Dawn of The DAW

i
Dawn of the DAW

iii
Dawn of the DAW
THE S TUDIO AS MUS IC AL I NS T RU ME NT
A D A M PAT R I C K B E L L
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bell, Adam Patrick, author.
Title: Dawn of the DAW : the studio as musical instrument / Adam Patrick Bell.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017025068 (print) | LCCN 2017034672 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190296629 (updf) | ISBN 9780190296636 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190296605 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190296612 (pbk : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sound recordings—Production and direction. |
Popular music—Production and direction.
Classification: LCC ML3790 (ebook) | LCC ML3790 .B33 2018 (print) |
DDC 781.49—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025068
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v
Thanks, libraries
I could learn audio technology.
But where?
I’d start at home.
—Grandmaster Flash
vii
Contents
Preface xiii
Part I DO-IT-YOURSELF
1. A History of DIY Recording: Striving for Self-Sufficiency 3

The Difficulty of Defining DIY 3
DIY Recording Before Records 5
Tinfoil Revolutions: The First DIY Audio Recording 6
Mechanical Recording (Pre-1925) 8
The Electrical Era (Post-1925) 10
Les Paul’s Legacy of Overdubbing 11
Les Paul and the Tale of Tape (Post-1945) 12
Craft-Union Mode: 30th Street Studio 14
DIY Recording Post-1945: Sticking to the Tape Mentality 16
The Escalating Expenses of Equipment and the DIY Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi Dichotomy 18
DIVIDE-AND-ISOLATE 19
DIY HI-FI AND THE MULTITRACK REEL-TO-REEL TAPE RECORDER 22
DIY LO-FI AND THE MULTITRACK CASSETTE TAPE RECORDER 24
DIGITAL DIY: ADAT 26
Space-Less Studios: Dawn of the DAW (1990–Present) 27

Tracking the Twenty-First-Century DIY-er 29
2. The Studio: Instrument of the Producer 31

What Is a Producer? 31
Instrumentality: The Studio as Musical Instrument 33
viii Co ntents
Using the Studio as a Musical Instrument with Others 37

EARLY INCARNATIONS OF USING THE STUDIO AS A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT: ELVIS, LEIBER
AND STOLLER, AND ALDON MUSIC 38
PHIL SPECTOR’S “WALL OF SOUND” 40
BRIAN WILSON AND THE BEACH BOYS’ SOUND 41
BERRY GORDY AND THE MOTOWN SOUND 44
THE JOE MEEK SOUND 46
Producing Without Producers 47

PRODUCED, ARRANGED, COMPOSED, AND PERFORMED BY PRINCE 50
BRIAN ENO AND IN-STUDIO COMPOSITION 51
HAPPY ACCIDENT #1: DUB AND ITS LEGACY OF PRIVILEGING TIMBRE IN PRODUCTION 54
TWEAKING TIMBRES 55
HAPPY ACCIDENT #2: HIP-HOP AND ITS SAMPLING LEGACY 58
The Contemporary Collaborative Producer: Max Martin 63

Different But the Same: Conclusions 67
Part II MADE IN BROOKLYN

Brooklyn: The Cultural Capital of DIY 71
3. Track 1: Michael 75
The Car Stereo Classroom: Learning History 76
CASSETTE CREATIVITY SINCE 1977: SELF-LED EXPLORATIONS IN OVERDUBBING 77
GOING CLASSICAL 78
GOING ELECTRIC AND DIGITAL 80
THE SKEUOMORPHIC ADVANTAGE: NEW TECHNOLOGIES, OLD CONCEPTS 83
On the Road . . . Again 85
Alone at the Kitchen Table: Learning Ableton 86
EXPLETIVES! FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH ABLETON 87
READY, AIM, MISFIRE: CLICKS OF INTENT 89
THE TIMBRE TRAIL: TWEAKING SOUNDS 92
Lonely Learning: Conclusions 95
4. Track 2: Tara 97
From Scoring Points to Scoring Films: Learning Background 97
“I JUST LEARNED AS I HAD TO”: KARAOKE COMPOSITION AND REFLEXIVE RECORDING
WITH LOGIC 98
Walking and Writing: Distinguishing the Song from the Recording 101

Packing Blankets and Piano Tuners: Converting the Home to Studio 102
ix
C on t e n t s ix
Preparation (Saturday and Monday Morning) 102

HOME STUDIO HEADACHES 103
Hypercritical: In Pursuit of the Pristine Piano Performance (Monday Afternoon,

Tuesday, and Wednesday) 105
FINDING FAULTS WITH FELIX 107
Recording the Piano for “Chesterfield” (Wednesday) 108

“TRAINS AND STUFF”: BATTLING ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE 111
FELIX AS PRODUCER? DEFINING ROLES IN THE RECORDING PROCESS 111
Technical Difficulties (Thursday) 113

Manufacturing Vocal Perfection: Repeated Takes and Comping (Friday) 114
TECHNICAL DETAILS 116
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IN RECORDING 116
“GOTTA HIT THAT”: SINGING PERFECTION 117
Comping (Saturday) 117
Ongoing: Shopping for a Mixer 121
To Be Continued: Conclusions 123
5. Track 3: Tyler 125

“Just Learned It From Doing It”: Learning History 125
“I WOULD GET TOGETHER WITH MYSELF”: MAKING MUSIC WITH ACID PRO 126
TECHNICAL TANGENT #1: MICROPHONE MATTERS 127
“I LEARNED THE HARD WAY”: SELF-TEACHING WITH DAWS 129
The Cartographic Composer: Mapping a Musical Existence 130

AUTODIDACTICISM AND ABLETON LIVE 132
A Guided Tour Through Tyler’s Bedroom Studio 133

TECHNICAL TANGENT #2: MIXING MATTERS 134
STEMS 136
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Social Network: Growing a Fictional Family
Tree 137
SINGING ROBOTS 139
Audio Avatars: Otter, Sumac, and Totem 141

“THIS IS ME WATCHING ME TALKING ABOUT ME”: STIMULATED RECALL 142
EDITING MIDI 143
EQUALIZING BEATS 145
MAKING LOOPS 146
SHIFTING PITCH 147
“IF I CAN GET MYSELF FEELING GOOD ABOUT IT”: REFLEXIVE LISTENING 148
“AND THAT’S IT FOR NOW”: CONCLUDING THE SESSION 150
“Technology is the Reason”: Conclusions 150

x Co ntents
6. Track 4: Jimmy 153

From Scratching to Picking: Learning History 155
“I JUST FOUND IT SO HARD”: LEARNING TO PLAY THE GUITAR 157
THREE HOURS A DAY: PRACTICE 158
“IT WAS NEVER, NEVER, NEVER SERIOUS”: LEARNING THE STUDIO BY OSMOSIS 159
“I Woke Up With the Melody”: The Making of “Lost and Found” 160

“EVERY DAY’S A STRUGGLE”: WRITING LYRICS 161
“IT JUST HAPPENS”: RECORDING = SONGWRITING 162
FINGER DRUMMING 163
TRACKING, LAYERING, AND TWEAKING GUITARS 164
DO IT AGAIN: LAYERING VOCALS 166
“Me and Him Have This Synergy”: Mixing with Bill 167

ANALOG VERSUS DIGITAL ACCORDING TO JIMMY 169
GETTING GUITAR SOUNDS: EQUALIZING AND COMPRESSING 170
“I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE A SINGER”: VOCAL DOUBLING AND PROCESSING THE
VOICE 173
FINAL MIX? 174
Recording as Second Nature: Conclusions 175
Part III LEARNING PRODUCING | PRODUCING

LEARNING
Going Green: DIY Recording and Informal Learning Strategies 180
7. Mixing the Multitrack: Cross-Case Analyses 185

Conceptualizing the Multiple Case Study as a Multitrack Recording 185
Classifying DIY Studios 186
DIA STUDIOS 186
DIWO STUDIOS 188
Music-Making Models and Digitally Afforded Techniques 189

THE THIRD DIMENSION: BREAKING FROM THE HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL PLANES 190
KARAOKE COMPOSITION AND REFLEXIVE RECORDING 191
PRESET CULTURE 192
UNDO THE UNDUE 193
Producer Pedagogies: Acquiring Skills and Know-How 193

AURAL EMULATION 194
PEER-GUIDED LEARNING 195
SELF-TEACHING 195
TAPE TRAVAILS 195

xi
C on t e n t s xi
DOMAIN OF THE DAW 196

IMMERSIVE LEARNING AND HOLISTIC LEARNING 197
Summing the Tracks: Conclusions 198
8. Mastering the Multitrack: Conclusions 199

Implications for Music Education 199
BY-PROCESSES: TACIT LEARNING 199
MAKING WAVES: MUSIC-INVENTING 202
FORGED WITH ONES AND ZEROES: DIGITAL AUDIO MUSIC-MAKING TOOLS 203
TRIAL-AND-ERROR LEARNING: A NEW SPIN ON AN OLD FAVORITE 204
SONG-MAKERS: MAKING AS LEARNING 206
The Les Paul Legacy of the Producer 207
Bibliography 209
Index 221
xiii
Preface
Home Recording Revelations

I was fifteen years old when I first became skeptical that my favorite album was a
compilation of real-time performances. Up until this time I credulously believed
that this music, which bleated daily through my earbuds, was the byproduct of tal-
ented and practiced musicians collaborating in a studio to commit their best per-
formances to permanence. I knew that microphones were involved in the recording
process, and that there was usually a man (often with a cigarette dangling from his
mouth) sitting behind a big board of lights and knobs who was obliged to utter
catchphrases such as “Let’s take it from the top” and “We’re rolling.”
My favorite album during this time was by a four-piece band whose roles were listed
on the back cover as follows:
• guitar, vocals
• vocals, guitar
• bass, vocals
• drums
Whenever I listened to this album, I pictured the band playing together in a recording
studio, resembling what Geoffrey Stokes describes as the typical recording processes of
rock and roll in the mid-1950s and early 1960s:
Recording was a relatively simple process in which a band lined up in front

of microphones, each one controlled for volume from the control booth,
and played their music. Generally it went right from the microphones
to the final tape . . . when the recording session was over, the record was
finished.1
Stokes, Star-Making Machinery, 136.

1
xiii
xiv Prefa ce
With each passing play audiotape gradually erodes, and paralleling this reality, my
adolescent illusion of the studio recording as a real-time event began to disinte-
grate as I studied the guitar parts of my favorite album. With only two guitarists
in the band, how was it possible that they played three different and distinct guitar
parts simultaneously? I deduced that either a ringer was enlisted—a mystery third
guitarist—or some kind of recording wizardry was invoked. Thumbing through my
local library’s card catalogue in search of literature on audio recording proved to
be a fruitless endeavor, and the “information superhighway” I had heard rumblings
about had yet to make a detour to my rural hometown. Lacking the informational
resources to answer my query, I retreated to the basement and took matters into my
own hands.
Armed with a guitar, two tape recorders, and two audiocassettes, I devised my
battle plan to create an audio illusion all my own. I commenced my experiment
by pressing the red record button on one tape recorder and proceeded to play a
four-chord progression that I repeated for a couple of minutes until the monot-
ony of this exercise begged a quick cadence. I stopped the recording and rewound
the tape to the beginning. On the second tape recorder I pressed record, and then
pressed play on the first tape recorder. The rhythm guitar part that I had just finished
recording now played the role of rhythmic accompaniment; I joined in on the jam
by improvising a guitar solo along with it, all of which was recorded by the second
tape recorder. What I stumbled upon was a crude form of overdubbing. It forever
transformed my musical practices, aiding me in developing my instrumental skills
and songwriting ideas. Ignorant of the history of recorded music and oblivious to
the existence of multitrack tape recorders, I did not realize one person could play
multiple parts on a recording, and that the technology to make this possible had
existed for more than half of a century. By the mid-1960s the recording process had
changed drastically in popular music, with musicians harnessing recording technol-
ogy to move the conception of recording beyond that of an audio snapshot captur-
ing a moment in time. Referencing the increasingly elaborate studio productions of
the Beach Boys, Virgil Moorefield writes:
Already in 1966, then, the composer, arranger, and producer are melded
into one person . . . Brian Wilson was at the controls himself, making on-
the-spot decisions about notes, articulation, timbre, and so on. He was
effectively composing at the mixing board and using the studio as a musi-
cal instrument.2
Since the mid-1960s, most recorded music has not been made by a group of peo-
ple playing together in the same room at the same time. Instead, like Brian Wilson,
Moorefield, The Producer as Composer, 19.

2
xv
P re face xv
musicians have used the studio as a musical instrument, either working alone,3 or
in teams.4
Digital DIY-er
Shuffling forward a few years to the more digitally dependent musical milieu of the
twenty-first century, my early adulthood years coincided with a critical period of
transition in the music-recording industry: digital technologies were quickly usurp-
ing their analog predecessors. This change trickled down to the consumer, giving
me access to similar recording technology. A fifty-dollar computer program that
I purchased at a local mall afforded me to overdub as many as sixteen tracks, open-
ing the portal to a new incarnation of the one-man band. By routing a few inexpen-
sive Radio Shack microphones to my computer through a battered mixing console
acquired from a thrift shop, I patched together a humble recording studio of my
own. In my parent’s basement, I diligently recorded myself track-by-track playing
drums, bass, and guitar to shape the foundations for my not-so-original pop songs.
My recordings were not intended for others to listen to; rather they served as sonic
sketches, an aural alternative to writing down musical ideas with pencil and paper.
As I developed my recording skills in tandem with my musical skills, what started
as a hobby evolved into a more serious endeavor. Aside from the skimpy manual
that accompanied the music-recording software, I had no form of instruction. My
music education took place outside of the classroom, after school, and consisted of
a self-directed approach to making music with recording technology. I learned to
use the studio as a musical instrument by teaching myself, much of which entailed
a trial-and-error approach.
Music Education and Recording

Researchers in music education,5 and popular music,6 have opined that recordings
constitute the primary texts from which popular musicians learn.7 For example,
Susan McClary and Robert Walser assert: “What popular music has instead of the
score is, of course, recorded performance—the thing itself, completely fleshed
3
See for example Bell, “Trial-by-Fire”; Butler, Playing with Something That Runs; Schloss, Making
Beats; Rambarran, “DJ Hit That Button.”
4
See for example Hennion, “The Production of Success”; Seabrook, The Song Machine; Warner,
Pop Music.
5
See for example Campbell, “Of Garage Bands and Song-Getting”; Green, How Popular Musicians
Learn; Jaffurs, “The Impact of Informal Music Learning Practices in the Classroom.”
6
See for example Bennett, On Becoming a Rock Musician; Schwartz, “Writing Jimi.”
7
This section paraphrases parts of Bell, “The Process of Production | The Production of Process.”
xvi Prefa ce
out with all its gestures and nuances intact.”8 “Learn by listening to and copying
recordings” is the second tenet of Lucy Green’s Music, Informal Learning, and the
School: A New Classroom Pedagogy, a model of popular music pedagogy that has
been hugely influential on the field of music education.9 It is undoubtedly true
that popular musicians learn from recordings, but this is not the complete pic-
ture because popular musicians also learn by making recordings. This book aims
to shed some light on the making and learning processes entailed in recording.
Understanding how music-recording processes work can help music educators to
facilitate learning experiences that reflect this important aspect of how popular
musicians learn.
To the credit of the field, music educators have written about using the stu-
dio as a musical instrument, at least inadvertently, since the late 1960s.10 For
example, in 1970 John Paynter and Peter Aston advocated using tape record-
ers to “make music,” recognizing the technology’s potential to not only record
but to edit, make loops (literally), shift pitches via speed changes, layer sounds,
and play sounds backward.11 Under the umbrella of “composition,” several music
education researchers investigated the music-making process with computers,12
all of which resemble the practice of using the studio as a musical instrument.
More recent studies have reported on music-making and learning practices in
which studio technology serves as the instrument, occurring in a broad range
of formal and informal learning settings.13 Despite the significance of these con-
tributions to our understanding of the studio as instrument in music education,
the practices of production that typify how popular music is made remain largely
absent in popular music pedagogies. Music education needs to espouse the pro-
cesses of recording as opposed to the products of recording, and focus on how
popular music is made to create pedagogies that are more reflective of real world
practices.
McClary and Walser, “Start Making Sense!,” 282.

8
In a review of eighty-one articles from 1978 to 2010 related to popular music pedagogy, Roger
9
Mantie reported that over half of these cited Lucy Green. See his “A Comparison of ‘Popular Music
Pedagogy’ Discourses.”
10
See for example Ellis, “Musique Concrète at Home”; Ernst, “So You Can’t Afford an Electronic
Studio?”
11
Paynter and Aston, Sound and Silence, 134.
12
See for example Bamberger, “In Search of a Tune”; Folkestad, Hargreaves, and Lindström,
“Compositional Strategies in Computer-Based Music Making”; Hickey, “The Computer as a Tool in
Creative Music Making”; Stauffer, “Composing with Computers”; Wilson and Wales, “An Exploration
of Children’s Musical Compositions.”
13
See for example Egolf, “Learning Processes of Electronic Dance Music Club DJs”; Finney,
“Music Education as Identity Project in a World of Electronic Desires”; King, “Collaborative Learning
in the Music Studio”; Lebler, “Popular Music Pedagogy”; Lebler and Weston, “Staying in Sync”;
Mellor, “Creativity, Originality, Identity”; Tobias, “Composing, Songwriting, and Producing”; Tobias,
“Crossfading Music Education.”
xvii
P re face xvii
DIY Recording Studios

This book is the result of five years of research on the phenomenon of DIY (do-it-
yourself) recording. In the age of portable computing, the construct of “the stu-
dio” as a physical space is no longer applicable: “The popularity and portability of
the laptop opens up a series of possibilities for music that sends it beyond spatial
anchorages.”14 The laptop as the DIY studio serves two key functions, as Shara
Rambarran explains:
The laptop as a mobile instrument or music machine means that it not only
helps to produce and play the sounds that the musician has created, but the
device (as a hardware and instrument) can also serve as a virtual recording
studio and digital workstation, anytime and anywhere.15
As portable computing devices enable recording to occur ubiquitously, the more

conventional terms of home recording and project studio have continually been rede-
fined. What I refer to as a “DIY studio” throughout this book is similar in concep-
tion to Mark Slater’s description of the “project studio”:
The “project studio,” as an umbrella term, encompasses an unknowable

range of possibilities and variations. There is no neat designation: project
studios can produce professional-standard material (though they might
also be the realm of amateur hobbyists); there can be a flow of people and
materials between project studios and professional studios in the overall
process of bringing music into being; project studios may be as stable as
professional studios (architecturally, economically, and in reputation) but
they may also be in a constant state of flux in terms of technologies that
constitute them and the practices and materials that are explored there.16
Only a few decades ago the cost of producing a professional recording was prohibitively
expensive for most, but with the proliferation of personal computing and the associ-
ated exponentiation of processing power, hobbyists were heralding the wonders of
DAW (digital audio workstation) technology by the 1990s. It is fitting that the record-
ing mediums of human history (cylinders, discs, tape reels, and hard drives) are round,
because we have come full circle, back to a point where DIY recordings can go directly
to the radio just like Les Paul and Mary Ford’s 1951 hit “How High the Moon.” The
once rigidly defined spaces and roles of musician and audio engineer are coalescing.
14
Prior, “OK COMPUTER.”
15
R ambarran, “DJ Hit That Button,” 596.
16
Slater, “Processes of Learning in the Project Studio,” 10.
xviii Prefa ce
There is a renewed role in music production reminiscent of Les Paul, a hybrid of musi-
cian and audio engineer, a role where one person is responsible for writing, performing,
recording, and mixing a musical work.
Dawn of the DAW tells the story of how the dividing line between the traditional
roles of musicians and recording professionals has eroded, inadvertently inaugurat-
ing a new music education paradigm. The phenomenon of using the studio as a
musical instrument is illustrated by profiling four Brooklynites who engage in the
practice of DIY recording. Detailing how the DAW is entrenched as an elemental
cog of the twenty-first-century music-making mechanism, Dawn of the DAW illumi-
nates the centrality and criticality of digital recording technologies in the learning
and music-making processes of DIY-ers.
Divided into three parts, part I first examines DIY recording practices within
the context of recording history from the late nineteenth century to the present.
Chapter 1 examines the evolving processes and technologies of DIY recording,
which is followed by an explication of the evolving role of the producer and the stu-
dio as a musical instrument in chapter 2. Taken together, these two chapters serve
to contextualize the primary focus of this book: the music-making and learning that
occurs with DIY recording studios.
Part II continues the story of the evolution of DIY recording by detailing cur-
rent practices of using the studio as a musical instrument. How recording technolo-
gies are incorporated into music-making, and how they are learned by DIY studio
users, constitutes the central focus of c hapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. Each of these chapters
chronicles the music-making processes of a different DIY-er from the musically chic
borough of Brooklyn, and focuses on a different aspect of the music production
process: getting sounds, tracking, editing, and mixing.
Finally, part III examines the broader trends heard throughout the stories pre-
sented in part II. Drawing on Lucy Green’s model for how popular musicians learn,
chapter 7 examines the common practices of music-making and learning with DIY
recording studios. Dawn of the DAW concludes with chapter 8, which discusses the
ramifications of these new directions for music educators.
1
Part I
DO-IT-YOURSELF
3
1
A History of DIY Recording
Striving for Self-S ufficiency
The Difficulty of Defining DIY

DIY. Do-it-yourself. In the context of recorded music, what does it mean?1 For
some, DIY is the story of independent distribution, embodied by entrepreneurs
like Leonard Chess,2 Berry Gordy,3 and Rick Hall,4 stocking their vehicles’
trunks with records and driving them to radio DJs and stores to promote their
respective stables of artists. Perhaps no one in the history of music distribu-
tion has been more DIY than Ian MacKaye, who founded Dischord Records
and with his peers put together the labels’ first ten thousand records by hand.5
The determination to distribute music—exemplified by Lookout! Records’
Chris Applegren and Patrick Hynes pushing boxes of seven-inch records on
their skateboards through the turnstiles of the San Francisco transit system—is
a hallmark of the DIY-er.6 For others DIY is about an aesthetic, a quality of
sound that signifies an authenticity that is void in the recordings disseminating
from professional recording studios. R. Stevie Moore, the “Godfather of Home
Recording,” who is reported to have produced and distributed over four hun-
dred albums,7 “celebrated the unburnished, the intimate, the vulnerable, and
the deranged.”8 Oftentimes such an aesthetic is associated with a conception of
1
Parts of this chapter were first published in Bell, “DIY Recreational Recording as Music Making.”
2
Cohen, Record Men, 64.
3
Posner, Motown, 36.
4
Gillett, Making Tracks, 204.
5
Cook with McCaughan and Balance, Our Noise, 6.
6
Boulware and Tudor, Gimme Something Better, 330.
7
Carson, “R. Stevie Moore.”
8
Ingram, “Here Comes the Flood.”
3
4 Do-I t-Yourself
what constitutes a professional studio and working in opposition to it, such as

these New York-based examples:
• Mantronix recording The Album (1985) in Al Cohen Studio, an apartment in the

Chelsea Hotel.9
• Marley Marl producing members of the Juice Crew in his “House of Hits,” which
was the living room in his sister’s Queensbridge apartment.10
• Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin cutting LL Cool J’s “I Need a Beat” in Rubin’s
New York University dorm room.11
• Vampire Weekend recording parts of their debut album in the music rooms of
Columbia University.12
The sound, the space, the selling, and sharing; these are all critical components of
what constitutes DIY, but for the purposes of this book, when DIY is invoked it
refers to making music, specifically with a focus on how music is made in the record-
ing process and the learning that occurs therein. The history of DIY recording that
I present in this chapter is a purposefully skewed one. While it is important to know
what people use to make music, more emphasis is placed on how recording as a
music-making practice is conceptualized and performed. Therefore, this is a story
about ease of access and ease of use, the two most critical conditions in determining
whether or not a practice can be self-sufficient, which is the essence of DIY.
At present, the digital audio workstation (DAW) is the bedrock of music produc-
tion, DIY or otherwise. DAW is a generic software categorization that has evolved
since its origins as simply an audio editing application that ran on specialized work-
station computers. Most DAWs now share in common the capability to sequence,
record, and mix music, but increasingly can be played using software-based syn-
thesizers that emulate existing instruments or create new tones and timbres with
no existing referent. As a tech-dependent music-making society, have we adapted
our recording practices in parallel, if at all, with the development of our recording
technologies? In this first chapter, I aim to shine a light on DIY practices since the
inception of recording itself, and trace its path to the present. What ought to be
evident is that relatively soon into the history of recording, an industry is estab-
lished and DIY practices coexist in a world with professional protocols, conven-
tions, and equipment. DIY-ers and professionals inform and influence each other,
and at times distinguishing one from another is a difficult task. I attribute “profes-
sional” to the music industry, meaning that professional practices exist to produce
recordings to be commodities. DIY covers the spectrum, as some DIY-ers set out to
9
Coleman, Check the Technique Volume 2, 351.
10
Gonzales, “The Juice Crew,” 103.
11
Considine, “The Big Willies,” 155.
12
Eells, “Vampire Weekend.”
5
A His t ory of DI Y R e cordin g 5
make money, while others simply see recording as recreation. What these DIY-ers
share in common is a desire to be self-sufficient; to engage in recording as music-
making. “Recording,” as this history will demonstrate, is a moving target, and over
time comes to mean increasingly more than the literal act of recording sound to a
medium. As the acts associated with recording change and evolve, so too do the
roles of the people that engage with these practices. The music-making and learning
practices of the contemporary DIY-ers profiled in this book are not the result of a
twenty-first century DIY recording revolution; rather, they are exemplary of a DIY
recording evolution that started before audio existed.
DIY Recording Before Records

It was not until 1877 that Thomas Edison succeeded in playing back a recording of
himself, but many of the concepts present in the modern DAW predate the phono-
graph by hundreds of years. By extension, DIY recording practices predate audio
recording itself. David Bowers details that there are historical records dating to the
era of 1500 to 1800 of automatic musical instruments in Europe, typically reserved
for royalty, such as flute-players and mechanical birds. By the early 1800s, music
boxes that played melodies using tuned steel combs were being produced by Swiss
and German workshops.13 Handel, C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
all composed for small self-playing organs,14 which suggests that they were not just
composing for this medium, but programming it, too. This last point is particularly
pertinent to the development of the DIY studio because long before the arrival of
audio recording, composers were bypassing performing musicians to interpret and
play their works in favor of a more direct and self-sufficient approach.
Even more intriguing from the history of Bowers’ automatic instruments is the
evidence to support the theory that the drum machine predates the drum set. By
the mid-nineteenth century tuned bells and drums were added to music boxes,15
which effectively meant that a drum pattern could be programmed. Furthermore,
there is evidence of miniature drum machines—essentially a trap kit triggered by
a small scroll of paper akin to a piano roll—in existence in the early twentieth cen-
tury,16 which is around the same time the modern trap kit began to take shape as
an instrument unto itself.17 But of all the marvels of automatic mechanical music
technology, the most complex operations were afforded by the player piano, which
for a time rivaled audio recording in the early twentieth century as the preferred
13
Bowers, Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, 10.
14
Hocker, “My Soul is in the Machine,” 84.
15
Bowers, Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, 29.
16
Ibid., 749.
17
Avanti, “Black Musics, Technology, and Modernity.”
6 Do-I t-Yourself
method by performers to record the piano. The significance of these perforated-

scroll-dependent instruments is that in theory, one could independently record and
reproduce their own musical performance. Making a DIY recording was possible
before “recordings” in the modern sense existed, exemplifying that “the growth,
persistence in our culture, and technological improvement of sound recording
reflect its evolutionary, not revolutionary nature.”18
Tinfoil Revolutions: The First DIY Audio Recording

The first audio recording that could be played back was a DIY job by Thomas Edison.
This inaugural phonograph recording from 1877 was a spoken rendition of “Mary Had
a Little Lamb.”19 With this sonic selfie, Edison set a precedent that you could record
yourself. Initially, Edison did not envision music recording as the phonograph’s pri-
mary purpose; he had other designs in mind than entertainment, such as office dicta-
tion.20 Nevertheless in 1878, listing potential uses of the phonograph, Edison included
recording music:
The phonograph will undoubtedly be liberally devoted to music. A song

sung on the phonograph is reproduced with marvelous accuracy and
power. Thus a friend may in a morning-call sing us a song which shall
delight an evening company, etc. As a musical teacher it will be used to
enable one to master a new air, the child to form its first songs, or to sing
him to sleep.21
Although the earliest phonographs produced were equipped to record, low pub-
lic demand for this feature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
pushed the phonograph and its competing devices toward being used solely for
sound reproduction. Up until approximately 1900, the phonograph could both rec-
ord and reproduce, and the manufacturers “expected their customers to make their
own recordings.”22 One such example of DIY recording during this era is presented
in How We Gave a Phonograph Party, distributed by the National Phonography
Company in 1899.23 This party is depicted as a fun-filled evening, with anecdotes
such as: “The most effective records we made during the entire evening were two
18
Jones, Rock Formation, 14.
19
Digital restorations of similar tinfoil recordings from 1878 reveal that these recordings were quite
noisy and distorted, making the sound source, such as the voice in this case, difficult to discern.
20
Morton, Sound Recording, 18.
21
Cited in Taylor, Katz, and Grajeda, Music, Sound, and Technology in America, 35.
22
Morton, Off the Record, 14.
23
Reproduced in Taylor, Katz, and Grajeda, Music, Sound, and Technology in America.
7
chorus records. All stood close together in a bunch about three feet from the horn
and sang ‘Marching through Georgia’ and it came out fine. Our success lead us to try
another ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and it was every bit as good.”24
During the phonograph’s infancy, people could record themselves. Although
the role of “recordist” existed in professional recording studios, in domestic life the
people operating the recording equipment were the same people performing for it.
Recording in this context was a self-sufficient process that was intended to be fun.
Despite some critics’ concerns that recording technology would replace recreational
music-making, “in good part it [music-making] flourished in response to the pos-
sibilities of these technologies.”25 Emulating Edison—most likely unknowingly—
people self-produced their own recordings in their homes decades before “home
recording” became a household term.
Based on these accounts it seemed that DIY recording was off to a formidable
start in the twentieth century, but with Emile Berliner’s disc-based gramophone
design supplanting Edison’s cylinder-based phonograph system—due to the fact
that it was easier to mass-produce discs than cylinders—came a major conceptual
shift. The inability to record on discs
introduced a structural and social division between making a recording

and listening to it. With Edison’s design, access to one assumed access to
the other as well; sound recording was something people could do. With
Berliner’s design, a wedge was driven between production and consump-
tion; sound recording was something people could listen to.26
As a consequence of this conceptual shift, “recordings would be made solely by

manufacturers, not by consumers.”27 The act of recording was no longer participa-
tory, it was proprietary. The story of DIY recording does not end in the early twen-
tieth century with the demise of recording cylinders, but it does drop off the radar
of most accounts of the history of recording, only to resurface mid-century with
the advent of tape recording. In part, DIY recording’s absence from the annals of
recording history can be explained by the overshadowing presence of the profes-
sionalization of recording—what would eventually come to be known as audio
engineering. This was a critical juncture: the beginning of the parsing of the tech-
nological from the musical, which over time came to be further entrenched as
recording practices evolved in tandem with the music industry. To understand
DIY recording in its current state, it must be contextualized within the broader
culture and history of sound recording, commencing with the mechanical era.
24
Ibid., 51.
25
Katz, “The Amateur in the Age of Mechanical Music,” 460.
26
Suisman, Selling Sounds, 5.
27
Morton, Sound Recording, 32.
8 Do-I t-Yourself
Mechanical Recording (Pre-1925)

Recording in the mechanical era necessitated that the physical space of the studio
be large enough to accommodate the performing musicians as well as the person-
nel operating the recording apparatus.28 The musicians performed toward a horn,
which channeled the collective air pressure of their sounds to a membrane that
would vibrate, and in turn move the needle that recorded onto the rotating cyl-
inder.29 A caveat of this mechanical process was that a musician who could not
produce sufficient air pressure—such as a singer with a soft voice—could not
be a recording artist.30 Further, musicians often had to adjust their performance
practices to conform to the capacities of the mechanical studio, such as altering
their playing formations to obtain the optimal musical balance on the recorded
medium.31 David Morton provides a description of a typical pre-electrical era
recording session:
A recording director (who might also be a conductor or serve other func-

tions) physically arranged the musicians and managed the details of the ses-
sion. During the session, the director motioned to vocalists to indicate when
to lean in close and when to duck or step away from the horn during instru-
mental solos, allowing the musicians to come forward.32
In many regards, performing to a horn is similar to performing to a microphone:
A vocalist might literally stick her head inside the horn to ensure that her pia-
nissimo would be heard, but then, with the timing of a lion tamer, quickly
withdraw for her fortissimo, so as to avoid “blasting” the engraving needle out
of its groove.33
Some studios even employed a “gentle pusher,” whose duty was to monitor
the performer’s dynamics and push them away from the recording horn when
they were too quiet, and conversely, pull them away when they were too loud.34
Dynamics notwithstanding, mechanical recording could not capture the full
28
According to Allan Williams, “Old drawings of an early Edison recording session indicate that
there was no physical division between musicians and the recording devices and technicians who oper-
ated them.” See his “Divide and Conquer.”
29
Horning, “Chasing Sound.”
30
Schmidt Horning, Chasing Sound, 30.
31
Morton, Sound Recording and Off the Record.
32
33
Katz, Capturing Sound, 38.
34
Katz, “Introduction,” 25.
9
extent of the typical human’s hearing range,35 which meant that the frequencies
produced by instruments at the low or high end of the sound spectrum were ren-
dered inaudible. For example, a mechanical recording of a drum set would not be
able to reproduce the low thud of a bass drum nor the high shimmer of a cymbal.
One workaround for this problem was to simply replace an instrument, such as
substituting the double bass line for a tuba part, as was practiced in early-era jazz
recordings.36
In sum, both whom could be recorded and how accurately they could be
recorded—with regard to such basic elements of sound such as pitch and perceived
loudness—were subject to the mediated process of recording. Jonathan Sterne
succinctly concludes: “People performed for the machines; machines did not sim-
ply ‘capture’ sounds that already existed in the world . . . Making sounds for the
machines was always different than performing for a live audience.”37
The perception that the recording studio was once a neutral space where music
was simply captured to a medium is misguided. Recording is not just a product of
performers; it is also a process, one in which participants other than the musicians
as well as the technologies they employ (including the rooms they record in) con-
tribute significantly to the outcome as heard on the final medium. And yet there
remains a longstanding view that recording music is simply the process of capturing
a musical performance in real time.38 Aden Evens suggests that this perception can
be attributed to a cultural bias toward the Western classical tradition: “According
to the audiophile community, every good recording should sound like Beethoven
played live: fidelity = Fidelio.”39
Despite this construct of fidelity being actively promoted by the emerging
music-recording industry in the early twentieth century,40 an undercurrent of DIY
recording practices that eschewed this take on reality would eventually succeed
in selling recordings that purposely foiled the façade of recordings as unmediated
musical moments captured in real time. This sea-change shift in perceptions and
practices took decades to reach a boiling point and evaporate the illusion of fidelity
because accessing (or acquiring) and operating the technology to record contin-
ued to present significant hurdles to those outside of the music industry during the
electrical era.
35
Human hearing is typically 20Hz–20kHz, although with aging, the ability to perceive high fre-
quencies tends to decline. Mechanical recording could capture a much more limited frequency range
of 200Hz–3kHz according to Schmidt Horning, Chasing Sound, 37.
36
37
Sterne, The Audible Past, 235.
38
Kealy, “From Craft to Art.”
39
Evens, Sound Ideas, 7.
40
Milner, Perfecting Sound Forever.
10 D o-I t-Yourself
The Electrical Era (Post-1925)

With the advent of electricity came significant changes in recording technology and
ensuing recording practices. If there is a dark age in DIY recording history, it is this
period from the earliest encounters with electrical recording up until the arrival of
audio tape following World War II. Exceptions existed, notably Raymond Scott,
who in 1935 at the age of twenty-six “designed and owned one of New York City’s
earliest independent recording studios.”41 By the 1940s Scott, a successful band-
leader whose real passion was electronics and music composition,42 channeled his
wealth toward a lavish recording studio in his Long Island home: “He had . . . a
spacious razzle-dazzle recording studio with a disc lathe, reel-to-reel tape record-
ers, and a wide assortment of wall-mounted instruments, mixers, and controls that
grew more complex from year to year as he continued to invent new gizmos.”43
Individuals like Scott were anomalies during the electrical era because an industrial
recording complex had been developing at a rapid rate that not only perpetuated
the division of labor between musicians and recordists from the mechanical era, but
increased it. The aural artistry of the mechanical recordist was soon supplanted by
electrical engineers and the science of measuring audio signals.44 A new and more
specialized position in the studio was forged, a hybrid artist–scientist profession
that came to be known as audio engineering.
Aside from the increases in dynamic and frequency range ushered in by the
microphone and the accompanying electrical recording process, a key difference
in practice established during this era was the separation of the recordist/engineer
from the musicians in the studio space.45 Gone were the days of the recordist corral-
ling musicians around the recording horn; instead, the engineer could now direct all
involved from a control room via intercom and adjust microphone levels by turning
knobs.46
While it was still possible to make a DIY recording in the electrical era using
a commercially available “instantaneous” disc recording system, it was considera-
bly more difficult compared to the early days of mechanical recording: “They were
far too complex for the amateur.”47 Susan Schmidt Horning details that in the early
1930s one of the owners of Presto Recording Corporation published how-to guides
41
Winner, “The World of Sound,” 187.
42
Chusid, “Beethoven-in-a-Box,” 10.
43
Holmes, Electronic and Experimental Music, 140.
44
45
Chanan, Repeated Takes. Although the separation of musicians from recording technicians did
not become a widespread practice until the electrical era, research by Allan Williams reports that as
early as 1906 an Edison recording studio in New York had a partition to isolate the musicians from the
recording equipment and personnel. See “Divide and Conquer.”
46
47
Millard, “Tape Recording and Music Making,” 158.
11
for avid hobbyists such as Home Recording and All About It, touting: “The home
recordist can achieve results that will be almost on par with commercially-pressed
records.”48 To most people, however, disc-based recording was unwieldy, and “it was
not until tape recorders became available in the 1950s that home recording became
popular again.”49 Fortunately for the future of DIY recording, jazz guitarist Les Paul
was more than up to the task to tinker with two turntables in his garage.
Les Paul’s Legacy of Overdubbing

Les Paul is the oft-cited trailblazer of DIY recording mastery, producing record-
ings in the late 1940s and early 1950s that were futuristic to the ears of the music-
listening audiences of the day.50 He sped up his recorded guitar riffs and solos to
create new timbres played at superlative speeds, and seemed to defy the laws of time
by accompanying himself on guitar, or having his wife, Mary Ford, sing with herself
using a technique he coined “sound-on-sound”:
He would record a track onto an aluminum disk, and then record a sec-
ond track on another machine, while the first machine played back his first
track. The second machine would thus capture Paul’s live second perfor-
mance as well as his recorded first performance. Then he’d begin the proc-
ess again with the third performance. In this way, he would layer part upon
part until he had a finished piece.51
It is noteworthy that Paul’s method demanded exquisite execution to be success-

ful because there was no recourse to correct mistakes. With each added layer of
sound, the stakes grew increasingly higher as a single slipup would ruin the entire
recording. Even more impressive is the fact that the parts that needed to be the most
prominent in the finalized recording would have to be recorded last, requiring a
premeditated form of mental mixing.
Accounts of others engaging in a similar recording process affirm that Paul did
not invent sound-on-sound or what is commonly referred to as overdubbing. For
example, in 1930, Paul Hindemith demonstrated his “trick music” in Berlin, which
featured himself singing a three-voice chord, possibly the first overdub recorded.52
Reportedly, the first commercial recording with overdubbing was Lawrence
48
49
50
Key examples of Les Paul’s disc-based sound-on-sound recordings include “Lover” (1948) and
“Brazil” (1948).
51
Milner, Perfecting Sound Forever, 125.
52
12 D o-I t-Yourself
Tibbett’s “the Cuban love song” (1931) on which he sang both the tenor and bari-
tone parts,53 and a decade later Sidney Bechet overdubbed the multi-instrumentals
“The Sheik of Araby” and “Blues of Bechet.”54 Nevertheless, Les Paul, who observed
the use of overdubbing in Hollywood at some point in the early 1930s and honed
his technique using a homemade disc cutter in his garage-turned-studio, is the indi-
vidual who popularized this approach: “He was certainly the first to make it a major
selling point of his disks. This studio technique, which took him roughly two years
to perfect, would ultimately force the industry to reexamine its approach to record-
ing.”55 Historians of the Western art music tradition often point to Pierre Schaeffer
and Pierre Henry as the progenitors of collage-based music,56 but their landmark
works such as Symphonie pour un home seul (1950) premiered after Paul released
tracks like “Lover” (1948) and “Brazil” (1948). Regardless of who was first, the
technique of overdubbing that is now commonplace in music production was pop-
ularized by Les Paul who applied these principles to tape in just a few years follow-
ing his first forays in overdubbing with discs.
Les Paul and the Tale of Tape (Post-1945)

Following the conclusion of World War II, the German-designed tape recorder
came into American possession.57 Within a few years, Les Paul emerged as the
sultan of sound-on-sound, apparently intuiting almost immediately how to ret-
rofit the tape recorder to enable overdubbing upon receiving one of the first
American-made models from Bing Crosby in 1949.58 Much like his disc-to-disc
sound-on-sound achievements, Paul’s tape-based overdubbing escapades would
prove to be pivotal in how recording was conceptualized in the postwar period,
53
Barrett, “Producing Performance,” 91.
54
Shaughnessy, Les Paul.
55
Ibid., 143.
56
Prendergast, Ambient Century.
57
Morton, Sound Recording, 114–142. Following World War II, American intelligence investigated
various German technologies including the Magnetophon tape recorder, and one of the investigating
officers, Jack Mullin, shipped two of the units back to the United States. The American-made Ampex
tape recorder based on the Magnetophon was introduced to Bing Crosby by Mullin after he was hired
to record Crosby’s radio show for NBC. Although the Magnetophon had been unveiled in Paris in
1935, “for reasons that have never been clear, the more creative uses of tape for recording music did
not begin until the tape recorder was wrested from its legitimate corporate and institutional sponsors,
who were mainly in Germany, and distributed around the world to new owners.” Ibid., 142. Notably,
Thom Holmes claims that Raymond Scott invented one of the first multitrack tape recorders in the
United States, having figured out how to record “seven or fourteen parallel audio tracks on the same
reel of tape” in 1953, a year in advance of Les Paul designing the first eight-track machine. Electronic
and Experimental Music, 141.
58
Paul and Cochran, Les Paul, 203.
13
furthering “the process whereby recording tools became considered instruments

unto themselves.”59
Of equal importance to overdubbing was Paul’s advancement of multitrack
recording. Bell Labs in the United States demonstrated multitrack recording with
film in the early 1930s, and Alan Blumlein, working for EMI in England, filed for a
patent for two-channel recording in 1931,60 but once again it was Paul who helped
to popularize yet another tape-dependent recording technique. In this process the
recording tape is divided into “tracks” akin to lanes on a roadway. On each track a dif-
ferent performance can be recorded, regardless if these performances occur synchro-
nously or not. For example, suppose Les Paul (guitar) and Mary Ford (vocals) were
to make a multitrack recording. In the first instance, they decide to perform at the
same time. Simultaneously, Ford’s microphone is recorded onto track 1, and Paul’s
guitar is recorded onto track 2. In the second instance, the setup remains the same,
but the process is altered to be asynchronous. First, Paul’s performance is recorded
onto track 2, and once he is finished, Ford’s vocal performance is recorded onto track
1. In either scenario, if Ford or Paul opted to redo any part of their respective per-
formances afterward they could do so without effecting each other’s performances
because they were recorded onto separate tracks. Understandably, the musicians
might prefer one approach over another, but from a technological perspective, there
is little difference. The core principle underpinning multitracking is the isolation of
recorded performances from each other on separate tracks. Timothy Warner outlines
the multifaceted advantages afforded by the tape-based multitracking process:
First, recording each track separately enables the user to attain a much
higher level of musical accuracy, specifically timing and tuning; second,
each track can be recorded in minute sections, bit by bit and, as a con-
sequence, levels of performance are achieved which would be impossible
“live”; third, the complete separation of each track offers control of vol-
ume, timbre, and spatial positioning of the signal on that track in relation
to the other tracks; and, finally, decisions as to suitability of virtually all the
separate sounds need only be made at the mixdown stage.61
It warrants repeating that Paul’s recordings were produced outside of a professional stu-
dio system without the aid of professional engineers. Paul recalls that he and Mary Ford
often recorded in their kitchen and other rooms in their home to attain different effects:
I would have Mary sing a certain part while standing in the hallway, and
other parts in different rooms to give each track its own sound . . . We had
59
Waksman, “Les Paul,” 270.
60
Morton, Sound Recording.
61
Warner, Pop Music, 23.
14 D o-I t-Yourself
the bathroom, which produced an echo-like sound, and once I determined

exactly where to position Mary and the mic, the hallway was a great place
for natural reverb.62
Virgil Moorefield suggests that the overdub-dependent approach to recording

employed by the likes of Les Paul would have been regarded as dishonest by
popular mid-century producers such as Mitch Miller and John Hammond: “In
this worldview, a valid musician is a virtuoso, and the ability to perform in real
time is paramount.”63 Albin Zak adds: “For classical and jazz recordings, such
trickery rendered the result false, worthless,” but in the case of pop music, “rather
than disguising the overdub, it was highlighted.”64 These hands-on DIY-ers were
working in direct opposition to what Edward Kealy labels “craft-union mode,” a
stratified system in which record company engineers “controlled access to the
technology of recording by forbidding collaborators, such as musicians, com-
posers, and record company personnel, to even touch the studio equipment at
recording sessions.”65
Craft-Union Mode: 30th Street Studio

