of time with me. He had a lot of recommendations and advice that really helped me in a situation where I had to make a lot of decisions fast.

JW: Did you record on digital or analog tape?

SG: I went to analog, which is a lot more expensive. I was really trying to do the recording in the style of the 60's recordings where it was done live, and there wasn't a lot of isolation with people in separate rooms. The recordings that I like have a real warm sound; they were all done on analog originally. Joe recommended that and I think it was a wise choice.

JW: There's got to be a lot of pressure going in to a recording session. How did you prepare for that?

SG: I knew that I could trust the musicians to rise to the occasion, because I've played with them and been in situations where I can put anything in front of them and they are going to be certainly competent and occasionally inspired. I just hoped that we could get enough inspired moments together, and we did. Really, what I focused on was organizing it and making it happen, and keeping my ego out of it.

JW: So Joe Hadlock and Bear Creek really came through for you?

SG: Yeah, they were really sensitive to making a production. I remember on the first day expecting that it would take several hours for us to get the sound and get rolling. I remember looking at my watch and thinking, "OK, the musicians are ready to play. Are we ready to record?" and they were, and that was like two hours ahead of schedule. I mean, I had gone out there and described how crucial the timing was and how I didn't want to waste any of this master's time - I wanted it to be as easy as possible for Elvin and everyone - and they did a great job.

JW: How many tunes did you record each day?

SG: We did roughly seven songs a day, six hours a day for three days. As a producer, you're looking at the clock and wondering how much music can we squeeze into the time, but I think it's important not to have a preconceived notion of the rate at which you're going to put songs on tape. There's diminishing returns if you try to go to fast - you get tired, you get sloppy. Some of the studios I talked to, when I talked about doing seven tunes a day or something, they were like, "Whoa man, no, we're lucky if we do one song a day." They were more into the pop or rock thing, where you spend four hours getting the bass drum right. Where, in jazz, perfection is something that can really be debilitating, disabling. Jazz is so much about what happens in the moment and how you improvise and how you express yourself.

JW: Does it matter that there's not an audience in the studio?

SG: But there is an audience: the other musicians. They are listening harder that anyone in a club. We did have some people there - Keiko, Elvin's wife was there, my wife, and some friends came in from Chicago - everyone was very focused on listening.

JW: So maybe it's even better that playing in a club?

SG: Well, certainly it's better in that during the bass solo you don't have to worry about somebody totaling out the cash register or making a daiquiri in the blender. Definitely in terms of focussing on the music and listening hard I think it's good. The other side is there is this temptation to improve upon what just happened, to give yourself more choices after you record; but it's kind of a dead-end the farther you go. I made sure three takes would be the maximum, and even when we did more than one, the spirit was usually better on the first take.

JW: Did you do any fixes, any overdubbing?

SG: We actually did and it was kind of scary. We started to mix this one thing, (entitled Omnison) and it was the most composed piece. It was this chorale with the rest of the band playing long notes quietly behind Elvin playing a free solo. And we had played so quiet in the studio that I hadn't noticed that the bass part and the guitar part were doubled and they should have been different. So I realized this as we were mixing and luckily Milo had his guitar right there and we were able to overdub his part. But that was the only thing. We were prepared to fix some things. We had recorded other endings and stuff, but when we got down to it, the initial cuts had enough spirit and energy to carry over any mistakes. Elvin had emphasized that feeling is the most important thing about recording, and I like that approach.