As a point of reference to contrast the practices of entrepreneurial DIY-ers like Paul
with their craft-union contemporaries in the professional recording studio system,
consider the case of Columbia Records’ famed 30th Street Studio in New York City.
Acquired in 1949 and in operation until 1982, 30th Street Studio was used to rec-
ord Kind of Blue (1959) by Miles Davis, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations (1955),
and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957). As in-house audio engineer Frank
Laico remarked, “30th Street Studio was a hundred feet by a hundred feet and had
very high ceilings; the room was just tremendous. We could record [anything] from
solo [musicians] to full symphony orchestras, and Broadway cast albums with forty
or fifty musicians.”66 In an interview with David Simons, Laico revealed that the
studio typically utilized a simple signal flow for recording that included high-qual-
ity components such as Telefunken U47 and M49 microphones, Pultec equalizers,
Universal Audio limiters, and a custom-made mixing console.67 Laico routinely
employed an ambient micing technique in which the sounds of the musicians and
62
63
64
Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 159.
65
Kealy, “From Craft to Art,” 210.
66
As cited in Kahn, Kind of Blue, 75.
67
Simons, Studio Stories. This list of recording equipment is now highly sought after and very expen-
sive, likely in part due to the acclaimed recordings that they were used on by Laico.
15
the resulting reflections—natural reverberations—were sought after; the room

was an integral part of the recording. The timbral tastes of the time often craved for
added ambience and this desired embellishment was achieved through the use of
chamber reverb. In the case of 30th Street Studio, the audio signals from the micro-
phones were routed to a speaker in a room in the basement with dimensions twelve
feet wide, fifteen feet long, and eight feet high (the chamber). The speaker projected
the sound in the chamber and a microphone captured these additional reverbera-
tions, which were then added back to the mix, giving it a more spacious sound tex-
ture. This approach to recording was typical of professional studios from the 1950s
to the early 1960s:
The companies encouraged their engineers and mixers to develop their

craft skills and strive for a recording aesthetic of “concert hall realism”
and “high fidelity.” This required the construction of large studios and the
development of microphone and mixing techniques in order to record
whole symphony orchestras and dance bands in a way that simulated the
psychoacoustics of a live performance.68
The architectural features of the physical space were central to a recording’s essence;
the aim was to “capture” a “natural” performance: “The art of recording was not to
compete for the public’s aesthetic attention to the art that was being recorded.”69
Whereas an engineer like Frank Laico working for a record label during this era
adhered to a preservationist philosophy in recording—capturing the performance
unaltered by editing or overdubbing—DIY-ers like Paul purposely drew attention
to their technical interventions and alterations:
As record production evolved through the 1950s, the result was not
only new music but a new way of making music. It was perhaps the most
enduring musical concept to emerge from the postwar period: records
were no longer simply aural snapshots but deliberately crafted musical
texts.70
In the decades that followed, the ideal of the real-time performance recording
eventually became an exception rather than the rule, as the practice of overdub-
bing became standard in the overwhelming majority of recording sessions. In the
span of just a few years, and in the hands of a few DIY pioneers, the window was
again opened to record oneself. Coupled with tape-recording technology, individu-
als could now produce recordings independently that proffered the audio illusion
68
69
Ibid., 211.
70
16 D o-I t-Yourself
that they could sing and play multiple parts by themselves without the aid of other
musicians or technicians. These developments would have an immediate impact
on a reinvigorated DIY recording community excited about the prospects afforded
by tape.
DIY Recording Post-1945: Sticking to

the Tape Mentality
Home tape recording is as simple as clicking a camera shutter for ever-
increasing thousands of American sound enthusiasts. No matter
how inexperienced or inept the tape-recorder owner may be, the
chances are overwhelming that he will come up with acceptable sound
on his tapes.71
Upon the arrival of audiotape in the United States following World War II, tape
recording was promoted to the public as an easy-to-do hobby. Publications from the
proceeding decades including consumer magazines such as Tape Recording (1953–
1969), and recreation-oriented books such as Family Fun in Tape Recording72 and
Tape Recording for the Hobbyist,73 covered a wide range of activities related to record-
ing, with music being one of the many possibilities.
Meanwhile, outside of home life, DIY recording studios began to surface, made
possible by the proliferation of reel-to-reel tape recorders. André Millard suggests
that “this was an accessible technology which permitted more people to enter the
professional recording industry.”74 Most DIY studios had little in the way of state-
of-the-art recording technology, lacking the requisite capital to purchase high-end
(usually German) microphones and custom-built recording consoles. Instead, they
repurposed ramshackle radio equipment and more affordable American-made
microphones,75 and set up their studios in “storefronts, garages, and shacks, as well as
radio stations and proper, if spartan, studios . . . Many records were recorded on loca-
tion in a YMCA, church, VFW hall, or house, almost anyplace with roof and walls.”76
In the case of Atlantic Records, the office of Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler dou-
bled as their studio. They pushed aside their office furniture to make space for their
recording artists, and their engineer, Tom Dowd, recorded them with a single micro-
phone.77 In comparison to the professional recording practices of the period, the
71
Westcott and Dubbe, Tape Recorders, 23.
72
Ahlers, Family Fun in Tape Recording.
73
Zuckerman, Tape Recording for the Hobbyist.
74
75
Cogan and Clark, Temples of Sound.
76
77
Wade and Picardie, Music Man, 34.
17
“anyplace with roof and walls” approach of the DIY-ers was a radically different world,
and it was precisely this deviation from the standard that redefined recording practices.
It is at this mid-century point that determining what counts as a “professional”
recording becomes increasingly difficult. The line demarcating professional is
obscured in the wake of many independent recording companies in the latter half of
the 1950s that realized commercial success in tandem with the rise of rock and roll.
For example, whereas the ratio of major to independent labels was a commanding
40 to 11 in 1955, it was 30 to 40 by 1957.78 In just five years after the introduction of
tape into the recording industry, the number of companies releasing albums jumped
dramatically from eleven to two hundred.79 These newly established startups likely
could not compete with the industry titans’ technical standards of high fidelity, but
it is unlikely that their intended audiences—lower-class whites, African Americans,
and teenagers—were familiar with such stringent standards anyway.80 The inability
for these independents to rival this so-called realism, opened up an avenue to a new
aesthetic, one in which popular musics, beginning with rock and roll, would flourish.
The tape techniques that Les Paul popularized were referenced frequently in
how-to guides of the era. For example, consider the following excerpt from ABC’s of
Tape Recording: “You can use a tape recorder to produce your own multiple record-
ings. You can make like a one-man orchestra or choir (as Les Paul and Mary Ford
did so wonderfully a few years ago).”81 Further, in Tape Recording for the Hobbyist,
Art Zuckerman relates how one could adopt Paul’s tape-based “speed trick” to imi-
tate the high-pitched novelty singing of the Chipmunks or feign violin virtuosity by
recording an octave down at three-quarters of the regular tempo and then speeding
up the tape afterward.82
By the mid-1960s, recording practices, especially for emerging styles such as
rock and roll, embraced the creative capacities afforded by tape. Recording was no
longer pitted as a process of capturing but as creating. DIY recording guides from
this period such as Creative Tape Recording positioned editing as an integral part of
the recording process: “The recordist should not feel he is cheating in some way, but
that he is using every means available, in this case his editing skill, to get as flawless
a performance as possible on tape.”83
Editing, however, was not as simple as clicking a camera shutter: “When you get
into editing, you pass the thin boundary that distinguishes tape recording as a mere
pastime from a serious hobby.”84 Tape recording was now becoming an increasingly
78
79
80
Ibid.
81
Crowhurst, ABC’s of Tape Recording, 71.
82
Zuckerman, Tape Recording for the Hobbyist, 48.
83
Capel, Creative Tape Recording, 128.
84
Zuckerman, Tape Recording for the Hobbyist, 73.
18 D o-I t-Yourself
technical and less accessible pursuit. On the one hand, the more involved discipline
of editing likely alienated some recreational recorders who found it too technical
and thereby less accessible, but on the other hand, it also gave self-recording musi-
cians new compositional possibilities.
The concept of editing as integral to the recording process constituted a sem-
inal change in both professional and recreational recording practices. Certainly,
recording technologies have changed dramatically since the heyday of Les Paul’s
tape trickery, but the foundational concept that recordings entail a process of crea-
tive construction at the hands of the person wielding the technology perseveres to
the present day. For DIY recording, this development constituted a figurative fork
in the road; with added possibilities beyond simply pressing a button to record
came the necessity for more training.
The DIY-er wanting to edit multiple takes together had to learn how to splice
tape wielding a razor blade. If DIY-ers wanted to sing with themselves like Mary
Ford, they had to master the technique of overdubbing. Most books about tape
recording aimed at DIY-ers from the 1960s and 1970s contained chapters steeped
in more technical topics to cater to this crowd, including but not limited to the
mechanical principles of tape recording, editing techniques, machine maintenance,
acoustics, and microphone selection and placement.85 This more technical and less
accessible path of DIY recording continued along the same trajectory throughout
the remainder of the twentieth century, and in many regards still persists presently
in the digital domain.
It was around this time in the late 1960s and early 1970s that the DIY trailhead
diverged into two distinct paths, the lo-fi (low-fidelity) movement, which contin-
ued to value ease of access and ease of use over quality, and the hi-fi (high-fidelity)
movement, which remained self-sufficient, but often compromised ease of access
and ease of use in its pursuit to rival the quality of professional studios. In the case
of the latter, a significant contributing factor was the ability to access or acquire the
increasingly costly equipment used in professional studios including mixers, signal
processors, and specially built recording rooms.
The Escalating Expenses of Equipment and

the DIY Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi Dichotomy
The act of mixing, which in its most elemental form entails balancing the perceived
volume of two or more sound signals relative to each other, was first made possible
in the electrical era. Yet for most DIY-ers, it would take decades until they were
See for example Capel, Creative Tape Recording; Crawford, Tape Recording from A to Z; Crowhurst,
85
ABC’s of Tape Recording; LeBel, How To Make Good Tape Recordings; Salm, Tape Recording for Fun and
Profit; Westcott and Dubbe, Tape Recorders; Zuckerman, Tape Recording for the Hobbyist.
19
able to affordably acquire a mixing console. In professional recording studios up

until the early 1960s, mixers were rather rudimentary with rotary knobs to con-
trol between four to twelve signals.86 These mixing consoles were custom built,
or modified from a broadcast console by a tinkerer proficient with electronics like
Sam Phillips.87
Bill Putnam’s custom built mixing consoles, which he sold under the com-
pany Universal Audio from 1958 to 1967, came to be the standard in the
recording industry. Bruce Swedien, best known for recording and mixing
Michael Jackson’s seminal albums,88 attributes the familiar standardized out-
lay of the console to Putnam: “The design of modern recording desks, the way
components are laid out and the way they function . . . they all originated in
Bill’s imagination.”89 The mixing console as we now know it “remained almost
unchanged from Bill’s first rather small recording consoles.”90 A critical addi-
tion to this design was the replacement of rotary knobs with sliders (faders).
Atlantic Records audio engineer Tom Dowd was driven by his frustrations with
the ergonomics of the console to incorporate the linear fader in order to make
the physical actions of mixing less cumbersome: “Because of the narrow width
of these things, I could fit them into a board half as wide. Which enabled me to
put a whole group of faders in two hands . . . Finally, I could play the faders like
you could play a piano.”91 With most manufacturers of mixing consoles adopt-
ing Dowd’s adaptation, the fader came to be a standard feature. Artists ranging
from the Beatles92 to the Beastie Boys93 have remarked on the phenomenon of
“playing” the mixer. Given the prohibitive cost of purchasing or renting a mix-
ing console, the art of mixing was mostly reserved for those working for record
companies.
D I V I D E -A N D -I S O L AT E
Meanwhile, ambient recording spaces like Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, which
were once prized in the 1950s and early 1960s, began to fall out of favor. Taking
their place were studios designed to eliminate or minimize natural reverberations
to enable the isolation of individual sounds. This trend, which was widespread in
86
Bushnell and Ferree, From Down Beat to Vinyl, 159.
87
As cited in Cogan and Clark, Temples of Sound, 90.
88
Notable Michael Jackson recordings produced by Quincy Jones, and engineered and mixed by
Bruce Swedien, include Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987).
89
As cited in Cogan, “Bill Putnam.”
90
Swedien, Make Mine Music, 123.
91
As cited in Simons, Studio Stories, 53.
92
Emerick and Massey, Here, There, and Everywhere, 112.
93
Brown, Rick Rubin, 45.
20 D o-I t-Yourself
recording studios and practices by the late 1970s, is described by David Byrne as
“divide-and-isolate”:
The goal was to get as pristine a sound as possible . . . Studios were often

padded with sound-absorbent materials so that there was almost no rever-
beration. The sonic character of the space was sucked out, because it
wasn’t considered to be part of the music. Without this ambience, it was
explained, the sound would be more malleable after the recording had
been made . . . Dead, characterless sound was held up as the ideal, and
often still is. In this philosophy, the naturally occurring echo and reverb
that normally added a little warmth to performances would be removed
and then added back in when the recording was being mixed.94
Byrne remarks that in the divide-and-isolate approach, reverb would be added dur-
ing mixing, after recording occurred. This was made possible by external reverb
units, which were also prohibitively expensive for the typical DIY-er. The first alter-
native to chamber reverb to emerge was plate reverb, which came into wide use in
the 1960s and 1970s. Plate reverb works on the same principle as chamber reverb,
but instead of sending sound signals to a room, they are sent along a large four-
hundred-pound steel plate measuring three feet wide and six feet long, suspended
by springs within a metal frame and housed in a wooden case. While hardly port-
able, these plate units ushered in a standardization of sorts for reverb. If a studio
could purchase a plate, the unique acoustic properties of its recording space became
significantly less important, effectively devaluing the natural reverberation of a stu-
dio space and its reverb chambers. Essentially, plate reverb led to the homogeniza-
tion of ambience as reverb could now be replicated without using the same studio.
The trend of supplanting the previous technology with a more compact and rep-
licable successor continued with the release of digital reverb in the late 1970s. Using
algorithms to model a surfeit of rooms, digital reverb units expanded the sound
arsenal of recording engineers, displacing the need for older bulkier technologies
like chambers and plates. Using digital models of a room meant that different per-
formances could be recorded in the same room and yet made to sound as if each was
recorded in a different room, all with a turn of a dial or push of a button. Further, the
desired reverb style could be changed quite easily. With chamber and plate reverb,
there was one sound option—all that could be controlled was the amount of reverb
added to the signal. The precedent had been set with digital reverb that soon enough
the studio would cease to be a space at all.
Within professional recording practices the approach to recording and the archi-
tecture of the studios changed in tandem:
94
Byrne, How Music Works, 148.
21
Studios that were built in the next twenty years invariably incorporated
designs that led to the complete isolation of musicians and their instru-
ments, one from another. This, along with the ability to overdub on an
ever-increasing number of tracks, was the seed that eventually became the
common practice of layering-recording one instrument at a time.95
By isolating instruments acoustically or recording one instrument at a time and

then later adding reverb to these performances, each musician’s part could be scruti-
nized and “perfected,” either with overdubbing or editing. Like cubicles in an office,
baffles and isolation booths were used to compartmentalize a recording studio into
micro recording spaces. Even if the musicians played at the same time, they increas-
ingly played in spaces physically isolated from each other, forcing them to crane
their necks over the enclosing baffles or peer through soundproof glass like marine
life in an aquarium. Louise Meintjes’ detailed description of Downtown Studios
in Johannesburg in the early 1990s serves as a prime example of the extent profes-
sional studios went to in order to secure sound isolation:
Inside the studio, the facility is insulated as tightly as possible from the noise
of its own operation, for both recording and monitoring purposes. Clean
sound separation is an ideal in studio design, from the overall structure of
the rooms down to the minute electronic circuitry. Ambient sound from
such sources as the ventilation is minimized through design and special-
ized insulating materials. Soundproofing in the booths and control room
blocks out as much external sound as possible and absorbs unwanted inter-
nal frequencies. Specialized double-paned acoustic windows visually con-
nect booths and the control room, while blocking the sound. Additionally,
in a booth large enough to record more than one source at a time, movable,
acoustically insulated baffles partition the area to limit leak-through from
the sound source of one microphone into another.96
As these technological advancements provided surrogates to natural reverbera-

tion, studios’ dependence on spaces with ambient acoustics were weaned as David
Simons makes the case with New York City: “By the 1990s, nearly all of New York’s
largest studios—RCA, Mediasound, the Pythian Temple, Webster Hall and oth-
ers—had ceased to exist, their equipment sold at auction and the buildings trans-
formed into offices, apartments, and nightclubs.”97
From the early 1970s to nearing the millennial mark, the trend in professional
recording culture was to control sound by isolating it one way or another. Simply
95
Johns, Sound Man, 169.
96
Meintjes, “The Recording Studio as Fetish,” 273.
97
Simons, Studio Stories, 160.
22 D o-I t-Yourself
put, the equipment and methods utilized to attain this high level of control were
expensive. Writing in 1976, Geoffrey Stokes affirmed that the capital costs for even a
modest studio in New York City would have cost $50,000, and that a modest album
recorded in a professional studio would cost at least the same amount: “The studios
where they are recorded have an annual gross of approximately $250 million—mak-
ing them a hidden industry with income comfortably matching that of the National
Football League.”98 This trend of the expensively made album would continue in
the 1980s and 1990s, supported by a seemingly invincible music industry that col-
lected ever-increasing profits. By the end of the so-called CD boom (1984–2000),
record sales hit $942 million.99 In short, “by the mid-1970s, recording had become a
multitrack, megabuck mess. Million-dollar albums became commonplace, and the
little guy was being squeezed out by technology.”100 The irony of this recording real-
ity is that it was built upon the technological advances at the hands of DIY-ers like
Les Paul, Bill Putnam, and Sam Phillips. Adding insult to injury, the DIY aesthetic
that rejected concert realism had been coopted and professionalized by the major
studios. As was the case in the mid-1950s, DIY-ers were once again at a crossroads;
they could try to emulate the industry juggernaut or invent a new aesthetic. They
did both. Some pursued a path that paralleled the professionals’ evolving sense of
high fidelity, while others willingly embraced the limitations of their budgets, much
like their rock and roll forbears did, to create lo-fi.
D I Y H I - F I A N D T H E M U LT I T R A C K R E E L - T O - R
EEL
TA P E R E C O R D E R
One man’s bathroom is another man’s echo chamber.101
Starting in the early 1970s, the company TEAC/TASCAM (hereafter abbreviated

to TASCAM) began marketing reel-to-reel tape recorders to would-be DIY-ers,
advertising their products as affordable yet capable of rivaling a professional record-
ing studio: “We don’t say our tape recorders are the best you can buy. We do say
they’re good enough to produce commercial product. And that’s what counts.”102
Initially, the multitrack reel-to-reel tape recorders manufactured by TASCAM did
not have what they later called “simul-sync” (simultaneous synchronization), which
in effect meant that it was difficult for a DIY-er to produce a recording one layer
at time by overdubbing like Les Paul. But in 1974 TASCAM released an instruc-
tional LP, “Home Made With TEAC,” that promoted both their 3340S four-track
98
99
Knopper, Appetite for Self-Destruction, 43.
100
Baragary, Billboard Guide to Home Recording, 8.
101
Johnson and Rosmini, “Home Recording Tips.”
102
“TEAC/TASCAM: Affordable.”
23
tape recorder with simul-sync, and the practice of a single individual creating a mul-
titrack recording by overdubbing. On the inside of the LP’s gatefold cover there
is a section called “Home Recording Tips,” which proffers some advice on how to
produce a recording by overdubbing: “You don’t have to play and sing at the same
time. Record each part on a separate track until you get it the way you want it. Then
put the tune together with the best examples of each element so that the compos-
ite is representative of your best efforts all around.” And: “If you don’t like the way
something is working, you can always erase it and record something else.”103 Not
only did TASCAM push the idea of recording everything yourself, they also encour-
aged teaching yourself, too, through trial and error, which they called “learning by
doing”:
It’s really the only way. It’s not so much that reading about how to record
isn’t helpful. On the contrary, tape recording isn’t exactly a snap, and you’re
better off having a good idea of what you’re in for, before you get in it. But
in the final analysis it’s something that must be experienced to be under-
stood. It will only take one good tape. Then it won’t be a question of what
got you started. The question then will be how far you can go.104
While the cost of the 3340S at $1,200 constituted a significant investment for the
prospective DIY-er, in comparison, “the cost of professional quality multitrack
audio recording remained high—beyond the reach of many creative artists and pro-
ducers.”105 TASCAM’s vision of DIY recording was enticing to many whom could
not afford to record in a professional studio, resulting in reel-to-reel DIY studios
proliferating in domestic spaces in the 1970s and 1980s. Lore of artists realizing
commercial success using a DIY studio—such as the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams”
(1983), recorded in a warehouse attic using a TEAC eight-track106—spurred the
growth of the emerging DIY recording industry.
The DIY hi-fi studio involved cordoning off a part of one’s home and designat-
ing it for music production. While these studios were DIY in that they were self-
sufficient, they often resembled scaled-down versions of professional studios, with
separate spaces for the musicians and the engineers to carry out their respective
roles. DIY studio enthusiasts built sound isolation booths and installed sound treat-
ment materials ranging from egg cartons to specialized absorbers and reflectors in
their basements and bedrooms in an effort to wrangle ideal acoustics. Separate con-
trol rooms were constructed to house the expanding fleets of gear they captained,
103
Johnson and Rosmini, “Home Recording Tips.”
104
Ibid.
105
Burgess, The History of Music Production, 131.
106
Wadhams, “Anatomy of a Classic Record.”
24 D o-I t-Yourself
such as the one described in Multi-Track Recording: A Technical & Creative Guide for
the Musician & Home Recorder:
Monstrous metallic panels, strewn with blinking LED eyes, gleam in

the darkness. An imposing bank of gadgetry towers darkly in the corner,
dripping with wires and cables . . . Could this be a top-secret air-defense
installation? The bridge of a nuclear-powered submarine? The hidden
headquarters of a telephone company bent on world domination? Nothing
so dramatic. It used to be your living room.107
With the arrival of MIDI in the early 1980s, which enabled the sequencing of elec-
tronic instruments, notably keyboards and drum machines, the complexity of home
studios continued to increase. Out of necessity, DIY instructional resources from
this period, such as The Home Recording Handbook108 and Multitrack Recording for
Musicians,109 covered considerably more ground than their how-to counterparts
from previous decades. The cutting-edge DIY home studio user not only had to be
adept with analog multitrack tape recording, but now also had to delve into digital
sequencing with MIDI. To support the communities of these increasingly sophis-
ticated studios, trade magazines surfaced that addressed relevant issues with how-
to articles such as Mix (1977–present), Sound on Sound (1985–present), Electronic
Musician (1985–present), EQ (1993–2011), and Tape Op (1996–present). In her
review of North American and European recording magazines (including Tape Op
and Sound on Sound) and Internet discussion forums dating from the early 1990s to
the present, Alice Tomaz De Carvalho found that “the discourse of home recording
seems to form and be formed by prescriptions, guides, and norms for how to record
music at home. It assumes that given the ‘accessibility’ of home recording, anyone
can and thus should concentrate on reaching a professional sound at home.”110 This
discourse was also dominant in the learning materials available to DIY-ers in the
1970s and 1980s, which laid the foundation for the DIY hi-fi movement that per-
sists to the present.
D I Y L O - F I A N D T H E M U LT I T R A C K C A S S E T T E
TA P E R E C O R D E R
In contrast to the DIY hi-fi movement, the DIY lo-fi movement prided itself on the
fact that the more sophisticated reel-to-reel recorders and MIDI sequencers could
be bypassed, and that home renovation was not necessary to participate in the
107
Milano, Multi-Track Recording, 1.
108
Everard, Home Recording Handbook.
109
Hurtig, Multi-Track Recording for Musicians.
110
Tomaz De Carvalho, “The Discourse of Home Recording.”
25
self-sufficient recording process. Pivotal to the DIY lo-fi movement was the mak-
ing of “demo” (demonstration) recordings on cassette tapes using a home stereo
or a four-track recorder such as the TASCAM Portastudio—the first of its kind,
released in 1979, that soon had many imitators. Initially priced in the $1,000 to
$1,500 range,111 cassette four-tracks provided an all-in-one approach by incorporat-
ing both the mixer and the recording mechanism in a single unit. Ease of use was
almost assured because most music listeners were already familiar with how to oper-
ate a cassette player: “Musicians could finally record, overdub, EQ, bounce, and mix
down multiple tracks all from the foot of their beds.”112 Makers of these recorders
such as TASCAM and Fostex provided sufficient information in their thin but infor-
mative product manuals for users to commence recording almost immediately. For
example, in the manual for the TASCAM Model 144 Portastudio, released in 1980,
the provided instructions inform the user on how to record, overdub, “ping-pong”
(bounce tracks), mix, and perform “punch-ins,” all within thirty pages. Further,
experimentation was encouraged: “Because the Portastudio is so versatile, no man-
ual could describe all the possible applications and hook-ups. Therefore, once you
know the unit, use your own imagination—try your own ideas.”113 As far as the man-
ufacturers were concerned, DIY-ers did not need instructors or mentors; they could
teach themselves.
A body of literature in support of demo recording culture emerged with more
exhaustive resources than the manufacturer’s instruction manuals such as the
how-to books Recording Demo Tapes at Home,114 Using Your Portable Studio,115
and Making the Ultimate Demo.116 The DIY recordings disseminating from cas-
sette studios tended to circulate in regional music scenes such as punk,117 hard-
core,118 indie,119 and hip-hop,120 and were critical in helping emerging artists
establish fan bases. Since cassettes were easy to reproduce using home stereos,
a pre-Internet network of grassroots music distribution was spun that subverted
the recording industry. Central to demo culture was the mentality that quality
was willingly compromised in exchange for convenience: “In the world of home
recording, the cassette had become good enough to record commercially and
cheap enough to become an attractive alternative to the top-of-the-line home
recorders. To the musician, the portability and lower price of the tape cassette
111
112
Alberts, Tascam, 31.
113
“Model 144 Portastudio,” 6.
114
Bartlett, Recording Demo Tapes at Home.
115
McIan, Using Your Portable Studio.
116
Robair, Making the Ultimate Demo.
117
Boulware and Tudor, Gimme Something Better; Spencer, DIY.
118
Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life.
119
Oakes, Slanted and Enchanted.
120
Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.
26 D o-I t-Yourself
more than made up for any deficiencies in fidelity.”121 For some audiences, fidel-
ity was a nonissue. For example, Peter Manuel observed that in the case of India
before the 1970s, recording equipment was “rather inferior,” and as a result,
“Indians were accustomed to hearing records with distorted timbres and did not
always find the fidelity of pirate cassettes to be intolerably worse.”122 In DIY: The
Rise of Lo-Fi Culture, Amy Spencer points out that American indie (or “grunge”)
musicians in the late 1980s drew inspiration from 1970s punk production aes-
thetics, and celebrated “rawness”: “Bands tried to strip away 1980s’ rock polish
and get back to the raw roots of guitar, bass, and drums . . . musicians made
use of cheap technology and four-track recorders captured this sound as well.
Amateurism was almost revered.”123
D I G I TA L D I Y : A D AT
While TASCAM’s Portastudio came to be symbolic of the DIY lo-fi movement
in the 1980s and 1990s before computer-based recording became more afford-
able, many DIY-ers in pursuit of hi-fi transitioned to digital recording beginning
in the early 1990s following the advent of ADAT (Alesis Digital Audio Tape).
In The History of Music Production, Richard James Burgess avers: “This machine
represented a penetrating step in, what is often termed, the democratization of
the recording process . . . it enabled the project studio market to blossom and
to produce (close to) professional quality digital audio.”124 His sentiment regard-
ing these digital recorders that retailed for $4,000 is echoed by Steven James
Cole: “Coupled with a Mackie mixer, rivaling professional mixers’ features for
a fraction of the cost, the ADAT-Mackie-based studio spawned the birth of the
‘project studio.’ ”125 As was the case with multitrack reel-to-reel recorders and
multitrack cassette recorders in the preceding two decades, commercial successes
in the 1990s stemming from DIY ADAT-based studios served to support the
assertion that the barriers to ease of access and use of recording equipment had
effectively been lowered. For example, Glen Ballard produced three-quarters of
Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill (1995) in his home.126 Successful both crit-
ically and commercially, the album sold over 30 million copies worldwide and
won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. As the end of the century neared
and the declining costs of computer-based recording opened up this practice to
121
Millard, “Tape Recording as Music Making,” 162.
122
Manuel, Cassette Culture, 82.
123
Spencer, DIY, 237.
124
Burgess, The History of Music Production, 131.
125
Cole, “The Prosumer and the Project Studio,” 450.
126
Massey, Behind the Glass, 18.
27
increasingly more DIY-ers, it seemed plausible that more Glen Ballards would
emerge. Citing the example of Moby’s platinum-selling Play (1999) being made
in the artist’s home studio (using a combination of ADATs and computer-based
recording hardware and software), the New York Times writer Jon Pareles pontifi-
cated: “In the twenty-first century, homemade recordings can be indistinguisha-
ble from studio products.”127
Space-Less Studios: Dawn of the DAW

(1990–Present)
Technology has brought the process of recording a single $200-per-
hour studio closer to the way a demo is recorded on a Portastudio in a
bedroom.128
Home multitrack recording has revolutionized music by enabling

anyone with musical ideas to record and mix their own compositions
without the need to hire expensive studios.129
Not long ago, you needed to go to a commercial recording studio and

spend thousands of dollars if you wanted to make a decent-sounding
recording. Now you can set up a first-class recording studio in your
garage or spare bedroom and create CDs that can sound as good as
those coming out of top-notch studios (that is, if you know how to use
the gear).130
The three aforementioned quotes aimed at DIY recording enthusiasts—from 1985,

1997, and 2009 respectively—evidence the longstanding belief that more affordable
high-quality recording technology is the key component to democratizing recording
practices.131 Andrew Leyshon explains this phenomenon in the context of the DAW:
The shift to software-enabled recording has significantly reduced the cost

of entry-level equipment, which has improved the quality and capacity of
home recording . . . Software and code have made possible a regime of
more distributed musical creativity, which represents a democratization
of technology.132
127
Pareles, “Home Sweet Studio.”
128
Everard, The Home Recording Handbook, 7.
129
White, The Sound On Sound Book of Home Recording Made Easy, 11.
130
Strong, Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies, 1.
131
Similar views have been expressed in more scholarly works. See for example Burgess, The History
of Music Production, and Leyshon, “The Software Slump.”
132
Leyshon, “The Software Slump,” 1325.
28 D o-I t-Yourself
Sales figures from the first decade of the twenty-first century would seem to sup-
port this assertion that more people were engaging with DIY recording, or at least
buying the equipment to do so. The 2009 global report of the National Association
of Music Merchants (NAMM) details that computer-based recording experienced
a financial boom between 1999 and 2008. The computer music market rose almost
200 percent to become a $400-million industry, while sound cards and hard-
ware increased by 570 percent, establishing a $180-million industry.133 But sim-
ply knowing that more people were engaging with DIY recording only tells a part
of the story. As Timothy Taylor suggests, “the claim that a particular technology
is democratizing should always be accompanied by questions: In what ways? For
whom?”134
Tracing the development of the DAW through the 1980s and 1990s, it is evi-
dent that “the majority of digital systems emulate the key aspects of an analog tape
machine’s user interface in order to make the user feel comfortable.”135 Those not
familiar with analog recording technology faced a steep learning curve,136 “thus
reproducing, perhaps, the social inequalities associated with access to the earlier
technology as well.”137 For the DIY-er in the new millennium, migrating to a DAW
was likely more feasible if they had previous experience with analog recording tech-
nologies. Conversely, while the ease of access to the practice of DIY recording may
have been lowered considerably due to decreasing costs, ease of use might not nec-
essarily have been improved at all.
Consider the case of Pro Tools—the industry standard program in professional
recording—and its adherence to tape metaphors in its design. Conceptually, it is
quite similar to the tape recorder; instead of storing tracks to tape, they are saved to
a computer’s memory. Where Pro Tools and tape technologies differ dramatically
is in regard to their editing capabilities. Pro Tools boasts nondestructive editing
and unlike analog audio, digital audio does not degenerate with every passing play
like that of a tape. By the late 1990s, DAWs such as Pro Tools had yet to supersede
analog equipment completely due to their still-limited functionality and high price.
Instead, they were used in tandem with analog mixing consoles, supplanting the
tape recorder as editing tool and storage medium, but not as the recording com-
plex itself. For the most part, hard drive storage was relegated to the role of tape
replacement.
Although Pro Tools was used to record almost universally by the 2000s, sum-
ming signals on a large analog console remained the primary method of mixing a
song, and thus required the existence of studios to house and operate them. But
133
“NAMM Global Report—2009.”
134
Taylor, Strange Sounds, 6.
135
White, The Sound On Sound Book of Home Recording Made Easy, 2nd ed., 15.
136
Ibid.
137
Théberge, “Plugged In,” 13.
29
with ever-improving computers and plugins (software-based signal processors) dis-

placing the need for outboard processors (compressors, limiters, equalizers, reverb
units, etc.), soon the only hardware needed was the computer. By the end of the
twentieth century mass audiences experienced Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca”
(1999), “the first Number One record to be done completely within a hard disk
system.”138 Engineer Charles Dye’s “in-the-box” Pro Tools production bypassed the
need for an analog mixing console and hardware-based signal processors, establish-
ing a precedent that was to become the de facto standard.
In less than a decade, the DAW went from augmenting the recording studio to
reconstructing it: “By 2007, between 70 percent and 80 percent of all pop music
(and probably nearly 100 percent of all hip-hop, R&B, and dance music) was mixed
in the box.”139 From 2000 to the present, the DAW underwent an evolution from
tape surrogate to an all-in-one space-less studio. While the technologies utilized
for DIY recording have undoubtedly changed dramatically and become relatively
cheaper, the conceptual designs and associated practices of the modern DAW still
reflect those of Les Paul.
Tracking the Twenty-First-Century DIY-er
In theory at least, the DAW in its current form has signaled the dissolution of the
technological division that once shielded the so-called professional sphere. DIY
recording in its current state has inherited traits from both the DIY hi-fi and the DIY
lo-fi movements, marking out a new path that seeks the best of both worlds. The all-
digital DIY-er demands ease of access and use, but also expects greater functional-
ity and fidelity. The traditional means of self-sufficient learning continue to prosper
with many of the aforementioned trade magazines still in circulation and an ever-
expanding body of how-to books being published that feature catchy titles such as
Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies,140 and Home Recording 101: Creating
Your Own Affordable Home Recording Studio (D.I.Y. Music).141 YouTube tutorials
cater to the DIY-er too, most notably Pensado’s Place, hosted by Grammy-winning
mixer Dave Pensado, a veteran of the recording industry, whose videos have gar-
nered more than 15 million views and whose weekly show has over 175,000 sub-
scribers. The short tutorials hosted on this and similar YouTube channels endorse
a how-to approach to recording, and provide a community hub for subscribers to
dialogue with each other or pose questions to the channel host on best practices for
recording. Similarly, a slew of online forums constitute major meeting points online
138
Daley, “Recordin’ ‘La Vida Loca.’ ”
139
140
Strong, Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies.
141
Helson, Home Recording 101.
30 D o-I t-Yourself
for the DIY music-making community to post questions, solve problems, and sell or
swap equipment with each other.
DIY recording enthusiasts of the twenty-first century have access to a commun-
ity that has expanded and evolved for over a century, guided by the ideals of ease of
access and ease of use in the interest of self-sufficiency. It is at this point in time in
the twenty-first century—the Dawn of the DAW—that this book seeks to continue
the ongoing story of DIY music-making in the studio by examining current prac-
tices. While this chapter has accounted for DIY recording practices since Edison’s
invention by detailing the predominant practices and associated technologies used
in a general sense, there is a parallel story of the evolving role of the producer that is
equally critical to understanding the context of current DIY practices. This history
is the focus of c hapter 2.
31
2
The Studio
Instrument of the Producer
What Is a Producer?
Numerous scholars have attempted to answer the elusive question, “What is a pro-
ducer?” As Andrew Blake rightly surmises, “The term ‘record producer’ is the grey-
est of grey areas.”1 Blake explains that the difficulty of defining this role relates to
the history of producers being involved in seemingly all facets of music production:
Producers have been (and are) individual entrepreneurs, freelance opera-

tors, record label owners and record label employees. They have been
people managers, whether Svengalis, artist and repertoire developers, or
gifted amateur psychologists able to guide temperamental artists through
a recording session. They have been events managers . . . They have been
musical managers . . . And very often they will have started as sound record-
ing engineers . . . But most importantly they have been listeners.2
In “The Record Producer as Nexus,” Mike Howlett provides a similar list of the roles
a producer might be expected to fulfill:
• Arranger/interpreter/visualisier;
• Engineer;
• Creative director/performance director;
• Logistical facilitator/project manager;
• Psychologist/counsellor/priest;
• Mediator—between the objectives and aspirations of the record company and
the artist.3
1
Blake, “Recording Practices and the Role of the Producer,” 36.
2
Ibid.
3
Howlettt, “The Record Producer as Nexus.”
31
32 D o-I t-Yourself
Lastly, in The Musicology of Record Production, Simon Zagorski-Thomas describes

five broad categorizations of producers:
• The producer as a representative for a record label in an editorial and managerial

role (e.g., Colonel Tom Parker)
• The producer as a creative hub who selects artists as vehicles for the producer’s
own creative project (e.g., Mitch Miller, Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Trevor Horn,
Dr. Dre)
• The producer as artist (e.g., Stevie Wonder, Prince)
• The producer as creative enabler (e.g., Phil Ramone, Steve Albini, Nigel Godrich)
• The producer as creative partner (e.g., George Martin, Brian Eno, Tony Visconti,
Rick Rubin)4
Taken together, these various roles subsumed under the title “producer” have a
genealogy of sorts as James Williams details:
The historical rise of the producer can be traced from that of facilitator
(Fred Gaisberg), to those individuals with the power to authorize record-
ing (Ralph Peer, John Hammond), to authoritarians who told the artist
exactly what to do (Walter Legge), or told every musician what to do (Phil
Spector). By the late 1960s, the ascent to the pinnacle of the studio hierar-
chy and the exercise of all-encompassing power had crested, replaced with
the creative collaborator (George Martin) who ceded a considerable meas-
ure of control, yet retained final approval of the recording project.5
Williams notes that DIY-ers who ran their own studios like Sam Phillips and Norman
Petty were producers by default because they worked independently. Ultimately, it
was this model of the independent producer that would come to be the norm by
the end of the 1960s,6 and clear the way for the emergence of the self-sufficient DIY
producer in the proceeding decades.
From the aforementioned models detailing the roles of producers, the most
accurate label for the typical present-day DIY producer is Zagorski-Thomas’ pro-
ducer as artist. Alan Watson suggests that this approach to production, which he
terms “composition,” correlates with the rise of digital DIY studios:
This mode is one emerging due to the software-based digital recording

and music-based technologies emerging in the 1980s and 1990s, and is
based around the individual producer-artist working in a home or project
4
Zagorski-Thomas, The Musicology of Record Production, 161.
5
Williams, “Phantom Power,” 297–298.
6
Ibid., 299.
33
The S tudio: I n s t ru m e n t of t h e P rodu ce r 33
studio . . . Whereas in a professional studio, music production has always

been a collective project between recording artists, musicians, producers
and recording engineers, in small digital home studios, there multiple roles
are performed by a single person.7
In this second chapter I aim to provide some historical context for the evolution
of the producer from that of a recording facilitator to a recording creator. To be
clear from the outset, this chapter does not provide a comprehensive history of
the role of the producer; instead, I provide examples that serve to illustrate key
practices that led to more self-sufficient methods of using the studio as a musical
instrument. These examples include anecdotes from the careers of Elvis Presley,
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Aldon Music, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Berry
Gordy, Joe Meek, Sly Stone, Prince, Brian Eno, King Tubby, Public Enemy, and
Max Martin. Devotees of the history of music production will note some incon-
spicuous absences, most notably George Martin, whose work with the Beatles has
been subject to comprehensive research on the recording process and using the
studio as a musical instrument.8 But before delving into the story of the evolving
role of the producer, it is first necessary to consider how their instrument—“the
studio”—can be perceived as such.
Instrumentality: The Studio as Musical Instrument

In The Drum Book: A History of the Rock Drum Kit, Geoff Nicholls explains that
at the beginning of the twentieth century the individual components of the drum
kit existed, but they were not played together by a single individual.9 Faced with
restricted space and budgets, percussionists/drummers performing in theatre pro-
ductions were encouraged to take on the role of multitasking musicians, and the
“trap kit” began to take shape:
Everything but the kitchen sink was suspended on and around the bass
drum, soon leading to the development of a metal “console” that sur-
mounted the bass drum . . . On top of the console was a traps tray (traps is
short for contraptions or trappings) with space for bird whistles, klaxons,
ratchets, and other sound effects.10
Watson, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio, 36.

7
See for example Lewisohn, The Beatles’ Recording Sessions; MacFarlane, The Beatles’ Abbey Road
8
Medley; Ryan and Kehew, Recording the Beatles; Martin and Hornsby, All You Need Is Ears; Emerick and
Massey, Here, There, and Everywhere.
9
Parts of this section paraphrase Bell, “The Pedagogy of Push.”
10
Nicholls, The Drum Book, 8–9.
34 D o-I t-Yourself
Peter Avanti notes that this evolution of trap kit performance practice was made
possible by the fact that at this point in history it had yet to develop a recognizable
fixed form:
Seated, keeping steady time on the bass drum and snare, the possibility
of adding other instruments—tom toms, cow bells, other cymbals, wood
blocks, chimes, tuned percussion, etc.—organized around the drummer
became more or less obvious, or inevitable, as the kit is open architecture,
adaptable to diverse musical contexts with no physical, only practical, lim-
its to its size and complexity.11
The drum kit’s history is one that hinges on modularity. The idea that a compo-
nent of the kit can be added in or taken away and still be perceived by players
and listeners alike as the same instrument is a testament to its modular form.
Through to the present time, drummers continue to customize their kits, with
electronic triggers and computers becoming increasingly more visible compo-
nents of a contemporary setup. The constants of the drum kit would seem to be
the snare drum, bass drum, and cymbals, but even these are subject to substitu-
tion or subtraction.
I employ this example of the drum kit because the background of the recording
studio is similar. It, too, has featured in most musics throughout the twentieth cen-
tury and has a history of being modular; the components have changed remarkably
from the phonograph to the DAW, and yet it is still referred to simply as “the studio.”
Despite these similarities, unlike the drum kit, the studio has not necessarily been
considered a musical instrument by players and listeners alike. Why might this be
the case? What qualifies something as a musical instrument?
In his study of hip-hop DJs, Mark Katz considered what makes a turntable a
musical instrument. Katz concludes that instruments come to be perceived as such
through a social process, and suggests that an object becomes a musical instrument
when the following criteria are met:
• It involves real-time sound manipulation;

• It has a body of techniques developed specifically for it;
• It has its own distinctive sound;
• The object itself is either specifically designed or modified for making music;
• The sound it generates is considered to be music by a community of listeners.12
Evaluating the studio with these criteria produces as many questions as it does
answers. A cogent argument could be made for or against the studio using any of
11
Avanti, “Black Musics, Technology, and Modernity,” 490.
12
Katz, Groove Music, 62.
35
these criteria. Using this model to assess the studio as a musical instrument does not
produce a definitive answer.
Aden Evens provides an alternative perspective to answering the question of
instrumentality, noting that when people “refer to a tool, a technology, or a person
as an instrument, part of what we intend is a reduction of that tool, technology,
or person to its instrumentality. That is, an instrument is something that serves a
particular end, and, as instrument, it is merely a means to that end.”13 The thinking
behind this perspective is that instruments that serve their purpose will become
seemingly invisible in their subservient function to the player. But as Evens notes,
musical instruments do not disappear, rather, they become an extension of the per-
son: “Playing then overcomes technique, so that player, instrument, and sound are
assembled in that sublime moment into a single machine with unlimited possibil-
ity.”14 Evens posits that in the case of digitally produced music, acoustical gestures
(bowing, fretting, strumming, etc.) are replaced by technological gestures (cutting,
pasting, duplicating, etc.): “Hours and days in front of the keyboard and mouse are
spent playing a piece.”15 In this paradigm, players are no longer identified by what
instrument they play, but rather by what roles they play in the production process
(programmer, engineer, etc.).16 This perspective supports the conceptualization of
the studio as an instrument in some cases, especially electronically produced music.
How we extend ourselves to or through an object to make music may be the pivotal
point for determining instrumentality.
In the case of analog studio technologies, and even for some digital technologies,
too, both the criteria set out by Katz and Evens could be used to provide a rationale
as to why and how the studio is an instrument. But in the case of musics that are
heavily dependent on DAWs, an added criticism that needs to be addressed pertains
to agency. Central to this line of thinking is that the DAW or computing device is
essentially preprogrammed with music—it is not “neutral” like other instruments.
As a result, the player’s role is not significant in the act of music-making. This is
somewhat of a unique phenomenon to sample-based and computer-based music,
but not entirely. Player pianos conjure up similar images of supposed passivity as
the player simply moves the pedals up and down while the perforated roll of music
scrolls through the reader and the piece is replicated perfectly. The parallel with the
DAW is that players simply drag and drop premade pieces of music on the screen
of their digital device and an insta-song is produced with little effort. The question
becomes, whom (or what) has the agency?
As is the case with most discussions pertaining to agency and computer-based
technologies, the binary of technological voluntarism/ determinism must be
13
Evens, Sound Ideas, 82.
14
Ibid., 84.
15
Ibid., 124–125.
16
Ibid., 90.
36 D o-I t-Yourself
navigated. Timothy Taylor observes that in Western culture when something new
is produced it is often referred to as a “technology” because it has yet to develop
a social history with regard to its use.17 With the passage of time, “most techno-
logical artifacts are normalized into everyday life and no longer seen as ‘techno-
logical’ at all, while whatever is new becomes viewed as ‘technological.’ ”18 Taylor,
like Katz, stresses that technologies are more than just objects; they are socially
bound. Common assumptions about technology within our social web range from
voluntarism—the idea that a technology is neutral and that how it is used deter-
mines its value, and, determinism—the idea that a technology transforms the user.19
Taylor attempts to find a balance, stating:
Technology is a peculiar kind of structure that is made up of both schemas

and resources, in which the schemas are those rules that are largely unspo-
ken by technology’s users, thereby allowing for some degree of determin-
ism, while technology as a resource refers to what we do with it—that is,
what is voluntaristic.20
Taylor argues that “some sociotechnical systems are more deterministic than
others,” and therefore voluntarism/determinism is a false binary: “Experiences
vary in the familiar ways—based on social class, age, geographical location, gen-
der, sexual orientation, religion, race, ethnicity, cultural capital, and so on.”21 In
short, how we experience technology depends on a range of sociocultural fac-
tors. An additional element to be considered is the impact of previous musical
experiences on playing new instruments/technologies; Paul Théberge aptly
stresses: “Only the crudest technological determinism could support the argu-
ment that musicians approach these new technologies without bringing with
them at least some of their own ‘accumulated sensibilities’ with regards to music
making.”22
In the case of evaluating the studio as a musical instrument, the theories of Katz,
Evens, Taylor, and Théberge must be considered across the span of recorded music’s
history. As chapter 1 detailed, the history of DIY recording practices is one in which
people worked within established social structures with deeply entrenched ways of
knowing and doing, but they also challenged and changed them. Even when these
changes occurred in seemingly marginal ways at incremental rates, accumulated,
they constituted seismic shifts over recorded music’s history.
17
Taylor, Strange Sounds, 6.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid., 26.
20
Ibid., 37.
21
Ibid.
22
Théberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine, 159.
37
There is no single instance in which the studio suddenly became recognized

as an instrument, and even at present it may not have wide recognition as such.
Nevertheless, there is a historical precedent of the studio—broadly defined—
consciously being used to perform music. It is difficult to pinpoint an era in which
music production entered into this conscious state of being played with the stu-
dio, but conservative accounts of this history typically select early rock and roll
recording as the harbinger. The likes of Raymond Scott and Les Paul aside—who
undoubtedly saw studio recording technologies as their instruments with which to
make music—the construct of recording as a faithful reproduction of a real-time
live musical event remained robust until rock recordings repeatedly repudiated it.
By way of example, the remainder of this chapter will survey the recording practices
of key figures whose production approaches evidence using the studio as a musical
instrument.
Using the Studio as a Musical Instrument

with Others
There can be little doubt but that the experience of a
mechanically reproduced performance involves not only the
musicianship of the original performers, but the musicianship
of the manipulators of the studio. The musical expertise of
one of these groups is often called into question by the other.
Both groups, however, recognize the studio’s identity as an
instrument, and the manipulator of its controls as a musician—
however incapable or inspired he or she may be.23
Anecdotes abound of rock and roll–era musicians using recorders themselves or

having a friend record them to make a record of their songs:
• Chuck Berry bought a wire recorder in 1951, and later, a reel-to-reel tape
recorder from Radio Shack: “The most important tool in his songwriting was a
tape recorder.”24
• As a high school student in 1953, Buddy Holly had access to his local radio sta-
tion’s facilities, which he could use as a recording studio.25 He continued to record
himself until his untimely death with his last known recordings, “The Apartment
Tapes,” made in his Manhattan living room in December, 1958.26 Biographer
Phillip Norman writes of Holly’s recording accomplishments: “He was the first
23
Bennett, On Becoming a Rock Musician, 126.
24
25
Norman, Rave On, 48.
26
Ibid., 242.
38 D o-I t-Yourself
to master the studio’s technical resources, achieving effects with echo, double-
tracking, and overdubbing which to this day have never been bettered.”27
• In 1960, a few months after dropping out of Minneapolis University, nineteen-
year-old Bob Dylan recorded twenty-seven songs on a cheap reel-to-reel tape
recorder that would later come to be known as the “St. Paul Tape.”28 Clinton
Heylin suggests that the tapes Dylan made of himself, “became vehicles for him
to display his prowess as a songwriter.”29
• In late 1961 or early 1962, a group called Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys were
recorded by their friend who used his parents’ reel-to-reel tape recorder. Decades
later this tape would be sold at auction as the first recorded songs of the Rolling
Stones.30
• Lacking the means to buy studio time, but wanting to monitor his progress, Jimi
Hendrix borrowed a tape recorder to listen to his live performances.31 Soon after
he would be able to afford his own reel-to-reel to write songs, and later, his own
studio to model the same process on a grander scale.
All of the aforementioned musicians used recording as a means of songwriting in

the private sphere, removed from the professional recording infrastructure in which
they also participated. It is debatable whether or not this form of DIY recording
constitutes using recording technology as an instrument, but at the very least it
demonstrates the primacy of recording in 1950s popular music practice and there-
after, and a salient shift from a recording of music to a recording as music. This con-
cept is a central tenant of Albin Zak’s Poetics of Rock, in which he asserts that a song,
an arrangement, and a recording may not necessarily be three distinguishable enti-
ties. It is within this milieu that the role of the producer in its current iteration has its
beginnings: when the Tin Pan Alley conception of the song as a printed document
is discarded and replaced by the recording. As a byproduct, the act of recording
becomes synonymous with songwriting.
E A R LY I N C A R N AT I O N S O F U S I N G T H E S T U D I O A S A
M U S I C A L I N S T R U M E N T: E LV I S , L E I B E R A N D S TO L L E R ,
AND ALDON MUSIC
Citing the recording of Elvis Presley’s version of “Hound Dog” (1957), Albin Zak
builds a convincing case that Elvis served as his own producer for the session.
Despite being recorded at a first-rate facility—RCA Studios in Manhattan—the
27
Ibid., 17.
28
Heylin, Bob Dylan, 3.
29
Ibid., 5.
30
Elliott, The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions, 13.
31
McDermott with Cox and Kramer, Jimi Hendrix Sessions, 10.
39
recording is deliberately lo-fi. It took thirty-one takes until Elvis was satisfied with
the result: “Through a painstaking process, he finally got what he was after: not sim-
ply a good performance cleanly recorded, but a record that, in its crude raucous-
ness, fulfilled his artistic vision.”32 Elvis clearly understood that the studio system
in which he worked could be controlled and manipulated to produce the record-
ing he envisioned. Such a mentality is the very heart of perceiving the studio as an
instrument.
Coincidentally, it was the writers of “Hound Dog,” Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller,
who were known as the music industry’s premier producers in the early era of rock
and roll. In 1955 they negotiated with Atlantic Records to receive a producer’s roy-
alty with their names to be credited as such on recordings: “If Leiber and Stoller
were not the first independent record producers, they certainly became the first
highly successful ones.”33 Telling for the time, Atlantic executive Jerry Wexler’s reac-
tion to the demand was one of bewilderment as he did not grasp what producers
actually did: “What is a producer? . . . You just sit in the studio and you say, ‘Take
one.’ ”34
The work of Leiber and Stoller with the Coasters serves as an excellent exam-
ple of their pioneering practices in the emerging field of production. In Charlie
Gillett’s Making Tracks, the duo reflected on their working processes with the
Coasters, which Leiber described as “plastic” and “clinical,” in contrast to “going
for a great soul performance,” like they would with Ray Charles, Joe Turner, and
Ruth Brown: “There were no twenty-six takes, or thirty-one takes, or six hours of
overdubbing two bars of music, like we did with the Coasters.”35 Stoller expanded
upon this explanation, offering:
We would do things like cutting esses off words, sticking the tape back
together so you didn’t notice. And sometimes if the first refrain on a take
was good and the second one lousy, we’d tape another recording of the first
one and stick it in the place of the second one. Before multitrack recording,
this was.36
Here, production takes on a more interventionist approach, relying heavily on the

tried and true techniques popularized by Les Paul: overdubbing and editing. Leiber
and Stoller’s methodical and meticulous process came to characterize professional
recording practices, and its ideal of control was adopted by professional songwrit-
ers who sought to make their demos as definitive templates for producers to follow.
32
Zak, “No-Fi,” 51.
33
Emerson, Always Magic in the Air, 14.
34
35
36
Ibid., 156–157.
40 D o-I t-Yourself
Al Nevins and Don Kirshner, founders of Aldon Music, which was housed at 1650
Broadway in New York (near the more famous Brill Building, but not to be con-
fused with it), created a production house with teams of songwriters. Songwriting
in this sense was very much intertwined with producing demo recordings: “Nearly
all the Aldon writers participated in Nevins-Kirshner productions. ‘I wanted them
to learn production,’ Kirshner said. ‘I wanted them to learn about hooks, riffs, tim-
ing, where they were more musically inclined than I was.’ ”37 Cynthia Weil matter-
of-factly recounted: “Our entire life was built around writing and demoing.”38 The
significance of Aldon’s approach to producing demos was that it challenged the con-
vention that “the demo” and “the recording” were distinct from each other:
The procedure for a publisher at this time was to make a rough demonstra-
tion record of a new song, which was then submitted to producers for their
consideration. Kirshner introduced a new concept, by making demos of
very high quality, sometimes employing a full orchestra, so that a producer
simply had to copy every detail of the demo when making his commer-
cial recording. As Kirshner also made a point of using good singers on his
demonstration records, it soon became apparent that his demos were good
enough to release as they were.39
Aldon’s demos, and in particular those made by the team of Carol King and Gerry
Goffin, “were often as fully realized as and sometimes even surpassed the records
that were made on their basis.”40 Despite the diligent detail invested into these
recordings by Aldon songwriters, not all of these of demos were ready-for-radio,
and therefore required further production.
P H I L S P E C TO R ’ S “ WA L L O F S O U N D ”
A critical link between Leiber and Stoller and the Aldon stable of songwriters is
arguably the first famous record producer, Phil Spector.41 He had worked with and
observed Leiber and Stoller in the studio, taking note of their production practices.
Teaming up with Aldon songwriters Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, the threesome
wrote notable hit songs such as “Then He Kissed Me” (1963) and “Da Doo Run Run”
(1963) for the Crystals, and “Be My Baby” (1963) for the Ronettes. According to
Ben E. King, who as a member of the Drifters was produced by Spector along with
Leiber and Stoller, Spector had a special genius for coming up with “hooks”: “Little
37
38
Ibid., 114.
39
40
41
For more in-depth writings on Phil Spector see Kingsley Abbott’s Little Symphonies.
41
key pieces to put in songs that you hear all through the record . . . It is like seeing
you in a beautiful suit and saying, ‘That suit is great but if you put on this tie you will
really look fantastic.’ ”42
While it would have taken the songwriting team of Greenwich, Barry, and
Spector a matter of hours to demo a song, with Spector at the helm of production
in a Los Angeles studio (typically Gold Star), songs took weeks or even months to
be fully realized in his “Wall of Sound” approach.43 Likening himself to Wagner,
Spector saw himself as a mastermind of pop music, and devised a quasi-orchestral
approach to recording rock. Larry Levine, Spector’s longtime recording engineer,
describes the Wall of Sound:
Here’s how we built the wall: we’d fill up the studio with twenty to twenty-
five people. The room was very small and there would hardly be room
enough for the musicians to move around one another. The room was filled
with musicians playing their hearts out and we’d fill every available space
on that tape with it . . . this was the basic building block of Phil’s “wall.”44
Using multiple drum kits, guitars, pianos, and so forth, all playing in the same
cramped room at the same time, Spector focused on the collective sonic sum of the
various parts. He was infamous for his demanding approach, often exhausting the
session musicians he employed, but he typically succeeded in achieving his own
trademark sound. He made the producer the star; the sonic attributes and achieve-
ments of a recording were attributed to him first and foremost. This mindset would
take root in other budding producers, like Rick Hall, famous for his Muscle Shoals
sound: “I say musicians are like basketball players, they need a manager to tell them
when to drop a play. My engineering ability and advice on licks and beats contrib-
utes more than the individual musicians.”45
BRIAN WILSON AND THE BEACH BOYS’ SOUND

Whereas Spector ruled the studio with an iron fist, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys,
an admirer of Spector and adopter of his approach, facilitated studio sessions with
a velvet glove. Wilson was especially enamored with Spector’s approach to creating
new sounds by having two different instruments play the same part: “Rather than
just say, ‘that’s a piano, that’s a bass,’ now, we have what you call a piano-guitar. It
sounds like something else. Although it may be two or three instruments combined
playing the same notes, it now sounds different.”46 He also continued the practice of
42
43
Ibid., 152.
44
Levine, “Phil Spector,” 10.
45
46
Howard, Sonic Alchemy, 57.
42 D o-I t-Yourself
enlisting a large number of musicians. For example, in the recording session of “God
Only Knows” (1966), twenty-three musicians were hired to record the instrumen-
tal backing track.47 Wilson’s description of a recording session bears resemblance to
those of Spector’s, but a key difference that he cites is the pursuit of a specific “feel”
as opposed to a sound:
I would gather all the musicians in the studio, teach them the song, and
my arrangement. They would play it live, all the way through, until I had a
take that I was happy with. For me, the key was feel. It didn’t just have to be
perfect; more important, it had to feel right.48
The session musicians that both Spector and Wilson hired on a continual basis were
a special group dubbed “the Wrecking Crew,” featuring Hal Blaine on drums, Carol
Kaye on bass, and Glen Campbell on guitar. This group of musicians was essential
to the success of Spector and Wilson. Using the Beach Boys as an example, in the
five years the Wrecking Crew worked for Wilson, they performed on twenty-two
top-forty hits including the landmark 1966 album Pet Sounds.49
Wilson worked with the musicians to realize his sound visions. In lieu of prepar-
ing scores or charts for the musicians to follow, Wilson hummed or sang his ideas
to each player.50 Western Studio engineer Chuck Britz recounted: “Brian knew basi-
cally every instrument you wanted to hear and how you wanted to hear it. He called
in the players one at a time, which is very costly. Brian would work with that instru-
ment until he got the sound you want. The process often took hours.”51 Further,
Wilson paid close attention to technical details such as the distance of each player
from their microphone.52 Over the course of four months in twenty-seven different
recording sessions, Wilson strove toward “the experience of a record not a song.”53
The instrumental backing tracks were recorded first,54 and then following their
completion, Wilson facilitated the vocal sessions, which were overdubbed onto the
instrumentals.55 Group member Bruce Johnston recounted that they learned their
vocal parts piecemeal in the studio from Wilson and recorded them accordingly.56
Vocal passages were repeated and honed until Wilson was satisfied, as Mike Love
Ibid., 65.
47
As cited in Buskin, Inside Tracks, xii.

48
49
Hartman, The Wrecking Crew, 157.
50
Granata, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, 117.
51
As cited in Cogan and Clark, Temples of Sound, 33.
52
Butler, “The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds,” 227.
53
Ibid.
54
In the case of Pet Sounds, the instrumentals were recorded at three different studios: Goldstar,
Western, and Sunset.
55
The vocal sessions were recorded at Western and Columbia studios.
56
43
recollected singing “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (1966) almost thirty times before it was
deemed finished:
Brian was looking for something more than the actual notes or the
blend: he was reaching for something mystical—out of the range of hear-
ing. To our ears, it sounded great. But Brian thought it was off, so we did it
again and again, until he was satisfied that we’d done it as well as we pos-
sibly could.57
In the studio, Wilson relied on a production technique for the Beach Boys that
helped craft their signature vocal sound called “double tracking”: “Sing it once, then
sing it again over that, so both sounds are perfectly synchronized. This makes it
much brighter and gives it a rather shrill and magical sound without using echo
chambers.”58 Given all of this activity it would be easy to forget that Brian contrib-
uted significantly to these vocal performances by singing, too. Charles Granata
calculates that “Brian sings for sixteen of the record’s thirty-six minutes (most of
it lead); the rest of the Beach Boys sing for thirteen of those minutes (much of it
background).”59
Bear in mind that because of the way Wilson recorded with either instrumen-
tal or vocal ensemble performing and recording together at once, critical mixing
decisions were required at the time of recording, as Western recording engineer Joe
Sidore emphasized: “You had to know what you wanted to wind up with, and record
things accordingly. You had to make your mix decisions on the spot, because com-
binations of instruments were often mixed together on the same track.”60 Wilson
worked closely with the recording engineers like Western’s Chuck Britz to ensure
that his artistic aims were being accurately translated to the technical domain.
Such actions included microphone choice and placement, equalization, limiting
(dynamic compression), and mixing decisions.61 Wilson, having given up on live
performances at this point in his career, saw recording as the unparalleled method
of making music, and dedicated himself to every aspect of the recording process. He
followed up Pet Sounds with the epic single “Good Vibrations” (1966), which cost
between $50,000 and $75,000 as it took sixteen sessions over approximately five
months in four different studios to complete.62 Like the production of Pet Sounds
that preceded it, he oversaw every sonic detail of “Good Vibrations” (1966): “Brian
Wilson was at the controls himself, making on-the-spot decisions about notes,
57
Ibid., 168.
58
Lambert, Inside the Music of Brian Wilson, 63.
59
60
Ibid., 127.
61
Ibid., 132.
62
44 D o-I t-Yourself
articulation, timbre, and so on. He was effectively composing at the mixing board
and using the studio as a musical instrument.”63
This succession of production from Leiber and Stoller through to Kirshner’s crew
of songwriters at Aldon, followed by Phil Spector, and then Brian Wilson, is but one
thread in a knot that typifies the interweaving lines of this history. In less than a dec-
ade—from the late 1950s when Leiber and Stoller produced the Coasters, yielding
hits like “Yakety Yak” (1958) and “Poison Ivy” (1959), to 1966 when Brian Wilson
self-produced the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations”—the art of record
production in rock barely resembled the bare-bones approaches of the independent
studios that ushered it onto the airwaves in the mid-1950s. Of great significance
to this storyline is that Leiber and Stoller, Spector, and Wilson all had access to
the industry’s foremost recording complexes and their technical staff. Yet despite
these advantages, the producer role would continue to evolve in tandem outside of
the major label system. As a final profile of the development of production through
to the mid-1960s, the home studios of Berry Gordy in Detroit and Joe Meek in
London exemplify independent operations that thrived without the support and
infrastructure of the record industry’s top studios.
B E R R Y G O R D Y A N D T H E M OTO W N S O U N D
“Hittsville USA” was the name Berry Gordy gave to the house he purchased in
1959 on West Grand Boulevard, a middle-class integrated neighborhood in
Detroit.64 This house-turned-recording complex was Gordy’s vision of an auto-
motive assembly line mentality applied to music production. Everything could
be done in-house—literally. The garage became the recording space, a closet was
used as a vocal booth, and a control room was built on the first floor. For an echo
chamber, the downstairs bathroom was used, requiring that someone be posted
outside to ensure that no one flushed the toilet during a recording session.65 Part
of the attic was used as an echo chamber, too, but the onset of outside noises that
could not be controlled like cars or rain proved problematic.66 These impediments
led to some innovations on the part of Motown’s approach to recording, as Gordy
recalled: “Eventually we started recording songs dry and adding echo afterward.”67
Baffles were put in place around the musicians, or their sections,68 in an effort
to minimize “leakage”—the sound of an instrument being recorded through the
microphone of another instrument. The amplifiers of electric guitars and the bass
63
Ibid., 19.
64
Posner, Motown, 42.
65
Gordy, To Be Loved, 126.
66
Ibid.
67
Ibid.
68
Posner, Motown, 51.
45
were bypassed to avoid feedback and noise, and instead were plugged directly into
the mixing board.69 Nelson George suggests that this technique contributed to
Motown’s signature bass-heavy sound: “Part of the reason for the vitality of the
bass lines was that the Motown studio was one of the first to record by plugging the
bass directly into the studio control board.”70 Of course, the Motown sound cannot
be explained by engineering alone. Like Spector and Wilson, Gordy had a team
of musicians—“The Funk Brothers”—that he relied on to produce his signature
sound day in and day out:
In most cases the music was anchored by the bottom of Benny Benjamin’s
bass drum and tom-tom. James Jamerson’s bass percolated over these
rhythms, buried deep enough in the mix so that they were often felt more
than heard. The guitars of Robert White, Eddie Willis, or Joe Messina
often stood out in contrast, picking up the studio’s tinny sound.71
Like Brian Wilson, Gordy pursued a specific “feel,” and so written charts served
only as a rough guide for the musicians: “He would usually lock in the drumbeat
and then hum a line for the musicians to start playing. They were encouraged to
ad-lib extensively until he heard a sound he liked.”72 In Gordy’s own words, this
approach was borne out of his belief that errors were essential to the creative
process:
Hittsville had an atmosphere that allowed people to experiment crea-

tively and gave them the courage not to be afraid to make mistakes. In fact,
I sometimes encouraged mistakes. Everything starts as an idea and as far as
I was concerned there were no stupid ones.73
Upon completion of the recording, Gordy was as invested and involved in the mix-
ing process: “Mixing was so important to me that it seemed I spent half my life
at the board.”74 He was notoriously picky about mixes, scrutinizing the relative
balance of the instruments throughout a song, and thereby demanding multiple
remixes: “Twenty mixes were a lot, but twelve was not unusual.”75 By the mid-1960s,
Gordy had solidified his sound, and it was attributed to his label, more so than to the
musicians of Motown.
69
Gordy, To Be Loved, 127.
70
George, Where Did Our Love Go?, 110.
71
Cogan and Clark, Temples of Sound, 146.
72
Posner, Motown, 50–51.
73
Gordy, To Be Loved, 168–169.
74
Posner, Motown, 52.
75
George, Where Did Our Love Go?, 112–113.
46 D o-I t-Yourself
THE JOE MEEK SOUND

Fair enough, my studio was originally a large bedroom, but it is now a
first-class studio in which I have made many hit records—and no one
will tell me that it is wrong.76
—Joe Meek
In some regards, Joe Meek’s approach to music production resembles that of Berry
Gordy. First, Meek’s studio was a converted domestic space; a flat in London that
he eventually named Meeksville in homage to Motown’s Hittsville.77 Second, Meek
made full use of every room in his apartment-turned-studio: “In an effort to get a
different kind of sound he would sometimes have a recording take place all over the
house with perhaps the rhythm section in the studio, the singer in the living room,
the choir in the bathroom, the brass in the bedroom, and the strings on the landing
and up the stairs!”78 Third, he engaged in the practice of vocalizing musical ideas
to his studio musicians to develop songs, as the Tornados’ drummer Clem Cattini
recalled about the making of “Telstar” (1962): “Joe wanted a moving rhythm; he
sang the beat—like dum-diddy-dum—and imitated the guitar sound and bass, and
then we just kicked it about and he’d direct each individual into the shape he wanted
it to go. He knew what he was after but if someone did something he liked he’d
say, ‘Keep that. I like it.’ ”79 Like Gordy, Meek was more concerned about a spe-
cific feel for a song than other musical factors: “We record until I have a very good
track. I’m not worried if the artist [singer] is in tune, or phrasing properly, I want a
good rhythm track for the A-side.”80 Finally, like Gordy, Meek developed a signature
sound, but what sets Joe Meek apart from Berry Gordy and the other producers
discussed thus far in this chapter is that he was for all intents and purposes an audio
engineer.
According to John Repsch, Meek was the first engineer in the UK to become a
producer and perform both roles in the studio.81 A typical Meek production com-
menced with him recording his own sung ideas that he would further develop into
more complete songs by adding some rhythm in the form of foot stamping and
tapping nearby objects.82 Next, he would present his demonstration recordings to
a group of musicians whom were tasked with translating his sonic scribbles into
fleshed-out songs. Once a song was formed, Meek first focused on recording just the
instrumental, which he called a backing track. Obsessed with isolating the sound of
each instrument, Meek placed microphones close to each instrument, and placed
76
Repsch, The Legendary Joe Meek, 131.
77
Irwin, “Take the Last Train from Meeksville.”
78
Repsch, The Legendary Joe Meek, 140–141.
79
Ibid., 145.
80
Cleveland, Creative Music Production, 129.
81
82
Ibid., 98.
47
blankets over the drums and amplifiers to minimize sound leakage.83 To get the
backing track precisely as he wanted, Meek would either have the musicians play
multiple takes,84 or build it up by layering each instrument one by one.85 During
the recording process Meek was actively involved in shaping the resulting sounds
by manipulating signal processing devices such reverb, compression, and delay,
some of which he had built himself. Unconventional at the time, heavy use of these
effects were key contributors to the sought-after Joe Meek sound. In the case of the
song “Telstar” (1962), Meek worked with the band for a day and a half to complete
this first phase of committing the backing track to tape. Once the backing track was
recorded to his satisfaction, Meek then painstakingly crafted the vocal or melodic
track by recording repeated takes and manipulating them with his effects proces-
sors. In “Telstar,” the unique timbre of the melodic line can primarily be attributed
to an organ-type instrument called the clavioline played by Geoff Goddard. John
Repsch details the grueling process needed to arrive at the final trademark sound:
Geoff duly arrived to take over on the clavioline and for the next six hours
sat wearing headphones playing Joe’s tune over and over. At the same time
Joe was fiddling around in the control room, as usual compressing the
music while bouncing it back and forth from one machine to the other;
this way he overdubbed it in the high and low octaves to thicken the sound,
echoing it all up as he went along with a concoction of tape delay, Binson
[reverb], spring [reverb], and echo chamber . . . Then Geoff rounded the
piece off with some airy, out-of-this-world aah-ing.86
As an independent producer like Berry Gordy, Joe Meek was involved in all aspects
of the songs he produced. In addition, he performed all of the engineering duties
as opposed to overseeing them as Gordy did at Motown. Like Gordy and the other
producers discussed thus far, Meek produced in the traditional way of directing
musicians, but what sets him apart is that he was using studio equipment to create
new sounds, foreshadowing dub practices. Not being able to play a musical instru-
ment in the traditional sense, he instead played the controls of his studio.
Producing Without Producers

James Barrett theorizes that there are two major strands from which the producer
emerged: one, from music labels’ artists and repertoire (A and R) departments,
83
Cleveland, Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques, 188.
84
Irwin, “Take the Last Train from Meeksville.”
85
86
Ibid., 45.
48 D o-I t-Yourself
such as Phil Spector and the Beatles’ veritable producer, George Martin; the
other from the engineers’ domain, or at least those who were savvy with audio
technology, like Sam Phillips, Joe Meek, and Tom Dowd.87 But it is primarily
the former group that came to define the producer in the first few decades of the
post-World War II period (deservedly, Phillips, Meek, Dowd, and their techni-
cally minded contemporaries have slowly garnered more recognition for their
pioneering work).
How producers used the studio as an instrument in the proceeding decade did
not change markedly from the practices profiled thus far. Arguably, the biggest
change was with regard to whom held the reigns of production as increasingly more
artists aspired to produce themselves, getting rid of the Gordy-type guru in favor of
independence. Inspired by the likes of Brian Wilson (e.g., Pet Sounds, 1966; “Good
Vibrations,” 1966) and his cross-Atlantic arch-rivals/admirers, the Beatles (Revolver,
1966; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967), artists sought to harness the cre-
ative capacities afforded by the recording studio. Paul Théberge observes that by
the late 1960s and early 1970s, “it was normal for bands to compose in the studio,
spending weeks and months experimenting with the various creative possibilities
inherent in the multitrack process. In this regard, ‘overdubbing’ . . . is a central tech-
nique of the studio when used as a compositional tool.”88 While some musicians
acquired the technical facility needed to run a recording session themselves, many
bands relied on the skills of audio engineers to assist them. The studio became the
music-making medium. With little practiced or prepared beforehand, the “writing”
began and ended in the studio. The historical accounts describing these sessions
often come from the engineers as opposed to the musicians, such as Glyn Johns
recounting his work with the Rolling Stones:
Mick and Keith very often used the studio to write. One or the other would
turn up with the bare bones of an idea. Typically, Keith [guitar] might have
a few bars of a chord sequence that he would sit and play over and over
for hours on end, with Bill [bass] and Charlie [drums] playing along, pro-
viding invaluable support with an extraordinary degree of patience. Brian
[guitar] and either Stu [piano] or Nicky Hopkins [keyboard] would join
in, trying different ideas and instrumentation. As the song took shape,
Mick would leave the control room, where he had been paying attention to
the sound with me, and join in, singing along, developing a melody while
muttering the odd word of nonsensical lyrics. Eventually I would start
recording and playing back their efforts in order for all involved to refine
what they were doing.89
87
Barrett, “Producing Performance,” 95.
88
Théberge, “ ‘Plugged In,’ ” 11.
89
Johns, Sound Man, 81.
49
Eddie Kramer engineered similar marathon recording sessions for Jimi Hendrix:
We would spend up to ten or twelve hours at a time, recording take after

take. Unlike in the past, where, through jamming, he would try to develop
the germ of an idea into a song, Hendrix came into Electric Lady with a
distinctive idea as to how he wanted each track to sound.90
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, making music in the studio became standard prac-
tice, and a taken-for-granted reliance on multitracking, overdubbing, and editing in
recording practices perpetuates to the present. Even some seminal punk recordings,
which were lauded as back-to-basics DIY pressings, like the The Ramones’ Ramones
(1976), relied heavily on these processes associated with using the studio as an
instrument. Recalling, “We did a lot of overdubbing and double-track vocals,”91
producer Craig Leon explained: “If you jump to the conclusion that the sound
of the recording was just the sound of the band live you would be mistaken even
though that was what I was trying to convey. The album is quite layered and struc-
tured and took full advantage of studio technology of its time without being obvi-
ous.”92 As music-recording practices grew reliant on the acts of using the studio as
an instrument, musicians increasingly sought to participate in these practices them-
selves, and as a result the distinct division of labor between musicians and engineers
became less defined. In turn, musicians emigrated from the traditional performing
spaces designated for them in the studio such as the live room and vocal booth, and
made their music on the other side of “the glass”:
In the 1970s . . . the focal point of the studio-as-instrument had shifted

from the studio to the control room, where electronic instruments—
guitars, basses, keyboards, synthesizers—were being recorded by plugging
directly into the mixing console.93
By vacating the live room and taking up residence in the control room, some musi-
cians began to wean their dependence on engineers entirely, and moved toward a
more literal DIY way of working in the studio. David Toop singles out Sly Stone
and Stevie Wonder as some of the first musicians to fully harness the technologies
of the early 1970s, notably the drum machine, to support their DIY approaches.
Prefiguring the practice of beginning songwriting by layering rhythmic loops
to create polyrhythms that is now commonplace in contemporary electronic-
dependent musics, “Sly Stone used the drum box extensively to build up tracks,
90
91
Rombes, Ramones, 73.
92
Ibid., 70.
93
Schmidt Horning, “The Sounds of Space,” 30.
50 D o-I t-Yourself
playing most of the instruments, including acoustic drums, himself.”94 Oliver

Wang writes that “by 1971, Stone had extensively worked the Rhythm King [drum
machine] into his band’s massive 1971 release, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, including on
the hit single ‘Family Affair.’ Speak to drum machine aficionados about their first
introduction to the device and this album is almost always cited.”95 Both Sly Stone
and Stevie Wonder were multi-instrumentalists who used multitrack recording to
overdub with themselves; they were literally one-man bands using the studio as an
instrument.
PRODUCED, ARRANGED, COMPOSED, AND PERFORMED

BY PRINCE
Perhaps no other artist perfected this model of self-producing better than the pro-
lific Prince. Under the guidance of Chris Moon, who gave Prince the keys to his
recording studio in Minneapolis, Prince learned how to use the studio and produce
himself while still in high school.96 Following the release of his first studio album,
For You (1978), on which he credited himself “produced, arranged, composed, and
performed by Prince,” “Prince bought his first house and set up a primitive studio
in the basement, beginning the practice of demoing and recording that he would
maintain forever afterwards.”97 This first studio had a four-track tape recorder, which
enabled him to play all of the instruments on his songs: drums, keyboard, guitar,
bass, vocals, and so on. Prince’s records were essentially solo records, as David
Leonard, the engineer for Purple Rain (1984), recalled: “He does almost everything
himself; he even records his own vocals using a U47 [microphone] on a boom stand
over the [mixing] console . . . He was hands-on for everything; he was driving the
bus.”98
Critical to Prince’s sound was the Linn LM-1 drum machine, featured promi-
nently on “When Doves Cry” (1984), a song that he recorded entirely by himself.99
Roger Linn, who created the Linn LM-1, cited two ways in which Prince used the
drum machine creatively. First, Prince detuned one of the stock sounds of the LM-1
to create the now famous knocking sound:
Well, that was merely a recording of what’s called a cross stick snare drum,
which is a snare drum stick where you hold the tip onto the drum head,
and you slap the stick against the rim of the drum. He just used that normal
94
Toop, Rap Attack, 127.
95
Wang, “Hear the Drum Machine Get Wicked,” 220–221.
96
Throne, Prince, 28.
97
Ibid., 34.
98
Daley, “Classic Tracks.”
99
Throne, Prince, 74.
51
sound, but he decided to tune it down about an octave or more to get what
you refer as the “knocking” sound.100
Second, Prince applied effects to the drum machine to create new sounds:
He had a guitar processor called a flanger, altering the sound of the drum
machine. So it would sort of sweep up and down in tone. The record being
so stark and so sparse of instruments, it was pretty much just him singing
and the drum machine. And then, occasionally, his guitar would come, and
there was some other instruments, but there wasn’t so much more.101
What is particularly pertinent about this example of Prince’s use of the LM-1 drum
machine on “When Doves Cry” is that it demonstrates how his quest to be com-
pletely self-sufficient led him into the technical domains of drum programming and
signal processing. Widely regarded as a virtuoso guitarist, singer, and songwriter,
Prince’s use of the studio as musical instrument is every bit as impressive.
B R I A N E N O A N D I N - S T U D I O C O M P O S I T I O N
I can neither read nor write music, and I can’t play any instruments
really well, either. You can’t imagine a situation prior to this where
anyone like me could have been a composer. It couldn’t have happened.
How could I do it without tape and without technology?102
—Brian Eno
Of all the producers profiled in this section, Brian Eno has discussed and written
the most about the role of the producer, and more specifically about the concept of
the studio as a musical instrument. Having worked with the likes of David Bowie,
Talking Heads, U2, and Coldplay, Eno has established himself as one of the pre-
eminent producers of popular music. While Eno better fits Zagorski-Thomas’ cat-
egorization of “producer as creative partner” as opposed to “producer as artist,” he
is included in this section because of his contribution to popularizing the idea of
the studio as a musical instrument. Steve Dietz observes, “For Eno, the studio gave
rise to a whole new way of thinking about music, not as something existing out
there in the world to be reproduced but the seed of something to be coaxed and
cajoled into being.”103 In his lecture/essay from 1979, “The Recording Studio As a
Compositional Tool,” Eno theorized that once the capability to record three tracks
existed, “pop composers” began to question “What can I do with it?”:
100
Johnson, “Roger Linn.”
101
Ibid.
102
Eno, “The Studio as Compositional Tool,” 130.
103
Dietz, “Learning from Eno,” 293.
52 D o-I t-Yourself
From that impulse two things happened: you got an additive approach to

recording, the idea that composition is the process of adding more . . . it
also gave rise to the particular area that I’m involved in: in-studio com-
position, where you no longer come to the studio with a skeleton of the
piece, or perhaps with nothing at all. I often start working with no starting
point . . . actually constructing a piece in the studio.104
Drawing on his training and background as a visual artist, Eno likened “in-studio
composition” to painting:
It was painting with sound. You could make a piece over an extended per-
iod of time—it didn’t have to preexist the process; you could make it up
as you went. And you could make it like you would a painting—you could
put something on, scrape something else off. It stopped being something
that was located at one moment in time. It started being a process that you
could engage in over months, even years.105
Typically labeled an “ambient music” composer for his solo works, Eno’s sonic
imprint on the artists he produces is typically aurally evident. Andrew Blake sug-
gests that in the case of U2, Eno not only changed their approach to making music
in the studio, but also how they performed their songs live:
Working with Eno, the band was encouraged not simply to record and pol-
ish existing songs, but to use the studio as an instrument, improvising in
the creation of new songs and overdubbing parts to add to the richness
of the final mix. The result changed the way U2 worked live. To replicate
the complexity achieved in the studio, they started to use pre-programmed
sequencers to back their stage performances.106
David Byrne’s recounting of the making of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light

(1980), which was produced by Eno, provides some insight into how “in studio
composition” works:
One or two people would lay down a track, usually some kind of repetitive
groove that would last about four minutes, the presumed length of a song.
Maybe it would be a guitar riff and a drum part, or maybe a sequenced
arpeggio pattern and an intermittent guitar squeal. Others would then
respond to what had been put down, adding their own repetitive parts,
104
Eno, “The Studio as Compositional Tool,” 129.
105
Crane and Baccigaluppi, “Brian Eno,” 40.
106
Blake, “Recording Practices and the Role of the Producer,” 48.
53
filling in the gaps and spaces, for the whole length of the “song.” As we’d lis-
ten to one part being recorded, we’d all be scheming about what we could
add—it was a kind of game.107
Eno, a self-professed nonmusician, did much to popularize the idea that using the
studio as a musical instrument did not require previous experience, and in some
ways, a lack of know-how might even be advantageous for creativity. His collabora-
tive work with other artists foregrounded the studio as a musical instrument. The
once tried and true approach of having artists rehearse until ready to record had
already been uprooted with bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones writing in
the studio in the latter half of the 1960s, but Eno’s approach, as exemplified by the
Talking Heads Remain in Light (1980) sessions, demonstrates an even more exper-
imental ethos. In Eno’s world, playing with sliders and knobs on the mixing board
and other equipment were as important, if not more, than the instruments played
by the people in the band.
While those of the ilk of Brian Wilson used the studio as an instrument by
orchestrating everyone that worked within it, the turn to technology in the cases of
Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Brian Eno signify a conceptual shift in which
an alternative approach that might make using the studio as an instrument cheaper,
easier, more convenient, or more creative, was increasingly sought after. Compared
to the 1960s, using the studio as an instrument became less about working the
system as it were, and working the systems. Such an approach was typified by Ralf
Hütter and Florian Schneider for whom their group, Kraftwerk, and their studio,
Kling Klang, were one and the same:
There was little distinction in Kraftwerk between the music and the studio.
In effect, advances in recording technology would become the raison d’etre
of the group’s existence. Eventually, they became obsessed with producing
music that almost sounded as if it had been created by machines—not just
musicians who were also studio engineers, but more like sound engineers
who happened to produce music. This led to the logical conclusion that
the studio was a musical instrument or member of the group in its own
right. As they would put it, “we play the studio.”108
Kraftwerk had kindred spirits on the island of Jamaica who would also play the stu-
dio, specifically the mixing console and effects processors. The practices of these
producers, designed to delight dance halls, would formulate a distinct strand of
production that arguably is now the most important component of contemporary
music production: tinkering with timbre.
Byrne, How Music Works, 164.

107
Bussy, Kraftwerk, 26.
108
54 D o-I t-Yourself
HAPPY ACCIDENT #1: DUB AND ITS LEGACY

OF PRIVILEGING TIMBRE IN PRODUCTION
By taking advantage of the post-taping afterthought, however, one
can very often transcend the limitations that performance imposes
upon the imagination.109
—Glenn Gould
In Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, common music produc-
tion practice entailed recording a “riddim” (rhythm) track, typically consisting of
drums, bass, guitar, organ, and horns, with vocals often being recorded separately
elsewhere, and mixed in later.110 It was during one of these mixing sessions that
a happy accident occurred and “dub” was born. Sometime in late 1967, “Ruddy”
Redwood, a “sound system man” (similar to a DJ), was getting a “dubplate” (an inex-
pensive pressing of a record) cut at Treasure Isle studio. The engineer, Byron Smith,
failed to add in the vocal to the instrumental at the right time while cutting the rec-
ord, and instead of putting a halt to the process and starting over, Redwood opted
to have the record completed without the vocal part included. Legend has it that
when Redwood played the record on the weekend at a dance hall, crowds loved it,
as recounted by producer Bunny Lee in Paul Sullivan’s Remixology:
The dance get so excited that them start to sing the lyrics over the rid-
dim part and them have to play it for about half an hour to an hour! The
Monday morning when I come back into town I say, “Tubbs, boy, that little
mistake we made, the people them love it!” So (King) Tubby say, “All right,
we’ll try it.” We try it with some Slim Smith riddim like “Aint Too Proud
to Beg.” And Tubby’s start it with the voice and [then] bring in the riddim.
Then him play the singing, and them him play the complete riddim with-
out voice. We start to call the thing “version.”111
Over the next few years, versioning would evolve into dub, a practice in which engi-
neers like King Tubby would produce music almost exclusively using prerecorded
riddim tracks. In this production paradigm, the recording of a riddim track was akin
to setting the stage, and the main act occurred at the mixing board as a form of
postproduction. Dubs were typically produced in real time because there was little
time to spare; tracks were delivered to the engineers on a Friday with the expecta-
tion that the dubs would be played at dance halls the next day. No two dubs were
the same because those operating sound systems demanded exclusive material to
appeal to their partygoers. King Tubby and his contemporaries transformed riddims
109
Gould, “The Prospects of Recording,” 53.
110
Williams, “Tubby’s Dub Style,” 236.
111
Sullivan, Remixology, 24.
55
into new musical compositions, creating dubs, “on which their efforts were often
more evident than those of the original musicians.”112 King Tubby’s home in the
Waterhouse district of Kingston served as his studio and also as an informal training
facility for other budding dub engineers including Prince Smart, Prince Jammy, and
Scientist.113 In his bedroom-turned-studio, King Tubby had a couple of tape record-
ers (one for playback and the other to record the new dubs), a four-channel mixing
board equipped with a high-pass filter (a form of equalization that attenuates low
frequencies), and some external effects processing units to add reverb and delay.
With this sparse setup, King Tubby forged his own sonic hallmarks:
Some of Tubby’s personal innovations include creating echo delay by pass-

ing a loop of tape over the heads of an old two-track machine and applying
homemade high-pass filters to snare and hi-hats to make a unique “splash”
sound. Alongside his liberal use of sirens and gunshots (borrowed directly
from live sound system performances), Tubby also became famous for
his explosive “thunderclap” effect, a trademark sound that surfaced in his
work around 1974. This effect was created by physically striking the reverb
coil.114
Given that King Tubby worked primarily with prerecorded tracks, his sonic imprint,
unlike past producers, did not come from the musicians or how they were recorded.
Rather, his contribution came at the mixing stage, and his sound was both that of
his equipment and how he played it.115 Considering the significant degree of differ-
ence between the original tracks and King Tubby’s dubs, “the mixing desk and the
associated effects devices and machinery must be thought of as Tubby’s musical
instrument.”116
TWEAKING TIMBRES
As dub historian Michael Veal notes, the creative and unconventional uses of record-
ing technology by dub engineers led to the development of “a new musical language
that relied as much on texture, timbre, and soundscape, as it did on the traditional
musical parameters of pitch, melody, and rhythm.”117 This is one of dub’s enduring
legacies: that is, the privileging of the qualities of sounds above other more conven-
tional compositional considerations. Using the studio as a musical instrument in
112
Partridge, Dub in Babylon, 60.
113
Ibid., 69.
114
Sullivan, Remixology, 47–48.
115
Williams, “Tubby’s Dub Style,” 236.
116
Ibid., 237.
117
Veal, Dub, 64.
56 D o-I t-Yourself
this context is more literal in that the musician/producer/engineer (distinctions of

these roles are difficult to make, and in the case of dub, arbitrary) plays the studio’s
“equipment” and in doing so engages in the social process of transitioning music
technologies into musical instruments. Paralleling this process in the sound domain
is the ascension of sound qualities in importance to recorded music. Timbre is
wrested from the acoustic domain to be controlled in the electronic domain:
The timbre of a musical sound has traditionally been controlled by the

design, materials, and condition of the instrument that produces it, and
the ability of the human mind and musculature that plays it. When a per-
formance is recorded in the electronic-magnetic medium the character of
each voice can depend almost completely on the manipulation of various
filtering devices that select distinct frequencies from a particular signal for
alteration.118
Corneila Fales’ categorization of sounds into a continuum of decreasing contex-

tualization is helpful in evaluating how dub music treats timbre in production.
According to Fales, sounds can be categorized as:
1. Exact copies of real-world sounds.

2. Unfamiliar, but possible or imaginable in some musical universe.
3. Neither familiar or imaginable. Acknowledge the rules of the acoustic world in
their infraction of them, and we recognize the sounds they diverge from.
4. Catch-all bin. Sounds that lack any vestige of contextualization. They must be
experienced since they only exist in the hearing, refusing the abstraction of
description.119
Dub engineers exploited this continuum, challenging listeners’ experiences of their

sound worlds and expanding them. They treated timbre as the foremost frontier
to explore in music production, and in the process created a genre and style that
forced listeners to journey with them in the pursuit of never-heard-before sounds.
It is important to note, however, that dub engineers were certainly not the first
musicians to privilege sound quality in their music-making. In the late 1950s and
early 1960s, Joe Meek made creative use of reverb and delay in his recordings,
defying established conventions.120 Frank Zappa, self-secluded in “a life of obses-
sive overdubbage—non-stop, twelve hours a day,”121 produced recordings that
118
119
Fales, “Short-Circuiting Perceptual Systems,” 169.
120
Cleveland, Creative Music Production.
121
Watson, “Frank Zappa as Dadaist,” 156.
57
referenced other songs by timbre as opposed to note choices, such as “Hungry

Freaks, Daddy” (1966), which copped the guitar tone of the Rolling Stones’ “(I
Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (1965).122 Nevertheless, it was not until after dub’s peak
years in the 1970s that tinkering with timbre became a central component of using
the studio as a musical instrument, and this became increasingly aurally evident in
mainstream music. For example, in his study of 1980s pop music producer Trevor
Horn, Timothy Warner made several astute observations related to the primacy of
timbre in production. First, he noted that while traditional compositional elements
in pop recordings such as “melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and structural manipula-
tion/innovation—often may be derivative,” it also contains “startling innovation in
sound and sound manipulation.”123 Second, due to this shift in prioritizing produc-
tion elements and their associated practices, Warner asserts that the four essential
techniques in pop production are “multitrack recording, signal processing, MIDI
sequencing, and sound synthesis and sampling.”124 In consideration of the afore-
mentioned, Warner concludes:
Horn’s contribution would appear to be in the “sound” (that is, the choice
and combination of timbres and the way those timbres are manipulated
through technological processes), the “feel” (that is, the subtle rhythmic/
dynamic/timbral nuances and pitch deviations of performance which
give a strong sense of individual expression), and the structuring (that is,
the order and content of the various sections of a piece in relation to the
whole).125
Timbre is not easily notated, and as a result popular music production relies
on the ears rather than the eyes in pursuit of making and replicating specific
sounds. Dialing knobs of effects processors to precise points is as crucial as
playing the right notes. Citing the example of Michael Jackson’s self-made demo
of “Billie Jean,” Virgil Moorefield posits that Jackson served the role of copro-
ducer by prescribing not just the parts, but the sounds as well: “The nearly exact
timbres of the bass, electric piano, and various synthesizers have been copied
and refined on the album [Thriller (1982)].”126 The opening bars of “Billie Jean”
(1982) further reinforces Moorefield’s point; the drum pattern itself is generic,
but the drum sounds are distinctly recognizable as being none other than “Billie
Jean” (1982).
122
Ibid., 159.
123
Warner, Pop Music, 18.
124
Ibid., 22.
125
Ibid., 140.
126
58 D o-I t-Yourself
Drum timbres would prove to be so pivotal to production that from the sample-
based era of hip-hop in the 1980s to the present, “the most unifying sonic thread
within hip-hop is the particular drum timbres that have their own origins in 1970s
funk.”127 In Black Noise, Tricia Rose argues that these sounds, such as a James
Brown-or Parliament-sampled kick drum, and the equipment that processed these
sounds in the original recording as well as the succeeding recordings that sample
them, “are all central to the way a rap record feels; central to rap’s sonic force.”128
Rose’s point about how a producer processes a sound after sampling cannot be
overstated. As Joseph Schloss observed in his study of sample-based hip-hop pro-
ducers, Making Beats, a hip-hop producer might sample from different decades
and genres, and “the ability to make such juxtapositions sound natural is the hall-
mark of a good producer.”129 The criticality of drum timbres in hip-hop extends
to acoustic drummers like Questlove, who strive to have their drums sound like
they are sampled.130 While it could be argued that this aspect of using the studio
as a musical instrument—creating or replicating drum timbres—is insignificant
in the grand scheme of the production of a piece of music, Joseph Schloss rightly
reminds that,
Hip-hop’s idiosyncrasies were designed to represent the spirit and intel-

ligence and individuality of its many creators, in a world that would have
preferred to ignore them. So when we focus on the seemingly minor artis-
tic and practical choices that go into hip-hop production . . . we are not
minimizing hip-hop’s social or political significance. We are celebrating its
humanity.131
Tweaking timbres—the production locus of dub—constitutes one strand of the

DNA of the contemporary producer that can be attributed to a happy accident.
The other strand in this double helix of contemporary production stemming from
a happy accident is sampling: a reimagining of collage-based techniques by hip-hop
producers that were first pioneered mid-twentieth century.
H A P P Y A C C I D E N T # 2 : H I P - H O P A N D I T S
SAMPLING LEGACY
New techniques are often discovered by accident or by the failure of an
intended technique or experiment.132
127
Williams, Rhymin’ and Stealin’, 2.
128
Rose, Black Noise, 78.
129
Schloss, Making Beats, 146.
130
Williams, Rhymin’ And Stealin’, 36.
131
132
Cascone, “The Aesthetics of Failure,” 13.
59
The second happy accident in music production history that would prove to have a
lasting legacy was hip-hop producer Marley Marl’s stumbling upon how to sample
drums while apprenticing under Arthur Baker at Unique Studios, New York in 1984:
“I wanted to sample a voice from off of this song with Emulator [sampler],”
he recalls, “and, accidentally, a snare went through.” After listening to his
mistake a few times, Marley realized the implications of his discovery. “I
looked at the engineer and said, ‘You know what this means? I could take
any drum sound from any old record, put it in here and get the old drum-
mer sound.’ ”133
Prior to Marley Marl’s discovery, drum sounds in hip-hop came courtesy either
from a drum machine such as the Roland TR-808 or Oberheim DMX, or from a
session drummer, such as Sugar Hill Records’ Keith LeBlanc. Now, anything and
everything could be sampled, opening up the history of recorded music to being
repurposed and refashioned one way or another while using the studio as a musi-
cal instrument. In some regards, the concept of sampling was not novel; Les Paul’s
sound-on-sound compilations of himself, the Musique Concrete collages of Pierre
Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, and John Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes No. 5, a mix of
forty-two jazz records,134 all evidence sampling in practice mid-century (albeit rudi-
mentary by today’s standards). And, in the case of hip-hop, sampling did not begin
with Marley Marl, as Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton assert: “The story of sam-
pling is a tale of technology catching up with the DJ, of equipment being created
that could do faster, more accurately, and more easily what a DJ had long been able
to.”135 Mark Katz poignantly puts it thus:
Hip-hop production . . . is intimately tied up with the techniques and aes-

thetics of DJing. In the mid-and late 1980s, hip-hop DJing spawned a new
art, the art of making beats. In some ways the two are quite different—DJs
perform live, manipulating records in front of audiences, while produc-
ers compose, often slowly and painstakingly, using digital samplers, drum
machines, synthesizers, or computers. But there is a strong link between
the two, and in the minds of many beat makers, the DJ begat the producer,
simple as that.136
The cornerstone component of early hip-hop DJing practice was extending

“breaks”—typically a percussion or drum instrumental excerpt of a 1970s funk
133
Gonzales, “The Juice Crew,” 103–104.
134
Prendergast, Ambient Century, 46.
135
Brewster and Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 267.
136
Katz, Groove Music, 121.
60 D o-I t-Yourself
record—using two turntables and two copies of the same record, and alternating
back and forth between the two using a mixer’s cross-fader to create a seamless
loop. DJ Kool Herc has been widely acknowledged as the first to extend breaks,
while Grandmaster Flash is the oft-credited mastermind for perfecting the tech-
nique, but it should be acknowledged that Walter Gibbons, a disco DJ, is reported
to have seamlessly extended breaks in the early 1970s, too, at least paralleling
and possibly preceding these hip-hop pioneers.137 Historiography aside, from a
perspective concentrating on practice, a precedent had been set since the early
1970s to create extended rhythmic loops, first to support dancing, and soon after
to support rapping. When hip-hop DJs like Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and
Grandmaster Flash DJ’d in parks and at parties, they did not just play the records
(the recorded medium), they played the turntables (the reproducing technology),
too. While this practice bears resemblance to dub engineers using the studio as
a musical instrument, the turntable was an instrument unto itself, as Rob Swift
explains:
With the turntable you can create your own rhythms and sounds. In other
words, the turntable can adapt or mimic the violin, the drum, the guitar,
the bass. The turntable can morph into almost any instrument. Out of the
turntable you can coax high pitches, you can coax low pitches, there are
notes involved. If you move the speed a certain way you can create slow
noises and fast noises. There are so many things you can do with the turn-
table, it’s definitely an instrument.138
Turntablism foreshadowed the compositional possibilities inherent in sampling,

and studios strove to emulate it. Just as dub studio practices were an outgrowth
of Jamaican sound system culture, hip-hop studio practices were an outgrowth
of DJ culture in the Bronx. Aspiring producers who could not procure DJ equip-
ment were relegated to the fickle art of making pause tapes using cassette record-
ers. “Samson S” explained the process of making a pause tape to Joseph Schloss in
Making Beats:
Basically, it’s an early form of sampling, in the most ghetto form possible.
What you do is you play a record, and then you pause [the tape], and you
play the break, pause it, bring it back, play the break, pause it . . . ’til you
have like a continuous loop. And then I’d take another tape and rap over
that, put like scratchin’ and shit on it.139
137
Lawrence, “Disco Madness,” 281.
138
139
Schloss, Making Beats, 43–44.
61
Many hip-hop artists, including Marley Marl,140 Q-Tip,141 Chuck D,142 DJ Hi-Tek,143
and Timbaland,144 made pause tapes as it provided an accessible means to produce.
Whether with turntables or home stereos, sampling as music-making in hip-hop
was well established before Marley Marl’s discovery. And, following Marley Marl’s
happy accident, the figurative floodgates were opened to any aspiring producer or
rapper that could get their hands on a sampler, as was the case with KRS-One and
Scott La Rock borrowing an E-mu SP-12 from producer Ced-Gee to make “South
Bronx” (1986), as KRS-One recounted:
So we ran over to Ced-Gee’s house and were like: “Yo, Ced, we need that
SP-12 [sampler].” Keep in mind that at that time Ced-Gee was the only
person in the Bronx with an SP-12, and he was the absolute man. So he
lent us the sounds, the kick, the drum, the snare, the hi-hat. Scott took his
records over to Ced and Ced sampled them and made the beat for “South
Bronx,” and Scott did the drums and Ced chopped it up.145
In dub practice, there was no division in the studio between the live room and the
control room because the studio was the control room, and by extension, the pro-
ducer was the musician. Similarly, in many hip-hop studios, such as the KRS-One
anecdote exemplifies, there is no room to speak of, only the musicians and their
gear. “The studio” in this context no longer implies a fixed address necessarily, but
instead merely the places where the music is made. DIY recording is often associ-
ated with the terms “home recording” or “project recording,” and hip-hop played
a major role in making such a movement possible. There is no shortage of stories
of hip-hop musicians making their recordings at their home or someone else’s, like
Run DMC recording “It’s Like That” in Larry Smith’s attic in South Jamaica, New
York in 1983,146 or Public Enemy concocting a collage opus from their collection
of over 20,000 records in their warehouse at 510 South Franklin Street on Long
Island.147 These examples demonstrate Geoff Harkness’ assertion that “studios
serve as a key site for much of the ‘doing’ of rap music and its attendant culture.”148
Arguably, the apex of sample-based hip-hop was reached with Public Enemy’s
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), produced by a team of musi-
cians who used the studio as a musical instrument. Known as the Bomb Squad,
140
141
Coleman, Check the Technique, 439.
142
Ridenhour and Jah, Fight the Power, 73.
143
Coleman, Check the Technique Volume 2, 381.
144
Timbaland with Chambers, Emperor of Sound, 45.
145
146
Adler, Tougher Than Leather, 56.
147
148
Harkness, “Get on the Mic,” 85.
62 D o-I t-Yourself
which included brothers Hank and Keith Shocklee, Eric Sadler, and Public Enemy’s
own Chuck D, this production group was to sample-based hip-hop what the Funk
Brothers were to Motown. In his commentary of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold
Us Back, Eric Weingarten noted that Bomb Squad-leader Hank Shocklee once said,
“We use samples like an artist would use paint,”149 and building on this metaphor,
Weingarten likens the Bomb Squad’s production style to “violent pointillism”; “tak-
ing a single guitar stab or drum kick and dotting the landscape until a song emerged.
The Bomb Squad mistreated their samples—when one sounded too ‘clean,’ Hank
would throw the record to the floor, stomp on it and try again.”150 As told to Tricia
Rose, Eric Sadler explained how the Bomb Squad improvised together using sam-
ples, drum machines, and turntables:
You decide you are going to write some songs. You just work. You just
write, write, write. Sometimes Chuck (D) will come and say, “Yo I got
an idea here.” So what you try to do from there is to take the idea, put
(the sample) in the drum machine, put a beat behind it and move on from
there. Sometimes Keith (Schocklee) would get on the turntable and just
start scratchin’, like we were a band. I’d play the drum machine for the sam-
ple, and Keith would be throwing in records.151
Chuck D’s description of the Bomb Squad’s working dynamic, as described to Brian
Coleman, is similar, acknowledging the musicianship of each member:
“Eric was the musician, Hank was the anti-musician,” Chuck explains.
“Eric did a lot of the [drum] programming, [Hank’s brother] Keith was the
guy who would bring in the feel. And me, I would scour for vocal samples
all over the Earth. I would name a song, tag it, and get the vocal samples.
The friction between Hank and Eric worked very well. Hank would put a
twist on Eric’s musicianship and Eric’s musicianship would put a twist on
Hank.152
To Hank Shocklee, samplers were instruments, and each one had a different musi-
cal feel.153 Similarly, drum machines and mixing boards played by the Bomb Squad
were selected “because of the quality of sounds they reproduce,” and in Les-Paul-
and King-Tubby-fashion, were altered to produce sounds that were not origi-
nally intended.154 In using their studio as a musical instrument, the Bomb Squad
149
Weingarten, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 39.
150
Ibid., 40.
151
152
Coleman, Check the Technique, 352–353.
153
154
Ibid., 77.
63
demonstrated that “it is primarily through their use that technologies become musi-
cal instruments, not through their form.”155
Prior to hip-hop, when samples were used in music production they were pur-
posely obscured, their original identities clandestine, but hip-hop producers drew
attention to their recontextualized samples.156 They highlighted the fact that their
records were made from records. In the Bomb Squad’s densely layered productions,
a single song could feature close to forty-five samples;157 taking into account current
licensing fees to sample a record, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back would
cost millions of dollars to make today.158 But while sample-based hip-hop may have
lost some key copyright legal battles, it won the aesthetic war. Despite the superflu-
ity of music technologies that have been introduced since the heyday of the sample-
based hip-hop era in the late 1980s, ultimately the underlying concept of using the
studio as a musical instrument remains reliant on samples and synthesis. What was
first done with turntables, and second with samplers, is now done with laptops, tab-
lets, and phones. Joseph Schloss’ assertion that “at the most basic level, the hip-hop
producer’s ‘instrument’ (sampler/sequencer, mixer, and recording device) is a rudi-
mentary home studio,”159 could be said of most music producers, period. Hip-hop
may not be produced in every home studio, but most contemporary home studio
designs are at least partly based on the practices of hip-hop producers. Completing
the loop, the Bomb Squad’s conception of using the studio as a musical instrument
has come full circle; now musicians play their studios in front of live audiences,
standing behind laptops on stage. The technologies/instruments and the associated
actions to play them may have changed, but the underlying ethos is indebted to a
hip-hop aesthetic.
The Contemporary Collaborative

Producer: Max Martin
If there is a producer who embodies building on this history of using the studio as a
musical instrument and extending it into the 1990s and thereafter to the present, it
is undoubtedly Karl Martin Sandberg, better known as Max Martin. In recent years
Martin has become more of a known entity, given that “in both volume of hits and
longevity, Max Martin eclipses all previous hit makers, including the Beatles, Phil
Spector, and Michael Jackson.”160 As a songwriter, Martin has had twenty-two songs
155
Théberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine, 159.
156
157
Ibid., 80.
158
Weingarten, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 42.
159
160
Seabrook, The Song Machine, 8.
64 D o-I t-Yourself
atop the Billboard chart, and trails only Paul McCartney and John Lennon, who
have thirty-two and twenty-six number-one hits respectively. In recognition of his
songwriting prowess, Martin has been named Songwriter of the Year for the past six
consecutive years by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
(ASCAP). In addition, Martin has produced twenty number-one songs, just three
hit songs behind the all-time leader in this category, George Martin.
Max Martin’s production mentor in Stockholm was Denniz PoP, who first real-
ized commercial success producing fellow Swedes Ace of Base in the early 1990s.
In The Song Machine, John Seabrook likens Denniz PoP’s music production group,
Cheiron, to (1) an updated version of Aldon—a stable of songwriters who also pro-
duced their own demos; and (2) an industrialized model of dub with a focus on
making tracks (beats, chord progressions, instrumentation) upon which different
hooks (melodies) could be added:
A strong part of Denniz’s vision for the studio was that songwriting should
be a collaborative effort; no one was supposed to be proprietary about
his work. Songwriters would be assigned different parts of a song to work
on; choruses would be taken from one song and tried in another; a bridge
might be swapped out, or a hook. Songs were written more like television
shows, by teams of writers who willingly shared credit with one another.161
Martin learned how to be a producer by being around other producers, and he

admitted in an interview to TIME in 2001: “I didn’t even know what a producer
did . . . I spent two years day and night in that studio trying to learn what the hell was
going on.”162 Retrospectively reflecting on his tenure at Cheiron in 2016, Martin
indicated that much of his time was consumed using the studio as a musical instru-
ment in the vein of Les Paul, Joe Meek, Prince, Brian Eno, and Public Enemy: “I got
lost in the studio. Fiddling with the sounds, messing around with samplers.”163
A notorious perfectionist, no detail is unattended to in a Max Martin production.
In the studio, he is especially fixated on vocal performances being performed to his
prescribed specifications, which singers like Britney Spears164 and Kelly Clarkson165
have admitted is a time-consuming process. While this aspect of Martin’s approach
to producing is more traditional—giving musical direction like Phil Spector, he is
also an adept engineer, often performing the tedious task of editing vocal perfor-
mances (“comping”) by himself. Seabrook writes that at Cheiron, Martin “knew his
way around Pro Tools as well as anyone; he was as skilled at programming music
161
Ibid., 64.
162
Chu, “Top of the Pops.”
163
Gradvall, “World Exclusive.”
164
Chu, “Top of the Pops.”
165
Seabrook, The Song Machine, 139.
65
as he was at playing his instrument.”166 Having been indoctrinated into the philos-
ophy at Cheiron that “production comes first,”167 Martin labors in the studio over
the idiosyncrasies of sound. He recognizes that a hit song can hinge on its produc-
tion value, which is as important, if not more, than the more traditional elements of
songwriting such as melody and lyrics.
At present, Martin lives in Los Angeles where he has renovated a former home
of Frank Sinatra into a complex of six small recording studios.168 Having produced
the likes of Adele, Taylor Swift, and Justin Timberlake in recent years, Martin is as
sought after as ever, and has built a music-production empire of sorts. His house-
turned-studio is reminiscent of Motown’s “Hittsville,” but in the digital age where
producers work on computers, aspiring to create tracks and hooks that will be
amalgamated into hit songs. Martin’s recording complex is a prime example of what
Antoine Hennion calls “the laboratory-studio”: “Producers work up their musi-
cal experiments there.”169 Tuomas Auvinen describes what this type of a producer
(what he calls a “tracker”) does using the example of Mikke Vepsäläinen:
His main duty is to come up with the “tracks” for a song . . . He works
together with the songwriter/top-liner from the very early stages of the
compositional process, selects sounds, works as a recording engineer, an
editing engineer, and collaborates with the singer to make the vocal tracks
better while contributing to improving the “top-line” (melody), the lyrics
and, through giving feedback, the vocal performance along the production
process. When a tracker/producer is working, the processes of songwrit-
ing and music production constantly intertwine and cannot be separated
from one another.170
This take on the producer role—the tracker—creates a conceptual space in which

the studio is the primary musical instrument of popular music. So-called engi-
neering skills such as operating a DAW like Pro Tools are considered core com-
petencies. Whereas trailblazers like Raymond Scott and Les Paul were anomalies
amongst their respective generations of music producers because of their facility
with recording technologies, over time these skills traditionally associated with the
field of audio engineering have been normalized as production skills in contempo-
rary popular music. At present, when the term “producer” is incited, it is reasonable
to draw the conclusion that this person has some facility with music production
hardware and software because these things most likely constitute their instrument.
166
Ibid., 135.
167
Ibid., 201.
168
Gradvall, “World Exclusive.”
169
Hennion, “An Intermediary Between Production and Consumption,” 406.
170
Auvinen, “A New Breed of Home Studio Producer?”
66 D o-I t-Yourself
Max Martin’s house of recording gives an all new meaning to “home recording.”
With the most successful songwriter and producer in the current era of popular
music choosing to work at home, the long-entrenched paradigm of the studio as
a destination away from the domestic space has been flipped. Following decades
of DIY-ers toiling in their bedrooms and basements to rival the record industry’s
sonic standards, we have now come to a point in history where in theory at least, the
home—wherever it may be—is just as good a place as any for a recording studio.
But attaining the core components of self-sufficiency—ease of access and ease of
use—does not amount to a level playing field in the recording industry, as Seabrook
suggests is plausible:
You’d think that in an age when anyone with basic computer skills can
make a song on a laptop—no musical training or instrumental mastery is
required—the charts would be flooded with newbie hit makers. The barri-
ers to entry are low. And yet it turns out that the same handful of top writ-
ers and producer are behind hit after hit.171
Can anyone with basic computer skills make a song on a laptop? Is it true that no
musical training or instrumental mastery is required? Antoine Hennion’s perspec-
tive serves as an apt rebuttal:
In the studio, music is not on the one side with its laws, with which one
learns how to compose, and the public with its tastes, which can be meas-
ured, on the other. The task is not just to fiddle the controls correctly so
that correspondence is assured. This kind of equality does not exist: it
must be produced. This is how we would translate what the music indus-
try professionals say with complacency but with common sense on their
side: “If there were a rule for making records, everyone could do it.”172
And yet when an article circulates on social media about Steve Lacy producing
“Pride” for Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN (2017) on his iPhone with GarageBand,173 it
is tempting to conclude that anyone with this hardware and software could do the
same. The ability to produce using the studio as a musical instrument—whether
the studio is a space you can work in or a device you can hold in your hand—is
not determined alone by ease of access and ease of use. Once the ability to be self-
sufficient using the studio as a musical instrument is possible, the more important
question becomes how is the studio used to make music? As Justin Morey suggests,
171
Seabrook, The Song Machine, 9–10.
172
Hennion, “An Intermediary Between Production and Consumption,” 419–420.
173
Pierce, “The Hot New Hip-Hop Producer Who Does Everything on His iPhone.”
67
“it is not until the producers have revealed their methodology that a true picture of
the process can be understood.”174
Different But the Same: Conclusions

This chapter has attempted to serve as a primer on how the studio has been used as
a musical instrument since the mid-twentieth century. From Elvis to Max Martin,
there is a common current that runs through the history of recording: producers—
broadly defined—perceiving the studio system and systems as something to be
played. Granted, pop producers in the 1950s like Leiber and Stoller used the stu-
dio in radically different ways than dub producers like King Tubby in the 1970s,
but musical styles aside, they played the same instrument, conceptually. Just as Art
Blakey and Neil Peart are difficult to compare given their different styles and setups,
but are still referred to as drummers, producer styles and setups are as varied, if not
more. Like the drum set, the modularity of the studio makes it highly customiz-
able, accommodating diverse performance practices. While the studio may not have
the same level of recognition as a musical instrument compared to more traditional
instruments with longer social histories, it has increasingly been taken up by musi-
cians since the latter half of the twentieth century. While scatterings of articles in the
popular music press skim the surface of how producers make contemporary popu-
lar music, we know little about the inner workings of the present-day DIY studio.
Building on the past innovations of using the studio as a musical instrument ush-
ered in by producers of rock, pop, dub, and hip-hop, part II of this book examines
how studios are played at present in DIY contexts.
174
Morey, “Arctic Monkeys.”
69
Part II
MADE IN BROOKLYN
The research for this book was conducted between 2010 and 2015, a period in
which the borough of Brooklyn became increasingly sought-after in the real estate
market. For example, per a report from the New York Times, the average rent for a
one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn during this period increased by 29 percent
to $2,607 per month.1 Further, the results of a longitudinal study published in
2015 revealed that particular neighborhoods experienced even steeper increases in
rent: “Over the last dozen years, rents rose in Williamsburg by 76 percent (inflation
adjusted), in Bushwick by 50 percent, in Bedford Stuyvesant by 47 percent.”2
Writing decades earlier in 1992 for New York, Brad Gooch described how
Brooklyn, especially Williamsburg, had morphed into a new haven for artists where
a studio apartment could be rented for $250 per month.3 Robert Anasi reflected
that Williamsburg in these early days of artist-led gentrification was a “ghost town”
and that Bedford station, its figurative heart, was “a bleak hole.”4 In contrast, at pres-
ent he observed: “It could be a blue-collar enclave in any old industrial town except
that the occupants of these railroad apartments are as likely to have graduated from
Yale as the University of the Streets.”5
The story of escalating rents in Williamsburg and its surrounding neighborhoods
in Brooklyn over the past few decades is a textbook example of artists as “harbingers
of gentrification.”6 Writing for the New York Times in 2003, Denny Lee observed: “To
some extent, the self-proclaimed hipster capital of New York, if not the world, was
a victim of its own P.R.”7 Now, gone like the venue Glasslands are the glory days of
1
Kaysen, “Priced Out of a Childhood Home.”
2
Forman, Creative New York, 17.
3
Gooch, “The New Bohemia,” 28.
4
Anasi, The Last Bohemia, 21.
5
Ibid., 7.
6
Forman, Creative New York, 10.
7
Lee, “Has Billburg Lost Its Cool?”
70 Made in Brooklyn
Brooklyn’s music scene: “In the past 15 years, more than 20 percent of New York City’s
smaller venues have closed, among them some of the industry’s most prominent and
revered locations.”8 Artists have moved upstate or to New York’s unofficial sixth bor-
ough: Detroit. Williamsburg, once touted as “New York’s hippest neighborhood,”9
is increasingly resembling another former indie music epicenter on the other side of
Manhattan—Hoboken, New Jersey—where strollers outnumber the strummers.10
Despite the increased cost of living and decimation of arts infrastructure in
favor of luxury apartments and condominiums, Brooklyn, at one point or another,
attracted the musicians profiled in this book, and they have stayed. Historically,
New York City has been a musician-magnet, attracting aspiring musicians from
across the country with the allure of a creative community where musical trends
are set and reset. This point was reiterated in Music in New York City, a 2017 report
produced by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment:
What drives New York City’s music DNA? Start with the extraordinary
level of cultural diversity. Across the five boroughs, a melting pot of cultures
has been the lifeblood of musical innovation, making New York City the
city where entire genres have been created and defined. Salsa rhythms were
conceived in El Barrio in the 1960s. Punk rock got off the ground at CBGB’s
and other Bowery Street music clubs in the 1970s—the same decade when
the disco took its first beats in New York City dance clubs. Hip-hop came
to life on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx in the 1980s. Add renowned music
landmarks like Carnegie Hall, The Apollo Theatre, Strawberry Fields, and
The Village Vanguard, and the result is a rich tapestry of musical tradition.11
The report details that the city supports over 57,000 music-related jobs, outpacing
job growth in finance and healthcare,12 but average salaries are by comparison low
($50,000), and also skewed by outlier mega stars like Beyoncé and Jay-Z who call
New York home.13 Frank Sinatra famously sang about New York: “If I can make it
there, I’ll make it anywhere,” and “making it,” financially, seems near impossible for
a musician in the current economic climate. This is true of the rest of the United
States, too, as Scott Timberg noted in Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class:
A 2012 study of U.S.-based musicians and composers by the Future of

Music Coalition, which involved a survey, interviews, and financial audits,
found median earnings from music to be $34,455 gross, before expenses.
8
New York City Mayor’s Office, Music in New York City, 17.
9
Lanham, The Hipster Handbook, 77.
10
Bahrampour, “The Births of the Cool.”
11
New York City Mayor’s Office, Music in New York City, 9.
12
Ibid., 13.
13
Ibid., 16.
71
M ade in Brook l y n 71
The sources of this income include—in descending order of importance—

live performance, teaching, salaried playing, composing, sound recordings,
session work, “other,” and merchandise. (Musicians earned, on average, 6 per-
cent of their income from recordings.) Despite all the cheer in the blogo-
sphere about the wonders of self-releasing music, musicians who self-release
earned about half of what artists with a label deal made: the average gross for
self-releasing musicians was $26,518.14
Brooklyn, like anywhere else in America, has little capital in the conventional sense to
offer the DIY musician, but its large stake in cultural capital makes it the American DIY-
er’s default destination. This phenomenon occurs across the globe in other artisan des-
tinations such as Berlin (Kreuzberg), Madrid (Malasaña), Melbourne (Fitzroy), and
Singapore (Tiong Bahru). Brooklyn serves as what qualitative methodologist Robert
Stake labels an instrumental case study because “a particular case is examined mainly to
provide insight into an issue or to redraw a generalization.”15 In other words, Brooklyn
was chosen strategically because it boasts of a concentration of musicians engaged in
the practice of DIY recording. While Brooklyn is an important part of the story of
Dawn of the DAW, it could just have easily been written about people from a small com-
munity such as the rural town I grew up in Canada; the music education that emerges
from the experience of DIY recording with a computer, tablet, or phone is as ubiqui-
tous as the technology itself.
Brooklyn: The Cultural Capital of DIY

The rise of DIY recording is but one of the many DIY movements occurring in the
borough of Brooklyn and beyond. Contextualizing the avocation of DIY recording
amidst the broader culture of DIY provides a frame of reference to evaluate the social
significance of using DIY recording studios to make music, and its impact on music-
learning practices. Brooklyn is bustling with artisans pedaling their homemade fares
such as soda, beer, taffy, jam, pickles, granola, salsa, popsicles, beef jerky, and even beet
ketchup. Woven into the appeal of the small-batch homemade product is a sense of
nostalgic romanticism for a time when life seemed simpler and food was not mass pro-
duced, genetically modified, or chemically augmented. Concerns about environmental
sustainability, health, and economic inequality have served as catalysts to increase the
social capital of DIY.
For example, consider the elaborate production process of Brooklyn-based Mast
Brothers Chocolate, which entails importing cocoa beans from the Dominican
Republic with a wind-powered schooner that was built by hand in Cape Cod.16 The
14
Timberg, Culture Crash, 91.
15
Stake, “Qualitative Case Studies,” 445.
16
Wallace, “The Twee Party.”
72 Made in Brooklyn
Mast brothers’ manufacturing model is vertically integrated—everything is done in

one building with a small dedicated staff that upholds similar ideals as their employ-
ers. For most consumers, ten dollars is a hefty sum to shell out for a few ounces of
compressed cocoa dressed in royalty-worthy wrappers, but people are willing to pay
the price because they are buying into a concept; they are purchasing both process
and product.17
DIY carries with it the connotation of being created with care and pride by a
human as opposed to being made in an automated, sterilized, emotion-void fac-
tory. It is with the same care and pride that the participants profiled in part II craft
their songs in their DIY studios, and it is changing the nature of how music is made
and learned. While the recording industry has undergone an upheaval in the DAW
decades, there has been a growth spurt in the population of DIY-ers holed up in
bedroom and basement studios. My aim for conducting this research was to find
some of these DIY-ers and document their making and learning processes with the
hope that these findings could be helpful for the field of music education.
Table II.1 details the initial information I collected from each participant profiled
in part II through a survey I conducted on DIY recording practices in New York.
I used this information to solicit participants who represented a heterogeneous
group: varied ages, genders, races, musical backgrounds, recording experiences,
and so on.
Michael, Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy each graciously donated at least twenty-five
hours of their time to be observed and interviewed by me. I wanted to know how
they made music with their studios, and how they learned to do it. Drawing pri-
marily on the works of Robert Stake and Eliot Eisner, but also Norman Denzin,
Ricki Goldman, and Evan Tobias, I used the tools of an ethnographer to document
the working processes of the four participants. Observation in this context was
derived from participant-recorded videos, and whenever possible, screen record-
ings (including the sound) of their computers. Based on these observations and
the in-depth conversations I had with each participant, I formulated the narratives
presented in part II.
Rather than refer to each participant’s story as a case, I have labeled them as
tracks, making this a multitrack study. First, each track presents the participants’
learning histories with music and recording technologies. Second, each track pres-
ents the participants engaged in DIY recording in their own respective ways. Third,
due to the personalized nature of DIY recording, each track focuses on a different
aspect of the production process: sound selection, tracking, editing, and mixing.
Ultimately, the focus of part II is on the particularities of each participant’s ped-
agogy, focusing on two broad questions: (1) how does DIY recording work, and
(2) how is it learned?
17
Cope, Small Batch, 123–124.
73
Table II.1 Demographic data of participants

Participant
Survey Item Michael Tara Jimmy Tyler
Age 53 27 32 29
Gender Male Female Male Male
Race Mixed White African White
Race American
Borough Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Brooklyn
Occupational Category Arts Arts Technical Management
Services of Companies
Instrument 1 Guitar Piano Guitar Piano
Years played 40 23 8 25
Self-assessed skill level 9/10 8/10 10/10 8/10
Instrument 2 Piano Voice - Guitar
Years played 20 - - 19
Self-assessed skill level 2/10 5/10 - 8/10
Instrument 3 Mandolin - - Bass
Years played 15 - - 10
Self-assessed skill level 3/10 - - 5/10
Instrument 4 - - - Drums
Years played - - - 10
Self-assessed skill level - - - 2/10
Self-assessed ranking of 10/10 9/10 2/10 3/10
musical training
Number of years of formal 5 More than 0 4
music training 10
Number of years played More 0 Less than 1 More
in a band than 10 than 10
Music type Rock, Pop Pop, Rock, Electronic,
Classical Dance Pop
Contribution of music to 91–100% 51–60% 0–10% 21–30%
income
(continued)
74 Made in Brooklyn
Table II.1 Continued
Participant
Survey Item Michael Tara Jimmy Tyler
Years of recording music More than 4 8 More than 10

10
Musical pieces recorded More than 45 More than More than 100
100 100
Computer Laptop Desktop Desktop Laptop
Operating system Mac Mac Mac Mac
Music software Logic & Logic Pro Tools Ableton
Ableton
Soundcard TASCAM Mbox DIGI 192 MOTU
US-122 Traveller
I acknowledge that, as Clifford Geertz wryly observed, these writings are “inter-
pretations,” and therefore are, “fictions, in the sense that they are ‘something made,’
‘something fashioned’ . . . not that they are false, unfactual, or merely ‘as if ’ thought
experiments.”18 In other words, the tracks are my versions, or as I like to think of
them, my dubs.
18
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 15.
75
3
Track 1
Michael
I arrived ten minutes early at the Starbucks location in Carrol Gardens, Brooklyn,
where Michael suggested we meet. My previous experience buying instruments
from people on Craigslist has taught me that when meeting someone at a public
place they tend to wait near the door, so I took up my post beside the entrance,
eyeing the comers and goers. Michael was easy to spot as he looks like a guitar-
ist: he has long curly hair and a goatee. I scolded myself for social profiling and
assuming what a fifty-three-year-old guitarist looked like; surely guitarists don’t
have “a look.” But I was right. I play guitar, too, so perhaps we can recognize
our own.
Michael was operating on rock and roll time (fashionably late) and seemed
a bit disheveled. He greeted me with an apology for being late and offered to
buy me a coffee. Every table and chair was occupied so we opted to sit out-
side on this brisk February morning. After explaining my proposed method,
Michael agreed in principle to participate. Despite expressing mild disappoint-
ment that such an investment of his time did not garner any financial compen-
sation, Michael empathized with the fact that I was operating on a lean budget.
He liked the intent of my proposed study and seemed genuinely invested in the
idea of contributing to my quest of gaining insight into what goes on in a DIY
recording studio like his.
A few days later we met outside of the subway stop nearest his home. Michael
gave me a walking tour of the neighborhood, pointing out the restaurants he likes
and making a detour to show me a neighbor’s eclectic home front that is plastered
with a gaudy mosaic of figurines. When we got to his apartment, we sat at his clut-
tered kitchen table (Figure 3.1), which often doubles as his studio, and discussed
some logistics, such as operating the video camera and making screen recordings
using QuickTime. With the technical details taken care of, I armed my battered
pocket recorder, ready to delve into the extensive musical history of Michael.
75
76 Made in Brooklyn
Figure 3.1 Michael’s kitchen table.
The Car Stereo Classroom: Learning History

Michael grew up in Savannah, Georgia; his parents were lovers of music theatre and
his first instrument was a Sears “crappy little drum kit.” He played it until “it fell
apart.” His father conceded: “Son, you got everything you could out of it,” he said,
and Michael did not pick up an instrument again until he was thirteen:
My father had remarried and his second wife brought home a guitar and
I had figured out a couple of chords, I asked some of her friends, and she
came home one day and saw me figuring out a song, “I’d Love to Change
the World” by Ten Years After, dropping the needle and stopping it and
figuring out what the chords were.
Learning the names and shapes of the chords D, C, G, A, Em, and Am, from a friend,
along with using a record player to deduce the chord progression of a song, exem-
plify what Lucy Green refers to as informal music-learning strategies.1 For a couple
of years, Michael took lessons with a local guitarist. I asked if he could recall what he
Green, Music, Informal Learning, and the School, 6–9.

1
77
Track 1 : M ich ae l 77
gleaned from those lessons, and interestingly his most salient memory had more to
do with recording technology:
He had a nice car with an eight-track in it—something I’d never seen

before, headphones in his car, which was probably not illegal, yet. He goes,
“Hey dig this, check it out!” and he put on Santana’s Abraxas (1970), and
you know the spacey thing where everything is panning left and right and
I’m sitting there, I’m a kid and going, “This is the coolest thing I have ever
heard in my life.”
The term panning, meaning the placement of a sound in the stereo spectrum from
left to right, is not a term one would find in literature pertaining to guitar pedagogy.
The pan knob is typically located directly above the gain sliders on a mixing console.
In the mixing of the Abraxas (1970) album, the engineer would have turned the
pan knob intermittently left and right during the mix-down to achieve “the spacey
thing” of which Michael spoke.
Michael’s mastery of guitar and recording techniques developed in tandem
throughout his adolescence. After inheriting his uncle’s record collection, he became
enamored with the sound of early 1970s “golden era” rock: “I loved the engineering,
especially those first two Led Zeppelin albums. They were just fat and beautiful.”
Listening to a record went beyond listening to the musicians’ performances and
took into account recording techniques.
C A S S E T T E C R E AT I V I T Y S I N C E 1 9 7 7 : S E L F - L E D
E X P L O R AT I O N S I N O V E R D U B B I N G
Using a cassette-tape recorder, Michael wrote and recorded his own music: “When
I was thirteen,” he remembered, “what I was doing during that time was writing
my own music, a lot of which I still have on cassette, my own little songs. I’ve got a
ninety-minute cassette of fourteen original songs.” Michael continued this practice
into his young adulthood and his technological savvy continued to blossom. His
tinkering led to an important discovery:
When I was in high school my graduation present was an old Akai cassette
deck. It had a mic input and a line input on the back, and two microphone
inputs in the front, and a line input on the back. You could blend them so you
could get in effect multitrack recordings. So, I was doing that early on my own
with an old cassette, putting it into the back, adding effects, doing it again, doing
it again . . . I’ve been doing that with microphones on my own since 1977.
When Michael remarked “doing it again, doing it again,” he was referring to

the act of performing multiple guitar parts on top of each other, like Les Paul’s
78 Made in Brooklyn
sound-on-sound technique. As Michael intimated, his approach to recording had

increased in sophistication since his early forays with the tape recorder at age thir-
teen. Interestingly, one of Michael’s music heroes, Jon Brion, reported a similar
experience: “As a kid, I was fascinated with tape recorders, I love everything about
them . . . I was thirteen years old and realizing the significance of an overdub.”2
Additionally, Daniel Lanois, longtime producer of the band U2, recollected a
strikingly similar account of discovering overdubbing with one of his first cassette
recorders:
It had a “sound on sound” feature. I had now found my secret weapon.

The Sony allowed me to record on channel 1, and then on listening back
I could transfer that sound onto channel 2, along with some more singing
or playing in the room. A miracle! I could now stack up tracks by bouncing
them from channel to channel.3
André Millard posits young men developed a kinship with technology during the
sales-boom era of the electric guitar in the 1960s:
Electricity was one of the important symbols of modernity in the United

States and Western Europe, and it was entirely in male hands. Technology
was considered a male preserve . . . technological enthusiasm was seen as
an activity of boys and young men.4
In the span of five years Michael’s approach to recording changed markedly, much
of it due to technological enthusiasm and tinkering. This progression was paralleled
in his study of the guitar.
GOING CLASSICAL
At the age of fifteen, Michael was introduced to classical music through rock record-
ings and this, along with the influence of young love, greatly altered his guitar
studies:
I discovered classical music brought to me by all my favorite British art

rockers: Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, the keyboard players in particu-
lar. Bands like Gentle Giant, Yes, and a whole bunch of obscure British and
European art rock bands—they are as influenced by classical music as they
were by rock and jazz, and I loved that merging.
2
As cited in Crane, “Jon Brion,” 90.
3
Lanois, Soul Mining, 17.
4
Millard, The Electric Guitar, 157.
79
My first girlfriend played flute in the youth orchestra, and turned me

onto a couple of Bach pieces, and gave me recordings to listen to: Jean-
Pierre Rampal playing the Prokofiev flute Sonata, which is really beautiful,
a pretty priceless recording; the Beethoven nine symphonies, Toscanini’s
mono recordings, not some big stereo recording. You didn’t listen to it nec-
essarily on the headphones, you listen to it like you would on a big radio.
It was pretty fascinating to get to know Beethoven symphonies that way.
So I’m crazy in love with this girl, and she’s like, you need to study, because
she was going to go off to college and get her music degree. And I was like,
“Well I’m going to go do that too.” And she was like, “Well you need to
learn how to play classical guitar then because that’s the only way it’s going
to happen.”
Even Michael’s explanation of transitioning to playing classical music ushers in

some aspect of recording. Most notable is the distinction he makes between lis-
tening to a recording like a Beethoven symphony in mono versus stereo. Further,
it is important to note that at this point, Michael’s exposure to classical music was
primarily through recordings.
True to his word, Michael sought out a classical guitar teacher, and the clos-
est thing he could find was a pianist who composed for guitar. These lessons
in which he progressed through the six books of Mel Bay’s classical guitar ser-
ies proved sufficient to gain entrance into college where he studied Andres
Segovia’s method of classical guitar. By his own account, Michael was the first
to graduate from his university with a degree in classical guitar performance in
1980. Robert Walser suggests that Michael’s experience was representative of
the era:
Classical guitar teachers had begun to appear on college faculties around

the time heavy metal emerged as a genre in the early 1970s. The classical
influence owed something to the fact that virtually all of these teachers
had started by playing some kind of popular music, turning later to the
budding field of classical guitar, which had been almost single-handedly
chartered by Andres Segovia.5
After finishing school, Michael traveled to Europe and “continued his education” by
“taking in concerts,” but he did not work as a classical musician. “I was writing my
own stuff, still playing and singing, doing my own little thing, but also busking on
the streets mostly. I didn’t do the rock and roll thing, didn’t pick up an electric much
until I was maybe twenty-six.”
5
Walser, Running with the Devil, 90.
80 Made in Brooklyn
G O I N G E L E C T R I C A N D D I G I TA L
After relocating to Atlanta where he lived for fifteen years before vacating the Peach
State for the Big Apple, Michael collaborated with various other musicians: “That’s
where I learned to play the electric guitar; it was writing stuff in a couple of bands
and learning other people’s material. Some of those people went on to become
somebody, and some of them didn’t.” Much of Michael’s time in Atlanta was spent
recording. He estimates that he played on twenty CDs during that fifteen-year span,
one of which includes his own original material, recorded over a month in 1994.
I asked Michael if he had a lot of input in the process and he responded:
Not when it comes to professional EQing, that’s where I referred to the

engineer. I let her make those kinds of decisions, like the mic that sounded
the best. For a number of reasons: she had been doing that for a long time
with this gear that she has had, and she had acquired it all by herself, and
she knew what worked the best. Sometimes I might make a judgment call
about the sound of something, and when it comes to the mixing, I defi-
nitely put in a lot in the mixing process because by 1989 I was pretty darn
good recording with four-track analog cassette recorders.
Michael’s response to this question typifies what I would expect given the era.
While commercial digital recording and its flag carrier, Pro Tools, were in circu-
lation at this time, it had not yet taken root in the mainstream recording industry,
and as a result, tape was still the default recording medium. Operating a tape-based
recording studio was largely left in the hands of professional audio engineers.
Michael’s recollection of the recording process makes it clear that certain decisions
(e.g., microphone selection and equalizing) were reserved for the domain of the
audio engineer.
Mixing, however, is a different story because Michael sees mixing as weaving the
musical with the technical, as illustrated by his glowing admiration of the produc-
tion achievements of Jon Brion: “Aimee Mann’s Whatever (1993) was produced and
engineered by Jon Brion, and that sound blew my brains away. What is he doing?
Jon Brion is a genius!” I asked Michael what was genius about Brion’s production,
and he elaborated:
Just the way he would have melodic lines come in and out, orchestration
colors, panning it. Also, being at times not afraid to be outlandish if he felt
like it called for it. I couldn’t get enough of some of the tunes. In terms of
production, each song having its own environment that it lived in. Almost
like all of a sudden you’re being dropped inside a completely new world for
the duration of that song.
81
Michael’s description reveals a deep appreciation for production style, especially the
melding of panning and orchestration to achieve the effect of creating a unique sonic
state. Meanwhile, outside of the studio operated by professional engineers and within
the walls of his home, Michael continued to adopt more sophisticated means of pro-
ducing recordings. His explanation of using a MiniDisc demonstrates the increased
complexity of his approach:
It works like the old four-track cassette recorders except it’s much more pre-
cise. You can be much more accurate with where your punch-ins and punch-
outs are, and you can do multiple takes. Say there’s a guitar solo, and you want
to do the guitar solo five times and then choose the one that you want to keep,
not comping, you choose the one take, listen back to all five, and just choose
the one you want in there and boom they’re on that track.
Although Michael replaced the cassette-based recording system with the MiniDisc
in his studio, the MiniDisc served the same purpose; the medium changed, but the
method of recording did not. Michael’s explanation contains some technical terms that
warrant defining: “punch-ins and punch-outs” and “comping.” A punch refers to record-
ing a part that occurs mid-song, and Michael provided a concrete example with his
explanation of the guitar solo. In rock music, guitar solos tend to happen mid-song, and
tend not to span an entire song, making it a part that could be punched-in and punched-
out in a multitrack recording. Typically, the guitarist is cued up on the recording and
given a count in of a bar before they are to start playing their part (the punch-in). After
the guitarist finishes the part, the recording is stopped (the punch-out). Punching is a
time-saving approach; the instrumentalist or vocalist is only recorded on the sections
of the song on which they perform.
While comping can be defined simply as the assembly of multiple takes of a perfor-
mance to create one best take, Mike Howlett sees comping as a tool for interpreting
how to perform a piece of music. Based on his experiences working with vocalists in
recording studios, Howlett made an important observation:
I came to realize that . . . through hearing themselves over and over again,

these singers had at last defined their approach to the songs in their own
minds. Something that is not often recognized about the recording process
is that songs rarely arrive in the studio fully formed. The melody and the
structure will have been loosely defined, but all those subtle details—the
particular phrasing of a line, an emotional emphasis on a word, all the min-
ute details that go to make a powerful rendition.6
Howlett, “Producing a Credible Vocal,” 31.

6
82 Made in Brooklyn
Using a studio to flesh out musical ideas that are loosely defined is a common prac-
tice of Michael’s. He often works on ideas or exercises, treating the studio like a lab
of experimentation. Michael gave an example of experimenting with a computer-
based program called Fruity Loops:
Things that I enjoyed about working with that old Windows 98 com-
puter: One was the fifty-dollar version of Fruity Loops software that I got
endless entertainment from, especially the sampling stuff, like recording
myself singing something, and then triggering it on the guitar. I could play
the guitar and it plays my voice singing this chord.
Michael expanded upon his explanation on how he was able to play his voice with
his guitar:
When I say guitar I also mean guitar synthesizer. The [Roland] GR-30 is
the guitar synthesizer from 1997. It has orchestral sounds on it like strings
and timpani and piccolo and all that. But it also MIDIs out to whatever else
you want. You can MIDI to another unit that has better orchestral sounds.
Or just keep it as a MIDI file and find one later.
The steps involved in playing a chord on the guitar with the resulting sound of
Michael’s voice singing that chord involve some innovative uses of recording tech-
nology. Fruity Loops is a software program that is primarily used to make rhythmic
loops and beats and was widely used in the early 2000s, especially in electronic-
based music (it is now called FL Studio and is widely used in hip-hop production).
Using a microphone, Michael recorded his voice into Fruity Loops to create a sam-
ple. The pitch of that sample can be shifted to represent any other note on the musi-
cal staff. MIDI on its own does not produce sound; instead it is a set of messages
that carries information such as what note to play and how loud to play it. In order
to send the MIDI messages from his guitar to his computer running Fruity Loops,
Michael uses a special type of guitar pickup (Roland GK-2A) that connects to a
foot-controlled multieffects processor (Roland GR-30). Together, these two pieces
of hardware process and interpret the pitches, durations, and velocities (volumes)
of each note Michael plays on his guitar. These messages are then relayed to a MIDI-
to-USB interface, completing the connection from the guitar to the computer, and
finally sending the information to Fruity Loops where the samples are triggered and
a sound is produced—all of this occurs in milliseconds.
It was also during this time in the late 1990s and early 2000s that Michael tin-
kered with other emerging software programs such as Cool Edit Pro (now called
Adobe Audition):
What I really started using though is just the stereo editing. This is when
I got my Roland UA-30 audio interface, which came with Cool Edit Pro
83
software, a stereo software editor of audio. I would take twenty-minute

jams and do these edits and condense it down to ten, and then take that
and put that on two tracks of the MiniDisc, adding stuff while I’m doing it.
Even in the era of computer-based recording, Michael hybridized his studio, inte-
grating the old (the MiniDisc recorder), with the new (Cool Edit Pro), to enable
himself to improvise with existing improvisations. Again, Michael’s goal in using
his DIY studio in this instance was not to compose anew, but rather to facilitate an
exercise. Editing down an improvisation or “jam” requires a discerning ear to detect
a fitting place to cut out a section without the listener being able to tell that the
music has been edited from its original form. Using a cross-fade (fading one track
out while another track fades in at equal proportions) in Cool Edit Pro, Michael
was able to achieve this illusion. In principle this task seems simple, but in reality
perfecting the timing to avoid pops, clips, and other artifacts of audio manipula-
tion requires both skill and practice. Recall that when Michael recorded his album
in 1994 he perceived some tasks as being too technical for him to assume. In the
analog era, splicing tape to edit audio was completely unforgiving and reserved for
the recording engineer, but the digital realm affords the likes of Michael to try such
feats without negative consequence because of its nondestructive editing capability.
T H E S K E U O M O R P H I C A D VA N TA G E : N E W T E C H N O L O G I E S ,
OLD CONCEPTS
Two years ago, Michael purchased a MacBook Pro and started using the DAWs
GarageBand and Logic, and more recently Ableton Live. The recording software
Michael used primarily during the 2000s (prior to 2010), was the industry stand-
ard, Pro Tools. Michael’s recording rig during that time consisted of a Mac G4, Pro
Tools 6.4, and an Mbox—Pro Tools’ proprietary audio interface. Like many DIY
studio users, Michael was impressed with the capabilities that Pro Tools offered:
As far as an audio interface it was far superior to everything I had ever

worked with before. It took me a long time to get used to because I didn’t
have anybody tutoring me and I didn’t have any help files, so I just had to
figure it out for myself, but you know I had had a little bit of experience.
But I loved it.
Symptoms of Lucy Green’s criteria of the informally trained musician are present
in Michael’s learning approach with recording technology.7 Using phrases such as
“I didn’t have anybody tutoring me,” and “I just had to figure it out for myself,”
Michael made it clear that he taught himself how to use Pro Tools, a program that

7
84 Made in Brooklyn
some people go to technical schools or colleges to learn. Granted, Michael was

not venturing into unfamiliar territory. Saying he had some experience was an
understatement—Pro Tools is based conceptually on the same multitrack record-
ers Michael had utilized since his adolescent years. Additionally, Pro Tools and
most other DAWs incorporate a high degree of skeuomorphic design. According
to Katherine Hayles, “Skeuomorph is a term anthropologists use for a device that
once had a functional purpose but in a successor artifact loses its functionality and
is retained as a design motif or decorative element.”8 A great advantage of software
incorporating skeuomorphism is that new users are provided with visual cues of
familiarity, easing the difficulty of making the transition from hardware to soft-
ware. There is however a significant downside to skeuomorphic design philoso-
phy, namely that new technologies are used for old ways of thinking and doing.
This becomes very apparent when considering that there now exists a generation
of music-makers who will never encounter a mixing console or external effects like
the ones Michael grew up using. The software this new generation uses is based on,
and in some ways limited by preceding recording technologies. These limitations
extend beyond the restraints they impose on the technology itself, dictating how
we work and therefore how we make music.
For Michael, the seasoned home recorder, using Pro Tools presented challenges,
but his learning curve was flattened by skeuomorphic design. Michael knew how
to record; what he did not know was how to navigate the software and access the
tools he needed. For example, prior to Pro Tools, Michael used a sixteen-channel
analog mixing console to mix from his MiniDisc recorder to a CD burner. Most
mixers follow a standardized layout, and the software-based virtual mixer in Pro
Tools is no different. Instead of twisting knobs and sliding faders with his hands on
a console, Michael uses a mouse to perform the same actions in Pro Tools, a process
that has been popularly termed mixing-in-the-box. In his analog studio, accompany-
ing his mixing console, Michael has two external rack-mount multieffects units. If
Michael wants to add an effect such as reverb or delay to a track, he buses the signal
to one of those units to achieve the desired effect. Again, Pro Tools does its best to
emulate the analog studio, and with the click of a mouse, Michael can “bus” a sig-
nal internally to a software-based effect, commonly known as plugins to achieve the
same end.
Starting in 2003, Michael recorded a series of compositions for various
performing arts spaces in New York, showcasing in notable venues such as
La MaMa E.T.C. (Experimental Theatre Club) and St. Ann’s Warehouse. To
show me an example, Michael flipped open his MacBook, pulled up his per-
sonal webpage, loaded a clip from an hour-long piece he did in 2010, and
explained: “They wanted Busby Berkeley music, you know, the water-dancing
stuff from the 1930s. That’s what she [the show’s producer] was looking for, so
Hayles, “The Complexities of Seriation,” 119.

8
85
I had to write this.” Michael was very nonchalant about what he presented to
me, underselling it, but it was immediately clear that he is a very versatile musi-
cian. I heard the sound of muted trumpets in the section of music he played
and asked him how he made this music. There was so much music and it must
have taken him weeks—how did he do it? Michael explained that the muted
trumpets were produced by his guitar synthesizer. He writes everything on his
guitar, then records several takes of improvisations and selects the best ones.
This is a thin description, and it is difficult to fault Michael for not providing
a more thorough account of how he made this music with his computer; it was
two years ago and he was not cognizant of the minutiae of the recording proc-
ess. Fortunately, Michael provided hours of screen recordings of his present-day
music-making to sift through, and therein lay the crux of how he uses his DIY
studio to achieve his compositional goals.
On the Road . . . Again
Over the three-month period of data collection, Michael was very diligent about
staying in touch over email, letting me know how his work was progressing, and
making time for an interview or a meet-up to give me video files. These meet-
ings were planned around his touring schedule. Michael makes all of his income
from playing music, and much of that entails touring. His touring career has run
the gamut of music venues, taking him across the country and across the world to
crowds large and small:
The largest audience I’ve played in front of was the Pink Pop festival
in Holland, which was ten thousand people. That was the biggest—
satellite feeds everywhere . . . I did play Irvine Plaza sold out . . .. And
now we’re playing in freaking North Dakota bringing our own PA,
whatever.
During the final month of the study, Michael returned from a tour that took him to
Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana, Portland, and Washington. He played most
nights in the span of two weeks, including one stretch of gigs on five consecutive
nights. Michael sighed and said, “Three sets a night, man. That’s hard work, some-
times four. That’s four hours, 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., or something like that usually.”
Michael was home for a week before he had to travel to Australia with a different
group for a three-week tour that included a transcontinental drive in a camper van
from Sydney to Perth. While this may seem tangential from the subject at hand, it is
critical to take into account the broader context of Michael’s life as a musician. My
discussion of him is predominantly as a DIY studio user, but the reality is that his
home is often on the road. Being a laptop owner, it is possible for Michael to record
86 Made in Brooklyn
on the road, but his energies are consumed on stage, and his personal recording
projects are relegated to his time spent at home in Brooklyn.
Alone at the Kitchen Table: Learning Ableton

When Michael played his studio it took place either in his kitchen (Figure 3.1) or
his living room (Figure 3.2).
On this particular occasion, with his laptop parked in front of his television,
Michael morphed his TV cabinet into a makeshift workstation. As a courtesy to
me, at the beginning of the screen recording, Michael announced: “It’s 12:32 p.m.,
April 3rd.” I was his sole audience and he talked me through his thought process as
he clicked away on his computer: “I’m going to Ableton Live, which I downloaded
today, and I’m going to see what it does . . . I registered it and everything. I have never
used Ableton Live in my life.” While I have seen many screen recordings of people
exploring software on sites such as YouTube, this screen recording made by Michael
using QuickTime on his laptop is particularly unique for two reasons: First, Michael
was learning how to use the software, and second, the intended audience was me.
In contrast, the legions of audio-recording aficionados posting their tutorials to
Figure 3.2 Michael’s living room.

87
Figure 3.3 Ableton interface. Instructions are in the right-hand window.
YouTube do so with the intent of teaching and disseminating their expertise to some-
one else, and that someone else could be anybody who stumbled upon it as the result
of a simple keyword search.
E X P L E T I V E S ! F I R S T E N C O U N T E R S W I T H A B L E TO N
Over the course of an hour, Michael navigated through the software’s text-based tuto-
rials that appeared onscreen in a window alongside the other windows that comprise
the Ableton graphical interface (Figure 3.3), often reading the instructions aloud.
From this screen recording we get a firsthand look at what learning a new DAW
looks and sounds like. Minute-long stretches of silence that are only interspersed
by sighs and “hmms” occur frequently throughout the hour as Michael digested
the information he consumed. After reading the first set of instructions on how to
connect his external audio device to Ableton, his first reaction was one of frustrated
bewilderment: “Ten minutes?! Okay, man! . . . it says it’s going to take ten minutes!”
Despite his initial grievance, his tone quickly changed as he was able to easily connect
his device. The hardware connection itself was simple, the audio interface connects
via a USB cable, but ensuring that the software recognized the hardware was more
complicated. Michael’s tone returned to frustration again as he tried to find out how
to configure MIDI in Ableton, venting, “Well, I’m sorry, that’s bad design. That’s
just really clumsy.” Despite the stumbling block, Michael intuitively sifted through
the next set of instructions, and announced that he was ready to see if he could get
his guitar to connect with Ableton: “Let’s see if we have a signal from my guitar
88 Made in Brooklyn
synthesizer . . . that’s debatable right? Yeah definitely not . . . oh dear.” The sound of

the guitar was audible when Michael plucked a string, but it was the acoustic sound
picked up by the laptop’s microphone, not the sound of Ableton processing his gui-
tar as he had hoped. With some more explorative persistence Michael clicked with
purpose on his screen, finding an option called “Live Instruments,” which presented
a series of choices. The path he chose was as follows: Instruments —> instrument
rack —> ambient and evolving —> ambient-alien riches (Figure 3.4).
Michael strummed his guitar and the resultant sound was a swirl of electronic
polyphony that bore absolutely no resemblance to the chord he played. “I love that
stuff!” Michael exclaimed, and he became more playful. He mimicked a French
accent as he talked through the process of saving a file for the first time: “Make a
new folder, call it Ableton.” He figured out how to change sounds as he selected a dif-
ferent option under “ambient and evolving” called “Ambient-Bells and Formants.”
Michael reacted excitedly to the sounds he produced: “Wow this is some beautiful
stuff, this is great!” The triumphs during Michael’s Ableton expedition came in ebbs
and flows.
Figure 3.4 Michael chooses “ambient-alien riches.”

89
R E A D Y, A I M , M I S F I R E : C L I C K S O F I N T E N T
In his attempts to produce sound in Ableton with his guitar, Michael vocalized his
thoughts, which reveal that he was using a trial-and-error approach to working with
Ableton:
• “I’m trying the guitar sustain pedal now to see what it does.”
• “Here goes nothing.”
• “Let’s figure it out here. If I double-click on that, what do I get?”
• “Let’s just see if I drag it there . . . okee dokee.”
Lucy Green’s label of haphazard learning,9 is apt as there is a disorganized chaos to

Michael’s approach. Green’s use of the term haphazard helps to describe the seem-
ingly endless possibilities of how, when, and where music learning takes place, but
the word haphazard also implies that the intent to learn is not necessarily present.
This is problematic because there are many instances in which Michael’s actions
were motivated by the expectation that learning would occur, and new skills would
be acquired. To her credit, Green’s discussion of musical immersion and encultura-
tion clearly convey the presence of intent in informal learning:
This includes early experimentation with an instrument or the voice, and

discovering what different sounds they can make through trial and error,
before stringing sounds together into embryonic musical phrases, rhythms
or harmonies.10
“Experimentation” and “trial and error” best describe Michael’s approach to learn-
ing Ableton. Every action he performed had purpose behind it. He may have seemed
disoriented in the maze that is Ableton, but every click of the mouse had purpose;
his actions were not aimless. The learning and music-making that took place were
not happenstance.
It took approximately forty-five minutes until Michael was able to record an audio
signal. En route to this miniature milestone, Michael was repeatedly frustrated with
the software. He was obviously bewildered and annoyed at times with Ableton, but
his expletives should not be equated with anger, and in fact Michael often accompa-
nied these comments with a laugh of disbelief. Here are some examples:
• “That’s not recording, it’s not recording a bloody thing.” (spoken in an English
accent imitating Ringo Starr)
9
Green, Music, Informal Learning, and the School, 23.
10
Ibid., 6.
90 Made in Brooklyn
• “It’s not designed to record, how fucking weird! . . . A gigabyte and a half and you
can’t record.”
• “No, delete, I just want to delete this son of a bitch.”
• “I’m completely lost.”
• “See, I don’t understand.”
• “It was not doing that, it was doing that, son of a bitch.”
• “It’s irritating.”
• “I don’t know. It’s a little weird.”
• “Yeah, it’s not doing it, it’s not giving me this drum rack thing.”
Michael was willing to be transparent on the video and screen recordings, express-
ing himself honestly. I did not ask Michael to narrate his thought process, this was
something he did of his own free will. I later asked Michael what he thought about
talking through his process and he responded, “I liked it, it was a way for me to
focus, it helped me focus.”
For his first hour spent learning Ableton, Michael had little to show or hear for
his efforts and before stopping the video recording he announced: “Boy that’s a hor-
rible drum part, I’m stopping now.” Scrolling back through this screen recording,
I found brief moments of accomplishment that were overshadowed by Michael’s
pangs of frustration. For example, Michael was successful in playing a drum pattern
on his guitar. He recognized that the looping function in Ableton worked like an
old drum machine he was familiar with, and succeeded in recording a MIDI pattern
with his guitar. After playing his pattern he was able to edit and adjust the timing
of some of the notes. What Michael figured out through trial and error was that he
could select just one note at a time and move it to the appropriate time within the
loop. First he asked the question aloud: “Okay, so here’s the question, can I actu-
ally move these guys from the map over and make it quantized?” He clicked on the
drum map (Figure 3.5) and the whole pattern shifted; this was not what he wanted
to happen. He reported: “No, it’s doing the whole thing, that’s not what I wanted.”
He tried again, and at the moment when he said, “Just that guy?” he clicked his
Figure 3.5 Ableton drum map.

91
click and consequence
1. click 3. undo the “undue”

2. consequence
OR
3. new click
Figure 3.6 Click and consequence.
mouse on the note he wanted to edit. To his satisfaction, it moved. The small victory
produced a eureka moment and with an exhalation of contentment he said, “Ah,
very nice. Ah magic.”
I posed the question to Michael about using Ableton for the first time: “What
did you think of its ease of use to do what you wanted it to do?” He responded: “I
have since tried some things, trying to bring in some other audio and throw effects
on there and get rid of those effects and that kind of thing and it’s not as easy as
I thought it was.” Ableton integrates instructional materials into its layout to facil-
itate the learning process, but Michael found this to be an annoyance: “I wanted
it to go away so that I could focus on the other bells and whistles that were availa-
ble . . . I don’t necessarily need it to be a part of my peripheral vision all the time in
this program.” Michael prefers to reference a separate text-based file such as a PDF
and in later sessions he discovered this feature in Ableton and used it intermittently.
Michael’s approach to learning to use Ableton is characteristic of the “digital immi-
grant” as described by Marc Prensky:
As Digital Immigrants learn . . . they always retain, to some degree, their

“accent” . . . The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as
turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in read-
ing the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself
will teach us to use it.11
Ableton offers video tutorials, but Michael opts to forgo watching them, preferring
the click and consequence method (Figure 3.6), where he uses his mouse to explore
an option in the program, evaluates the consequence of his mouse click, and then
proceeds accordingly by either undoing the undue action or continuing on in his
current trajectory.
11
Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1,” 1.
92 Made in Brooklyn
THE TIMBRE TRAIL: TWEAKING SOUNDS

A day later Michael was back in his living room, guitar in lap, staring at the Ableton
interface on his laptop. Throughout the session, Michael’s right hand alternated
between clicking the mouse and strumming his guitar. He chose to position the
camera such that it was always centered on his guitar, keeping his face out of frame.
For thirty consecutive minutes, Michael scrolled through the exhaustive list of “Live
Devices” in Ableton trying to find a guitar effect that caught his ear. He auditioned
each effect, sometimes making comments, such as: “This would be good for dub,”
or “Needs more gain.” Other times he simply strummed a chord, listened for a
moment, and without hesitation clicked on the next effect. Table 3.1 lists the effects
that Michael auditioned.
Michael shared his thoughts on the sounds packaged in Ableton:
I’m sometimes baffled by how somebody could write this and expect it
to be used as a preset . . . With Ableton the presets are so crazy anyway,
half the time it’s just like, “What the fuck is that? Wow!” Maybe they were
thinking this would be great, then you can plug a voice into it or violin or
keyboard, but maybe not an acoustic guitar or electric guitar so you have
to change it to fit.
Michael did not record the sounds he auditioned, but Crystal Reverb must have left
a good taste on his sound palate because he left it in his signal chain for the entire
exploratory period. Ableton’s help file describes Crystal Reverb as “stuttering ambi-
ent delays with a lot of control possibilities.” Michael reacted to the sound exclaim-
ing, “Oh my God, that’s so cool!”
Eight days later, Michael opened up a new file in Ableton and in this session, his
aims were less enigmatic. He started by importing an existing audio file (Figure 3.7).
Table 3.1 Ableton guitar effects auditioned by Michael
Effect
FluxedRhythmTrem RisingReverb Dizzy Freq

Six String Ambience Synced Phaseverb Elastic Cube
Guitar Space Echo Speak 2 Intimate&Colorful
Rich Acoustic Guitar Spectral Spank Ritmo Standard
Acoustic Guitar Hall 2 Wabbler Annihilator
Crystal Reverb Circularity Vocal Choir
PolyRhythm
93
Figure 3.7 Michael imports audio.
Figure 3.8 Crystal Reverb.
Next, Michael scrolled through the Live Devices to find the Crystal Reverb set-
ting, praising it as “outstanding and strange” (Figure 3.8).
Michael’s goal was to apply Crystal Reverb to the prerecorded material, a short
four-bar loop of a guitar-picking pattern. Michael found the appropriate proportion
of the mix that he wanted to apply to the guitar track, commenting, “that’s pretty
cool,” but he detected a problem: “It’s a little low end-y.” To circumvent the issue,
Michael loaded another effect in his signal chain, Multiband EQ (Figure 3.9), and
proceeded to “twist” the virtual dials Low Freq, Mid Freq Band, and Hi Freq Band
until he was satisfied with the resultant sound.
94 Made in Brooklyn
Figure 3.9 Multiband EQ.
Michael described how he uses equalization (EQ):
It was always hit and miss for me with EQ . . . When I hear something that
ain’t working I to try to figure out what that is and duck it. When I hear
something that is missing I try to find it and bring it in. That’s the end of my
EQ knowledge to be honest with you.
This method of equalization entails a process of elimination: the problematic fre-

quency is reduced until the effected sound is improved in the ears of the beholder.
Michael explained how he learned this technique: “That goes back to when I first
started learning how to work with external effects units . . . I would work with the
given preset and then tweak it so that it fit the song specifically for the band or
maybe multiple songs even.”
Satisfied with the effect he applied to his guitar track, Michael exported the files
into a single audio file. Another day’s work done and most of it was spent sifting
through sounds. The end product was a short loop that Michael had no intention of
selling or distributing. In contrast to working in a professional studio, making music
with a DAW at home is a personal experience that affords Michael the opportunity
to explore without bounds:
You can really create your own sonic landscapes and just go off into your
own. It’s a very exploratory experience, and you don’t have to have any-
body else telling you what you’re supposed to be doing, and what you’re
not doing right or whatever. I’m not a professional engineer. I will make
certain choices that will be a little bit outside of what a professional engi-
neer would do, but to me they sound great, so that’s the fun part. I don’t
have anybody saying, “Man, how could you put the microphone there?” or
“What the hell is that effect?” or “Boy, that’s really noisy.”
95
Lonely Learning: Conclusions
Much of Michael’s learning background is what Lucy Green would label as “infor-
mal.”12 For example, Michael taught himself guitar and learned bits and pieces from
family acquaintances before he ever took a lesson, satisfying the criterion “learns
alongside friends or by themselves.” He also learned by listening and copying
recordings that he chose himself.
Additionally, Green’s model is helpful for describing how Michael learned to use
his DIY recording studio as a musical instrument: he has never received a formal
lesson; anything he knows about audio engineering he taught himself by reading
a manual or through trial and error. Certainly his pedigree of recording experience
in professional studios must have had some influence on his recording knowledge
and skills—learning by osmosis—but Michael makes no such claim. His greatest
teacher was himself. The same principle holds true for Michael’s learning during the
digital era of recording. Despite the bounty of online resources and sheer number
of people engaged in the practice of DIY recording, Michael chooses to go it alone.
Click and consequence—DAW-based trial-and-error learning—best characterizes
Michael’s approach to music-making with his DIY recording studio.
Michael is a particularly interesting case because he has had hands-on experi-
ence with the leading recording technologies over the last four decades. He has lived
through and adapted to the technological advances in recording. Further, Michael
has maintained a DIY recording studio throughout his career, while continuing to
record in professional studios for other artists. He estimates that he has appeared
on seventy-two recordings, but this tally does not include his own recordings, of
which he says: “Mostly those were for my own edification to be honest with you. I’m
inspired to do so and I will always record my own music at home.”
From an early age, Michael engaged in recording his own songs and musical
ideas with a makeshift multitrack recorder. He became very adept at mixing his
own music and is keenly aware of mixing techniques and their impact on the overall
sound of a recording. Engaging with recording technology is a constant theme that
runs through Michael’s life. He uses it frequently, methodically, and enthusiastically.
A final product is not necessary for Michael to feel that his time is well spent; the
act of recording is in and of itself a gratifying pursuit. We have been conditioned to
think that recording produces an artifact akin to a photograph. Michael reminds us
that a recording is a noun, but recording is an action.
12
97
4
Track 2
Tara
Tara, a twenty-seven-year-old newlywed and her husband, Nathan, live in an open-

concept studio apartment in the trendy neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
In this seven-hundred-square-foot space, the kitchen, a baby grand piano, and a
king-size bed are all within a few feet of each other, but the twelve-foot-high ceilings
make it feel roomy. Draped from the ceiling like a series of hammocks hang three
blue moving blankets that Tara temporarily installed as a means of sound treatment
for her apartment-turned-recording studio.
While Nathan was away working in Europe, Tara decided that his month-long
absence would be the ideal time to record an album. Given that Tara’s recording
schedule took place over seven days, I was fortunate to catch her mid-process. I gave
Tara a video camera two days into the recording of her album, and a week later she
returned it to me packed with footage to review, having filmed eight to ten hours
per day for five days. After finishing her recordings, Tara took three days off before
resuming the process of listening and evaluating what had been done. I asked her
about her first impressions, and she was upbeat: “Yeah my first impression was that
it was better than I thought it was going to be.” As I would come to discover in my
conservations with Tara, her expectations of herself as a performer are very high,
and she held similarly high expectations for her album—an album that almost did
not happen. Until a few years ago, Tara was on a very different path, and then piv-
oted away from a career as a professional athlete.
From Scoring Points to Scoring Films: Learning

Background
Like many classically trained pianists, Tara commenced taking music lessons at
an early age, starting with the Suzuki method at age four under the tutelage of her
mother. Tara’s family moved frequently because of her father’s line of work, and as
97
98 Made in Brooklyn
a result she had a handful of different piano teachers growing up, and was exposed
to different pedagogical approaches. She estimated that she practiced a half an hour
a day—enough to learn whichever piece she was working on—but did not become
serious about piano until age twelve:
I remember every night that I played the piano. I played piano a lot but
didn’t take lessons all through high school, which was really strange when
I think back on it. I realized I could play lots of stuff. I’d hear stuff on
the radio and say, “I can play that.” For the first time I started to realize.
I opened up more to music and its accessibility.
Despite her passion for piano, Tara channeled her energies at high school toward
athletics, and she excelled at volleyball. Tara continued to play piano recreation-
ally when she could, but her commitments to volleyball dictated her life decisions,
including where she attended college. Although Tara majored in music, studying
classical piano, volleyball remained her first priority: “I didn’t have that much time
to devote to it [piano], maybe an hour or two a day . . . sometimes I would only
practice three times a week or not even.” Music remained in the backdrop as Tara
contemplated future directions after college, with the assumption that volleyball
would guide her career path.
“I was going to play pro volleyball and then I suddenly made this giant switch . . . one
of these rash emotional decisions,” she said. Tara decided that she wanted to score
music for films, and inquired about studying with a teacher in New York:
She said she would teach me. She lived in Queens, and sent me a huge
long list of everything to buy if I was serious about film scoring. I went for
my first lesson in September and I literally bought a desktop, a MIDI con-
troller, Logic [DAW], Sibelius [scoring software], East–West [orchestral
sound sample library], monitors, and a desk. I didn’t have anything. I did-
n’t own a computer. I bought tons of stuff, and I had never even met her.
“ I J U S T L E A R N E D A S I H A D TO ” : K A R A O K E C O M P O S I T I O N
AND REFLEXIVE RECORDING WITH LOGIC
Once a week Tara drove from Connecticut to Queens for an hour-long lesson, and her
homework was always the same: “She had me writing songs a lot. I wrote two songs a
week, then came back every Thursday.” Accompanying the challenge of her teacher’s
expectation of prolific songwriting, Tara was left to her own devices to assay how to
record her songs with all of the seemingly alien technology she had recently acquired:
Well, no one taught me. Any of the software that I know, no one taught me.
Logic—I just remember reading the manual. I didn’t read the whole thing,
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Track 2 : Tara 99
just starting a new project. I still feel kind of limited in it, but I’d always
learn whenever I needed to do a new thing, I just learned as I had to.
Using Logic and a MIDI keyboard with her “learned as I had to” approach, Tara
detailed the process of how she used to make her new compositions with Logic,
recording them as MIDI files and then exporting them as audio files to bring to
her lessons. Tara explained to me, “At that point I did not have a microphone so
I would just play her whatever tracks I came up with at home and sing along in her
office.” Tara described for me her karaoke approach to integrating recording into
her composition. While the recorded piano part remained unchanged, Tara’s vocal
performance could be altered with every performance. As a live performer, Tara
always accompanies herself on the piano when she sings; the karaoke composition
technique disembodies her singing from her playing. Tara explained that for the
purpose of her lessons, a recording was not meant to be a finalized performance that
could be scrutinized; it was a means of “writing down,” with the understanding that
the song was in a state of gestation, allowing her to concentrate solely on the vocal
performance when she presented a song to her teacher. In Tara’s words, “it was never
really that thought through; it was just more to present, to take to my lesson and she
understood that this wasn’t a proper demo.” In its developing stages, the vocal part
retains plasticity; lyrics can be rewritten, phrasing can be reshaped, and the melody
can be retooled. The song is in a hybrid state, half of it performed by a machine and
the other half performed by its human programmer.
Using Logic was a new experience for Tara and afforded her a method of compo-
sition that was very experimental:
I suddenly had Logic, it was very ad hoc. I didn’t feel like I knew what I was
doing, so I would just load up instruments and it’s not like I had proper
chords underneath them. When I made demos I wasn’t trying to create
piano parts or be a piano player, I was just putting anything underneath
the voice. Sometimes I think it worked and sometimes I think it didn’t.
I would just load up a drum kit and play things in without even know-
ing basic drum patterns. I almost don’t know what I did. I was just trying
things out. I really was just trying to write two songs a week, whatever that
meant. I would write melodies first, and then I would journal about what it
should be about, and then I would put things underneath it.
Tara used the phrases “ad hoc” and “I was just trying things out” to describe her
approach to writing songs with Logic. Tara described a “vertical approach” to com-
position,1 integrating composition, arrangement, and recording into a singular act.
1

Folkestad, Hargreaves, and Lindström, “Compositional Strategies in Computer-
Based
Music-Making.”
100 Made in Brooklyn
I prefer the term reflexive recording, because it better describes the act of record-
ing something and playing it back in order to determine next steps. Don Lebler
explains, “Recording also allows a performer to reflect on a performance after the
act, and repeatedly if necessary, allowing a greater degree of reflection than would
otherwise be possible.”2 In Tara’s description she said, “I was just putting any-
thing underneath the voice. Sometimes I think it worked and sometimes I think
it didn’t”—evidence of the reflexive recording approach. Reflexive recording is
only possible because digital audio can be edited, manipulated, and saved in infi-
nite incarnations. I asked Tara if she could play me a song that exemplified this
approach to her songwriting; she opened up iTunes, pressed play on a song, and
started explaining it to me.
This is an old version of the song and it’s not really thought through as
much harmonically. I see this as a really over-the-top song, like I’m pictur-
ing the music video, like at a jungle gym or with a marching band, roller
skates, and weird stuff . . . This is a good example of me with ideas without
a framework. Even rhythmically it sounds like a giant mess when every-
thing starts coming in. I didn’t have as clear of an idea of what I’m doing,
but actually it’s sometimes fun to think about the ideas I had, really raw
ideas . . . It’s so home-done. I put in these beats, and then the snaps are
off, and then everything goes to waste. In a sense that is still the original
feel I have for that song, so it’s important to look back and see this is the
idea . . . This song has many versions, I changed the lyrics, I got really car-
ried away, and changed the lyrics, and made them really cheerleader-and
sports-themed; too carried away.
The key point from Tara’s description of composing this song is that Logic facili-
tates, even encourages, the kind of experimenting and recording of “really raw ideas”
that are rooted in sound. Elements that are not easily notated in a score are accessed
in seconds with the click of a mouse in a DAW like Logic because it provides giga-
bytes of prerecorded samples for the user. Tara described her song as “not really
thought through,” “ideas without a framework,” and “a giant mess,” and yet through
the cacophony of snaps, boings, and whistles, I can envision the jungle gym, march-
ing band, and roller skates.
During this recording process Tara’s music was in a state of flux as she performed
actions such as adding, deleting, muting, boosting, cutting, pasting, adjusting, and
so on, but eventually these actions lost their momentum and grinded to a halt until
the song was frozen temporarily, entering a pseudo-state of hibernation. What is
particularly unique about DAW-based composition is that it allows the user to
2
Lebler, “Popular Music Pedagogy,” 195.
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Track 2 : Tara 101
reboot the music and explore new possibilities between remixing and reimagining.
The composer can endlessly edit and rigorously revise one version or create several
versions, just as producer Brian Eno (U2, Coldplay) observed with tape-based mul-
titrack recording: “You could make a piece over an extended period of time . . . It
started being a process that you could engage in over months, even years.”3 Despite
having engaged in this DAW-dependent practice, for the making of her album
Tara elected to pursue a more traditional approach, reminiscent of Aldon Music as
described in chapter 2.
Walking and Writing: Distinguishing the Song

from the Recording
Tara’s process of realizing her goals for her album entailed six distinct stages: writ-
ing, recording preparation, piano recording, vocal recording, comping, and mix-
ing. On the whole, Tara did not integrate recording into her songwriting process.
Instead, first the songs were written, and then once this was complete the record-
ing phase could commence. Tara’s songwriting often started without her primary
instrument, the piano; she prefers to lace up her running shoes and “write” while
she walks. For Tara, the Williamsburg Bridge provides more than a means to get
from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side of Manhattan—it is the platform for her
songwriting. Tara explained her process of walking and writing:
If I’m really trying to write a new song, I usually go for a walk. So I often
walk the bridge in this area . . . I find if I’m walking . . . I’m relaxed. It hap-
pens naturally; I’ll just sing a lot or hum little things, or think about things
I want to write about . . . If you were walking with me I would at least be
singing lightly . . . In general I do lyrics first, or melody and lyrics at the
same time.
It is only after Tara has developed her initial melodies and written some rough
sketches of lyrics in her journal that she proceeds to her instrument to write the
accompanying music: “Once I have something established that I like, then I find I’ll
go to the piano and work with that.” To assist with her writing, Tara started taking pop
piano lessons because as she explained, “I just realized that when it came to pop-style
I didn’t really know what I was doing.” Armed with new knowledge and skills in pop
composition, Tara prepared for the recording of her album by finalizing her songs:
I basically picked twelve or thirteen songs, and then had started writing
formal arrangements for them on piano and practicing a lot of singing,
3
As cited in Crane and Baccigaluppi, “Brian Eno,” 40.
actually figuring out what melody I sing . . . basically nailing down the
melodies and a piano part.
Using Sibelius software, Tara wrote scores for each song. While technically not a
part of the recording of her album, Tara was reliant on recording technology to cre-
ate her scores. She used an eighty-eight-key M-Audio MIDI piano controller con-
nected to a Digidesign MBox2 to record her piano parts into Logic on either her
iMac or MacBook Pro. Despite experiencing some technical issues that caused her
to “freak out” on occasion, Tara managed to assemble her scores and committed
them to memory by practicing, on average, four hours a day for two months, in
preparation for her anticipated recording.
Packing Blankets and Piano Tuners: Converting

the Home to Studio
Tara looked into professional studios to record her album, and she even considered
a studio in Oregon until her husband gave her a different idea. She recalled, “Nathan
mentioned that some people just do this in their apartment—like, David Gray’s first
album was in his apartment—so I started thinking about that. I’ll just work with
what I have.”
Preparation (Saturday and Monday Morning)

To prepare for her recording, Tara took a week off work and hired an acquaintance,
Felix, to assist her. Additionally, Tara hired a professional audio engineer, Tony, as a
consultant to evaluate her apartment’s suitability for recording. In her journal Tara
wrote about this process:
Felix arrived at 3 p.m. We set up his interface and got a little situated. Tony
arrived and began to take command. He immediately commented on
the room and assumed I heard what he heard. I told him not to assume,
because I am often focused on other things besides acoustics. He recom-
mended acoustic treatment but said that I would need a lot of it—and it
can be expensive, not to mention ugly.
The “interface” is a Presonus FireStudio Project (Figure 4.1) that connects to Tara’s
MacBook Pro. It can record up to eight sound sources simultaneously.
Tony provided some specific advice on acoustic treatment, which Tara
explained: “Tony suggested to push the piano against the bed and told me that this
space was really problematic because of all the noise, that constant buzzing, He said
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Track 2 : Tara 103
Figure 4.1 Felix working on a Logic session. The Presonus Firestudio audio interface sits to
his right with four microphone cables plugged into it.
the room was super alive.” After providing Tara with some guidance on how to opti-
mally set up her apartment as a recording studio, Tony spent four hours with Felix
testing out different possible microphone techniques, which Tara documented in
her journal:
We began to do mic setup. The Sennheisers in the piano. After a few takes,
we decided to take the lid off the piano entirely, and push the piano right
against the bed. The bed is apparently the best thing going on in our apart-
ment. We turned on the high [pass] filters and had the mics exaggerated
[angled] out to help the stereo effect. We tried a room mic at Nathan’s
bedside table area. No good. We tried one about seven feet away from the
piano. No good. We tried one about thirteen feet from piano. Good. We
did many, many, takes, and he developed some standard EQ settings for
the three mics. We’re now using those as starting points.
HOME STUDIO HEADACHES

I asked Tara about her involvement in the process of setting up the microphones for
recording the piano. Her explanation made it clear that she did not perceive herself
as being active in the decision-making, choosing to rely on the expertise of Tony

and Felix:
Well, I didn’t make any of those decisions really. We first started micing
the piano with the lid on it, and it was getting tons of phasing from the lid,
so then we took the lid off and that seemed to help a lot, plus the strings
are pretty noisy with the pedal. The pedal dampers are noisy so that was
bouncing off. We tried a room mic in that corner and a few other places,
and basically Tony thought it wasn’t making much of a difference. I wasn’t
making those decisions.
Tara delegated the decisions of microphone technique and placement to Felix and
Tony, but her description demonstrates that she was able to identify sound prob-
lems such as “phasing,” and reflection issues (“bouncing off ”). Alec Nisbett pro-
vides a succinct and clear explanation of phase:
Phase is a term used in describing subdivisions of one wavelength of a

tone . . . The mathematical jargon is not important to the microphone user,
but the concept of waves being in or out of phase is vital. Signals that are
in phase reinforce each other; those that are out of phase subtract from or
tend to cancel each other.4
While Tara may not have been able to describe the sound that she wanted, she was
able to identify aural characteristics that she wanted to eliminate or improve in the
sound of the piano:
I was more frustrated with the piano. It sounded like a home recording
because it sounded like it wasn’t a proper piano. You can really hear it. It’s
one thing to hear the pedal damper, which you can hear in all of my songs,
which is authentic, but this, like, knocking noise did it for me. Plus, it just
felt not like how I hear it playing. I couldn’t even hear the real articulation
of the bass part. The bass was getting left out initially—there was a lot in
the middle register. I need to hear the bass part to know when to enter and
how to articulate.
Capturing the sound of an instrument can be an elusive quest because it entails mul-
tiple factors. In Tara’s description, the first attempt at improving the overall sound
of the piano was adjusting the positioning of the microphones. Julio d’Escriván pro-
vides an insightful explanation of why microphone placement is not a simple task:
4
Nisbett, The Use of Microphones, 14.
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Track 2 : Tara 105
A microphone on its own is rather like one ear on its own with no head, yet
by combining microphones we can build an “image” of the sound we are
trying to capture and this is, of course, where all subjectivity comes in and
why recording is an art form.5
Another factor in the overall sound of the recording is the quality of the instrument
itself. To remedy the problematic sounds of the piano, Tara hired “these big Russian
guys,” extending the preparation phase into another day. To further improve the
acoustics of her apartment-turned-recording studio, Tara and Felix strategically
hung blue moving blankets from the ceiling (Figure 4.2). Tara’s journal entry sum-
marizes the day’s activities:
I’m fairly exhausted. Drove through the Hasidic neighborhood and picked
up Felix in Crown Heights (blankets and acoustic panels also). I stood on
a chair on top of our kitchen table and threw a string attached to a bolt
over the pipes on our rafters and began to hang packing blankets. It’s amaz-
ing what you do when no one else is there/willing/able to do it. We also
hung blankets on the sidewalls and above the bed. The Russians came and
tuned. They also told me that my piano was kind of a toy—and okay for
children—but not for a professional pianist. They really went to town—as
the pictures show.
I appreciate how Tara took the time to document the hours of careful planning
and preparation that go into the making of a DIY recording. In a professional studio,
typically an intern would be assigned the task of picking up items for the studio such
as blankets and baffles, and a maintenance person would be responsible for hanging
acoustic treatment from the ceiling. In the budget-conscious DIY studio, the musi-
cian has no choice but to do it all.
Hypercritical: In Pursuit of the Pristine Piano

Performance (Monday Afternoon, Tuesday, and
Wednesday)
On day two of seven, with the apartment set up and the piano freshly tuned, Tara
and Felix transitioned to the next phase of tracking, specifically, recording the piano.
Tara managed to record three of her songs on the piano, but noted some difficulties
in her journal that evening about the early goings: “All the noises and trains make
it difficult. I’m not sold on the way Felix organizes the tracks, but it’s a combined
5
d’Escriván, Music Technology, 48.
Figure 4.2 “The big Russian guys” tune the piano. Felix looks on standing beneath the blue
moving blankets that he hung with Tara.
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Track 2 : Tara 107
effort.” It was a long day for Tara, and her final sentence captures the blend of
exhaustion and optimism that she felt: “I’m exhausted, and my back hurts . . . but
am feeling better than yesterday about things.”
F I N D I N G F A U LT S W I T H F E L I X
Tuesday was the first full day of recording piano and Tara’s journal entry both
describes and captures the feeling of the nine-hour session:
It was a rough start. We did “Fire Drill” again at the beginning, and I was-
n’t playing well in time. It’s a challenging song to begin with, but I wasn’t
properly warmed up. I continued to get aggravated, some, at things that
were being deleted. But I think we’ve started to norm into a bit of a system.
Basically we do at least five full takes. I figure it will mean I’ll need to go
through and make decisions about sections (I wish that was being done
along the way), and there’s not really a guarantee that we have everything
down, but I think I have some sense of the parts I have or still need.
Tara spoke of her aggravation toward Felix regarding his judgment of what takes
were kept and what takes were deleted. Because Felix served as the engineer of the
project, he was afforded the position to save or discard tracks as he saw fit. Tara had
hoped everything she recorded would be saved, but Felix acted as the judge, jury,
and executioner of what was deemed worth saving. She described how the act of
Felix deleting a track impacted her piano performances on proceeding takes:
For me, if we spent ten hours on three songs I want to have ten hours of
recordings . . . I suppose for him, especially since they’re not his songs, he
would like to see things his way, at the end of the day, a clear one take . . . That
actually threw me mentally sometimes, I’d look back and he would erase the
take we just did. I would get frustrated and I would actually mess up and that’s
my own mental weakness. We never fought or anything, but personally there
was some tension sometimes or I would get frustrated. That happened and
I could tell it was getting to my mental state. I could tell it directly affected me
a little. It could be him; it could be me not being able to get over it.
In my final interview with Tara, I followed up with her again on this issue, asking
what she thought about working with Felix on her album. Her explanation demon-
strates that she had a preconceived idea of how the recording process would work
and it did not align with Felix’s:
That dynamic—he did mention it at the end of the week—I think it takes
time getting to know how someone works. He found it surprising how
I wanted to work and vice versa. I thought by the end we had each other
figured out. He didn’t think we would have so many takes to go through. If
you didn’t like it you would just scratch it and we would just start from that
point, and that’s not at all what I was thinking.
The tension that Tara felt between herself and Felix helps to explain her journal
entry from that evening. It is evident that the day’s activities took their toll:
My brain is tired. I like the stress and pressure of having to do take after
take (all with the expectation to be without error), but it gets exhausting
too. I feel like now I’m kind of in the swing of it, which is nice, but also a bit
like free-falling. I can’t really tell how things are going anymore and I don’t
know if I have it in me to step back enough to try and tell at this point.
I think just keep going.
Allan Watson suggests that when a performer and a producer disagree on the qual-
ity of a recorded take it creates tension in the studio: “There is an inherent difficulty
around critiquing a performance whilst at the same time maintaining the confidence
of the performer and avoiding upset.”6 Since both Tara and Felix assumed producer
roles, they both had to keep their composure, and expend emotional labor to ensure
that the recording sessions continued productively. Putting her frustrations aside,
Tara continued to work with Felix, adhering to their rigorous recording schedule.
Recording the Piano for “Chesterfield” (Wednesday)

Tara’s journal documented that she recorded the piano parts for three songs on
Wednesday, one of which is the focus of this discussion, “Chesterfield”:
We started late and ended early. I’m hoping this left enough time for Felix
to edit/comp three tunes so vocals can begin Thursday. We did “Get
Well,” “Chesterfield,” and “Danish Dynasty.” These are three that I haven’t
practiced as much. I was able to get in the zone for the most part. The con-
stant running eighth notes in “Chesterfield” can be difficult if not totally
relaxed.
Tara’s stimulated recall interview,7 and journal entries were crucial to documenting
her case because the video camera footage is almost static, like a still image. The
6
Watson, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio, 57.
7
Lyle, “Stimulated Recall.” In a stimulated recall interview participants watch previously recorded
videos of themselves engaged in an activity, and then answer the researcher’s questions related to the
109
Track 2 : Tara 109
Figure 4.3 The camera view of Tara playing the piano and Felix engineering.
video camera was placed on a nearby table, and provides a profile view of Tara play-
ing at her piano while Felix sits at a desk watching the computer screen (Figure 4.3).
Together, Tara and I watched the video footage of her recording the piano part
for “Chesterfield.” I hoped to gain some added insight from her (note that I have
italicized the conversations I had with Tara while we watched videos together in the
stimulated recall sessions to help distinguish this dialogue from the moments when
she speaks in the previously recorded videos).
Adam: So when the video starts you’re already playing; did you just turn the camera on?
Tara: I think the first day I may have forgotten to turn it on right away, but I have a
feeling—since we have three long videos here—this is very near the beginning of the
session. I would have warmed up or something.
Adam: Are you recording at this point?
Tara: Yeah, I think so. I can see that little recording ‘grey’ thing there [points to the com-
puter screen in the video frame].
In the video Tara said to Felix, “All right, let’s stop and punch in at chorus 1B,” and
Felix responded, “All right, I’ll give you two bars.” Although Tara handed over the
excerpt. François Tochon explains this approach is necessary because “it is unfeasible to interview
people about their thinking while they are engaged in action, the interview time is postponed to the
moment they are able to view their own actions on a monitor . . . Viewing past actions is a way to
remember one’s past thoughts with greater validity than recall done without the benefit of video feed-
back stimulation” (“From Video Cases to Video Pedagogy,” 59).
reins of engineering to Felix, Tara provided specific engineering instructions to

Felix, as she explained:
I’d tell him where to put markers so that when we would have to do restarts, and
then in the comping stuff, it’s much clearer. So, if there is a noise here, let’s just
take it from the 6/4 bar, or let’s just take it from the prechorus.
Sitting beside me watching the video, Tara laughed as she watched herself stretch
her hands on camera. In the video, Tara resumed playing the piano. As she listened
to the steady click of a metronome in her headphones, partially obscured by a micro-
phone stand, Tara rocked slowly back and forth as she played “Chesterfield.” Her
eyes were closed and she appeared to be in a Zen state, focusing solely on the task at
hand. It was difficult to discern what Felix was doing, but he appeared to be equally
focused; listening to the performance on his headphones and staring intently at the
MacBook Pro’s screen, and watching the audio waveforms take shape as they were
recorded. Tara abruptly stopped playing piano, as if halting a speeding vehicle, and
exclaimed, “I wasn’t thinking.” “What?” asked Felix. Tara repeated herself, “I wasn’t
thinking.” “Oh,” laughed Felix.
Adam: You stopped that one, what didn’t you like?

Tara: My rhythm was a little off. [Tara emitted a subtle laugh of amusement.] So, this
was a new way of playing piano in this song. It’s not that hard—it’s just kind of like a
pick-guitar type, imitative of guitar-style playing, so I just feel like if you’re not totally
even you can just really mess up a lot.
Adam: So that’s why you’re stopping yourself, you don’t have that feel?
Tara: Yeah. That time I got it.
Seven stops and starts later, Tara completed her first take of “Chesterfield.”
Sometimes she stopped herself because she wasn’t happy with how she executed
a passage, and in hindsight, Tara thought she may have been hypercritical of her
piano-playing in the moment, commenting:
“In a sense it’s a mistake, but when I watch this it’s not that big of a deal,” and
“It’s funny because what I just did was really, really, minor.”
Tara’s actions are demonstrative of Erick Clarke’s argument that recording drives
the performer to adopt a perfectionist attitude toward their playing:
Repeatability and semi-permanence mean that the slips and risks that
either go unnoticed in live performance, or are quickly forgotten, have
been regarded (rightly or wrongly) as unacceptable in a recording. And so
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Track 2 : Tara 111
the drive towards technical perfection begins: fidelity of the medium and

fidelity to the score.8
“ T R A I N S A N D S T U F F ” : B AT T L I N G E N V I R O N M E N TA L N O I S E
Contributing to the start-and-stop nature of the recording sessions was the uncon-
trollable factor of unwanted extraneous environmental sounds. A reoccurring scene
in the videos shows Felix interrupting a take, suspending Tara’s playing with a com-
ment along the lines of “there was a noise” or “that thing,” referring to environ-
mental sounds that bled into the recording and tarnished the otherwise pristine
performance.
Adam: I didn’t realize how big of an issue that kind of thing was. It was hard to hear and
I wasn’t always sure why you were stopping because you weren’t happy with it. But it’s
these environmental noises.
Tara: Especially because there is just a lot of noise with trains and stuff, especially like
the endings of songs, like when you know there is nothing to be heard but the sound of
the piano fading out. That sort of thing is when it really became a problem just because
during a great take or ending there would be a train. You’d have to do it again. There
was one time when we went upstairs and asked a guy to turn down the music—he
started blaring music upstairs in the middle of the day—so he was really nice about
it. And one day we had to quit because they were reflooring an apartment. It was like
a chainsaw.
Susan Tomes avers that recording makes musicians hypercritical of their perfor-
mance and the noises of the environment: “We become extremely conscious not
only of our playing, but of every little cough and scrape, page-turn, pedal noise, and
squeak of the piano stool.”9
FELIX AS PRODUCER? DEFINING ROLES IN THE

RECORDING PROCESS
Aside from identifying unwanted noises, Felix intermittently assumed the role of
a multitasking producer similar to what Phil Ramone details: “Because he or she
is involved in nearly every aspect of a production, the producer serves as friend,
cheerleader, psychologist, taskmaster, court jester, troubleshooter, secretary,
traffic cop, judge, and jury rolled into one.”10 The following excerpt of dialogue
8
Clarke, “The Impact of Recording on Listening,” 53.
9
Tomes, “Learning to Live with Recording,” 10.
10
Ramone with Granata, Making Records, 15.
exemplifies Felix serving the role of psychologist as he questioned Tara after her
first complete take:
Felix: How do you feel the little things were working out last time?
Tara: Tempo wise or . . .
Felix: Yeah, timing wise.
Tara: Um, I don’t know. I’m trying it out for the first time, I think we should do a
few more full takes and then I’ll see if I should use that thing maybe.
Felix: All right.
While watching this excerpt of the video, Tara interjected and explained to me what
their conversation was about:
Tara: Oh, so there’s this little fill that I was doing on the piano that I was basically, I was
playing two different rhythmic versions of it in the same song, so I think one was sound-
ing like a mistake.
Adam: To him?
Tara: I think maybe. I can tell that I was slightly offended when he asked, “How do I feel
about that take?” I think I took that as, “That sounds weird,” you know? I’m trying to
think of what version I ended up taking. Should I keep going?
Tara resumed play on the video and the dialogue between her and Felix continued:
Tara: What do you think?
Felix: No, it’s beautiful. Maybe it wasn’t that confident. The first time it was great,
second time it was a bit sloppy.
Tara paused the video again and provided some insight:
Tara: Yeah so that’s the thing, he thinks the first time is great and the second one was-
n’t great, which is probably a good point. It was just that the second one was like an
anticipated rhythm so if you’re expecting the first riff then it was like, “Oh, she flubbed
that one up.”
Adam: When actually it was a variation?
Tara: It was a good point he made even though I didn’t make a mistake, it’s probably
not a good idea to make a small variation of this little riff because then it sounds like a
mistake, apparently.
I sensed a tone of mild annoyance in Tara’s voice when she finished her sentence
with “apparently,” but I think that she was genuine in her appreciation for Felix’s
113
Track 2 : Tara 113
feedback. As Tara explained, any residual irritation she harbored could be attributed
to the fact that she and Felix were spending long days together:
I mean it is a lot of time with one person so you get that feeling of a week,
or even after every day I needed to clear my head. When you’re used to
being by yourself a lot, you just need to go for a walk.
Further, Tara’s journal entry points to the fact that she relished the opportunity to
execute her music at the high standard that she sets for herself. Gone were the grum-
blings about Felix, replaced by a revitalized spirit of enthusiasm for challenges that
the recording process presents:
I find that hours of trying to do perfect takes is very exhausting, but it also
feeds me. I love this sort of thing and can tell now that I’ve missed this
sort of “work.” Perhaps this is the sort of situation where I’ll be able to
find that “cut and dry” critique I miss from not being in a sport. I’ve often
said that the switch to music and particularly composition, has been chal-
lenging, because it is so subjective. In sports you always know if you’re
good or not, strong or not, won or lost. But in this situation, I’m start-
ing to love the objective parts about it: Did I play perfectly in time? Can
I sing in pitch? Can I make it through the song without a noticeable mis-
take? Maybe being an artist or performer—or at least that pursuit—has
the balance.
Technical Difficulties (Thursday)

The fifth day of recording was intended to be a full day of singing, but technical
problems combined with construction in her building prevented Tara and Felix
from being able to record. “We had some problems,” she said. “We attempted vocals
for a while, but kept getting latency issues. Then construction started on the floor
and we had to call it a day around 2:30 p.m.”
Refusing to let a snag in their plans impede their progress, Tara and Felix
used the rest of the day to prepare for the remaining two days of recording.
Tara’s journal reveals that she wished she had the ability to do the comping
independently:
Felix had lots of comping to do anyways. I took notes and did comping
notes for six songs. I should just learn to do comps better and edits and
fades, it can’t be that hard. Anyways, hopefully the notes make sense to
him and he’s able to get some sleep. Right now, everything is still basically
in one session. I need to learn a better system of organization! Tired, and
should rest my voice/drink tea . . .
Manufacturing Vocal Perfection: Repeated Takes

and Comping (Friday)
In Friday’s journal Tara wrote: “Began around 11:40 a.m. My voice didn’t feel too
hot, but we did five or six songs anyways. Actually six or seven.” Amid the hours of
singing, “Chesterfield” was second on the docket. After cueing up a new video file
on my MacBook, Tara and I settled in our chairs to watch the vocal recording ses-
sion of “Chesterfield” together. The video captured a side profile of Tara as she sang.
In the video’s frame, Tara stood in front of a white wooden baffle with grey jagged
foam on one side that partially surrounded her. Tara explained, “Felix brought that.
It keeps the sound from the outside. We just tried to make it as closed as possible.”
Tara sang directly against a pop filter, a device that reduces sibilance and plosives
such as the “p” and “s” consonants. The pop filter was placed six inches in front of the
microphone. Tara mentioned that she tried out a few different vocal mics, but ended
up using one belonging to her husband. Enclosing the back of the microphone was
a concave-shaped perforated steel baffle that Tara referred to as a vocal windscreen
(Figure 4.4):
Figure 4.4 Tara sings into the mic. In front of the mic is the pop filter and behind it is the
windscreen.
115
Track 2 : Tara 115
I bought that vocal windscreen, it actually worked really well. It makes a lit-
tle sound booth as long as you sing into it, it really eliminates everything. It
attaches to a mic stand. Felix thought it worked amazingly. This thing made
the vocals. We didn’t have a noise problem with the vocals. Maybe the tiniest
bit and there’s a little bleeding and stuff like that, but this thing really helped.
With the piano if there was any train we’d have to start the whole section over.
With this if there was a train in the middle of the song, you’d never know.
We cued up the video to the point before Tara started singing “Chesterfield,” and
after finishing the first song of the day, “Sunburn,” Tara’s conversation with Felix
revealed that she was feeling nervous about her ability to sing all day:
Tara: Well, I don’t know if it’s perfect, but I think we should keep going.

Felix: Yeah.
Tara: Because I don’t know how long it will last.
Felix: Yeah, it will be a long day of singing. You’re doing great. If I notice something,
I’ll let you know. All right, so can you tell me what one you want to do next?
Tara: Let’s do Chesterfield. And looking at the list they all feel challenging right now.
Felix: Really?!
Tara (mimicking going through a list): I don’t know if I can sing that one,
I don’t know if I can sing that one . . .
Felix: Come on!
Tara explained that there was a rationale behind the singing order of her songs:
It was mostly vocally the range you know, so the first time I sang I made
sure it wasn’t like a song that I really wanted my voice all there for.
In contrast to the nervous trepidation Tara expressed to Felix before singing

“Chesterfield,” Tara clarified that singing this song was not as demanding vocally as
some of her other songs:
It’s not that challenging of a song, I think. I can sing it pretty lightly. There
was a couple of songs that I didn’t get what I wanted. I’m not sure that this
is one of them. Like one of those songs that on a good day you can get the
sound you want, and I’m just not good enough to consistently get it.
The origins of the song “Chesterfield” are interesting because Tara started writing it
on a family trip as she explained:
This happens to be one of those songs where I saved this random piece
of paper literally . . . I literally had this piece of paper in my makeup bag
for two years. It was one of those things that would be an interesting idea
sometime.
I asked Tara is she still had it and she pulled out a Black n’ Red notebook and
showed me the scrap of paper. Tara is an immaculate record keeper and proceeded
to show me five more pages of lyric sketches that were eventually whittled down to
the final draft.
T E C H N I C A L D E TA I L S
Before the singing of “Chesterfield” commenced, Tara and Felix went over some
technical details. Tara asked, “Is my proximity to the mic okay?” Felix strolled back
to check her distance from the microphone and deemed it good. Felix then walked
out of frame to take his post at the computer and announced, “All right, here we go.”
Tara confirmed her readiness with an “mmm hmm,” and listened to the playback in
her headphones. “Would you mind cutting the click?” Tara requested. She started
to sing the first few lines of the song: “Stay a few more minutes before you go. I’ll wait
right here on the shoulder of your chesterfield,” before interrupting herself: “Um, let’s
start one more time, could I have a little bit more piano?” Felix proceeded by going
through a technical checklist with Tara, “All right, and the vocals are good?” “The
vocals are fine,” Tara retorted matter-of-factly. Making sure, Felix confirmed, “Just
piano?” “Yeah,” followed Tara’s instant approval. Felix started to raise the volume of
the piano in Tara’s headphones asking, “Is this okay? More?” Tara motioned upward
with her thumb, the universal signal for “more” until she was content with the piano
level and informed Felix, “Okay, that’s good.” Tara answered Felix’s final item on
the checklist, “You don’t need a click at all, right?” with a nod, and once again she
resumed singing:
Stay a few more minutes before you go. I’ll wait right here on the shoulder
of your chesterfield.
S E L F -C O N S C I O U S N E S S I N R E C O R D I N G
As Tara sang, her eyes were closed and her posture was upright. Her right hand
grasped the fingers of her left hand and she made a circular dipping motion with her
hands, as if summoning an imaginary object from the ground. Pointing at the com-
puter screen, I asked Tara:
Adam: What’s this kind of thing?

Tara: I actually was conscious of it. That’s like, trying to pull up if I know I’m going to be
flat. I was conscious of it, but I don’t necessarily think it helps. I knew I was doing that
a lot. Now this is much stranger to watch [than playing piano].
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Track 2 : Tara 117
Adam: Why?
Tara: Well part of it is I think it looks unnatural and I think it is unnatural because
I never sing like that. You know, you never sing in a booth without playing anything
or hearing a band or feeling, but oh well. I know I feel relaxed because I look weird,
I didn’t feel self-conscious.
Adam: Did you ever think about the camera?
Tara: Yeah a couple of times. Not much, but I guess a little bit. But not thinking about
and really doing anything about it.
“ G OT TA H I T T H AT ” : S I N G I N G P E R F E C T I O N
Compared to the piano recording of “Chesterfield,” the vocal recording took consid-
erably less time, partly because the recordings were not interrupted by environmen-
tal sounds. Yet Tara’s drive for perfection spurred her on to get perfect vocal takes.
After completing the vocals for “Chesterfield” in two halves, Tara took a drink of hot
water from her mug and muttered, “Ah, gotta hit that,” and repeatedly sang the three
notes outlining an Eb-minor triad: Bb4, Eb4, and Gb4 with the lyrics “ches-ter-field.”
The leap down of a perfect fifth from the Bb4 to the Eb4 gave her some problems, as
she had a tendency to sing the Eb slightly flat. Tara walked out of the camera’s frame,
but she could be heard playing the notes at the piano and singing them back trying
to match the pitches precisely. Tara commented to me that singing perfectly in tune
is a point of pride for her: “To me, if I hit a note really in tune, but it wasn’t the best
take, I would be happy about how I hit that note the way I wanted.” This sentiment
was echoed in Tara’s journal: “I really like this sort of thing more and more, because
it’s motivating for me—I want to sing better, more in tune, play more accurately.”
Tara and Felix took a quick recess while she sipped from her mug and rehearsed
“ches-ter-field” a few more times. When recording resumed Tara sped through
“Chesterfield,” and marched onto the next song. In total Tara sang six songs in one
day—impressive for someone who did not think she had it in her when the day
began. The challenges she encountered recording vocals are not uncommon, as
Producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi) affirms: “I truly believe that
recording vocals is the hardest skill to master in all of recording.”11
Comping (Saturday)
There was a tone of relief in Tara’s journal entry from Saturday:
The apartment is almost back to normal. In a hurry, I’ve kind of tried to

clean up. I feel like I do after a trip—that even though I want to relax,
11
As cited in Hatschek, The Golden Moment, 184.
I want to put everything back in order and really be finished and just move
on to the next thing. But I remember the importance of giving thanks for
something that’s happened and taking a break from it, and celebrating it.
We finished the vocals today.
With the vocals done and the recording stage completed in a furiously paced seven
days, Tara was cognizant that there was more work to be done:
I have my work cut out for me with regards to making comping notes.
I wish that there had been more of a system in place and/or that Felix had
been very clear with takes and what he was using. But I don’t think he’s
used to working with so many different takes/tracks. And I don’t have a
lot of experience with how to organize projects in that regard. So, I think
the best bet will be to take tomorrow off and maybe Monday too, but then
listen and do comping notes right away—before the projects become too
distant from my memory and ears. I’m going to do very rough bounces
right now of the songs we did today, and the songs with harmony. Felix
thought he could do comps in about a week. I’ll then need to decide on a
mixer, next step, etc.
Understandably, after the recording was finished Tara was in need of some respite
from the project, but she quickly resumed after a few days’ rest: “I didn’t want to lis-
ten to it for three days, and then I listened to it for a week starting that Wednesday
and did comping notes. I didn’t do the comping but I did really detailed notes and
sent them to Felix.” Working for anywhere from two to seven hours a day for seven
days, Tara made detailed notes on the recordings and sent them to Felix.
To start this process, Tara first made a set of notes for comping the piano and
the vocals. These notes were prepared separately. To make these notes, Tara meticu-
lously listened to every recorded take and selected her favorite performances. With
a cut and paste mentality, Tara’s notes to Felix instructed him on which part of which
take to keep and join to another take. Her notes on the piano takes were color-coded
in purple, yellow, rust, blue, dark blue, and green, because in Logic, Felix assigned
each new take a different color (Figure 4.5). Conceptually, the song is a rainbow of
Tara’s takes; only the bright moments are presented and the dull moments remain
obscured. “V” stands for verse, “C” for chorus, and “Pre” for prechorus:
• Intro: Purple
• V1: Yellow (but see if bar 8 can be fixed or replaced because the timing is off
• V1B: Rust or Blue (but see if it has too much room noise**)
• Pre 1: Rust
• C1A: dark blue for bars 18 and 19; yellow for the rest of C1 or yellow for
all of it
119
Track 2 : Tara 119
Figure 4.5 Screenshot of the “Chesterfield” Logic session.
• C1B: Purple
• C1C: Purple
• Intro 2: Purple
• V2A: Yellow
• V2B: bars 36 and 37–Yellow; bars 38 and 39–Green
• Pre 2: Green
• C2A: Green
• C2B: Rust
• C2C: Rust or Purple
• Outro: Rust take 4 or Purple take 5
• ** the ritard is better in the purple take, but there’s a little noise in purple. Maybe
rust is better
Tara prepared a similar set of instructions for comping the vocals, but they were
more specific, indicating to Felix when to merge one audio file with another file at a
precise beat. In some instances, Tara instructed Felix to use only two bars of a take
at a time. The color-coded system was not employed, instead each vocal recording
had a number and in some cases a take assigned to it (e.g., Vox 3 Take 4). In total,
the final vocal rendition of “Chesterfield” included at least six different takes that
will end up sounding as one seamless take.
• Bar 1 to bar 19 beat 2–Vox 1

• bar 19 beat 2 (“on the shoulder”) to C1B: Vox 6 take 2
• C1B: to bar 27: Vox 1 (but the word “chesterfield” in bar 26 either needs tuned or
take the phrase “on your chesterfield” (basically around bar 26) from track 8 pink
• bar 27 and 28: Vox 5
• V2A and V2B: Vox 1
• bar 40: Vox 4 (just for the phrase “time is running out on us”)
• middle of bar 41 (“waiting for you silently”)—end of bar 45: Vox 1
• bar 46: take Vox 6 Take 2 from the C1 and put it here beginning with “anymore”
up until bar 49.
• Bar 49 and 50: Vox 1
• bar 51 to end: Vox 3 Take 4
Felix followed Tara’s instructions and sent her the comped files she requested after
a day’s work:
He sent me three comps on the piano, three audio files for each song on
the piano. Then he sent me a tuned vocals and an untuned vocals, so I just
listened to both I guess. I thought my tuning was okay, but I know that
there were some parts that weren’t.
The process of editing continued with Tara listening to what Felix had done and
making more notes. Her notes start with general points that apply to all of the songs:
• Noise in the beginning of the vocals. Some have it and some don’t have it. In
general, I would want the tracks to be as clean and succinct as possible before
delivering them to be mixed.
• If you have time, could you get rid of the noise that’s in the beginning of the lead
vocals?
• Should all the tracks end in the same place?
• There is a lot of noise in the vocal tracks (between verse and chorus, etc.). I think
that should be fixed before being delivered to a mixer (as in cleaning up the dead
space where I’m not singing).
• Regarding the tuning, it seems when I play the tuned versions and the untuned
versions that it produces quite a funny sound. I assume this means that in the
tuned versions, most of the notes have been tuned slightly? Do you have an esti-
mate of what percentage of the vocals you tuned in the “tuned versions”?
• We need to figure out why those tuned vocal tracks won’t import. Hmmm—
strange that they imported for some songs but not for others.
Tara explained to me that in comping it is critical to have the audio files prepared
as best as possible for the mixing stage: “In delivering them to a mixer if there was
a lot of pops, like literally pops in the edit and stuff like that . . . they’d be sending
them back.”
121
Track 2 : Tara 121
In addition to the general notes, Tara produced two sets of notes specific to each
song. Her notes on “Chesterfield” gave very specific references, citing measures in
the music where the errors occur. Additionally, she provided directions to Felix on
how to go about correcting these mistakes:
CHESTERFIELD—Notes:
• There’s a noticeable vocal pop in bar 26 after “chesterfield.”

• The C2, measure 45 is for some reason a bit late. . . . not quite sure why—but
you can take Vox 1 from the middle of measure 41 to end of measure 50, and
that should fix it. But let me know what you think—the main thing is that
measure 45 seems to be out of time.
With her “I’s” dotted and “T’s” crossed, Tara did everything in her power to ensure
that her seven days of recording represented the best of her performances. At last
she was ready to move into the final stage, mixing.
Ongoing: Shopping for a Mixer
Tara revealed to me her plans for mixing:
I’m going to shop out a mixer. That Tony person that came over said he’d
be willing to work on it, but I think he might be too expensive. I’ve had a
couple of other people offer for hire, but I don’t know. In reading about it,
in a sense, it’s not going to be that complicated for a mixer, but I don’t know
that much about mixing.
Matthew Homer observes that “there are now many artists who use the profes-
sional studio in conjunction with their home recording tools to create high-quality
records,”12 and Tara outsourcing mixing from her DIY studio is an example of this
phenomenon. Tara received two mixes from two different people she hired, neither
of which she was very happy with. She played for me the first mix of “Hooked” done
by Felix. My first impressions of the recording were that her voice sounded very
crisp and professional, just like what you would hear on the radio. In contrast, the
piano sounded murky and lacked definition. Combined, the mix sounded like there
was a singer in one room and a pianist in a separate distant room. Tony Visconti,
longtime producer of David Bowie, remarked: “The vocal is probably the most
12
Homer, “Beyond the Studio,” 95.
important part of the mix. If the vocal is poorly placed in the mix, it’s going to defeat
the purpose.”13 I asked Tara, “So you don’t like it?”
Tara: I don’t totally dislike it but . . . Well, for one, I’m trying to figure out if every
song sounded like that, why I wouldn’t like it mix-wise. In general, the voice is so
prominent and hot sounding and the piano sounds underwater. But he was just
doing a basic mix of what he would do.
Adam: Do you like the performance?
Tara: Yeah, for the most part.
Adam: So it’s more the sounds?
Tara: I guess so. There are a couple of edits in there that I can hear little cuts, but
that’s not really the mix. The other mix I will show you. I was talking to Jim yes-
terday on the phone and he said I wish I hadn’t sent that to you now that I know
what you want. You’ll hear there is a lot of reverb and I wanted more of a dry,
clean sound.
Tara played me the mix of “Sunburn” done by Jim, someone whom she had met at
school that would be willing to mix her album for a more reasonable price than some
of the other quotes she had been getting. “His rate is so much more affordable, it
would be a few hundred dollars, which is much better than thousands.” In compari-
son, the consultant she initially hired, Tony, would charge Tara five hundred dollars
per song, tallying a price tag of fifty-five hundred dollars to mix the entire album.
It was almost difficult to believe that these two mixes were made with recordings
done in the same room by the same person; they were conspicuously different. As
opposed to the dry-style vocal treatment on “Hooked,” Tara’s voice sounded distant
in “Sunburn,” drenched in synthetic-sounding reverb. Further, the piano sounded
even more distant. Tara shared the same criticism:
That one, to me, the voice seems reverby and big and going for that feel.
I don’t really know until I hear a balance I really like. It could just be inher-
ently problematic; the piano isn’t that great if you listen to it. That’s what
a couple other people have said—it’s going to be hard to make it feel bal-
anced and have a good stereo sound.
While Tara had not been able to find someone to produce a mix to her satisfaction,
she knew what she was waiting to hear: “I feel there is not a sense of ‘here is some-
one performing,’ and that is the nature of this, or it should be, because there aren’t
any other instruments on it.” Tara wanted the mix to evoke an image of her playing
the piano and singing at the same time, something that of course did not happen.
13
Visconti, Tony Visconti, 153.
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Track 2 : Tara 123
To Be Continued: Conclusions
Recording technologies play different and distinct roles in Tara’s life. Unlike the other
case study participants, Tara did not engage with recording technology until her mid-
twenties. She described her early interactions with recording software as “ad hoc,”
employing the click and consequence technique of sifting through sounds and layering
them against one another, taking advantage of the multitracking capabilities of a DAW.
Her music-making during this stage was reflexive, as the playback of sound was inte-
gral to her proceeding musical actions. Tara also adopted an approach to music-making
with recording technology that pitted it as her accompanist. For the purpose of making
demos, Tara recorded her music, but not her voice, creating a type of karaoke composi-
tion in which she sang along while her computer played her precomposed files.
In contrast to this interactive approach, Tara’s most recent project involving DIY
recording technology resembled a typical mid-century approach to recording in
which the music is first composed and then recorded. There was no integration of
the two processes of songwriting and recording. Her goal was to have a finished
product, an album that people could purchase and listen to. What is particularly
unique about this scenario is that Tara has attempted to create a mélange of the pro-
fessional and DIY studio models by hiring consultants, mixers, and an engineer to
work within her home system. Forgoing the model of the solitary studio in which an
individual shoulders all of the responsibilities of production, Tara functioned more
like a traditional producer: “A record producer is responsible for every aspect of her
recording. In the early days the word ‘producer’ was more descriptive because the
record producer put up the money for the recording and hired a team of experts to
execute the various creative jobs.”14
Employing Felix to engineer allowed Tara to focus solely on her performance,
almost to a fault with her drive to attain perfection. The downside of her collab-
oration was that introducing Felix into the equation ushered in a new set of com-
plications: human dynamics. In distributing the workload Tara relinquished total
control; whether it was solicited or not, she subjected herself to the feedback of
another person. Tara made it quite clear that there were times when she wished she
had greater technical proficiency with her DIY studio so that she could circumvent
some of the frustrations she experienced working alongside Felix. Despite the fric-
tion, Tara efficiently recorded her songs by working collaboratively with Felix in her
DIY studio. The tradeoff of collaboration in this case was power for expertise.
Tara’s recount of her own learning history revealed that much of it could be
classified as informal. Lucy Green’s criteria of self-directed learning and learning
by copying recordings are clearly met,15 but Tara also dedicated much of her busy
14
Ibid., 50.
15
schedule to formal lessons, especially during her college years. Tara seems not to
have straddled but rather defected back and forth between the formal and infor-
mal spheres of music learning. Like Michael, she shares some similarities; she has
a university degree in musical performance, and referred to herself as “classically
trained,” but the reality of her learning history is that it has an identity crisis. Tara’s
case evidences characteristics of both formal and informal learning approaches.
Tara’s recording technology skills and know-how were nonexistent until a few
years ago. She now has the ability to record a complete song using Logic, and write
an orchestral score using Sibelius. Claiming “no one taught me,” Tara embodies the
spirit of the self-taught learner. Learning as she had to with only the aid of manuals,
Tara was able to gradually learn how to use the various pieces of music software and
hardware she had purchased on the recommendation of her teacher. Initially pur-
chased with the expectation of pursuing a career as a film scorer, Tara has applied the
technological skills she acquired studying that discipline to songwriting. Whether
she is shaping raw ideas into music using Logic by herself, or sourcing out services
for her studio, DIY recording is integral to Tara’s music-making process.
125
5
Track 3
Tyler
It was an unseasonably warm spring day when I first visited Tyler at his Williamsburg
apartment, and some of his neighbors were basking in the heat and playing domi-
nos in front of the building. Tyler, a twenty-seven-year-old musician who lives with
three roommates on the ground floor, confessed that he was tempted to cancel
our meeting in favor of following his neighbors’ example and seeking some respite
under the sun. The compromise of cohabitation is an exchange of private space for
reduced rent. As a result, Tyler spends most of his time confined to his humble two-
hundred-square-foot room. His desk is comprised of an abandoned door perched
on two stacks of cinderblocks, and various audio cables hang like willows from a
piece of pegboard mounted to the adjoining wall. This corner of his room com-
prises his recording studio. It is also his entertainment center where he streams and
projects television shows from his laptop onto the adjacent wall, his figurative office
cubicle where he works as a consultant for a small Brooklyn-based tech startup,
and his dining room table where he eats. He remarked that most things in his room
are modular. For example, he’s a proud futon owner as it functions as a sofa dur-
ing the day and transforms into his bed at night. Tyler’s modular mentality extends
beyond feng shui and is apparent in many aspects of his thinking, especially in his
music-making.
“Just Learned It From Doing It”: Learning History

Raised in a small town in Georgia, Tyler started playing his grandmother’s piano
when he was very young, “like four or five, just self-taught.” Although he took
structured lessons for a year and a half, he credits his self-led explorations for his
advancements: “I just played all the time. I learned what chords were before I knew
what they were. Just learned it from doing it.” His recollection of learning to play the
guitar is similarly scant on details:
125
I saved up my money from mowing yards to buy a guitar when I was

twelve. I took guitar lessons for about four months, five months, some-
where around there, and that’s when I learned chords. Actually, I learned
chords from a book—at first I was teaching myself guitar, too.
Summarizing his music education involving piano and guitar, Tyler con-
cluded: “Really, my knowledge about those instruments was self-taught.” His early
explorations with recording technology were similarly self-supervised and coincide
with his pursuit of learning how to play the guitar and keyboard. The earliest experi-
ence he could recount entailed overdubbing using two cassette recorders:
The very first recordings I did were in the fifth grade using my keyboard.
I had two different tape players, and I would play and record into one, and
I would press play on that one, and play the keyboard at the same time, and
record on the other, and I would go back and forth.
Later, at the age of fourteen, Tyler invested in a four-track cassette recorder:
With the four-track, it was magical . . . I just started making thirty-two-

track songs so I would bounce it down to one track. Guitar, vocals, and
keyboard . . . I played some drums too, which is again teaching myself.
In his senior year of high school, Tyler transitioned from using a four-track to his
first DAW, Cakewalk Home Studio for PC, because it enabled him to record both
audio and MIDI. By the time he entered college a year later in 2000 at age seven-
teen, the digital recording boom had already begun to trickle down to the con-
sumer market. Tyler learned to use DAWs like Cakewalk and Acid Pro (hereon
abbreviated to Acid), and the drum sequencing programs HammerHead and
Fruity Loops. All of these programs were “cracks,” downloaded from file sharing
sites on the Internet. When asked how he learned to use these programs, Tyler
responded: “I would say that it just happened over time, and over trial and error
more than anything.”
“ I W O U L D G E T TO G E T H E R W I T H M Y S E L F ” : M A K I N G M U S I C
WITH ACID PRO
Using his laptop, Tyler played me a collection of archived mp3 demos to supple-
ment his oral history of learning to use a DAW: “This is 2003. One of the first songs
I wrote all the way through and recorded on my computer.” He played the file and
offered a critique: “It sounds like Granddaddy covering the Eagles. My voice was
much higher then. There’s so much Belle and Sebastian in it. I was using sound
127
Track 3 : Ty l e r 127
effects and stuff in it like wind.” He recalled how he wrote songs during this time: “I
would get together with myself and record forty seconds of guitar just to get the
basic idea, and I would do some vocals with no lyrics to kind of get the two different
vocal parts down.” Tyler also detected a mnemonic device he employed while mak-
ing song sketches: place holder lyrics. “So here’s an example of fake lyrics: ‘nothing
I will write here will stay, only the rhythm and meter, no choruses either.’ ”
T E C H N I C A L TA N G E N T # 1 : M I C R O P H O N E M AT T E R S
I was impressed with the quality of the recording, but Tyler countered with a
technical critique of himself: “I was using cheap microphones, so much of it is
that, just the basics. I wasn’t getting the right sound, and then to make up for
the noise I would take off some of the high-end in the EQ, but then it just makes
it sound kind of weird.” Albin Zak stresses the importance of microphones: “In
many ways microphones are the technological soul of any recording project; the
effectiveness of all other tools and techniques depend upon the quality of the
image that the microphone is able to deliver.”1 Famed jazz recording engineer
Rudy Van Gelder’s selection of a microphone was made “with the same care a
photographer employs in selecting a lens.”2 Similarly, recording engineer Geoff
Emerick who recorded the Beatles from 1966’s Revolver to Abbey Road in 1969,
remarked “I think of microphones as lenses.”3 While not perfect, the lens anal-
ogy is a helpful aid for a visually oriented, selfie-obsessed culture. Anyone who
has ever taken a photograph can appreciate the fact that a camera’s lens does not
“see” identically to that of the human eye. Similarly, microphones do not “hear”
identically to that of the human ear; they emphasize some aspects of the audible
sound spectrum more than others. To record guitar, Tyler typically uses a Shure
SM57 dynamic mic. The SM57 holds a special place in recording history because
despite its relative inexpensiveness compared to other microphones, countless
engineers continue to choose it for recording snare drums and guitar amplifiers.4
In part, the rationale for opting for the SM57 for these purposes can be attributed
to its frequency response, which is similar to that of human hearing: “The Shure
SM57 sharply attenuates all incoming audio below 200 Hz and above about 13
kHz, exaggerates all sound between roughly 2 and 7 kHz, and rejects everything
under 40 Hz and above about 15 kHz.”5
1
Zak, The Poetics of Rock, 108.
2
3
Massey, Behind the Glass, 84.
4
Massey, Behind the Glass, and Massey, Behind the Glass Volume II.
5
Hodgson, “A Field Guide to Equalization and Dynamics Processing on Rock and Electronica
Records,” 285.
To record vocals Tyler uses an AKG C 414-XLS condenser microphone, which

he explains, “is a great mic, it’s one of my prized possessions, but for my voice, well,
typically I would sing lower on my real music, and I want to get a different mic
for that. This one has limitations.” The limitations that Tyler experiences could be
attributed to technique as Gino Robair explains:
Condenser mics, for example, sound brighter and harsher when the cap-
sule is positioned directly on-axis with the singer’s mouth. As the capsule
is tilted forward, the sound tends to get warmer, darker, and less strident.
This is because the sound hits the capsule less directly and the capsule cap-
tures more of the singer’s chest resonance. An off axis tilt can also help
reduce sibilance and popping caused by plosives.6
Stylistically, Tyler is not a crooner,7 but he sings softly, almost at a whisper volume,
necessitating a microphone to capture his vocal nuances. Tyler suspected that a
different microphone would better suit and capture the quality of his mellifluous
singing voice:
I want to get a Shure SM7B microphone, which would be good for record-
ing my voice, a lower voice. The recordings that I’m doing that are a rip-
off of Leonard Cohen, they are more mellow and baritone-ish. That mic
would work so well.
Tyler may have a valid reason for thinking that a different microphone altogether
could make the difference. The inherent properties of the microphone itself could
be the culprit. Different microphones have different frequency responses, mean-
ing that they will uniquely accentuate or reduce specific frequencies. This helps to
explain why one microphone might be an excellent choice for one singer and not
another; it depends on the character of the singer’s voice.
Tyler recognizes the critical role of the microphone. His AKG C 414 is one of
his “prized possessions.” Donald Grieg observes: “The microphone is the represen-
tative of potentially countless future audiences.”8 Bruce Swedien’s proclamation dis-
tills the vital role that microphones play in his profession, an attitude that has been
adopted by DIY-ers like Tyler: “My microphones are prized possessions . . . They are
the voodoo, the magic wand, the secret weapon of the music recording engineer’s or
producer’s trade and craft.”9
6
Robair, The Ultimate Personal Recording Studio, 154.
7
Mark Katz points out that “crooning was only possible with the microphone, for without amplifi-
cation such singing would be expressively flat and nearly inaudible.” Capturing Sound, 40.
8
Grieg, “Performing For (and Against) the Microphone,” 16.
9
Swedien, Make Mine Music, 174.
129
“ I L E A R N E D T H E H A R D WAY ” : S E L F - T E A C H I N G W I T H D AW S
Returning to my initial question of how he learned to use recording software, Tyler
assessed that there was a lot that he did not understand:
When I started out I didn’t understand how to use effects in Acid. I under-
stood how to use effects in Fruity Loops, so I used to bounce down the track
from Acid, and move it into Fruity Loops, add reverb to it, and bring it back
into Acid. Everything I did I learned the hard way. I think it was only six
or seven years ago when I discovered that I could put effects in Acid. I just
didn’t know, I never read things, I didn’t watch tutorials; YouTube wasn’t
around at that time. It’s crazy to think about how I did things so wrong.
Using Acid as his primary DAW from 2000 until 2009, Tyler’s competency with
the software advanced over time, and he has amassed an armory of samples to show
for it. Recorded in 2006, Tyler played a song that demonstrated a marked increase
in technical prowess. The song features beats he made with Fruity Loops and
GrooveAgent, a beat he sampled from an Elliott Smith song, and “cut up samples of
Yo-Yo Ma playing cello.” Combined, it’s an impressive exposition of the melding of
Tyler’s musical vision and software mastery.
For three consecutive hours, Tyler guided me through his recording history, play-
ing me songs that date back nearly ten years, and many unfinished songs that were
never released to the public. Intermittently, Tyler shifted into karaoke mode, singing
along to the tracks to give me a sense of what the completed songs would sound like
with lyrics. Caught in a moment of self-consciousness, Tyler interrupted himself:
I think the funny thing about your project is, “Oh, I’ll get them to record
themselves because no one would ever feel comfortable just doing this
stuff in front of me,” and I feel like every time we get together that’s what
I do. This is literally what I do: I sit in front of it, and I think about how cool
it’s going to sound at one point, and I get excited by it, and it’s very ego-
centric, solipsistic, like I am the only person making stuff at this moment!
As Tyler revisited his musical past by aurally sifting through his archive of record-
ings, he voiced a range of emotions, some of them downtrodden: “I feel like I’m
becoming a cliché,” he said, “like the consummate underachiever. I have all these
songs on their own that should have been released, that could’ve been done.”
Parrying his self-aimed attacks, Tyler later expressed relief that he did not complete
and distribute his older songs:
I feel like I was too naïve as an artist to know what I wanted to say. I just
spent all this time trying to figure out how to do things, and I was excited
if I could make a song that sounded catchy regardless of what it meant.

I almost feel glad that I didn’t put myself out there, doing stuff that wasn’t
as developed.
Further, he saw a silver lining as much work remains to be done: “I’m getting inspired
by myself, just listening to all the stuff that’s not done and realizing, remembering
that there are fifty songs that can be followed to their fruition.” To facilitate accom-
plishing these goals, Tyler has a lifespan plan.
The Cartographic Composer: Mapping

a Musical Existence
Tyler has charted a lifetime’s worth of music that he will produce. The sessions
that I was able to eavesdrop on are but a few of a multitude of recordings that
he plans on releasing for decades to come. Tyler’s rationale for his life plan of
music-making stems from his ratiocination of a need for newness in the music
industry:
I started thinking of how I wanted to release music, and what would make
it interesting to me because I just felt like it lost a lot of what I felt was inter-
esting about it . . . Music hasn’t changed a lot in fifty years . . . I’m sure there
has always been a genealogy that you can follow, but it seems like with a lot
of things you reach this postmodern dead-end where a lot of it is rehashing
things that have been done before. And bands are doing this thing where
they play music and tour and sell music between the hours of 10 p.m. and
2 a.m.—and this is kind of a twentieth-century invention in a way—and
I don’t know that it’s like a permanent thing.
Tyler’s perception that the music industry is stagnant is in part based on his own
experiences of touring and recording with an indie rock band for seven years
throughout the early 2000s. During their tenure, Tyler’s band toured internation-
ally and shared the stage with chart-topping bands while garnering praise from
Spin and Pitchfork. Tyler’s band was a seminal act in the burgeoning indie rock
faction that emerged in the post–boy band era of the early 2000s. Despite the
initial excitement of this experience, the luster gradually dulled with time. He
realized that his band was perpetuating a cyclical model of touring and record-
ing that has been entrenched in the music industry since the dawn of recording
capability: “To some extent when you get the curtains pulled back and you tour
and you play, the people that I thought were doing magic, they were doing pretty
obvious things.”
131
In an attempt to deviate from the status quo, Tyler devised a new way to go about
music-making that is influenced by the distributive characteristics of the Internet,
specifically social networking:
I started thinking about how music is consumed and distributed now, and
I think that music hasn’t really adjusted to the changes in technology and
the Internet. When I think about what changes with the Internet, there
are two kinds of things that people talk about: One of them, which I think
is talked about the most, is that it is a network of people and it’s a web of
content, so that you are able to have users and people all around the world
contribute; it’s a network.
The second thing about the Internet to me is that it is constantly chang-
ing. It’s dynamic. Nothing on it is static. You find the occasional page from
1997, but even that probably has a little animated GIF that says “under
construction.” It’s fighting against its actual static state. That I found really
interesting, and the more that we start to experience music not through
physical discs, not even through downloads, but through streaming,
through just being given access to music that is somewhere else, seems like
it should be reflected in the music.
So I started thinking of albums not as this permanent thing but rather
as a fluid collection of songs. More like how a photo album is on Facebook.
People might remove photos or add new photos to it, but it is a collection
that makes sense at any specific given time. So that’s what I think I want my
albums eventually to be like. I want them to be like collections and proj-
ects that are ongoing indefinitely. Maybe the songs are remixed in different
times. I want to tear down, at least for my own music, the idea of sacred
recording, like this is the song.
Tyler’s framing of recorded music as a process of petrification evidences his critical think-
ing. His tone resembles that of Chris Cutler, who argues: “Until 1877, when the first sound
recording was made, sound was a thing predicated on its own immediate disappearance;
today it is increasingly an object that will outlast its makers and consumers.”10 But Tyler
seeks to go beyond the binary of music as a passing event/permanent object, and instead
privilege the processes by making multiple iterations of his music available online. He
is participating in what Kim Cascone describes as an Internet-based cultural feedback
loop: “Artists download tools and information, develop ideas based on that information,
create work reflecting those ideas with the appropriate tools, and then upload that work to
a World Wide Web site where other artists can explore the ideas embedded in the work.”11
10
Cutler, “Plunderphonia,” 138.
11
Cascone, “The Aesthetics of Failure,” 17.
A U TO D I D A C T I C I S M A N D A B L E TO N L I V E
One of the first steps Tyler took toward fostering the development of his recordings
was purchasing Ableton Live in 2008 (hereafter referred to as Ableton). Especially
enamored with Ableton’s looping capabilities and flexibility, Tyler instantly intuited
that it would change the way he made music, and hastily switched from Acid. He
spent a year watching YouTube tutorials on Ableton before he started using the soft-
ware, and credits the Internet as his foremost teacher:
I think it’s a cliché, but the aspects of the Internet that have enabled autodi-
dacticism have really influenced my own knowledge about music, and I’m
more inclined to learn about stuff because I can learn it at my own pace.
I could watch a YouTube tutorial about a very specific thing in Ableton, or
a very general thing about mixing, and those things all feed into this. Social
media and social circles—it’s not been an isolated journey in a way.
Tyler’s recognition of the advantages of adopting an autodidactic approach are

echoed by Hannah Quinn: “My bedroom studio was a place of solitude, a private
world where I was able to take things at my own pace, a place to both lose and find
myself.”12 With his enthusiasm for Ableton, Tyler could be mistaken for a sales rep-
resentative. He spouted praise for the profusion of features it boasts:
What comes bundled in Ableton is already great. A lot of great samples—

not just effects, but samples—so for using a MIDI keyboard it’s great. But
the effects are also awesome. It has an amp modeler so I can record a clean
guitar signal and model amps in there. It has the vocoder, the ability to
loop. It’s kind of an all-in-one package.
Additionally, much of Tyler’s ardor for Ableton can be attributed to its design: “It
is just so smooth and clean, the interface, and I like looking at it. I think that’s the
case with anything; if you like the process of using it, you are going to use it a lot
more.” In contrast to many other DAWs such as Pro Tools that more closely resem-
ble an analog multitrack recorder, Ableton is simply a better match for Tyler. “The
design,” he continued, “has as an interface that really fits with how I make music
or think about music,” affirming Andrew Brown’s claim that “when we choose a
piece of music software, or other technology, we are essentially deciding, in part,
whether or not our priorities align with those of the designer.”13 Having briefed me
on the software he uses, Tyler proceeded to show me the hardware he uses in his
DIY studio.
12
Quinn, “Perspectives from a New Generation Secondary School Music Teacher,” 24.
13
Brown, Music Technology and Education, 17.
133
A Guided Tour Through Tyler’s Bedroom Studio

In tour-guide fashion, Tyler introduced me to each component of his bedroom
recording studio:
I have the audio interface, which is connected to the computer [Figure 5.1].

I have a tuning pedal. I plug my guitar into the tuning pedal, and the tuning
pedal goes to the audio interface. There’s an output in the audio interface
that goes to this reverb pedal. Basically, a dry guitar signal will go to this
interface, and then something will come out of that interface.
Despite being an accomplished keyboard player, Tyler writes most of his songs on
guitar. His studio is efficiently configured so that he can practice for a live gig or rec-
ord music with the same setup. The MOTU Traveller is the central hub of his studio,
all audio signals pass through it. Tyler detailed how and why he records his guitar
with two different inputs, a direct input from the pickup in his acoustic guitar, and
an acoustic signal that is recorded with a microphone: “I have more flexibility in just
recording an acoustic sound while I’m recording, a direct sound, and then later, if
Figure 5.1 Tyler’s laptop that he uses to make music sitting atop his audio interface, a
MOTU Traveler.
I want to run that direct sound to the amp and mic, I can change whatever settings
I want.” Tyler’s bedroom studio is humble in appearance, but the routing alone evi-
dences the technical sophistication involved, and his thinking behind it. Figure 5.2
shows one of Tyler’s mixers used to route signals in his DIY studio.
T E C H N I C A L TA N G E N T # 2 : M I X I N G M AT T E R S
Like a real estate agent taking me from room to room, Tyler briefed me on a few
other items of note including a ukulele, a toy piano, and the next piece of equipment
in his quiver:
This is called an Akai MPD 32, and it is a USB and MIDI pad control
unit [Figure 5.3]. It’s very flexible, it has faders. One reason I would use
it is if I was mixing a song, I would like to get it down to a few groups. So,
I will have like drums maybe and then bass, keyboards, vocals, and backup
vocals. This is eight channels—the greatest songs that were ever recorded
were mixed down to eight channels at some point in my mind. One thing
I use these for is like a mixing board because I actually get a tactile response.
Figure 5.2 One of the two mixers Tyler uses in his studio to route audio signals to various
places.
135
Figure 5.3 Tyler’s Akai MPD 32 MIDI controller that he uses to mix his music.
To me it’s just way different than if I’m here with the mouse trying to do it.
It just feels more natural.
Using the Akai MPD 32 as a mixing console manifests Tyler’s preference for an
analog approach to mixing. The span of a human hand can grasp multiple faders
on a console and move them with one fell swoop. With just one deft gesticula-
tion, the levels of multiple instruments can be simultaneously raised or lowered.
In DAW-based mixing, using a mouse to mix multiple signals on a virtual con-
sole requires the user to select the virtual faders one-by-one; first to group them
before they can be controlled as a singular unit. For audio engineers that are
accustomed to mixing on a console, a common-voiced sentiment is that mixing
in-the-box is a frustrating experience. The curt critique voiced by recording engi-
neer John Cornfield (The Stone Roses, Muse) captures the essence of the argu-
ment against DAW-based mixing: “Mixing with the mouse drives you up the wall
after a while.”14
Mixing on a physical console requires gross motor movement such as roll-
ing around in a desk chair to navigate the mixing board, and reaching at arms’
14
Touzeau, Making Tracks, 188.
length to adjust a fader or knob. It is a kinesthetic experience that occurs at the

macro-level, requiring the whole body. Mixing with a mouse requires micro-
movements of the hand; all mixing actions are performed with fine motor skills.
As mixing consoles have been pushed toward obsoletion, mixing in-the-box has
become the rule rather than the exception, and Cornfield’s sentiment will soon
have little relevance to the up-and-coming generations of music-makers who
will never have experienced a mixing console.
The mixing console has been in use for approximately fifty years, and the virtual
console twenty years, which puts twenty-nine-year-old Tyler medially in the zone
of transition between the two technologies. Using a device such as the Akai MPD
32 to mix allows him to experience the tactile response of the physical console while
mixing in-the-box. It is an intermediary technology: it is not necessary, but it helps
make the transition from the withering technology to the emerging technology
easier.
STEMS
Tyler’s songs invariably have more than eight tracks, preventing him from using
his Akai MPD 32 as a mixer in the traditional sense, in which every instrument is
assigned to a different fader. Instead, Tyler employs a hybridized approach to mix-
ing, doing some preliminary mixing in-the-box with a mouse, and then performing
the final mix with the Akai MPD 32. Tyler surmised that “the greatest songs that
were ever recorded were mixed down to eight channels,” and so it follows that he
creates stems:
Well these are all stems. You could mix everything down individually, but
usually there’s not enough time to do that, so you would just mix guitars
and ukuleles together, things that are treated similarly, so that later you
know their volume relationship to each other at least, and you can decide
the overall relationship of different things to each other in the song,
volume-wise.
Tyler’s description of stems was somewhat convoluted, but he did delineate the dis-
tinction between a track and a stem. First, a single track can be conceptualized as
a stem. For example, a single vocal track may be preserved as a stem so that it can
be isolated from the other instrumentation during mixing. Many musics privilege
vocals as the focal point, making it critical that the mixing engineer be able to treat
and control the vocal performance independently. Alternatively, a stem can repre-
sent several individual tracks, an arrangement that requires grouping together mul-
tiple tracks and assigning them to a single fader; a process of mixing by clustering.
Take for example the recording of a drum kit: It is an instrument comprised of a
confluence of distinct components (e.g., bass drum, snare drum, tom-toms, floor
137
tom, and cymbals), each of which are often mic’d individually. In the mixing stage,
once a relative balance between the components of the drum set is achieved, a sin-
gle stem of the drum set can be created, allowing the mixing engineer to control the
entire kit with a single fader.
Amidst the technological descriptions of Tyler’s recording software and hard-
ware, it is easy to lose sight of their purpose. Combined, they constitute his instru-
ment. His bedroom DIY studio is the physical vessel in which he works to construct
his virtual community of musicians.
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Social

Network: Growing a Fictional Family Tree
With the impetus of social networking spurring Tyler to seek alternatives to the
established practices of music production and distribution, he derived a two-
pronged approach adopted from his observations of the workings of the Internet.
First, he framed the construct of an album as evolving—an entity that resists stasis
by inviting constant addition, revision, and modification:
I decided I wanted to release music in the form of a blog. Just put it out,
give it tags or different categories, and be like, this is one kind of album,
this is another album, and then release songs incrementally and say this is
being added to that album or to this one.
The second concept that Tyler applied to his music-making was the idea of a web
of characters. Assimilating the added influence of the Portuguese writer Fernando
Pessoa, Tyler promulgated Pessoa’s literary conventions to hatch a fictional web of
characters:
I started to incorporate the other idea that I had—I mentioned about

the Internet—w hich is that it is a web, a network of people. Instead
of having a pseudonym, Pessoa had what he called heteronyms, and
there are all these characters with their own biographies, and their own
religious and political views, and they sometimes disagreed with each
other, but he would write in all these different voices, and I thought
that was pretty interesting. What he did for personhood and author-
ship I find fascinating. Having all this music that I felt represented dif-
ferent people to me in different parts of my personality, I thought that
would be a great thing to carry into the realm of music, and the Internet
really facilitates that. So, I created this fake label that is run by a fake
person whose artists are fake people. They are heteronyms, but all the
songs are me.
Embracing the ghostwriter model, as an anonymous author Tyler has concocted a

village of characters. The relationship that he has to each character is unique; reality
in this imaginary realm is blurred:
Three of the characters are me, but the other characters that I’m writing
aren’t really me. I will write songs for them but they’re not really me, so
I think I might cast them the way somebody would cast a play or a musi-
cal and find musicians that would want to be this band, and I would pay
them . . . All of these things, any one of them could seem gimmicky, except
that to me they are all connected by an ideology, the way we make music
needs to be reflective of the way it is listened to. I think that is starting to
change, and music has been slow to recognize that. That’s the basic run-
down, and now it seems pretty weird, not weird, but just delusions of gran-
deur, like a grotesquely ambitious kind of project, but I think the beauty of
it is I don’t have to create all this at once.
Tyler has formulated six different bands that he writes for, one being himself, and
five others that he puppeteers. Some of the bands include more than one member;
in total he has created twelve characters. Currently he has eleven different albums
in progress. Figure 5.4 presents a tree of Tyler’s characters to aid orientation to this
concept.
Figure 5.4 Tyler’s tree of characters.

139
Tyler cites practical reasons for writing characters that are not him, such as, “I’m not
a great singer or performer, and I write songs with big ranges, so it’s great, it gives me
an excuse to have other people sing songs.” Additionally, he hopes to marry old and
new ways of producing music:
It’s doing two things at once. In a way it’s the ultimate manifestation of
the narcissism of modern music where people record stuff themselves, and
write stuff themselves, and are expected to be ten hats all at once—the idea
behind this is I’m going to control ten different bands. But on the other
hand, it’s also a return to the old way of doing things when there was a divi-
sion of labor, and you had different people perform songs than the ones
that wrote them, and you didn’t have the artist or the songwriter necessar-
ily tied to the things being said in the song . . . This is kind of doing both
of those things, both very controlling, solipsistic, and at the same time, it’s
very collaborative and embraces the division of labor. I think. I hope.
Tyler’s description demonstrates his awareness of the changing practices in record-

ing music. The shift to the “narcissism of modern music,” in which the musician
controls the production process. As chapter 2 detailed, gradually throughout the
latter half of the twentieth century many musicians began to infiltrate the engineers’
empire, abandoning comparative advantage in favor of control. Tyler is continuing
this trend of striving to be self-sufficient, but also evolving what it means to self-
produce by creating multiple characters with their own production personalities.
Rather than establishing a singular production identity (“the Motown Sound,” “The
Wall of Sound,” etc.), Tyler has many.
S I N G I N G R O B OT S
An example of one of Tyler’s bands that is not him, but performed by him, is his
band of singing robots. He explained his concept that aims to contrast humor with
sentimentality:
It’s designed to demonstrate the “uncanny valley,” which is what is talked

about when robots become so real, but not quite real, and that weirds us
out. That and other things like the gap between where we think we are at
with technology. To get a robot singing sentimental things is inherently
funny. So this is a band where I can be funny, but also try to do beautiful
music to some extent.
Together, Tyler and I listened to a recording of a song by his fictional robot band.
It was apparent that the music is purposefully kitschy, featuring simple instru-
mentation including a country shuffle drumbeat at a moderate tempo; a galloping
acoustic guitar; a honky-tonk piano playing a triplet rhythm of the chords, giving
the song a 12/8 feel; and a reverb-laden guitar solo playing the main melody pre-
dictably midway through the song. The focal point of the song is a robot singing
along mechanically, juxtaposing the vocal performance that is void of emotion
with the song’s inherent melancholy sentiment. Tyler’s creation sounds simple,
which was intended. He explained that his aim was to make a recording with a
“classic” sound, and to accomplish this he purposely used GarageBand to limit
himself: “I don’t have the expertise to do something that pushes any boundaries.
I wouldn’t know how to use it in a creative way. I only know how to use it in a for-
mulaic way. So, therefore it forces me to make formulaic music with it.” Formulaic
structure aside, it required great ingenuity, integrating multiple technologies in the
recording process:
This is using a vocoder and Autotune, as well as this program called

VocalWriter. It’s like text-to-speech, except it sings. So you type in the text,
and then you play on the keyboard what the notes are going to be, and it
sings the song, robots sing the song. It’s very popular in Japan, but hardly
used here at all. Robots have been able to sing for a long time. In 1961 the
IBM 7094—I became obsessed with this when I first heard it. I thought it
was beautiful, there is something strange about it—we created this com-
puter, a computational device that does math, and we’re asking it to do
something very emotional and not mathematical, to sing a love song.
Following up on Tyler’s explanation, I asked him how he constructed the song and
he responded:
Using the Mac text-to-speech thing. Text Edit is designed for people with
disabilities, you can go into settings or preferences and it reads the text.
So, I recorded that and cut it up to fit rhythmically with the song, and
then I played all the instruments. This is just done in GarageBand. I just
plugged my acoustic [guitar] in and my little keyboard. The drums was
just a loop on GarageBand, and I played the bass with the Korg [MIDI
keyboard]. This is a vocoder, this is me singing through using this to do
the harmonies.
Again, evidence of Tyler’s modular mentality surfaced as his response demonstrates

that he recognized the musical potential in text-to-speech technology, an application
not typically associated with music-making (although it is famously woven through-
out Radiohead’s acclaimed 1997 album OK Computer). Continuing on, Tyler revealed
the depth of his technical knowledge and its application to his songs, explaining the
difference between a carrier signal and a modulator, and how a vocoder, harmonizer,
and Autotune are different devices that can be used to create singing robots.
141
As ingenuous as his singing robot concept is, impressively demonstrating mas-

tery of several complex music technologies, Tyler’s other projects are much more
involved, both in time and technical sophistication. The remainder of this chapter
will focus on the making of a song Tyler worked on during the data collection per-
iod, a song by Tyler’s longest living character, Otter.
Audio Avatars: Otter, Sumac, and Totem

Otter is part of a triumvirate of characters that are related to each other, and in
Tyler’s words, “are represented versions of me at different points in my life.” Each
character has a biography that has purposely been underdeveloped because, as
Tyler explained, “I also want to discover things about the characters later. I’ll prob-
ably get bored, and want to change things about them too.” As Tyler purported, the
characters were created with a long-term plan in mind:
Ideally, I would be able to record using these names for the rest of my
life and all the different characters because there is enough variation
in them that it should suit any kind of mood. It’s designed to be future
proof, I can just keep changing these characters, and they can continue
to evolve.
In 2006, Tyler released his first EP under the name Otter. Otter is from Montreal;
he is a lover, he is naïve and melodramatic, and his lyrics are highly romanticized.
Tyler disclosed, “Otter is probably closer to my songs than any of the other stuff
that I’m doing, but hopefully it sounds pretty stylistically dissimilar from my own
songs.” The second character is Sumac, a bison. Sumac is a soldier, a more pragmatic
character, who roams the plains of Alberta:
His lyrics are more concerned with, certainly not romantic issues, mostly
political issues, the body politic, concerned with issues of society, the
social issues. I have a collection of songs for that one that are related to
social inequality in America or income inequality.
Sumac’s album is a “country-tinged record,” a “Dust Bowl record about social

inequality.”
Beyond lyrical content, Tyler attempts to make each character distinct musically
by varying the vocal ranges he uses: “The Sumac stuff is going to be projecting really
high, almost like Chris Martin [lead singer of Coldplay]. That’s part of how I’m
going to differentiate the characters, different singing styles. Otter is this doubled
sound, my own voice this Leonard Cohen thing.” The third character is Totem: “a
mysterious guy that Totem, he doesn’t talk so how would we know?! Maybe later
I will know where he’s from,” Tyler said with a smirk. Totem is an eagle that symbol-
izes justice. He patrols the west coast, but has no fixed address,
It’s the only wise character, and because I’m not old enough to presume
I would know what that sort of wisdom is, all the music I’m making for
Totem is instrumental. And it probably will be for a long time. It may be
fifty years from now. I will decide when I’m confident.
With Tyler’s trinity explained, I was eager to get a glimpse of how these different
characters are produced in his DIY studio. Tyler obliged by recording the processes
of himself working on an ongoing piece by Otter.
“ T H I S I S M E WATC H I N G M E TA L K I N G
A B O U T M E ” : S T I M U L AT E D R E C A L L
Tyler:
I downloaded a trial version of a screen capture software called ScreenFlow,

and it records video off of my webcam while it’s capturing the screen, so
you can see them synced up together. It also shows keystrokes for when
I do keyboard shortcuts and things like that. I wanted to test this out
because I’ve considered doing tutorials in the future . . . I’ve also thought
that I might look at this as a sort of journal, so I’m thinking I’ll talk over
what I’m doing and kind of explain it.
Using ScreenFlow, Tyler devised a way to record everything that occurred in

Ableton as he worked away on his music, and also everything recorded by his web-
cam. Tyler captured some music-making using ScreenFlow, and together we sat
down and watched it. Making it more interesting, we recorded this interview with
ScreenFlow as well. The bemused Tyler gushed, “This is me watching me talking
about me. It’s kind of funny because I’m at the same desk that I was at.” Referring to
the fact that we’re both in the camera’s frame, Tyler beamed, “This is great because
you get both the scientist and the subject.”
What follows is an account of Tyler’s processes as he worked on a song by Otter.
This session is representative of Tyler’s working processes; he dedicates most of his
time to critical listening and editing, as opposed to “writing” in any sense of the
word, tracking, or mixing. For the most part, his focus is on the minutiae of produc-
tion. Aden Evens suggests that this is to be expected of electronic music production:
At a remove from the sound, standing over it, the electronic musician
reflects on the sound, has the opportunity and the distance to hear every
detail. Digital music tools allow and encourage an unending editing process,
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exposing every aspect of the sound to the music maker and offering a focus
on arbitrarily small detail and arbitrarily large structure . . . Hours and days
in front of the keyboard and mouse are spent playing a piece.15
In a word, Tyler engages in microcomposition—composition at the atomistic level.
EDITING MIDI
Serving me tortilla chips and hummus, Tyler navigated me through the screen
recording (note that I have italicized the conversations I had with Tyler while we
watched videos together in the stimulated recall sessions to help distinguish this
dialogue from the moments when he speaks in the previously recorded videos). In
the screen recording Tyler spoke aloud, presumably to me or some other potential
audience: “I’m just going to jump in and not explain anything at first.” His first reac-
tion to hearing himself speak was candid.
Tyler: “I was really mumbling, wasn’t I?” he said to me. “And there’s a shadow over my
mouth so you can’t read my lips!”
After refamiliarizing himself with the screen recording, Tyler recalled what he
was doing:
I was just figuring out this harpsichord part. So, I took that thing and copied it
five times; the melody. Consolidating just makes the small little clips, glues them
together.
In the screen recording Tyler clicked on these little red blocks, and at first it
was difficult to discern what he was doing, but it became clear that each block
represented a musical note. He was editing a MIDI part he wrote earlier. In the
video, as he clicked on the blocks, Tyler explained his mouse actions: “Maybe
I’ll change both of them to see if that makes any difference. I don’t know, I think
I need to take out that and that.” With a few quick clicks Tyler deleted a note, E3,
and replaced it with a different pitch, G#3. He then pressed play and listened,
saying, “Let me test this out.” Something sounded amiss, and Tyler calmly admit-
ted, “Oh, wrong place.” He had edited the wrong beat, the second eighth note at
134.1 (bar 134, beat 1) instead of the second eighth note at 134.3. Realizing his
mistake, Tyler made the change, claiming, “That’s better and this can come out,
I think,” and deleted a bass note in the pattern, B2 at bar 131. “That’s definitely
better,” he said. “This pattern just doesn’t work with two keys being hit at the
same time.”
15
Evens, Sound Ideas, 124–125.
Figure 5.5 Tyler edits the MIDI notes for his harpsichord part.
After watching this part of the video, Tyler turned to me and offered a more over-
arching explanation of his actions on screen:
TYLER: I think I first wanted the melody with [sings E3] and then changed it to this
note [sings G#3] . . . I didn’t really know what I was writing when I started doing it at
first; I just started filling in notes in the chords very arbitrarily just trying to see what it
would look like, and I knew which notes would be in the chords and which notes would-
n’t. In a lot of Baroque music where they use the harpsichord a lot, there’s just a lot of
eighth notes, or sixteenth notes.
Adam: So you didn’t play this in on a keyboard?
Tyler: Not this part. I started making a pattern and then I started hearing little melodies
out of it. Once I heard that melody I adjusted it to fit that, but it’s still very mechani-
cal. [In Ableton, Tyler uses a pencil tool to “draw” in the notes on the MIDI grid,
often called the piano roll (Figure 5.5)]
In the playback of the screen recording, Tyler moved onto other matters of con-
cern: “So let me start bringing in the beats . . . let me just do harpsichord and beats.”
Tyler pressed the solo button on the harpsichord and instantly the rhythm section
appeared. There seemed to be a lot going on, polyrhythms of electronic drum kits,
and a confluence of other pitched sounds. Tyler gave an itemized overview of the
sounds being played: “First of all, actually this stuff here I recorded ten years ago.
I just chopped up a bunch of guitar chords, and made this pattern for the end of this
song, this is an old song.” Tyler pressed play in Ableton, and the sound he referred to
bore no resemblance to a guitar, it sounded more like a skipping CD. Tyler analyzed
the sound: “You can hear the thing clipping, you know, that pop that you hear—
that’s where the waveform wasn’t at zero where it’s looped, but I kind of like that. It’s
very unnatural sounding.”
As we were watching this section of the screen recording I asked Tyler:
145
Do you remember what you used to do that ten years ago?

He responded: I just cut part of the guitar and pasted it next to itself over and over
again. It was like ten milliseconds or something, and I just kept pasting it. When you
cut something you know it has a click.
E Q UA L I Z I N G B E AT S
Meanwhile, the taxonomy of sounds in the video continued with Tyler explain-
ing the multitude of different applications and approaches that were used in mak-
ing the complex rhythm section: “The beats are constructed from a lot of different
things layered together. There’s this”—Tyler played a track labeled “elecbeat” and
continued—“which has got some heavy EQ on it, and it also was made about ten
years ago in a program called Fruity Loops.” Next, Tyler muted “elecbeat” and
played a different beat, explaining, “This is the same loop, but EQ’d differently. So,
I’m emphasizing different EQs at different volumes.” Figure 5.6 depicts the two dif-
ferent EQ curves.
Albin Zak describes equalization as:
The manipulation of particular areas of the frequency spectrum whereby

bands of frequencies are selected and then incrementally boosted or cut in
(a)
(b)
Figure 5.6 The two EQ shapes that Tyler used on “elecbeat” (a and b). Both shapes feature
significant cuts to the high frequencies.
order to precisely tailor a sound color, which, in turn, affects its place in the
overall frequency structure of the track.16
Tyler explained his rationale for cutting high frequencies: “That gives us a bit of
a lighter touch. I just didn’t want to hear too much of the hi-hat, and the thing is,
I don’t have the different components that made up this rhythm anymore. It’s on
an old, old hard drive.” Tyler’s equalization curves may appear extreme, but Bill
Gibson claims: “An experienced mix engineer allocates equalization boosts and
cuts across broad frequency bands with the tracks fitting neatly together like puz-
zle pieces.”17
MAKING LOOPS
Continuing on, Tyler played another beat called “funmachine” and explained that
it was something he recorded from an old organ he had owned. I asked Tyler how
he matched the tempo of the beat recorded from the organ to the other beats and
he explained:
I just cut it to be a perfect loop and then you can set that loop to any tempo.
He said this so nonchalantly as if it took no effort, but making a loop requires pre-
cise editing and a keen ear. Perhaps Tyler recognized that looping material is con-
siderably easier in the digital domain with nondestructive editing and auto syncing.
In the analog era making loops was a more difficult process as Beastie Boy MCA
explained:
On Licensed to Ill (1986), we didn’t even have any samplers. So the stuff
that’s looped, we actually made tape loops. We’d record [Led Zeppelin’s]
“When the Levee Breaks” beat onto a quarter-inch tape, and then we’d
make the loop . . . And then, in order to layer that with something else,
we’d have to actually sync it up, physically.18
Rounding up Tyler’s list comprising the rhythm section were a few more sounds,
one labeled “ride,” “a ride cymbal thing, this was added forever ago,” “tambourine,”
and in Tyler’s words, “some beat I made in GrooveAgent five or six years ago.” While
watching the deconstruction of the rhythm section on the screen recording, Tyler
provided some insight into how he goes about compiling beats:
16
Zak, The Poetics of Rock, 120.
17
Gibson, The S.M.A.R.T. Guide to Mixing and Mastering, 130.
18
Brown, Rick Rubin, 45.
147
I have a lot of different loops, a lot of these loops might have been made at dif-
ferent times for different things, and then I will pair them up and see which ones
sound different together in different ways.
Tyler provisions for himself by making beats that are not intended for a specific
song. With stores of loops to call upon, he can audition his library of beats for the
song at hand.
The five loops stacked together create a dense texture of rhythm, which Tyler
explained helped to characterize the sound of Otter: “It’s a lot of rhythm, too much
rhythm, but again I kind of like that too. It sort of creates this nerdy version of an
African drum circle thing, definitely this character—his music is kind of contrived
in that way.”
S H I F T I N G P I TC H
Having completed the tour of the rhythm section, Tyler proceeded by play-
ing the few remaining tracks that were previously recorded. One of the sounds
is a chorus of “oohs”; the harmonies are close and clear like something from
the Beach Boys, but it is strangely perfect-sounding. Allowing the screen
recording to continue playing, Tyler clarified that his aim was to achieve an
inhuman sound:
This was intended to sound very unnatural because the pitch is being shifted
down so many times that it doesn’t sound human. You know when a voice is
shifted down to mask the identity of the person or something like [in a low
voice] “Where is my daughter?” It’s the same principle.
Audio Engineer and “FXpert” Alex Case explains: “Extreme or crude pitch shifts
can make a vocal sound very unnatural . . . Using a pitch-shifting processor to raise
or lower the pitch of a note is not the same as singing or playing the higher or lower
note.”19 In tutorial-like style, in the screen recording Tyler deconstructed how he
created the harmony using Acid:
I sang the part once, and I copied it several times, and I would just cut a
little section like that, and pitch shift that down to the next thing, and then
cut another section and pitch shift that down. It’s basically the least effi-
cient form of sampling ever. And that’s how I constructed the three-part
harmony. It’s just from one voice, which is why it sounds funny, but again
I like the funny sound.
19
Case, Mix Smart, 181.
Figure 5.7 Analog Warmth. The effect Tyler uses on the master track.
“IF I CAN GET MYSELF FEELING GOOD

ABOUT IT”: REFLEXIVE LISTENING
In the screen recording Tyler played the song from the beginning and started to sing
along: “I stood clean before the sun, in another world, 2001.” For two minutes Tyler
sang along, and it appeared that the webcam was not inhibiting him from acting nat-
urally: he rocked subtly to the music, focused on the Ableton interface as the music
played. When his concentration on singing broke, he morphed back into explana-
tion mode, confessing, “I think a lot of the time I spend singing to instrumental
tracks and/or dancing, if I can get myself feeling good about it, singing and dancing,
that’s always a good sign.” This type of listening is not so much critical in nature, but
rather reflexive, like a knee-jerk reaction. Tiger Roholt argues that grooves must be
embodied,20 and it appears that this is what Tyler is doing.
To further improve the overall sound, Tyler used an effect on the master track
(Figure 5.7). He let me hear the difference with the effect on and then off.
“This is what the track should really sound like,” he said, “but it gets me more
into it to hear it premastered in a way.” With the effect on, the overall sound was
remarkably different and sounded instantly clearer and crisper. Tyler divulged,
“This is just an audio effect rack that includes a lot of different stuff (Figure 5.8).
Saturator, EQ, compressor, I’m just using the presets, just something quick and
easy to get us there.”
Commenting on having just watched himself sing along, Tyler explained this
behavior is par for the course:
A lot of the time is probably spent trying to dance or kind of get into it. That’s all
you can really know, is whether or not you like it.
20
Roholt, Groove.
149
(a)
(b)
Figure 5.8 The saturator, EQ, and compressor that comprise the plugin Analog Warmth (a
and b). Tyler used Analog Warmth on the master track “to improve the overall sound of the
song.”
Following up, I asked, “Do you write stuff that you don’t like?” In his response Tyler
compared his songwriting to speaking, explaining that in retrospect his opinion
may change:
Yeah, but it takes a while before I can be honest about that, because I usually
like it at first. We all like what we say at first, but everyone says things that make
them cringe later when they remember them. It’s similar to that.
Considering that this song has been under construction for ten years, Tyler has sung
along many times, with both the lyrics and melody undergoing constant revisions.
Tyler confided, “You’re getting a bit of how I write. In fact, the melody I just recently
changed. It used to be something that I did not feel was dark enough.”
He dug up an older recording of the same song that was slightly faster and fea-
tured a completely different set of lyrics:
I climbed the Douglas fir, the fall of ‘93

And he harbored all my resentment
The falls ran dry, no hydro for the mill
So now we wait until . . .
Tyler reflected, “I don’t know what those meant, I wrote lyrics that didn’t make sense
back then. So that changed to”:
Our faces glowed red around the burning tree

When the winter slayed spring in 2003
The cold air burned my lungs,
My limbs went numb to keep my body warm

And death crept in like the calm before the storm.
Having spent twenty-five minutes scrutinizing single notes out of a sixty-four-note

pattern that will ultimately serve as a backdrop in the song, Tyler’s time of singing
along serves as respite, an interval of recess from the painstaking editing he labors
over. Singing along is a means of surveying his song holistically, gauging its readi-
ness for future steps.
“A N D T H AT ’ S I T F O R N O W ” : C O N C L U D I N G T H E S E S S I O N
In the webcam view, Tyler moved back and assessed his checklist of things to do to
complete this song,
Okay, I need to take a short break, and when I come back I think orders
of business are: getting a bass part together, editing fills, seeing if there’s
anything salvageable or not from the strums, and, if not, recording guitar.
What time is it? It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night so I should be able to
record guitar for awhile. Recording has always been my least favorite part
for whatever reason. I like editing. So yeah after that, get a little scratch
vocal down because as I start to, I mean, I should have even done it before,
but as I start to get more definite parts and stuff, it will be helpful to have
the vocal there. And that’s it for now.
The video ended, and I looked forward to seeing what Tyler did with the rest of his
evening, but there was no second video file for this day. Tyler relented, “But I didn’t
come back, not that night.”
Within the span of time I spent with Tyler, he did not return to this song. Instead,
he chipped away at other pieces in similar fashion, and even wrote/recorded a play-
ful breakup song (as himself) in a fit of inspiration in a single day. To my disap-
pointment, Tyler opted not to document this rare occurrence—the completion
of a song—in his musical existence, but I suspect this was intended. In Prince-like
practice, Tyler has a vault of songs he keeps stowed away, not intended for the ears
of others. And, like Tyler’s inspiration, Fernando Pessoa, no one will know which
characters are “him,” unless he decides to make it so.
“Technology is the Reason”: Conclusions
For Tyler, the technological world is not only an enabler, it is an inspirer: “Technology
is the reason why I have those ideas, and then of course it’s absolutely what makes
it possible for me to do this.” During his early adolescence, Tyler sought out the
151
recording technology to overdub, and his interest in recording never waned. With the
ability to record constituting such a vital component of Tyler’s songwriting process, it
is no wonder that he speaks of it with such enthusiasm and reverence. Having mapped
out life goals that are contingent on recording capability, Tyler presents a world view
in which music-making and recording are indistinguishable from each other.
Tyler perceives his formal music lessons as forgettable memories. He credits his
self-guided practicing for his ability to play piano and guitar. With statements such
as “I learned what chords were before I knew what they were,” Tyler’s background
suggests that he is the quintessential self-taught musician. His learning history
includes all the components that constitute Lucy Green’s definition of the popu-
lar musician, yet there is something askew with this picture: Tyler also evidences
traits of a classically trained musician. He reads music, employs the counterpoint
compositional technique, and discusses conventions of Baroque music. In compar-
ison, Tyler’s history of self-guided learning bears a striking resemblance to Louis
Armstrong’s as summarized by John Sloboda:
• The casual immersion in a rich musical environment with many opportunities to

listen and observe.
• Early systematic exploration of a performance medium.
• A great deal of freedom to explore and experiment without negative consequences.
• A lack of distinction between “practice” and “performance.”21
Recording technology is so central to Tyler’s music-making that it commanded the

limelight in our conversations. His early encounters with cassette recorders were
self-led explorations. This pattern of self-directed learning using a trial-and-error
approach continued when Tyler commenced using digital-based audio software.
Additionally, immersion in professional studios while recording with his band fur-
ther contributed to Tyler’s audio education. He keenly observed multiple audio
engineers at work, asking questions and lapping up every bit of wisdom he could.
Presently, he dedicates more energy to learning and mastering recording tech-
nology than any of his more traditional instruments (i.e., piano and guitar). His
drive to master recording technology continues to perpetuate. Relying primarily
on YouTube tutorials, Tyler dedicated years to learning the intricacies of Ableton
before using it to make music. Now with a firm grasp of the DAW, Tyler’s focus has
shifted back to music-making. Tyler is spinning a web of characters with his DIY
studio, each with their own signature sound that he achieves by painstakingly shap-
ing at a plodding pace. Immersed in this world, Tyler is completely self-sufficient,
carrying out all aspects of production. He adapts his production approach accord-
ingly to whatever audio avatar he dreams up; he is a modular man.
21
Sloboda, Exploring the Musical Mind, 253.
153
6
Track 4
Jimmy
For our first meeting, thirty-three-year-old DJ-turned-guitarist Jimmy invited me

to his rehearsal space in an industrial zone of Bushwick, Brooklyn. While some
of the buildings in this neighborhood appeared to be used for manufacturing and
shipping, many had been converted to art studios of one kind or another. The cin-
derblock building Jimmy rehearsed in was unremarkable aside from its steel door
bearing the address in spray paint (Figure 6.1).
After opening the door for me, Jimmy shook my hand and said “What’s up?,”
and then led me down a maze of halls toward his practice room. The floors and
walls of the building are made of concrete, which intensify the barrage of sounds
that blare from the deluge of practicing bands. Each hallway is lined evenly with
steel doors indicating the hallway number and room letter (e.g., 4E). Jimmy opened
up his room and invited me to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit down, or so
I thought (the “room” lacked room; “cell” better describes the confines of the claus-
trophobic space Jimmy refers to as his rehearsal room). I failed to recognize the
multipurpose potential of musical instruments, so Jimmy motioned for me to sit on
his guitar amplifier, the seat for guests. Jimmy, being a gracious host, sat on the floor.
We were in close quarters: the dimensions of the room are five feet wide and eleven
feet long: a mere fifty-five square feet. Most of the room was packed with Jimmy’s
gear (Figure 6.2). Across from me was a large guitar cabinet and beside it, on a wire
cart, sat a white MacBook with a cracked screen. Resourcefully, Jimmy hooked up
an old computer monitor to it so he could still use the computer. On the lower
racks of the wire cart sat a few bottles of vitamins, a jar of peanut better, and a loaf
of white bread. Side-by-side, the cart and speaker cabinet spanned the width of the
wall. Behind these items were stacked guitar cases, an acoustic guitar, a keyboard,
some bedding, and a pillow.
Jimmy is very soft-spoken and has a low smooth baritone speaking voice that was
easily washed out by the tsunami of sounds pounding through the door from the
practice occurring in the adjacent room. Heavily distorted guitars, chest-resonating
153
Figure 6.1 The exterior of Jimmy’s rehearsal building in Bushwick.
Figure 6.2 Jimmy’s rehearsal room.

155
Track 4 : J im m y 155
bass, clacking drums, and shrill cymbals amassed to cover the full frequency spec-
trum, making it difficult to hear Jimmy speak. It was not as loud as a construction
site—not painful to the ear, but bordering on uncomfortable. How did Jimmy prac-
tice through this? I could barely hear myself talk. One of the first things that Jimmy
mentioned to me is that he loves this place, finds it inspiring, and enjoys being bom-
barded with the cornucopia of musical styles: “Something captivates me in here.
Sometimes I have to go to the door and say, ‘what is this?’ ” What seemed like a
cacophonous cage to me is Jimmy’s place of musical refuge. Here, Jimmy practices
incessantly and envisions his future as a signed artist. In pursuit of the elusive record
contract, he moved back to New York from Pennsylvania. By day he works as a man-
ual laborer in shipping and receiving; by night he devotes himself wholly to music.
From Scratching to Picking: Learning History

Like clockwork, Jimmy practices guitar for at least three hours every weekday eve-
ning starting at 6 p.m. and going as late as 1 a.m. On weekends he does not work, so
he will start earlier, around noon, and play into the early evening, making the most
of the two hundred dollars it costs him to rent his room for the month. He esti-
mated that he has kept up this practice since he graduated from college as an eco-
nomics major in 2004. Throughout college he had been very serious about DJing
( Jimmy says “heavy, heavy, heavy into DJing”), so much so that his studies became
a lesser priority, extending his four-year degree to six: “I know I went pretty hard,
that’s probably the reason why it took me so long to graduate.” Jimmy explained the
origins of his relationship to DJing:
I became fascinated with turntable-style music and especially coming from

New York you hear hip-hop radio stations toward the end of the night. DJs
come on and I wondered: how do they do these kinds of things? I know
you guys are using records but how do you do it if you’re only using one
record? Then I found out that they used two records of the same thing
and all this other stuff, so I’m like, “You know what, I’m going to be a DJ!”
There was just a whim that drove me to it. Once I started it didn’t really
stop until I started playing the guitar. Then it kind of slowed down.
Jimmy’s DJ side is fascinating to me because it was a big part of his life, yet he was
reticent to talk about it. He sees himself primarily as a guitarist, but in listening to
his songs, the influence of hip-hop is apparent. Jimmy’s blend of rock and hip-hip
does not come as a surprise when you consider his musical influences as a teenager:
In the early 1990s, Nirvana was definitely one group that stuck out, like,
what is this, and how are they doing this, and why do I love this so much?
I was able to really consciously think about music. Even on the hip-hop
side—like Method Man, and Redman, and Biggie when he was just first
coming out—all this stuff was just so captivating.
As Jimmy later explained to me, conceptually as a DJ, he approaches making music

differently: “I was using my DJ side when I was producing that. It’s not like I wrote it
and produced it, I did it all at the same time.” Joseph Schloss reminds that in hip-hop
the instrument is the studio; recording is integrated in the composition process: “The
hip-hop musician’s instrument, the sampler, is a piece of studio equipment. This
simple fact totally obliterates conventional distinctions between performing (or
practicing) and recording.”1
In contrast to his DJ approach, when Jimmy writes and records music with his
guitar, it resembles a more traditional Aldon-type approach: first the music is writ-
ten and then it is recorded. It is logical that Jimmy would conceptualize recording
guitar-based music and DJ-based music differently because he perceives DJs to be
musical people, but not necessarily musicians:
For one, to be a DJ you have to have a good musical mind, a solid musical
mind. It’s definitely not as skilled as far as a musician, but it’s a music skill
for sure. You have to learn how to mix, you have to know how to scratch,
and not just how to mix and scratch; you have to know how to do it, and
do it seamlessly because that’s what makes a good DJ. Pretty much that’s
the skills it takes to be a DJ. You discover, learn how to mix, learn how to
scratch, and hear the songs in your head before you actually physically pro-
gram them out.
I asked Jimmy how he picked up a skill like scratching and he provided a straight-
forward answer: “By listening to other DJs really. Just like a guitarist listens to
other guitarists.” According to Lucy Green, listening and copying recordings is
a hallmark of the informal learning approach exhibited by popular musicians.2
As an aspiring DJ, Jimmy did not have anyone to take him under his wing and
model the techniques of turntablism, so he sought instruction online for his
tuition:
With YouTube and the Internet you can pretty much pick up on anything
like a typical scratch, your normal “chicka chicka” that you hear in a com-
mercial song. The baby scratch, obviously, because a baby can do it, it’s
your simplest scratch. Then you get to more complex ones like the scribble,
the chirp, the Transformer. The reason why they called it the Transformer
1
2
Green, Music, Informal Learning, and the School.
157
is because of the sound Transformers make. That’s how the scratch sounds.
It’s a cool thing.
Describing his DJing style, Jimmy acknowledged that he did not master all of
the scratches because he was “more of a club-party-playing-party-rocking DJ.”
Impressively, he played weekly gigs on his college campus to eight hundred people,
and once opened for a renowned platinum-selling rapper, performing his music to
an audience of five thousand. Given his success as a DJ, I was curious why Jimmy did
not continue in this direction. The gist of Jimmy’s explanation is that his love of the
guitar supplanted his passion for DJing:
It’s fun. It’s fun now. It’s not like guitar. Guitar is my thing, but it’s like,
it’s hard to describe. You love it and you hate it, you know what I mean?
It’s just so much greater than being able to have fun and not care. Because
I care, I care way too much. It’s like my heart is invested in it, whereas
DJing, where I was like that before at that time, now I’m not.
“ I J U S T F O U N D I T S O H A R D ” : L E A R N I N G TO P L AY
T H E G U I TA R
Deciding to take up the guitar after college was Jimmy’s second attempt at doing
so. His first encounter with the guitar came courtesy of his aunt who gave him les-
sons. He remembered: “That’s how I learned your basic G, C, D, you know what
I mean? I was twelve. I didn’t play much. Around that time I was playing every day
for maybe three months and then I just stopped.” “Why did you stop?” I asked.
Jimmy responded,
I just found it so hard because the action was so high on the guitar, and
I always thought like that’s how the guitar is supposed to be. That’s what
deterred me so much. I didn’t realize you can lower action. It’s an easy
experience to play the guitar. I didn’t know that. I always thought, how
does that guy do that? How does he do that when he has to press so hard
on those strings? It’s impossible. I didn’t even realize until I was damn near
twenty-five that you can actually adjust the action.
It would seem that the guitar drove Jimmy to another instrument, the turntable,
but only temporarily. Jimmy held onto his first electric guitar with the hope that he
would eventually pick it up again:
I had a black Strat [Fender Stratocaster], like your first two-hundred-dollar

Strat, and I would just carry it around wherever I lived, only because it was
mine, and I always looked at it, like, “I’m sure I’ll figure you out one day,”
but I don’t know. Other people used to come and play, and they would
sound great, and I thought, “I’m never going to sound like that.”
T H R E E H O U R S A D AY : P R A C T I C E
After finishing college, Jimmy made a conscious decision to commit himself to
making music, especially with his guitar, telling himself: “I’m going to be a guitarist
and producer, and use the elements of being a musician to produce good music.”
If Jimmy’s estimation of how much he practices is accurate, three hours a day of
practicing amounts to over a thousand hours a year. Adherents of the “ten thou-
sand hour rule” should take note that Jimmy will soon approach expert status if he
is able to sustain his practicing regimen.3 In his practice, Jimmy set out to develop
an understanding of chord combinations as well as master the art of the guitar solo.
Evoking the idea of speaking through his guitar, Jimmy detailed, “The more and
more I play it, it’s like the more and more I see where I am now. I can talk, in a
sense, communicate with the instrument.” Having gained proficiency playing his
instrument, Jimmy explained how his focus shifted from guitar mastery to his other
music-centered goals:
I started slowing down not even six months ago. It got to a point where
it was like, all right, I have accepted the fact that I can play the guitar. I’m
not saying I’m great, but I can play it though, you know what I’m saying?
I need to move on now. I need to put a band together. I need to do this.
I need to do that. I don’t have the time to just sit there and study the gui-
tar. Just as long as I’m playing it every day: that’s all that really matters. If
I get to a higher level, then I can get back to concentrating on the guitar,
because I want to learn jazz guitar and all that other stuff, more complex
forms. All of which is not necessary now, but for me to feel like a complete
guitar player.
The “higher level” that Jimmy spoke of is part of a bigger plan: he wants to build a
following for his music, and have a record deal. But he recognizes, “I have to become
3
The ten thousand hour rule was popularized by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers. Citing
the research of Anders Ericsson, Ralf Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer, “The Role of Deliberate
Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Gladwell argues that the development of musi-
cal expertise requires ten thousand hours of practice. Calculating that both Mozart and the Beatles
reached the ten thousand–hour mark at the peak of their careers, Gladwell concludes: “Practice isn’t
the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good” (42). In his book Guitar
Zero, Gary Marcus counters that attaining expertise is not simply a matter of time commitment: “The
Beatles . . . put in more like two thousand hours, not ten thousand . . . to focus solely on practice is to
unfairly dismiss talent. Consider, for example, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page; neither started until he
was an adolescent . . . but both were playing professionally within a year or so of their peers” (100).
159
something on my own before I can even deal with a record company.” Given his
experience as a DJ and his father’s background as a music producer, Jimmy has had
some bad experiences dealing with record labels, and has some misgivings about
their judgment of talent: “It’s like every breakthrough artist is always that person
who nobody on the record label ever wanted.” Until the record labels come around,
Jimmy plans to make recordings to distribute on Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube,
ReverbNation, iTunes, and any other way he can. Having a deep appreciation for the
music of his parent’s generation, Jimmy suggested that the future of recorded music
is bright, and that the key is harnessing the technologies we have at our disposal:
I think with all these technological advances we have now, I think music
can be at its best point now. Talking about better than the Motown days,
it has to be. It can’t be that our parents had it, but what do we have? Even
though we have some great artists right now, we are at a point where we
can be making the best music possible. Once people start finding the medi-
ums between these advances and actual music itself, I think we’ll be on our
way. It’s happening, it’s definitely happening.
“ I T WA S N E V E R , N E V E R , N E V E R S E R I O U S ” : L E A R N I N G
THE STUDIO BY OSMOSIS
It was difficult for Jimmy to recollect when he started using recording technology
because it has always been a part of his life. Jimmy’s father was a DJ and a record pro-
ducer who maintained a professional recording studio in their home; Jimmy and his
brother were free to explore and experiment in it. According to Jimmy’s professional
biography, he “has been in the studio absorbing the eclectic and expansive audio
created by his own father—one of the most heavily sampled producers in music.”
I asked Jimmy what equipment his father’s studio had.
Jimmy: He had a keyboard, a drum machine, and the Yamaha NS10s, those studio
monitors I was telling you about with the natural sound. That’s the setup that he
basically had. He always had a mixing board also so he could record and do stuff
like that.
Adam: Was that to tape?
Jimmy: It was, earlier. Earlier ones were recorded to tape, and then down the line
we’d get the digital ones, but like a physical board that recorded digitally.
Adam: You guys played with it and that’s how you learned it?
Jimmy: Something like that. I mean, my brother was more into it when we were
younger, especially like real younger and into the teens. I didn’t, really. I would
always mess around with it once in a while when I felt like, “hmmm maybe I’m
just a little bit too far away, let me just kind of jump in here a little bit,” but it was
never, never, never serious. It was kind of weird because the tides have turned. My
brother was the one that was super on it, and now I’m the one who’s super on it.
It’s funny how things work.
Jimmy is very nonchalant about the significance of the fact that he has the know-
how to operate a sophisticated DAW like Pro Tools. Given that Jimmy grew up
through the recording industry’s transition from analog to digital mediums, and
that his father always had the most current technologies, it appears that his learning
occurred by immersion. I asked if he’d spent a lot of time in his father’s studio.
Jimmy: Nah. I didn’t really spend time in the studio, I would just go there. If maybe
I wanted to record something DJ-wise or if I had a friend—a couple of my friends
are rappers that throw together beats. Nothing that was ever good. But that was
it though.
Adam: But you knew enough that you could record your friends. And you were
making the beats then.
Jimmy: I always had a solid idea of how to do it. But as far as really going for it and
trying to make things that sound good, that came later.
Jimmy’s responses to my questions and redirects baffle me; he claims not to have
spent much time in the studio, and yet he could program beats on a drum machine,
and record his friends’ rapping. His explanation was simple: he “always had a solid
idea of how to do it.” It had only been eight years, the same amount of time he’d
spent learning the guitar, since Jimmy had committed to learning how to record his
own music with Pro Tools. “I didn’t really get into it until after I graduated college,”
he said. “I mean I knew how to do it from being around it all the time, but I didn’t
really get serious until I was twenty-four.” Now that Jimmy is serious about making
music, when the inspiration for a song comes, he ceases upon it, and “writes” by
recording in his DIY studio.
“I Woke Up With the Melody”: The Making

of “Lost and Found”
Pounding the pavement, slave to the grind
Work for the weekend, I pay no mind
Peel off your uniform, be who you are
Lost and found . . .
[chorus:]
You can never find it, find your way
So let me go and let our pathways part
You can never find it, find your way
161
So let me go and let our pathways part

Struggle, struggle, struggle
Every day’s a struggle
But the sun it keeps on rising
MCs rock the mic
Today becomes tomorrow, the lost become the found
Earth begins to crumble, sky is all we have
STARS UP IN THE SKY, SING IT, STARS UP IN THE SKY
STARS UP IN THE SKY YEAH!
“Lost and Found” is part of a larger pool of songs that Jimmy wrote and recorded for
his debut solo album. He recollected how he wrote it:
I was dating this girl at the time, and we were just napping, and I woke up
with the melody, and I’m trying to figure out what the song is telling me.
I just heard “sell your soul,” and that was the only part I had. I was hearing
the chords in my head from G to B—then that’s it. Now I have to figure this
out somehow, you know. That’s how it started, the “find your way” part,
which was the only part I heard that I was able to make sense of.
Jimmy described songwriting as a fluid process, one that comes naturally and cannot
be forced: “Every time I’ve tried to write a song, it doesn’t work—it never works—
but when I write songs it always comes from somewhere, and it always happens
when I’m not expecting it.” Jimmy’s approach to songwriting is to craft songs that
possess a universal appeal, with a central message of self-empowerment:
I try to let it flow out. I try to write from the perspective that other people
can relate to in some sort of way, you know what I’m saying? We take a lot
of things lightly, and take them more seriously than we need to at the same
time, and that’s the kind of things I try to write about. I try not to make it so
much about myself. It’s more about living life, and being who you are, just
allow yourself to be who you are. I just try to write songs that people can
relate to. As much as we like to think that we’re all different and separated,
we’re really not. Everyone has a connection whether you realize it or not.
I try to tap into that connection and see what comes out.
“ E V E R Y D AY ’ S A S T R U G G L E ” : W R I T I N G LY R I C S
Jimmy indicated that the first lyrical line to come to mind was “find your way,” and
the song was built around this phrase, with the musical ideas coming first. Curious
to know what inspired the other lyrics, I asked, “The lyrics, how did the rest come
about?”
Jimmy: Part of it, being that I was a DJ—and I still consider myself a DJ—“MCs
rock the mic,” that’s been said a million and one times, but not on a song like this.
Let’s do it like this, you know? The rest was just saying, hey, this is for us, this is
not really for the record industry.
Adam: What about the part “struggle, struggle?”
Jimmy: Every day we struggle, and not even like some sort of desperate struggle.
Like get up out of your bed and go to work, you have to go to school, you have
to do something, you have to struggle, you have to do something, you know?
Sometimes we get so caught up in that circle that we don’t take the time to reflect
and enjoy life.
Jimmy accentuated a recurring theme in the lyrics of his album: celebrating per-
sonal independence and finding social solidarity through that common bond. He
perceives the struggle of life to be something that detracts from the human ability to
enjoy it. He wants to inspire and sees himself as a “forward thinker.”
“IT JUST HAPPENS”: RECORDING = SONGWRITING

Typically, when Jimmy is struck with a moment of inspiration, he looks to rec-
ord the idea one way or another before he forgets it: “Yeah I definitely do write
it down, or I’ll just record it on my phone, depending on whatever is the case. If
it’s a guitar riff, I’ll record it on the phone. Even if it’s some song lyrics, but usu-
ally I write the lyrics down.” The strategy of “writing down” by recording is one
that Lucy Green found to be characteristic of popular musicians.4 One problem
Jimmy encountered during the few months I followed his process was the loss of
his phone, which consequently meant the loss of some song sketches that he had
recorded. The phone serves as a temporary vessel for Jimmy’s songs; ideally he
is able to commit his sonic ideas to a more finished form using Pro Tools in his
father’s studio.
Jimmy’s father has upgraded his home studio throughout the years and given
Jimmy free access to this space to use at his convenience. Currently, the studio is
equipped with the following: PowerMac G5, Pro Tools, DigiDesign 192 audio
interface, professional- grade Waves and Bomb Factory plugins, Genelec and
Yamaha monitors, Avalon 737 Preamplifier, Neumann U87 microphone, Yahama
Motif MIDI controller, and Native Instruments soft-synth plugins.
Jimmy recorded “Lost and Found” in a flurry of activity:
I laid the music down as soon as I got home from visiting with her
[ Jimmy’s girlfriend]. As soon as I got home I rushed straight to the stu-
dio and started laying down the music. I had the music, and then I started
4
Green, How Popular Musicians Learn.
163
writing, just trying to feel it out, and it came together. That’s how it usually
happens—I don’t really know—it just happens, you know, it just happens,
it just happens.
“Lost and Found” sounds like a Foo Fighters–style, heavy rock song that contrasts
soft verses with loud and heavy choruses. Jimmy listed the instrumentation: “Well
for this particular one we have drums, bass, guitar, some synths in there, light synths
though, and that’s pretty much it. Vocals obviously, vocal layers and stuff like that.”
Finger Drumming
Jimmy recorded the drums first; they are synthetic as opposed to a live recording of
an acoustic drum set. I asked Jimmy, “So when you program a drumbeat how do you
do it?” Jimmy explained:
It depends. If I’m going in without an idea at all, then I will try to play the
whole thing. This song just came to me: I was laying with the girl I was
seeing at the time, just napping, and I woke up with this idea in my head. It
was like the chorus part but half of it, and I’m just like, oh man, I’ve got to
lay it down. And when I went home to lay it down, I just kind of separated
all of the drums because I already knew what it was going to be.
In writing the drums Jimmy took a horizontal approach,5 knowing already in

advance how the music was supposed to sound and programming it to match his
vision. To “play” the drum part, Jimmy used a MIDI keyboard, on which each key
was assigned a different drum sound. The drum part was played with his fingers sub-
stituting as drumsticks, and the keys of the keyboard serving as drums and cymbals.
One of the parameters that MIDI records is velocity, enabling Jimmy to provide a
varying dynamic to his performance. The drum part was further edited by altering
the timing of some of the notes to give it the feel of a “natural drummer”:
We have a couple of virtual drum programs, one is called the Stylus RMX,
and the other is from Native Instruments, who made this bundle which has
a ton of freaking sounds, called the Battery. Basically, the people who made
it sampled a lot of drums, live drums, recorded it, and made it into a pro-
gram. Some of them are like synthetic drums, but I kind of wanted to give
it a little bit of an alive feel, and a little bit of an electronic feel at the same
time, so a lot of the snares may sound like a drummer is playing it. But you
can’t necessarily do that because you only get one key on a keyboard, so
you’re not really going to get that feel. So sometimes you have to take the
5

Based
Music-Making.”
edit window, grab your notes or grab that MIDI, and move it around phys-
ically. Even if it’s not right on the bar you want it to be a little bit off because
that’s how a natural drummer is going to play.
Tracking, Layering, and Tweaking Guitars

Aside from the voice, the most prominent instrument in the mix of “Lost and
Found” is the guitar. Jimmy had little to say about recording the bass, but he did
recall that for “Lost and Found,” he used an electric bass. When making songs that
are less rock-oriented, he often uses his MIDI controller keyboard to program the
bass lines in the same way he would program the drums. The advantage of using
MIDI is that Jimmy can change the sound of the bass at any time or rewrite the bass
line completely if he chooses. For “Lost and Found,” Jimmy opted to record an elec-
tric bass hoping it would lend a “live” feel to the song.
Because Jimmy sees himself primarily as a guitarist, he pays a lot of attention to
the timbre of his guitar sound in his recordings. While listening to the final mix of
“Lost and Found,” Jimmy drew my attention to the guitar sound, a sound that he felt
could be improved upon, but not to the extent that the average listener would notice:
All of this was done, the guitar, with a Fender Champ, a small little solid-
state amp. It’s decent but it’s thin, you know? And then I used this Hartke
[guitar amplifier] as a bottom. There are a few guitar layers; I think there
are four. I still had the other amp that I sold—I had that and I’m thinking,
man, I should have taken this home and run it through this because it has
the tubes, it has that thick sound; but at the end of the day most people are
not going to know the difference, so I just let it go like this.
André Millard writes that guitar amplifiers are “not just adjuncts to the instrument.
They are the sound of rock.” Over time rock musicians have grown “highly discern-
ing in evaluating the tone of their amps, analyzing the sound and using terms like
crunchy, swirly, smoky, booming, fat, flubby, doinky, dirty, greasy, and country clean to
describe it.”6 Jimmy fits this trait of the electric guitarist, and attaining the right
sound is critical for him to be satisfied with the recording.
Central to Jimmy’s guitar sound are distorted power chords, a staple of heavy
metal and alternative rock. Robert Walser explains how the combination of a power
chord and distortion amount to an amalgamated sound that covers a large range of
the audible frequency spectrum:
Distortion also results in a timbral change toward brightness, toward a

more complex waveform, since distorting a signal increases the energy of
its higher harmonics. Power chords, on the other hand, produce powerful
6
Millard, The Electric Guitar, 133.
165
signals below the actual pitches being sent to the amplifier. Thus, the dis-
torted guitar signal is expanded in both directions: the higher harmonics
produced by distortion add brilliance and edge (and what guitarists some-
times call “presence”) to the sound, and the resultant tones produced by
the interval combinations of power chords create additional low frequen-
cies, adding weight to the sound.7
In my first listening I could discern three distinct guitar parts: a rhythm guitar, a
lead guitar playing a solo before the bridge, and a guitar playing octaves during the
chorus alongside the rhythm guitar. The rhythm guitar during the chorus is heavily
distorted and adds what Walser describes as “weight to the sound.” In addition to
the added timbral change in the guitar sound during the chorus, Jimmy explained
to me his technique of recording multiple layers of the same rhythm guitar part to
add impact to the chorus:
It is definitely doubled. It’s tripled. What we usually do is, whenever you

track certain things that you want to have extra sounds on, sounds that
have a certain thickness, like vocals and stuff like that, always record at least
three so you can center one and pan out the other two so you get that kind
of sound. And that’s what we did. And that’s what I always do now.
When Jimmy recorded guitar, he had a preconception of how the different parts
would be mixed. Taking the example of the rhythm guitar, he played the same part
three times and panned them differently to cover the stereo field of the recording
from left to right. Michael Chanan theorizes that conceptualizing a piece of music
based on how the recording will sound shifts the paradigm of what it means to
be a musician: “A new kind of performer is needed, the virtuoso of the repeated
take . . . In pop music, this tendency leads to products that depend entirely on
recording technique, and which cannot be performed live at all.”8 In order to rep-
licate the performance of the recording on a stage, Jimmy would have to triplicate.
The technique of recording multiple rhythm tracks with slight differences, the
“natural double,” was brought to the forefront of the recording industry with the Sex
Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977). Producer Chris Thomas
claimed, “One of the things I did was sort of orchestrate it guitar-wise.”9 Guitarist
Steve Jones explained the process: “The initial track went down on the guitar, then
that would be copied on the right hand side, you know, so that it was, like it wasn’t
stereo, it was like mono deluxe.”10 This technique was later exploited and popularized
7
8
Chanan, Repeated Takes, 18.
9
Sex Pistols.
10
Ibid.
on one of Jimmy’s favorite albums, Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991). Doubling and pan-
ning two guitars left and right in the stereo field creates a sense of envelopment for
the listener, and is central to Nirvana’s sound. Julio d’Escriván explains:
Envelopment is pleasing to the listener partly because it transmits a sense

of what it must be like to actually be in the live presence of that sound
source as opposed to just a recording, and partly because it places the lis-
tener somehow inside the soundfield.11
While Jimmy employed many different technical strategies to achieve his guitar
sound, it is important to recognize the uniqueness of his playing that is elemental to
his sound. Engineer Jack Joseph Puig ( John Mayer, No Doubt, U2) stresses:
All guitar tones start at the musician’s hand, and you have to realize this.
From there, each part of the chain contributes to the end result, and that
chain includes the way the musician plays, the guitar itself, the pick, the
voicings, the cable, amp, room, position of the amp in the room, and even
the way the musician holds the instrument.12
Do It Again: Layering Vocals
Jimmy has a system for recording vocals similar to his system for recording gui-
tars, which entails tracking several layers of the same part: “The regulars, the dou-
bles, and triples of that, then there’s the octaves, so there’s two of those, and then
harmonies, so that’s about seven. And all of that gets panned left and right.” Being
more specific regarding the placement of the vocal tracks in the stereo field, Jimmy
explained the general guidelines to which he adheres: “Main vocal: left, right, and
center. Harmony and octave: left and right. That’s usually how we do it. Sometimes
they don’t get panned hard left and right, they will be more to the middle.” Again,
the reference to Nirvana surfaces as layering vocals was a technique that engineer
Butch Vig employed in the recording of Nevermind (1991): “I’m a big fan of dou-
bling, particularly on choruses, and he [Kurt Cobain] did that quite a bit on the
record, and that’s part of what the sound is.”13
To record his vocals, Jimmy used some expensive equipment: a Neumann U87
microphone and an Avalon 737 preamplifier. Guiding me through a video tour of
his father’s studio, he froze the frame to call my attention to the Avalon 737:
That right there, that’s a mic preamp I was telling you about. That’s the
vacuum tube that we run all the vocals through. Avalon 737. We run
11
d’Escriván, Music Technology, 57.
12
Puig, “No Limits,” 237.
13
As cited in Buskin, Inside Tracks, 346.
167
everything through, all the guitars, everything. It’s pretty much industry-
standard. Everything you’ve heard on the radio—if it’s not done by that,
it’s done by something better.
Jimmy gave me an overview of the different parameters that can be adjusted

using the Avalon, and explained how it was used to process every track that he
recorded: “What I do when I’m getting ready to get a song sent to mixing, I will run
all the music through these tubes to give it a more authentic real sound.” Once all
of the recorded tracks were processed through the Avalon, Jimmy’s recording ses-
sion was complete. With all of the instruments recorded in the span of a single day,
Jimmy’s focus shifted to having his song mixed.
“Me and Him Have This Synergy”: Mixing with Bill

The production of “Lost and Found” spanned several months. When I first met
Jimmy, he had already recorded the tracks and was in the midst of arranging a
mixing session for “Lost and Found” at his father’s studio where his friend Bill
would serve as the mixing engineer. A week after we met, Jimmy was able to
coordinate the mixing date and brought along the video camera to the session
to capture the day’s events. Jimmy did not film continuously; he selectively cap-
tured aspects of the mixing session that he thought were the most important for
me to see. He explained the camera’s presence and purpose to Bill: “This isn’t
really for me. This kid is doing an interview of me and he’s trying to, I guess
he’s doing a thesis on like, audio, home audio recording, and mixing, and stuff
like that.”
Curious as to why Jimmy did not mix his own music, I asked him why he hired
Bill for the task. First, Bill is a professional audio engineer and Jimmy has a rapport
with him. Having collaborated on previous projects, they have developed a trusting
relationship. Second, there is a style to Bill’s mixing that suits Jimmy’s musical tastes.
Bruce Swedien explains how mixing sound is like cooking. They both are depend-
ent on taste:
Mixing can in parts can be compared to making food. It really doesn’t

matter how good the quality of the individual ingredients are—if they
are not put together in the right manner it will never please the eater.
Different cooks make very different meals with the very same ingredi-
ents, and the same can be said for sound engineers—no two will give
you the same result. But one thing they will give you is their own sonic
personality.14
14
Swedien, In the Studio with Michael Jackson, 126.
Third, Jimmy sees himself as a producer, a role that encompasses more of a holis-
tic vision for the music, and delegates the technical responsibilities to the mixing
engineer. Albin Zak notes that the relationship between the engineer and producer
is “analogous to that of a film’s cinematographer (and editor) and its director. The
former is charged with the actualization of the latter’s imagined visions, ideas, and
speculations.”15 Jimmy described what kind of input he communicated to Bill in the
mixing session:
With him I usually kind of not say so much, only because it’s like me
and him have this synergy, so it’s like we know each other and we know
what we’re looking for. I mean if it comes to production, per se, I’ll be
like, all right, make it do this or make it do that, you know what I’m
saying? If I want a specific sound, like, make it sound like a radio kind
of effect, take all the bass out, or just have it run everything on the high
pass or something like that. But other than that I pretty much just try
to produce it in a way to where this is what it is, all you have to do is
bounce it.
Thomas Porcello outlines five different strategies that an artist and engineer use to
communicate desired sound outcomes in the studio:
1. Singing/vocables: using the voice to mimic the timbral and resonance character-

istics of the musical sounds;
2. Lexical onomatopoesis: using words that bear at least a partial acoustic resem-
blance to the sounds they describe, but which are simultaneously metaphors
that more abstractly describe the sounds;
3. “Pure” metaphor: using words to describe timbral characteristics (e.g., pitch-
bend, tight, deep), but do not bear any acoustic similarity to the sound in
question;
4. Association: citing other musicians, recordings, sounds, time periods and so
forth, in a search for a common frame of reference from which to describe the
timbres in question;
5. Evaluation: evaluating sounds to establish a mutual sense of solidarity
between the artist and engineer, to mark a territory of shared musical aes-
thetics. Its function is therefore largely social, signifying an agreement on
sonic goals.16
Although Jimmy uses pure metaphors (“make it sound like a radio”) and audio engi-
neering terminology (“run everything on the high pass”) in his communications
15
Zak, “Getting Sounds,” 74.
16
Porcello, “Speaking of Sound,” 746.
169
with Bill, much of what happens in the mixing session is the result of previous years
of what Porcello calls evaluation. Jimmy and Bill have an established history work-
ing well together in the studio, which has led to a mostly unspoken but understood
sense of sound. In the studio, part of getting acquainted with a collaborator entails
getting to know their timbral tastes. Figure 6.3 shows Jimmy’s collaborator, Bill,
mixing “Lost and Found.”
A N A L O G V E R S U S D I G I TA L A C C O R D I N G TO J I M M Y
Before Jimmy walked me through his mixing session, he distilled his views on the
difference between mixing a song with a DAW (i.e., Pro Tools), and the more tra-
ditional approach of using a mixing console, in this case a Solid State Logic (SSL)
console. Jimmy compared some software, the Waves SSL 4000 E-Channel plugin
to the original hardware that the software was modeled on, a SSL 4000 E series
channel strip:
Jimmy: When you get something mixed—I have something that was mixed on an
actual SSL board—it’s so big, so grand, so thick. With [a DAW], it sounds good
and it’s good, but it’s not like, “Man, did you hear that?!” You know? A lot of guys
would tell you it’s the same thing. It’s not the same thing. It’s good. You can get
your stuff on the radio. People won’t be able to tell the difference, but people
can subconsciously tell the difference: so they hear a song that’s mixed on an
SSL simulator compared to an actual SSL, and people feel the one done on the
SSL more than the emulator. Sound is really important—that’s one thing people
Figure 6.3 Bill at the helm of the Pro Tools session for “Lost and Found.”
don’t realize—sound is very, very important and it affects us very intricately and
people don’t realize it. It really does.
Adam: What do you think the difference is?
Jimmy: I think the thickness of it, the feel of it, the more you can actually capture because
even though when you’re recording, you’re not capturing everything. The SSL cap-
tures the most. If I’m in the club and I’m hearing the same song I might subcon-
sciously dance harder to the one that’s done on the SSL even though it sounds crazy.
Adam: What did you mean by when you record something you don’t capture
all of it?
Jimmy: Well nothing is perfect. I run my guitar through a good mic, my ear is
going to be able to catch everything but the microphone will not be able to
catch everything. Certain elements are going to be missed, because nothing’s
perfect. You definitely want to use the best equipment so you capture the most
that you can.
Jimmy demonstrated that he has engaged in critical thought about the process
of recording, recognizing that something gets lost along the way when sound is
recorded. Microphones process sound differently than the human ear; in Jimmy’s
view, the ear captures everything, but the microphone cannot. Greg Milner
concurs:
Our auditory systems make adjustments in perspective that a microphone

cannot. When we hear solos, we move that sound to the forefront of our
consciousness; a microphone just reads it as another sound—more dis-
tinct than the others, perhaps, but still part of a two-dimensional picture.
The microphone passively receives sound, but we use it to create a multi-
faceted tonal picture.17
G E T T I N G G U I TA R S O U N D S : E Q UA L I Z I N G A N D
COMPRESSING
Jimmy spoke of a subconscious feeling people have for music that mixing technol-
ogy can influence. Part of the task of mixing is ensuring that the intended emo-
tion of a performance is preserved or even accentuated. This is best exemplified in
the processing of Jimmy’s guitar sounds in the mixing process. Jimmy’s engineer
used different plugins to alter the timbre of the guitar tone to draw out its emotion.
Robert Walser argues, “of all musical parameters, timbre is least often analyzed, but
its significance can hardly be overstated.”18
17
18
171
In the video of the mixing session, Bill pulled up a plugin on screen called Waves
Renaissance Equalizer and started to make adjustments. David Gibson provides a
lucid explanation of the role of an equalizer (EQ) and the challenges in using one:
EQ is a change in the volume of a particular frequency of a sound, sim-

ilar to the bass and treble tone controls on a car stereo. It is one of the
least understood aspects of recording and mixing probably because there
is such a large number of frequencies—from 20 to 20,000Hz. The real dif-
ficulty comes from the fact that boosting or cutting the volumes of any one
of these frequencies depends on the structure of the sound itself: Each one
is different. But even more complex is the fact that different sounds are
equalized differently depending on the type of music, the song, and even
the people you are working with.19
As Roey Izhaki surmises, “understanding frequencies and how to manipulate them

is perhaps the greatest challenge mixing has to offer.”20
Jimmy explained Bill’s use of the equalizer:
JIMMY: This is EQ. You get a flat line once you pull it up. But now he’s adjusted it.
This is the bottom, this is the high, so obviously you can take it down or go up. It’s
looking like he’s added a lot of bottom to it.
Adam: How would he decide to do that?
Jimmy: It would be based on the guitar sounds at its current state. What needs to be
taken out, left in, what needs to be more. And a lot of the time you’re doing that
kind of stuff, it’s not based on what you think or what you like, it’s more or less
based on what is the best frequency it is going to be heard at. He’s running the
guitar through that, that is the octave. He’s adjusting the way-highs, obviously it’s
a guitar. I think he’s trying to capture the feeling that the octave guitars are sup-
posed to have.
Adam: What would you say that feeling is?
Jimmy: The octave guitar is supposed to be a reinforcement of adding motion. Like
that kind of I-can-overcome emotion. Whatever I said in the verses, then that is the
solidifier. Like I said this, and now music says this you know what I’m saying, yeah. It’s
always hard to explain music.
While Jimmy sensed that he was struggling to put into words how the equalizer was
used to illuminate the emotion of the octaves he played on the guitar, he managed to
explain that the function of the octave guitar part is to reinforce the message of the lyr-
ics. Once the line “lost and found” is sung, the music is structured such that the guitar
19
Gibson, The Art of Mixing, 89.
20
Izhaki, Mixing Audio, 205.
reinforces the lyrical message. Bill Gibson advises that a mix be given a constant focal
point or else risk being identified as unprofessional:
It’s common to hear an unprofessional-sounding mix in which the mix is all

right as long as the vocals are active. However, the spaces between the lyrics
lose interest—the momentum drops and the listener is left without a point
of interest.21
A key component of “Lost and Found” is the guitar solo. With a noticeably wide
dynamic range, it is susceptible to being masked by other instruments. To circumvent
this issue, Bill employed compression. Alex Case writes, “compression is an effect easily
misunderstood, and often misapplied . . . compression is the automatic reduction in sig-
nal level whenever the amplitude exceeds a specified value.”22 Jimmy described the Bomb
Factory BF-3A Classic Compressor plugin that Bill used to compress the guitar solo:
This one only has two knobs: input and output, pretty much. The produc-
tion is pretty much when [the guitar signal] goes into the red, [the compres-
sor] plays like an equalizer. So every time the signal goes to a point where
it will peak, [the compressor] will automatically pull [the signal] down.
Technical description aside, Jimmy perceived the compressor as serving an artistic

function within the mix: “You use it to give the sound of the guitar more beef, a lit-
tle more body, so that’s what he’s doing.” Employing adjectives such as “beef ” and
“body” to describe sound in this case translates to the compression of the dynamic
range of the guitar signal. Jimmy’s word choices are logical considering that beef is
synonymous with brawn, robustness, and power. Both Robert Walser23 and André
Millard24 convincingly argue that during the twentieth century the electric gui-
tar came to be seen as a symbol of masculinity and strength. Compressing a sig-
nal makes it denser and thick, giving it more body. For Bill to be able to translate
Jimmy’s descriptors such as beef and body into manipulations of audio resulting in
the desired sonic result is impressive. Jimmy is not alone in struggling to describe
sounds in musical or technical terms. Longtime recording engineer of the Beatles,
Geoff Emerick, claims John Lennon floundered when he had to verbalize his
musical ideas:
John always had plenty of ideas about how he wanted his songs to sound;
he knew in his mind what he wanted to hear. The problem was that, unlike
21
Gibson, The S.M.A.R.T. Guide to Mixing and Mastering, 71.
22
Case, Mix Smart, 81. Emphasis in original.
23
Walser, Running with the Devil.
24
Millard, The Electric Guitar.
173
Paul, he had great difficulty expressing those thoughts in anything but the
most abstract terms. Whereas Paul might say, “This song needs brass and
timpani,” John’s direction might be more like, “Give me the feel of James
Dean gunning his motorcycle down a highway.”25
Similarly, Jimi Hendrix struggled to articulate his ideas for guitar sounds as anything
more than colors and relied on engineer Eddie Kramer to help him realize his sonic
visions: “Hendrix would speak to Kramer of sounds playing in his head or sounds he
had heard in a dream . . . he could hear them clearly, but he could not translate them
to the guitar.”26 Albin Zak commends audio engineers in this regard: “In interpret-
ing the ideas, complaints, and aural fantasies of the recording team, engineers serve
as facilitators of both performance and creativity in the recording studio.”27 Bill is
continuing a tradition of engineers interpreting musicians, and his ability to trans-
late from the transcendental to technical is essential to the realization of Jimmy’s
desired guitar tone in the finished mix.
“I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE A SINGER”: VOCAL

DOUBLING AND PROCESSING THE VOICE
Much has been made of Jimmy as a guitarist and DJ, but my conviction is that
Jimmy’s greatest talent is his singing ability. In the final mix of “Lost and Found,”
his voice is the central focus. While the guitars are certainly accentuated during the
sections of the song without vocals and provide a powerful backbone to the chorus,
it is the voice that carries the song throughout. Jimmy has an impressively versatile
voice. Reflecting his musical influences, he can holler hard rock growls, rap with
a rasp, and serenade with soul. Reflecting on his development as a singer, Jimmy
described his revelation:
It’s definitely a work in progress because I never thought I would be a

singer ever, ever, ever, ever. The first song I actually recorded was two
years ago and that’s when I knew, “I think I can do this” . . . And then
it started growing and growing and it’s like, wow, I guess I can sing
pretty well!
In the video, Bill said to Jimmy: “Since you already have some of the delays set up,
I’ll use that as a base and tweak it from there.” I asked Jimmy how the delay was used
in the song and he explained, “It is used basically everywhere because there is a lot
25
Emerick and Massey, Here, There, and Everywhere, 8.
26
27
Zak, “Getting Sounds,” 75.
of space in the song. It’s not a filler, but kind of like a filler in the sense. It’s used on
the vocals and the soloing it is definitely used also.” Bruce Swedien writes:
Used cleverly in a mix, delay can be subtle enough that it is not obvious
when swallowed by the rest of the instruments and can be used to just
change the feel of a track by giving it life and space; or it can simply be used
to give a dramatic edge to an instrumental part.28
The use of delay in “Lost and Found” is purposely audible during the verses. Jimmy
has rests of two beats between lyrical lines, which translates to a couple of seconds
in real time. Delay serves to fill these spaces with a clear echo of the line previously
sung. In this way delay serves to provide the song with momentum, keeping it from
being derailed by silence.
In addition to delay, Bill applied distortion to the various vocal takes: “For the
layers of voxes a lot of the times we would put a guitar amp on it, a virtual guitar amp
on the voxes.” The “virtual guitar amp” that Jimmy referred to is called Amp Farm,
which gives the user several different options of software-modeled guitar amplifiers.
Pointing at the plugin that Bill called up on the video, Jimmy explained, “These are
the cab simulators, if you want a different type of head, what kind of cab it’s going to
come out through, and what kind of mic that you’re simulating.” Jimmy explained
that filtering his voice through Amp Farm “will give it that raspiness and then bring
it down so it mixes nicely.”
FINAL MIX?
With every element of “Lost and Found” receiving a critical ear from Jimmy and
Bill, the four-minute song took six hours to mix. While that may seem an eternity
to dedicate to four minutes of music, Jimmy remarked, “That’s pretty fast actually,
usually it will take half a day, twelve hours.” Every sound was scrutinized, processed,
and tweaked such that the amalgamation of sounds formed a cohesive unit. As Bill
Gibson affirms, “mixing is where everything comes together—it’s where you should
be able to spend enough time to create a musically and sonically powerful work of
art.”29
Having had some time to evaluate the mix for himself, Jimmy was satisfied with
Bill’s work: “It sounds good, it’s mixed, it’s fully good enough to hear. But once it’s
mastered it will be louder and bigger—pretty much that mix, just louder and big-
ger.” While Jimmy weighed his options regarding where to have “Lost and Found”
mastered, he had already uploaded the mp3 to various websites for people to stream,
and posted it as a free download on his website. Considering the time, energy, and
28
Swedien, In the Studio with Michael Jackson, 139.
29
Gibson, Hal Leonard Recording Method, 77.
175
money he put into the recording, I asked Jimmy why he opted to give it away instead
of selling it. He rationalized:
Let’s say everybody in New York has it. Let’s say the record takes off.
I could still sell it even though I gave it away, and if a record label wants
to come in, what would be their incentive to want to work with me if
I’m already selling my own records? So I’m thinking about it, maybe
I should fall back and give it away, give it away to all the people that
are going to listen to it, and then once we’re in a good place, then we’ll
sell it.
In the record label ecosystem that Jimmy endeavors to join, he would not have to
contemplate promotion and distribution. Until then, every day he pounds the pave-
ment. Whether it’s playing gigs in dives bars of New York’s Lower East Side, writ-
ing thoughtful emails to the people who come out to his shows, posting his music
online anywhere that will have it, making promotional video shorts for YouTube, or
spending months explaining his creative process to an academic—he does it all with
the hope that his music will be heard.
Recording as Second Nature: Conclusions

The studio is part of Jimmy’s identity. Having been around a recording studio
his entire life, Jimmy expects to continue in the family business of being a music
producer. Musical ideas come naturally to him; as he described, “it just happens.”
Jimmy’s songwriting process is similar to that of producer Todd Rundgren (Meat
Loaf, Hall and Oates, The Band), as detailed by Paul Myers:
Rundgren describes self-production as more of “an evolutionary proc-

ess” and relates the process to different approaches in art and sculpture.
“Working alone is for the most part, additive,” he says, “like sculpting with
clay . . . When I’m composing, by myself, it’s just my own sort of internal
process. I’ll start with something very rudimentary, a rhythm pattern or a
bassline or something and, over time, that gets layered up and evolves into
something more complete sounding. It’s not strictly trial and error; I usu-
ally start out with some sort of overall feeling of where I want to go . . . I’m
just kind of wandering around in a musical area, waiting for whatever it
is that I come up with to start coalescing and tell me where it’s supposed
to go.”30
30
Myers, A Wizard, a True Star, 42.
Once a musical idea is conceived, Jimmy’s first instinct is to record it. Recording
entails Jimmy orchestrating an entire song in a single session and scrambling to
commit his ideas to a medium of permanence in a matter of hours. Using MIDI
instruments such as Battery (a drum sequencer), Jimmy is able to program a drum
pattern and lay the foundation for what constitutes the core of his songs. Guitars
and vocals are recorded in layers with the foresight of how these different layers will
be mixed. This strategy involves a “recording consciousness”—thinking about the
finished final product and working sequentially backward.31 Jimmy realizes that if he
wants his guitar and voice to sound a certain way on the final recording, they need to
be recorded multiple times and mixed a certain way. In the same vein, with the help
of his engineering friend Bill, Jimmy agonizes over the timbral qualities of the guitar,
ensuring that they translate the emotions of his songs. Recording is second nature
to Jimmy; he is comfortable with the technology he uses and is able to efficiently use
it to facilitate the realization of his songs to a distributable format.
Jimmy has never taken a formal music lesson, but in his learning journey he has
received lessons from online videos and people passing through his life. Influenced
by his DJ background, Jimmy has learned to play the guitar primarily by listening to
other guitarists and trying to emulate them. Jimmy spends most of his time outside
of work alone, diligently mastering the guitar, trying to match the likes of his musi-
cal idols Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton. As someone who is almost
entirely self-taught, he meets all of Lucy Green’s criteria that characterize how pop-
ular musicians learn,32 including the complex process of integrating listening, per-
forming, improvising, and composing simultaneously while learning.
With regard to recording technology, Jimmy has acquired an impressive array
of skills to be able to use his father’s recording studio. He is fluent in Pro Tools and
can navigate both external and plugin signal processors. He uses a MIDI controller
to play keyboard parts and synthetic drum parts. He can explain the workings of
effects processors such as equalization, reverberation, delay, and compression; he
cannot recall a single moment when he acquired these skills. By his own account,
Jimmy absorbed this skill set as a young child and it has stayed with him. Engineer
Ed Cherney explains that audio engineering has a lineage of being absorbed:
Traditionally, it was taught by osmosis—you would be in a room with

people who are striving to make the best sounding records they possibly
could. Things that were dynamic and wide range and true, and sounds you
could almost step into. And sitting behind these guys, you would get that
perspective, you would learn how to listen critically.33
31
32
33
As cited in Gottlieb, How Does It Sound Now?, 36.
177
Jimmy’s lifelong immersion in the studio also resembles the recollection of pro-
ducer Madlib: “My pops had me at the studio since I was born, like, that’s why I got
into music . . . Just mess with stuff, that’s how I learned.”34 As unsatisfying as it might
be to hear someone explain that they learned by osmosis or by messing with stuff,
it speaks to the importance of the tacit dimension of learning in/with the studio,
which will be discussed in greater depth in part III. While Jimmy might not be able
to make explicit how he learned to use a studio, what is clearly more important to
him (and likely many other DIY-ers) is that he is able to manifest it.
34
Madlib interviewed by Jeff Mao, “Madlib Lecture (New York 2016).”
179
Part III
LEARNING PRODUCING |
PRODUCING LEARNING
Simon Zagorski-Thomas writes that throughout the history of recording there

have been two predominant models of learning: “that of getting access to some
equipment and learning through trial and error; and that of observing someone
who knows what they are doing, getting them to explain, and subsequently copy-
ing them.”1 To this he adds a third: “the practical use of PC-based systems in con-
junction with a plethora of semi-professional and amateur books, magazines and,
more recently, websites and Internet discussion groups.”2 To some extent, Zagorski-
Thomas’ assertions are supported by the cases of Michael, Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy
presented in part II; they each discussed or evidenced some learning following these
three approaches. Yet the complete picture of their learning is much more com-
plex and difficult to synthesize into either an expanded or more refined model. This
impasse stems from the fact that much of the learning that occurs in DIY recording
is tacit or implicit: “There is no intention to learn and no awareness of learning at
the time it takes place.”3 Arthur Reber, who coined the term implicit learning, argues
that “implicitly acquired epistemic contents of mind are always richer and more
sophisticated than what can be explicated.”4 This poses considerable problems for
research, as Michael Eraut explains:
Not only is implicit learning difficult to detect without prolonged observa-

tion, but reactive learning [“near-spontaneous and unplanned, the learner
is aware of it but the level of intentionality will vary and often be debata-
ble”] and some deliberative learning are unlikely to be consciously recalled
1
2
Ibid., 165.
3
Eraut, “Non-Formal Learning and Tacit Knowledge in Professional Work,” 115.
4
Reber, “Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge,” 229.
180 Learning Producing | Producing Learning
unless there was an unusually dramatic outcome. Worse still, potential

respondents are unaccustomed to talking about learning and may find it
difficult to respond to a request to do so. If they do, they are more likely to
refer to formal learning rather than non-formal learning.5
In consideration of these obstacles, what is presented in part III should be read

as incomplete because it is not possible to make the implicit learning experiences
of the participants entirely explicit. As Eraut avers, “Tidy maps of knowledge and
learning are usually deceptive.”6 Nevertheless, there is still great value in analyzing
these tracks both for their individual saliencies, and for their dis/similarities with
each other because we stand to gain new knowledge about how learning works in
the context of DIY recording. The concepts discussed throughout part III should
not be interpreted as part of a singular learning model representative of DIY record-
ing; rather, they should be considered points of illumination within a far-reaching
galaxy in which there remains much uncharted space. We are better off now than we
were before because we have a better understanding of the phenomenon, but we
also know much remains to be learned about this phenomenon, too.
Going Green: DIY Recording and Informal

Learning Strategies
With regard to new discoveries as a result of this research being conducted, the
tracks profiled in part II demonstrate that there are different types of DIY record-
ing studios. DIY can be conceptualized as an umbrella term under which there are
multiple possible configurations. Related, there are particular ways of using these
different types of DIY studios, some of which are distinctly digital such as the
affordances of using presets and undoing unwanted actions. In tandem with these
actions of music-making with DIY recording studios, the participants manifested
or recollected learning. As anticipated, much of the learning that occurs when
a person engages in DIY recording is self-led; returning to the observations of
Zagorski-Thomas cited at the beginning of this section, “that of getting some access
to equipment and learning by trial and error,” was overwhelmingly the most pre-
dominant approach to learning employed by the participants. This learn-as-you-go
approach is inherently immersive and holistic, reminiscent of Lucy Green’s descrip-
tions of how popular musicians learn. In contrast, absent is much evidence of peer-
guided learning because these DIY-ers often work alone; however, in the cases of
Jimmy and Tara, it is inevitable that some learning transpired as the result of their
5
6
Ibid., 133.
181
Lear ning Pr oducin g | P rodu cin g L e arn in g 181
interactions with their collaborators in their respective studios. In these cases,

peer-guided learning is not necessarily absent; rather, what is missing are vivid
recallable episodes of the participants experiencing learning with their peers. Aural
learning in the DIY studio takes on a very different meaning than what Green’s
work presents. DIY-ers do learn from recordings, but specifically, they learn from
their own recordings, which are often works in progress. Further, what DIY-ers lis-
ten for goes beyond pitch and rhythm; they attend to the qualities of the sounds
themselves.
It is tempting to distill these generalizations into a new pedagogical model, but
the danger of doing so is extracting only a sliver from the trunk. The following ran-
domized list provides a sampling of actions exhibited by the participants that could
be used to complete the sentence, “DIY recording is . . .”:
• Dancing
• Trying
• Recording vocals
• Modulating
• Preparing
• Adjusting
• Humanizing
• Striving for perfection
• Programming
• Sitting/standing silently
• Auditioning sounds
• Pitch-shifting
• Layering
• Consolidating
• Recording guitar
• Clicking
• EQing
• Tuning
• Boosting
• Self-teaching
• Recording bass
• Processing
• Consulting
• Setting up microphones
• Vocoding
• Recording piano
• Drawing
• Listening
• Pasting
• Double-tracking
• Plugging in
• Nudging
• Punching in/out
• Adding reverberation
• Distorting
• Mixing
• Delaying
• Doubling
• Compressing
• Loading
• Triggering
• Staring at the screen
• Recording Audio
• Adding
• Moving furniture
• Singing
• VocalWriting
• Hanging blankets
• Failing
• Muting
• Recording MIDI
• Working with others
• Comping
• Harmonizing
• Making stems
• Pondering
• Autotuning
• Looping
• Experimenting
• Crashing
• Cross-fading
• Busing
• Learning from the Internet
• Quanitizing
• Using preset effects
• Waiting
• Tweaking
• Getting together with yourself
• Reading
• Editing
• Cutting
183
Lear ning Pr oducin g | P rodu cin g L e arn in g 183
• Using preset sounds
• Deleting
• Fixing
• Filtering
• Limiting
Consider the inherent issues in attempting to formulize this list into a replicable
pedagogical model. First, as previously discussed, there is no way to completely
explicate what occurs in DIY recording; no matter how comprehensive the list, it
will always be incomplete. Second, even if it were possible to establish a consen-
sus of common practices amongst DIY-ers, the proportionality of these practices
in use will vary from person to person. Third, DIY recording practices change over
time, and therefore a fixed model would quickly become obsolete. Fourth, making
value judgments as to what is most important for learners to do by separating the
seemingly passive actions (e.g., staring at the screen in silence), from the seemingly
active actions (e.g., tinkering with timbres by twisting knobs) is problematic. While
this may seem like an exercise in identifying best practices, it is at best a practice
in reducing DIY recording to an oversimplified equation. It is of great pedagogical
value to seek out the variables that comprise DIY recording, but to conflate these as
a formula would be misguided: “One of the dangers of theorizing the content of a
practice-based creative activity is exactly the kind of outcome that might be desira-
ble in noncreative forms of practice—homogeneity.”7
To avoid guiding music educators toward homogeneity, part III does not pre-
scribe a particular pedagogy of the producer; no singular synthesized step-wise
approach to DIY recording is endorsed. Instead, part III begins by framing this
multiple-case study as analogous to a multitrack recording to illustrate that my anal-
yses are subjective and artistic decisions. Similar to mixing a song, there are multiple
ways to go about arriving at a final version.
First, chapter 7 highlights that there are at least two distinct types of DIY stu-
dio models, both of which should be encouraged in music education. Second, to
ground the findings from part II in music education literature, each participant’s
approach to making music in/with their DIY studios is examined referencing
“Compositional Strategies in Computer-Based Music-Making,” by Göran Folkestad,
David Hargreaves, and Berner Lindström. Although an older model, this frame-
work provides important criteria for assessing how the participants go about DIY
recording. How these participants conform to this model in some ways, and defy it
in other ways, evidences that DIY recording encompasses diverse practices that are
difficult to distill into a singular pedagogical model. Third, the findings presented
in part II are analyzed using Lucy Green’s informal learning strategies, arguably the

7
most significant work in music education research since the millennial mark, and
undoubtedly the foundational work for the current surge of practice and research in
the sphere of popular music pedagogy.
Chapter 8 is likened to a master recording—the final version of a song that gets
committed to a permanent audio format. Whereas part II concentrated on the
details of each track, in this final chapter the implications of the findings for the field
of music education are considered. How might DIY recording practices translate to
music education contexts such as classrooms and community settings? Ultimately,
music educators must consider the particularities of their own respective teach-
ing and learning contexts, but there are some general conclusions drawn from this
research that can be applied to diverse learning environments, albeit in suitably cus-
tomized ways. Meaningful DIY recording should foster tacit learning environments,
creating music in/with the studio (using the studio as a musical instrument), trial-
and-error learning approaches, and music-making as an activity that privileges pro-
cesses over products. Taken together these components do not constitute the whole
of DIY recording, and therefore should not be interpreted as such, but they do serve
as starting points. For the field of music education to transition from perceiving
“recording” as merely a noun—an object that you learn from—toward “recording”
as a verb—a set of practices that you learn by doing—a good start would involve
championing these DIY recording strategies.
185
7
Mixing the Multitrack
Cross-C ase Analyses
Conceptualizing the Multiple Case Study as

a Multitrack Recording
A multiple case study is analogous to a multitrack recording. In a multitrack record-
ing, several individual tracks comprise the whole, which I will refer to as the multi-
track. The preceding four chapters presented the cases of Michael, Tara, Tyler, and
Jimmy as individually bounded units. I liken cases to tracks on a recording; tracks
can be soloed and listened to individually or they can be heard all together at once.
Soloing an individual track enables the listener to hone in on a singular sound, and
to detect its dynamic detail and subtlest of timbral nuances. It is a zoomed-in view,
a hypersensitive listening preoccupied with specifics demanding thick description.
The detailed waveform depicted in Figure 7.1 helps to illustrate this point. In Figure
7.1 there is only one sound source to examine, inviting a close examination of the
waveform’s intricacies such as its crests, troughs, amplitude, period, and frequency.
Robert Stake uses the term “quintain” to describe the common bond between cases.
As he succinctly summarizes, a multiple case study commences with the investi-
gation of single cases, but then proceeds with a cross-case analysis to answer the
study’s research questions:
Multicase research starts with the quintain. To understand it better, we

study some of its single cases—its sites or manifestations. But it is the
quintain we seek to understand. We study what is similar and different
about the cases in order to understand the quintain better.1
The individual tracks of Michael, Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy have already been soloed
and scrupulously sifted through to stress their salient features. How do these
1
Stake, Multiple Case Study Analysis, 6.
185
Figure 7.1 A singular waveform.
individual tracks sound when played together? This question is the essence of a
cross-case analysis. In combining the individual tracks to form a multitrack, the
individual tracks are situated in a new context. No longer individually bounded, the
tracks are mixed together to illuminate the consonant and dissonant relationships
amongst the multitrack. This is new data generated as a product of mixing, as conso-
nance and dissonance are contingent on the intermingling of multiple voices. Figure
7.2 helps to illustrate how a zoomed-out multitrack view privileges holistic listen-
ing. It is physically difficult to focus on just one track without referencing the tracks
around it. Track 2 is sandwiched by tracks 1 and 3, while track 4 bears the weight
of the other three tracks, and track 1 sits comfortably atop the pile. The tracks are
still distinct with their individuality intact, but they are also framed adjacent to each
other in Figure 7.2 such that they must be referenced to each other.
Just as a musician chooses which instruments to include in a multitrack musical
creation, I chose the musicians that comprise this multiple case study. My cross-case
analysis is a performance akin to mixing. With my fingers on the figurative faders of
Michael, Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy, I raised and lowered their voices to examine and
illuminate the consonant and dissonant relationships within the multitrack. First,
this chapter will present two classifications of DIY recording studios based on the
findings presented in part II. Second, the participants’ respective approaches to DIY
recording will be examined using a framework for analyzing computer-based com-
positional processes. Finally, the learning subsumed in DIY recording will be evalu-
ated using the criteria that constitute Lucy Green’s informal learning strategies.
Classifying DIY Studios

DIA STUDIOS
Examining across cases how DIY studios are used, the participants presented two
different models of working. The first model, the do-it-alone (DIA) studio, pits the
musician as a jack-of-all-trades who bears the responsibility of accomplishing all
187
M ix in g t h e M u l t it rack 187
Figure 7.2 Multiple waveforms constituting a multitrack.
stages of producing a recording from conception to completion. Matt Brennan

observes: “Even though the DIY acronym stands for ‘do-it-yourself,’ in the case
of music there is normally still an assumption that music-making remains a col-
lective, social practice; in other words, even music scenes that self-identify as
DIY are much more frequently ‘do-it-yourselves’ than ‘do-it-yourself.’ ”2 Brennan
suggests DIA serves as a more literal and apt label for this self-sufficient strand of
DIY music-making. Drawing from his historical survey of one-man bands, Dale
Champan suggests that the present iteration of this practice embodies the ethos
of neoliberalism:
The contemporary solo multi-instrumentalist leverages physical dex-

terity and digital/mechanical prostheses to produce multivalent sound
constructions, harnessing limited resources in the service of maximal
results. In this way, solo multi-instrumentalism can be understood as a
useful window onto contemporary political economy and its idealized
representations.3
Brennan, “One is the Loneliest Number,” 263.

2
Chapman, “The ‘One-Man Band’ and Entrepreneurial Selfhood in Neoliberal Culture,” 453.
3
Similarly, the DIA studio approach also idealizes an individualistic “enterprise of

one.”4 Michael and Tyler presented similar approaches to using their DIA studios.
Neither of these DIY-ers was concerned with a timeline; Tyler continued to tweak
songs he wrote ten years ago when he was seventeen, and Michael dug up old cas-
settes from the 1980s, transferring them to a digital format so that he could continue
to develop his twenty-year-old song ideas. There was no rush, no deadline, and no
impetus for these two to distribute their music to the masses. Michael perceives his
DIA studio as a retreat from a traditional studio system that dictates decisions. In his
DIA studio he feels unimpeded: free to explore and make unconventional decisions
that are not inhibited by an overbearing audio engineer. For Tyler, the DIA studio
has become a state of mind. He perceives his life goals to be intricately connected to
the DIA studio model. Tyler joked that he uses his technical impasses as an excuse
for procrastination, but his commitment to mastering Ableton is a manifestation of
his dedication to ensuring his engineering skills are tantamount to his musical skills.
Slowly but surely, Michael and Tyler have inched toward a greater understand-
ing and adroitness of their trade, but there is a curious quirk in their work that sets
them apart from Jimmy and Tara: they rarely finish songs. During the study, Tyler
and Michael both had several projects in progress; Tyler’s tree of characters con-
tinued to sprout new branches and Michael took on a new project before finishing
one. In comparison to Jimmy and Tara, Michael and Tyler work at a snail’s pace, but
Richard Sennett defends the virtues of the slow worker: “The slowness of craft time
serves as a source of satisfaction; practice beds in, making the skill one’s own. Slow
craft time also enables the work of reflection and imagination—which the push for
quick results cannot.”5
Considering Michael and Tyler’s histories as professional touring musicians,
I suspect the allure of having an album to market has lost its luster to some extent.
Alternatively, they derive satisfaction from living on a musical island unencum-
bered by the demands of record labels, managers, band members, engineers, and
producers. The Internet enables Michael and Tyler to circumvent the distribution
network of the record industry; they can easily post their music online, but they
do not. These are inactions of passivity more than aversion. Quite simply, they are
not concerned with attracting an audience. They are more process-oriented than
product-oriented. Their music is their music, and that is sufficient for them. Michael
and Tyler use their DIA studios to perform almost exclusively for themselves.
DIWO STUDIOS
In contrast to Michael and Tyler, Tara and Jimmy hold out hope that eventually
their diligence will pay dividends in a career that is financed by public demand for
4
Ibid.
5
Sennett, The Craftsman, 295.
189
their music. Their end goals directly influence how they use their studios. While
there are resemblances in the working processes of Tara and Jimmy compared to
Michael and Tyler, their practices constitute a fundamental deviation, demanding a
separate categorization: the do-it-with-others (DIWO) studio. John Richards argues
that “the notion of DIY is an oxymoron, since those who share a DIY aesthetic rely
on each other to exchange ideas and work together as a form of counter-culture,”
and suggests that DIT (do-it-together) or DIWO (do-it-with-others) serve as bet-
ter descriptors of collaborative DIY projects,6 such as those exhibited by Tara and
Jimmy. More specifically with regard to DIY musical practices, Don Lebler and
Naomi Hodges observe a similar phenomenon: “DIY musicians are self-reliant and
autonomous, writing, performing, recording and producing original music. This is
not to say that they are working alone—indeed, collaboration and networking are
important aspects of most DIY musical practice.”7
Both Tara and Jimmy have the know-how to see their songs through to com-
pletion, but they seek to collaborate with peers whom they perceive to have a
specialized skillset and whose expertise exceeds their own. Not willing to relin-
quish control, Tara and Jimmy remain intimately acquainted with each aspect
of the production of their music. Rather than outsourcing to another studio,
they hire outside help to enter their DIWO studio domains and facilitate their
music-making processes on their own terms. They aim to record their music on
a fixed timeline, setting goals of when to have their music mixed, mastered, and
distributed.
In theory, collaborating with someone else in the recording and mixing phases
streamlines the production process and has the added benefit of incorporating the
expertise of another party. While Jimmy praised Bill’s abilities, boasting of their
synergistic relationship, Tara struggled to synchronize with Felix, questioning his
decision-making. For Tara, having two people in her musical territory seemed
crowded at times, raising issues regarding roles and boundaries in the music-making
process. Advantages and disadvantages of including a peer in the music-making
process aside, both Tara and Jimmy met their self-imposed deadlines and finished
their respective projects using the DIWO studio model.
Music-Making Models and Digitally Afforded

Techniques
Each of the participants’ music-making evidenced some of the traits of the verti-
cal and horizontal compositional models as proposed by Göran Folkestad, David
6
Richards, “Beyond DIY in Electronic Music,” 274.
7
Lebler and Hodges, “Popular Music Pedagogy,” 274.
Hargreaves, and Berner Lindström.8 The prevailing problem with using the catego-
ries “vertical” (songwriting and recording as a singular act) and “horizontal” (song-
writing and recording as distinct acts) exclusively is that they cast music-making
in a two-dimensional mold. In defense of Folkestad et al., computer-based music-
making technology has changed markedly since the late 1990s when their research
was conducted, which helps to explain the instances of incompatibility of their
model with my findings. While no generalizations about the participants’ music-
making processes can be made based on a comparison of the individual cases, there
are some intriguing commonalities.
Most notably, users of the DIWO studio model tended to approach music-mak-
ing with a horizontal strategy. Tara and Jimmy typically had preconceived song ideas,
committing to song structures before commencing recording. Jimmy relied on his
cell phone to catalog melodic ideas and Tara prepared scores using Sibelius. The
horizontal approach dictates that composition and recording are distinct phases,
and dates back to the dawn of recording when the aim was to capture a real-time
performance. In discussing how he wrote “Lost and Found,” Jimmy explained that
he awoke with an idea in his head; he knew the vocal melody, the guitar chords, and
the drum pattern. What he needed next was a studio to record his ideas. Similarly,
Tara commenced her album by taking walks on the Williamsburg Bridge to focus
on writing lyrics and melodies in her head. Once inspiration struck, she fleshed out
her ideas on the piano and rehearsed them until she believed they were fit to be
recorded.
THE THIRD DIMENSION: BREAKING FROM THE

H O R I Z O N TA L A N D V E R T I C A L P L A N E S
After Jimmy and Tara commenced recording, their music-making processes became
more malleable. In some instances, Jimmy adhered strictly to his initial conception,
but even in these cases, his songs were not completely written until recording com-
menced. Using “Lost and Found” as an example, Jimmy woke up with a lyric running
through his head, and hearing a harmonic change from G major to B minor. When
he described the process to me, he said he was “just trying to feel it out,” concluding,
“It just happens.” These statements imply that Jimmy did not have as solid of a sound
conception as he initially intimated. When using his “DJ side,” Jimmy conceptualized
making music differently than when he incorporated his guitar. In DJ mode, he per-
ceived songwriting and recording as an intertwined process, stating, “I did it all at the
same time.” DJ-based or guitar-based, Jimmy engaged in reflexive recording when he
made music with a DAW. The playback function influenced his decision-making as
he constructed a song from the foundational blocks of his initial inspirations.
8

Based
Music-Making.”
191
On the surface it would seem that Tara is a prime candidate to be labeled as a

prototypical horizontal composer. For the making of her album, she strove to real-
ize her songs fully before commencing recording. Yet once recording was underway
and she was confronted with the playback of her performances, she found idiosyn-
crasies that were askew to her ears and adjusted accordingly. She wanted her record-
ings to sound as if she was singing while playing piano, but was frustrated that the
mixes she outsourced failed to convey this alternate reality. Achieving the recording
she envisioned was not simply a case of playing and singing her songs; she found
herself chasing the elusive perfect take.
While Tara’s most recent project followed a more horizontal scheme, she
expressed a desire to return to the less structured music-making method she experi-
mented with when she first purchased Logic. Referring to this approach as “very ad
hoc,” Tara recalled, “I almost don’t know what I did. I was just trying things out.”
In stark contrast to the perfectionist attitude Tara adopted toward her most recent
recordings such as “Chesterfield,” in her “ad hoc” approach she expressed a laissez-
faire attitude, commenting, “Sometimes I think it worked and sometimes I think it
didn’t.”
KARAOKE COMPOSITION AND REFLEXIVE RECORDING

Further blurring the boundaries between horizontal and vertical approaches, like
Tyler, Tara employed a karaoke composition approach, creating backing tracks with
which to sing along. Given that vocals are typically the focal point of pop music (a
label used by both Tyler and Tara to describe their music), employing the karaoke
method allowed them to fine-tune lyrics and melodies. Tyler’s use of the karaoke
technique was especially interesting because some of the backing tracks he created
have not changed in the course of a decade. He tended to find faults with his lyr-
ics, never fully satisfied with what he had written: “I wrote lyrics that didn’t make
sense back then.” Each time he sang along to the backing track he reauditioned him-
self. Being able to sing along to what he previously recorded was critical to his self-
evaluation process: “If I can get myself feeling good about it, singing and dancing,
that’s always a good sign.”
Tyler was very forthcoming about the fact that he anticipated incorporating
recording into his production process, knowing it would alter the course of his
songs, and give them new shapes and textures. His music is never completely pre-
conceptualized prior to recording; he is the flag carrier for the reflexive recording
approach. Recording ideas as they come to him and working in spurts over years,
Tyler is dependent on listening to what he has previously recorded to plot his next
step. When we listened to some of his unfinished songs together, Tyler revealed to
me, “I’m getting inspired by myself.” He seemed to be perpetually thinking about
his music, contemplating what direction to take it, but seldom did he alter its course
dramatically. I liken Tyler’s approach to a woodworker: the piece has taken its shape
and gradually he increases the grit of the sandpaper to smooth it out. Details that
would go unnoticed by most listeners are points of pride for Tyler, and attending
to them takes precedence over seemingly arbitrary timelines and labels of being
“finished.”
P R E S E T C U LT U R E
Of the four cases, Michael is the most experimental-oriented music-maker. Whereas
Jimmy, Tara, and Tyler worked toward making songs, Michael labored to make sin-
gular sounds. He used Ableton to tinker with timbres, stumbling across sounds
that he deemed “cool,” and “outstanding and strange.” Michael’s aural expeditions
entailed expectant encounters of unearthing new sounds. He employed the click-
and-consequence method, auditioning sounds until he at last found the din of his
dreams.
Michael’s scavenging for sounds earmarks an important phenomenon that is
dependent on which DAW is used. Ableton and Logic come bundled with effects
and samples, but Pro Tools is lesser known for these features. Essentially, a preset
is a sonic shortcut, a prepackaged chain of effects that combine to create a specific
sound quality.
Comparing the mixing approaches of Tyler and Jimmy serves to exemplify a
key difference between using Ableton and Pro Tools. Tyler used a mastering preset
called “Analog Warmth,” which consists of a string of effects processors including
an equalizer and compressor. With two swift clicks of the mouse, Tyler metamor-
phosed his song, concluding, “This is what the track should really sound like.” Well
aware of the fact that Ableton affords such a shortcut, he confessed, “I’m just using
the presets, just something quick and easy to get us there.” Michael’s and Tyler’s
contentment with using presets contrasts the findings of Mark Marrington’s study
of DAW-based composers: “A common attitude among DAW users which has par-
ticular implications for authorship and authenticity—that one strives to avoid any
kinds of norms dictated by the software, for example by resisting using presets in
plugins, or generic samples libraries.”9 The issue of using preset sounds is not a new
phenomenon, which Steve Jones makes the case with preset sounds on synthesizers
in the 1980s.10 For Michael and Tyler at least, using a preset had no bearing on their
views of authorship and authenticity.
Using Pro Tools, Jimmy’s use of plugins is demonstrative of a more traditional
approach to effects processing. Jimmy used plugins from audio engineering afi-
cionado companies like Waves. Jimmy and his mixing engineer, Bill, painstak-
ingly adjusted the parameters of each effect processor until the desired sound
was achieved. The mixing stage for one song alone constituted a full day’s work.
Marrington, “Experiencing Musical Composition in the DAW.”

9
10
193
In comparison, Tyler loaded built-in Ableton plugins en route, integrating mix-

ing in the music-making process. Examining his symbiotic music-making pro-
cesses, it is difficult to parse out mixing from the other actions he performed
such as songwriting and editing. The actions involved in the making of a record-
ing diverge from a linear model, in which one stage of production is contingent
on the other; instead these stages intermingle in a less ordered, but more organic
sequence.
UNDO THE UNDUE
Each one of the participants adopted their own unique approach to integrating a
DAW into their music-making. Michael, Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy all engaged in some
degree of reflexive recording by employing trial-and-error approaches with their
DAWs. With the assurance that all actions can be undone with a keystroke or a click,
they were free to explore multiple paths in their respective music-making journeys
without undue ramifications. Their recordings are compilations of their very best
takes; DAWs enable them to create seemingly flawless performances to their audi-
ences (even if they are their only listener). In this regard, their musical products are
byproducts of a computer-age afforded undo-mentality in which musical perma-
nence is merely a construct.
Producer Pedagogies: Acquiring Skills and

Know-How
Drawing primarily on the interview and observation data generated within each case
study, the following discussion compares and contrasts the participants’ approaches
to learning with their DIY studios. With a view to answer the question, “How do
musicians acquire the skills and know-how to create a recording?” I modified the
categories of Lucy Green’s model of informal learning, to analyze information
across cases. While Green’s initial research aim was to examine the learning strate-
gies of popular musicians,11 my aim was to examine the use of recording technology
by musicians, and thus necessitated the modification of her schema to better fit the
context of my research. These new categorizations are almost identical to Green’s,
but for the sake of brevity use a single term to describe each learning strategy. It
should be noted that these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive; an
approach to learning with recording technology may exhibit more than one learn-
ing strategy. The five categories include: (a) aural learning (e.g., learning by listen-
ing and copying recordings); (b) peer-guided learning; (c) self-directed learning;
11
(d) immersive learning (e.g., learners assimilate skills and knowledge in haphazard,

idiosyncratic, and holistic ways); and (e) holistic learning (e.g., learners integrate
listening, performing, improvising, and composing simultaneously throughout the
learning process).
A U R A L E M U L AT I O N
William Moylan’s Understanding and Crafting the Mix prescribes a series of critical
listening exercises to develop one’s ability to construct a mix.12 Moylan’s premise is
that the ability to aurally deconstruct a mix is key to developing the ability to con-
struct a professional-sounding mix. This is a form of tinkering—taking something
apart to understand how it works—with the distinction that these are exercises
of the mind only; there is no hands-on tangible experience. Some of the partici-
pants alluded to engaging in similar critical listening exercises that impacted their
approach to recording. Referencing the work of Led Zeppelin, Santana, and Aimee
Mann, Michael frequently discussed how he listened acutely to these recordings to
study the production techniques involved. He marveled at the psychedelic panning
in Santana’s Abraxas (1970), and the “fat and beautiful” sound of the first two Led
Zeppelin albums. He was cognizant of the technical merits of record production,
effusing, “I loved the engineering.” As Michael’s musical career progressed and his
interest in record production deepened, he began to take interest in specific produc-
ers, most notably Jon Brion. Michael enthusiastically conveyed his reverence for
Brion’s production imprint on Aimee Mann’s 1993 album Whatever by proclaiming
him a “genius.”
Like Michael, Jimmy heard music on the radio that caused him to question
how the sonic results were achieved. Reflecting on the listening experiences that
sparked his interest in DJ-based music, Jimmy recalled asking himself, “How do
they do these kinds of things? I know you guys are using records but how do you
do it if you’re only using one record?” Tyler found himself seeking out recording
technology like Acid and Fruity Loops because “bands like Radiohead were doing
the sequence-based things.” Quite simply, without a sequencer he could not sound
like Radiohead.
Despite being from different generations and being enamored by different
musics, Michael, Jimmy, and Tyler share an inquisitive ear in common. Their
approaches to DIY recording are directly influenced by the production techniques
they heard in the music of their favorite artists during their adolescent years. With
the common goal of emulating their musical icons, they ushered themselves into a
technology-dependent music education.
12
Moylan, Understanding and Crafting the Mix.
195
P E E R -G U I D E D L E A R N I N G
Throughout the twentieth century, audio engineering skills were passed down
in professional studios through apprenticeships: “Junior engineers traditionally
learned skills from senior engineers and continued the chain of knowledge to others
as they rose through the hierarchy of the studio.”13 Recording engineer Phil Brown
reflected, “I discovered that there was an informal system of apprenticeship in the
recording industry. I was expected to learn by watching and listening while I made
tea and performed other mundane jobs about the studio.”14 Brown’s experience is
representative of the predigital era.15 Renowned audio engineers have a history of
mentoring the next generation of renowned engineers. For example, Bill Putnam
mentored Phil Ramone, who mentored Elliot Scheiner. Putnam also mentored
Bruce Swedien, who in turn mentored Ed Cherney. Shadowing a professional was
the prescribed path to audio engineering excellence.
In contrast, manifestations of peer influence on learning in the DIY studio are
difficult to detect. Tyler turned to his online peers to enhance his learning: “I could
watch a YouTube tutorial about a very specific thing in Ableton, or a very general
thing about mixing.” Michael depended on the supplied manual and on-screen
instructions to traverse through Ableton, making no mention of receiving help from
peers. Jimmy and Tara opted to seek out paid help whom they referred to as friends
or acquaintances. Jimmy was able to describe and explain Bill’s mixing actions, dem-
onstrating an understanding of the process, but what he learned from Bill is not
clear. Similarly, Tara spent a week recording with Felix, but at no point in the hours
of video footage was there a clear moment depicting peer-guided learning. Tara and
Jimmy did not enlist the services of their friends to learn from them; rather these
hired hands were brought into their DIWO studios to apportion the workload.
S E L F -T E A C H I N G
In all four cases, there is abundant evidence of self-directed learning. This mode of
learning was the most frequently cited strategy by the participants.
Tape Travails
Michael and Tyler extended their aural learning to a hands-on trial-and-error
approach using cassette recorders. Exhibiting technological enthusiasm, Michael
and Tyler tinkered with their tape decks intuitively and independently. Their rec-
ollections of using tape recorders are strikingly similar; both jury-rigged what
13
Seay, “Capturing That Philadelphia Sound.”
14
Brown, Are We Still Rolling?, iii.
15
Glyn Johns reports a similar anecdote in Sound Man, 13, as do Ken Scott and Bobby Owsinski in
Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, 15 and 27.
technologies they had available to them to overdub. Describing his tape recorder,
Michael explained, “It had a mic input and a line input on the back, and two micro-
phone inputs in the front, and a line input on the back. You could blend them so
you could get in effect multitrack recordings.” To sync sounds, Tyler pressed into
service two tape recorders in tandem: “I had two different tape players, and I would
play and record into one, and I would press play on that one, and play the keyboard
at the same time, and record on the other.”
Michael and Tyler’s exploits with recording technology continued into
adulthood. With their ears to the figurative ground of the recording realm, both
stayed attuned to the technological trends in recording, continually seeking the
sonic state-of-the-art. While Tyler made the jump directly to digital during his
formative years, which coincided with the digitization of the music industry,
fifty-three-year-old Michael meandered through intermediary recording tech-
nologies for four decades until delving into digital. The overwhelming majority
of the learning that took place in these scenarios was self-directed in their DIA
studios.
Domain of the DAW
Tara has been noticeably absent from the discussion thus far, but that can be
attributed to the fact that she did not use recording technology until a few years
ago. This is hardly surprising, given that the musics she was most entrenched in
as an adolescent were musical theatre and classical: musics that have traditionally
eschewed recording technology by harnessing a “willful ignorance” of produc-
tion techniques.16 Alex Ross comments: “Classical music stands partly outside the
technological realm, because most of its repertory is designed to resonate naturally
within a room. By contrast, almost all pop music is written for microphones and
speakers.”17
Meanwhile, despite growing up immersed in studio culture, enveloped in the
most current recording technologies, Jimmy could not recall actively pursuing an
understanding of the workings of his father’s recording studio until his mid-twenties.
In both cases, evidence of self-directed learning with recording technology did not
enter our conversations until discussing DAWs.
Michael is a consummate self-directed trial-and-error learner. It may be the
case that a dependency on trial-and-error techniques is characteristic of learners
reared in the computer age, but Michael’s learning history helps to illustrate Steve
Waksman’s assertion that there is a lineage of trial-and-error learning with music
technology (“tinkering”) that predates home computing.18 In the cases of Michael
and Tyler, self-directed trial-and-error learning strategies were carried over from
16
Grieg, “Performing For (and Against) the Microphone,” 20.
17
Ross, Listen to This, 66.
18
Waksman, “California Noise.”
197
their analog experiences when they emigrated to their new digital devices, largely
aided by the cues of skeuomorphic design.19
Discussing his entry into using Pro Tools, Michael professed, “I didn’t have any-
body tutoring me and I didn’t have any help files, so I just had to figure it out for
myself.” Jimmy leisurely employed a more passive approach to learning Pro Tools: “I
would always mess around with it once in a while.” Reflecting on acclimating to
Acid, Tyler conceded, “Everything I did I learned the hard way . . . I just didn’t know,
I never read things, I didn’t watch tutorials, YouTube wasn’t around at that time.”
Literally left to her own devices, Tara relented, “Well, no one taught me. Any of the
software that I know, no one taught me . . . I just learned as I had to.” Mark Slater
observed a similar trend in his study of learning in a project studio: “Participants
had to work out what knowledge and skills they needed as they went along.”20 Taken
together, the voices of the participants resoundingly echo the observation of Alison
Black: “Today’s students simply plunge in and learn through experimentation and
active participation.”21
Beyond recognizing that they taught themselves how to use recording technol-
ogy, the participants struggled to provide anything more than ambiguous accounts
of what was entailed in these self-educated escapades:
• Tyler: “I would say that it just happened over time and over trial and error more
than anything.”
• Jimmy: “Just trying to feel it out, and it came together. That’s how it usually
happens.”
• Michael: “It’s a very exploratory experience.”
• Tara: “It was very ad hoc . . . I was just trying things out.”
These descriptions frame recording as acts of intent with no prescribed direction.

Armed with a desire to make something new, the participants seek out an experi-
ence in which the acts of listening, performing, improvising, and composing are
indistinguishable from each other, toward an immersive and holistic approach to
music-making.
IMMERSIVE LEARNING AND HOLISTIC LEARNING

The remaining two categories, immersive learning (learners assimilate skills and
knowledge in haphazard, idiosyncratic, and holistic ways) and holistic learn-
ing (learners integrate listening, performing, improvising, and composing
19
See Bell, Hein, and Ratcliffe, “Beyond Skeuomorphism.”
20
Slater, “Processes of Learning in the Project Studio,” 17.
21
Black, “Gen Y,” 99.
simultaneously throughout the learning process) are part and parcel of self-directed
learning with a DAW. All of the participants exhibited the characteristics of immer-
sive learning using trial-and-error approaches as described earlier in this section.
Further, given that all of the participants are songwriters, their intent was to com-
pose with their respective DAWs and perform their own parts. Lastly, listening and
improvising are the key actions of trial-and-error learning with a DAW. Each of these
characteristics of learning can be accounted for under self-directed learning. At their
core, immersive and holistic learning thrive on the trial-and-error approach.
Summing the Tracks: Conclusions
My mix of this multitrack highlighted the consonant and dissonant relationships
between the individual tracks. With regard to conceptualizing the DIY studio,
two distinct models emerged: the DIA studio and the DIWO studio. While Tara
and Jimmy hurriedly worked to complete albums, Michael and Tyler were not
concerned about timelines. None of the participants’ approaches to songwriting
could be defined simply as “vertical” or “horizontal.” Each participant exuded traits
of both vertical and horizontal approaches and relied on affordances of the com-
puter such as the ability to undo actions using a click and consequence approach to
music-making.
Learning strategies varied, but self-directed learning was the predominant mode
referenced by the participants. While anecdotes of aural learning and peer-guided
learning surfaced in some of the participants’ interviews, self-directed learning was
the common denominator across all four cases. The participants’ descriptions of
self-directed learning exploits included strategies that were both immersive and
holistic. Each participant engaged in listening, playing, improvising, and compos-
ing in an integrative approach that was self-directed and often employed a trial-
and-error strategy. The implications of these findings for music education will be
examined in chapter 8.
199
8
Mastering the Multitrack
Conclusions
Mastering is the final stage in the process of committing a musical recording to a medium.
With the stages of sound selection, tracking, editing, and mixing completed, a final
preparation of the recording is all that remains to ready it for distribution. A mastering
engineer uses many of the same audio tools as a mixing engineer such as equalizers and
dynamic processors, but for different purposes. Whereas the mixing engineer is charged
with the responsibility of achieving a musical balance between individual instruments,
the mastering engineer’s chief concern is to sonically enhance the mix. Mastering analo-
gies abound in the audio world, conveying images of finality such as “the cherry on top,”
“the broad brushstrokes,” and “the final polish.” An ideal master enables the listener to
experience the utmost of a recording by spotlighting the key elements of a mix while also
illuminating the nuances that are equally essential in maintaining the consistency of the
composition. Just as a pinch of salt can coax out and enhance a flavor in a recipe, so too
can a touch of equalization emit an appealing aural impingement on the ear.
The previous chapter presented a mix of the multitrack, featuring the most sali-
ent similarities and dissimilarities found upon comparing the individual tracks. In
this final stage of mastering, the implications of these findings on how we learn,
make, and listen to music are examined. More specifically, this chapter hones in
on implications for music education, focusing on: (1) DIY recording practices that
support tacit learning; (2) creating music in/with the studio; (3) trial-and-error
learning; and (4) song-making as an activity that privileges processes over products.
Implications for Music Education

B Y -P R O C E S S E S : TA C I T L E A R N I N G
Learning is often framed as an event that has transpired. For example:
• Tyler: “I learned the hard way.”

• Michael: “I learned to play the electric guitar.”
199
• Tara: “I just learned as I had to.”

• Jimmy: “I learned your basic G, C, D.”
The implication of saying “I learned” is that learning has ceased and only exists as
a byproduct of past experiences. For example, Jimmy’s statement makes it clear
that he is no longer learning basic guitar chords. This particular learning experi-
ence has concluded, the byproduct of which is the ability to play G, C, and D. In
contrast, Jimmy’s broader endeavor of guitar mastery is ongoing as evidenced by
his commitment to daily soloing and improvising practice. His explicit goal is to be
as good as the guitarists postered on his practice room walls, and the riffs he learns
and refines are the by-processes of these ongoing experiences. This learning model
eschews a prescribed path of scaffolding and sequencing events toward an identified
goal because the goal in this case meanders by evolving. The concept of learning as
a by-process is fundamental to DIY recording practices, and is otherwise known as
“subception” in psychology, or tacit learning.1 Michael Eraut describes six differ-
ent types of situations in which “tacit knowledge may be either acquired or used or
simultaneously both acquired and used:
1. Knowledge acquired by implicit learning of which the knower is unaware;

2. Knowledge constructed from the aggregation of episodes in long-term memory;
3. Knowledge inferred by observers to be capable of representation as implicit
theories of action, personal constructs, schemas, etc;
4. Knowledge which enables rapid, intuitive understanding or response;
5. Knowledge entailed in transferring knowledge from one situation to another;
and
6. Knowledge embedded in taken-for-granted activities, perceptions and norms.”2
In The Tacit Dimension, Michael Polanyi explains that “tacit knowing achieves com-
prehension by indwelling . . . all knowledge consists of or is rooted in such acts
of comprehension.”3 He reasons, “We know a person’s face, and can recognize it
among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we rec-
ognize a face we know.”4 Paralleling this lucid example, DIY recording is easier done
than explained.
The overarching aim of DIY recording is to make music with a DAW as opposed
to learn how to operate one. Learning how to use a DAW is a necessary step toward
making music with it, but these processes often occur in simultaneity as opposed
to a sequence of hierarchical steps. Doing and learning are confounding variables,
1
Polanyi, Knowing and Being, 143.
2
3
Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 55.
4
Ibid., 4.
201
M as t e rin g t h e M u l t it rack 201
which helps to explain why the participants profiled in part II were somewhat
confounded when asked to identify their learning experiences. Holistic learning
“arises from repeated confrontations with real things: comprehensive entities that
are grasped all at once, in a manner that may be incapable of explicit articulation.”5
In most cases, recalling what you did is easier than recalling what you learned
because the latter requires an additional exercise of reflection. Thus a great deal of
learning is embedded in the music-making process, but goes unaccounted for by
the autodidact.
Seymour Papert postulates that “most people are more interested in what they
learn than in how the learning happens without giving a thought to learning.”6
“Giving a thought to learning” while learning is, as Haridimos Tsoukas reasons, not
possible: “Shifting attention to subsidiary particulars entails the loss of the skillful
engagement with the activity at hand. By focusing on a subsidiary constituent of
skillful action one changes the character of the activity one is involved in.”7 Polanyi
concludes: “If such formalization of tacit knowing were possible, it would convert
all arts into mathematically prescribed operations, and thus destroy them as works
of art.”8
Music-making and learning are parallel processes, they start and stop in syn-
chronicity. As demonstrated by the persistent practices of Michael, Tara, Tyler, and
Jimmy, DIY recording is a continual pursuit parceled with continual tacit learning. At
the crux of this homemade movement is the textbook definition of “amateur”: “The
term itself derives from the Latin amare—‘to love.’ The essence of amateurism is
intrinsic motivation: to be an amateur is to do something for the love of it.”9
For the music educator, it is critical to recognize that what is of utmost impor-
tance is to create contexts in which tacit learning can occur. Different approaches
should be encouraged to foster the development of diverse learners. For example,
The DIA model might work well for some learners whereas others might prefer the
DIWO model. Liz Przybylski and Nasim Niknafs observed that these two different
paths privilege different learning objectives: “While DIY [DIA] focuses on student-
directed learning and nonspecialist music-making, DIWO is useful for educators
because it focuses specifically on collaborative learning and the importance of
engaging in the learning process with others.”10
In the context of DIY recording, music educators ought to be less concerned about a
model of learning that can be prescribed and followed, and instead focus on helping learn-
ers to develop their own bespoke pedagogies, which is consistent with real-world DIY
5
Crawford, Shop as Soulcraft, 234.
6
Papert, The Children’s Machine, 29–30.
7
Tsoukas, Complex Knowledge, 147.
8
Polanyi, Knowing and Being, 164.
9
Shirky, Cognitive Surplus, 82.
10
Przybylski and Niknafs, “Teaching and Learning Popular Music in Higher Education,” 113.
recording practices. This could require making time and space for trial-and-error learning
experiences, connecting learners with someone more experienced to serve as a mentor,
and helping learners find resources to engage in self-led learning.11 These different tacks
will depend on—and should be determined by—the music-makers’ goals. A prompt
as simple as “What would Prince do?” could provide a learner with enough direction to
find their own path to self-sufficient DIY recording,12 whereas others might require more
guidance. One such example of a more guided approach is the track-and-hook method
used by Max Martin and other contemporary producers as described by John Seabrook
in The Song Machine. Regardless of the framing of the music-making activity, it is the con-
text created in which these activities occur that music educators need to ensure foster the
various kinds of learning that occur in/with real-world DIY recording studios.
M A K I N G WAV E S : M U S I C -I N V E N T I N G
Throughout this book, the DAW has been framed as a technology that supports self-
directed and exploratory music-making experiences. This view should be tempered
with the realization that DAW affordances can direct the actions of music-makers, pit-
ting the software designer as educator.13 Such delimitations are not unique to DAWs,
as all technologies impose constraints on the user: “Ultimately design considerations
affect not only the usefulness and quality of musical equipment but also the process of
music making.”14 For example, the limited capacities of early recording mediums dic-
tated performance lengths: “For seventy-one years between the invention of the pho-
nograph and the introduction of the long-playing disc (1877 to 1948) recordings could
play no more than four and one-half minutes of music continuously.”15 The music edu-
cator should consider whether the limits experienced by the learner are self-imposed or
design-dictated, and adapt pedagogy accordingly.
Despite the potential drawbacks of the DAW, it opens a portal to music-making
possibilities that have the potential to reach the masses in the margins of music
education. The “key to the reinvigoration of music-making in general,” of which
Lucy Green speaks,16 can be realized: “As more people come to expect that ama-
teur participation is always an open option, those expectations can change the
culture.”17 The current culture of music education is enthralled with research on
11
The documentary The Art of Organized Noize (2016), the YouTube video series “Into the Lair” by
Dave Pensado, and the free publication TapeOp are some examples of possible resources.
12
Lorin Parker avers, “The greatest value in exploring older avenues of DIY culture and informa-
tion lies not in the re-creation of archaic technology, but in the integration of these ideas into current
paradigms.” See “Repurposing the Past,” 298.
13
Bell, “Can We Afford These Affordances?”
14
15
16
Green, How Popular Musicians Learn, 186.
17
Shirky, Cognitive Surplus, 154.
203
informal learning pedagogies and exploring the application of these models in

formal school settings. In particular, the rock band model has been touted as the
future of music education throughout the 2000s, and more recently hip-hop peda-
gogies have emerged as the next wave. Factoring jazz into the equation, the period
between the swells of popular music that reach the shore of music education is
approximately forty years from inception. The issue is not timeliness or trendi-
ness; it is music education’s mimicking malaise. The musical culture of a school
ought to mirror the culture in which it is situated, and incubate an environment
where the future is fashioned, and new genres are generated. Just as the cross-
pollination of cultures in New York City has sprouted novel fusion foods such as
the Cronut, Ramen Burger, and Kimchi Taco, music education needs to reclaim a
mash-up mentality and make new musics. As Stravinsky succinctly surmised: “We
have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it.”18 “Music-making” is a ubiquitous
term in music education literature, and for good reason as it constitutes the core
of a healthy music education, but perhaps the field could benefit from embracing
Stravinsky’s charge by extending music-making to music inventing, making waves
instead of waiting for them.
F O R G E D W I T H O N E S A N D Z E R O E S : D I G I TA L A U D I O
M U S I C -M A K I N G TO O L S
One of the things that we built into our contract, which was unheard
of at the time was unlimited studio time. We knew we had to pay for
it, but we wanted as much as we wanted, you know . . . Our strategy
was, what we wanted to do is, we want to play in the studio, we want
to learn how the studio works, we don’t want anyone else doing it,
you know, it’s our music . . . Essentially . . . we bought ourselves an
education, you know, and the way we achieved it was to spend lots
and lots of time in the studio fooling around with stuff . . . it was a trial
and error kind of thing.19
—Jerry Garcia (The Grateful Dead)
Garcia’s anecdote illuminates some pivotal points for consideration with regard to
music education. First, he reveals his band’s motivation for wanting to learn “how the
studio works,” was the realization and recognition of the close relationship between
recording technology and music; the band’s desire to be involved in the recording
and mixing processes was motivated by musical ambitions. As a simple first step, it
is exigent that music educators realize and recognize that recording technologies
are musical instruments. From the phonograph era onward musicians have sought
to utilize recording technologies as instruments. For example, the compositional
18
Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, 69.
19
As stated in Anthem to Beauty.
capabilities of the record player were explored in the 1920s by Milhaud and fol-
lowed by Cage in 1939.20 This trend extended into the era of tape:
When tape recorders, basically designed for documentation and reproduc-

tion, became available in the 1940s, a few individuals, like Pierre Schaeffer
in France, began transforming the recordings, distorting them into some-
thing new, producing music through them as if the tape recorders were
magnetic violins.21
Producer Daniel Lanois remarked, “My tools have always been dear to me, and
I continue to embrace tools—technology and musical instruments.”22 For Lanois,
both technology and instruments constitute his music-making tools. For many
musicians, these coopted tools have become essential for making music. As Richard
Sennett divulges, the process of repurposing tools makes us more adept with them:
Getting better at using tools comes to us, in part, when the tools challenge
us, and this challenge often occurs just because the tools are not fit-for-
purpose . . . the challenge can be met by adapting the form of a tool, or
improvising with it as it is, using it in ways it was not meant for.23
The computer and its peripherals—the mouse and QWERTY keyboard—were not
initially intended to be used as music-making tools and this may help to explain
why the field of music education has been slow to embrace the studio as an inte-
gral component of music-making. Music curricula have a proclivity to frame music
technology skills as supplemental rather than elemental. As the cases of Michael,
Tara, Tyler, and Jimmy elucidate, the studio is so enmeshed in their music-making
that they sought learning experiences with recording technology that occur outside
of formal school settings. Even Tara, who anticipated learning how to use recording
technology in school, found herself using informal strategies such as self-teaching
and referring to peers.
T R I A L - A N D - E R R O R L E A R N I N G : A N E W S P I N O N
A N O L D F AV O R I T E
Jerry Garcia described his learning in the studio as “fooling around with stuff ” and “it
was a trial and error kind of thing.”24 Many musicians and audio engineers describe
20
Katz, Capturing Sound.
21
Oswald, “Bettered by the Borrower,” 132.
22
Lanois, Soul Mining, 24.
23
24
Anthem to Beauty.
205
their education with recording technology as largely experiential and often cite
examples of a trial-and-error approach to learning. For example, describing his forays
into music-making with recording technology, Les Paul reflected: “We were more
or less applying the scientific method of learning by doing, trying anything and eve-
rything just to see what could be observed from it, to see where it would lead.”25 In
their formative years, producers Pharrell and Timbaland also engaged in learning by
doing. Timbaland recalled: “We spent hours and hours at my house, playing around
with sounds and making music. That group was a crash course in sound engineering
for me. It was like hip-hop academy, and I was getting the education of my life.”26
How did Grandmaster Flash perfect his “quick-mix” theory? Trial and error.27
Most DJs, as Mark Katz notes, “developed their skills largely through trial and
error.”28 DJing, as chapter 2 detailed, is a forebear of the contemporary producer,
meaning that much of the skillset associated with modern production was derived
from trial-and-error learning. The trial-and-error strategy has also been attributed to
the breakthroughs of seminal sound figures in the history of rock production includ-
ing Sam Phillips,29 Geoff Emerick,30 and Brian Wilson.31 Mixing engineer Tom
Lord-Alge matter-of-factly summarized: “In the old days it was trial and error.”32
While much of the research in music education over the past two decades has
dwelled on shepherding informal learning practices into classrooms as a new peda-
gogy, in contrast, the trial-and-error approach to learning is traditional in production.
It is a fundamental component of skill development: “Technique develops . . . by a
dialectic between the correct way to do something and the willingness to experi-
ment through error. The two sides cannot be separated.”33 In the history of record-
ing music, the trial-and-error modus operandi is a well-tread path to learning, and
many successful producers knew little about their craft when they started, including
Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler (“We didn’t know what we were doing”34); John
King and Mike Simpson (“We didn’t know how anything worked . . . but just acted
like we did”35); Prince Paul (“I didn’t really know what I was doing”36); and Max
Martin (“I didn’t even know what a producer did”37). Music educators would be
25
26
Timbaland with Chambers, The Emperor of Sound, 46.
27
Grandmaster Flash with Ritz, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash, 75.
28
Katz, Groove Music, 233
29
Millard, The Electric Guitar.
30
Emerick and Massey, Here, There, and Everywhere.
31
32
As cited in Milner, Perfecting Sound Forever, 298.
33
34
35
LeRoy, Paul’s Boutique, 23.
36
37
Seabrook, The Song Machine¸ 66.
wise to foster authentic music-making experiences with recording technology that

encourage trial-and-error approaches, heeding the advice of Peter Brown and col-
leagues: “Embrace the fact that significant learning is often, or even usually, some-
what difficult. You will experience setbacks. These are signs of effort, not of failure.
Setbacks come with striving, and striving builds expertise.”38
S O N G -M A K E R S : M A K I N G A S L E A R N I N G
Michael, Tara, Jimmy, and Tyler are musical craftspeople; they are “song-makers.”39
Like craftspeople, they are committed to perfecting the fine-grained details in their
work: “Craftsmanship means dwelling on a task for a long time and going deeply
into it, because one wants to get it right.”40 Elements that would go unnoticed by the
casual listener are scrupulously examined by these song-makers. Michael scoured
for the perfect timbre, Tara strived for the perfect take, Jimmy scrutinized for the
perfect tunefulness, and Tyler searched for the perfect text. In short, they seek to
make the superlative song. They devote as much of their time and resources as pos-
sible to the craft of making music. As Mark Frauenfelder explains, in the DIY ethos,
making is not simply a means to an end; both process and product are relished:
The planning, selection of tools and materials, creation of the workspace,

method of construction, documentation, and final product of a DIY proj-
ect are things to be savored, not to be thought of as hassles or expenses.
The end result of what a DIYer makes is important, but it’s also a reminder
of an experience that serves as its own reward.41
Making entails experiences, and experiences beget learning: “Practical know-how . . . can’t
be downloaded, it can only be lived.”42 Through making music with recording technol-
ogy we learn to play, improvise, create, arrange, record, and mix in such a way that these
subcategorizations of music-making become confounding variables and parsing one out
from the other might not be possible. Suffice it to say, music-making is learning:
Making is central to our practice as musicians, but making can also be

transposed to the context of learning and teaching, whether it becomes
part of a process of constructing knowledge, engaging in a shared journey
of enquiry, or a creative endeavor.43
38
Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, Make It Stick, 201.
39
Clarke, “ ‘A Magic Science,’ ” 201.
40
Crawford, “Shop as Soulcraft,” 13.
41
Frauenfelder, Made By Hand, 220.
42
Crawford, Shop as Soulcraft, 225.
43
Savage, “Tom’s Story,” 221.
207
Jerry Garcia indicated that by contractually securing unlimited studio time, the
Grateful Dead in effect purchased an education. Following along similar lines, pur-
chasers of computers are purchasers of an education. Further, owners of computing
devices are owners of musical instruments. Music educators need to recognize the
DAW as a conduit to channel learners to music-making experiences that transcend
the typologies of “informal” and “formal.”
The Les Paul Legacy of the Producer

Generally speaking, performing artists and audio engineers are two
distinct species. Musicians often lack the vocabulary to successfully
convey their needs to technicians and vice versa. But Les, fluent in both
languages, managed to meld the two disciplines.44
Extending the trial-and-error lineage, DIY recording fosters and promotes a discov-
ery-based approach to music-making. Click-and-consequence music-making (a DAW-
dependent version of trial-and-error music-making) encourages taking risks and
improvisation. Further, DAWs enable reflexive recording, which encompasses criti-
cal listening, musical thinking, and sculpting with sound. Lastly, with the DAW, the
music-making process can be extended indefinitely. Taken together, the affordances
of the DAW can support a music education situated in an audio culture where musi-
cal actions (listening, performing, improvising, and creating) and technical actions
(tracking, editing, mixing, and mastering) coalesce into a single action.
The musicians discussed in this book are representative of a migratory move-
ment within the world of music recording. In spaces not originally intended for
recording (e.g., bedrooms, kitchens, basements, converted industrial factories, and
warehouses), sometimes with the help of friend, each participant performed the
roles of what would have been done by ten people in an earlier era. Assimilating the
role of musician and audio engineer into one, they are hybrids that play the studio,
and continue the ongoing evolution of the role of the producer and DIY recording
practices. Using the studio as a musical instrument in this way is how much, if not
all, popular music is made. As popular music pedagogical initiatives in music educa-
tion continue to grow and evolve, it is essential that the field espouse DIY recording
practices, the role of the producer, and the studio as a musical instrument.
44
Shaughnessy, Les Paul, 140.
209
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221
Index
30th Street Studio (Columbia Records), 14, 15, 19 skills learned through apprenticeships, 195
skills learned by trial and error, 95
terminology, 168
Ableton Live, 74, 83, 86–92, 132, 142, 144, 148, audio interface, 82, 83, 87, 103, 133, 162
151, 188, 192, 193, 195 aural learning, 181, 193, 195, 198
accessibility, 24, 98 autodidact, 201
Ace of Base, 64 autodidactic, 132
Acid Pro, 126, 129, 132, 147, 194, 197 autodidacticism, 132
acoustic treatment, 102, 105 Autotune, 140
ADAT, 26, 27 Avalon 737 preamplifier, 162, 166, 167
Adele, 65
Adobe Audition, 82
Aerosmith, 117 Bach, C. P. E., 5
affordances, 180, 198, 202, 207 Bach, J. S., 79
affords, 83, 94, 192 baffle(s) (sound), 21, 44, 105, 114
Akai MPD, 32, 134–136 Baker, Arthur, 59
Al Cohen Studio, 4 Ballard, Glen, 26, 27
Albini, Steve, 32 Bambaataa, Afrika, 60
Aldon Music, 33, 38, 40, 44, 64, 101, 156 Band, the, 175
alternative rock, 164 Barry, Jeff, 40
amateur, xvii, 7, 10, 26, 31, 201, 202 bass (guitar)
amateurism, 26 emulated with MIDI by Tyler, 140
amp(lifier), 44, 47, 127, 134, 153, 164, 165, 174 imitated with turntables, 60
Apollo Theatre, 70 and the Motown sound, 44–45
apprenticeship, 195 as part of the riddim track in dub, 54
Armstrong, Louis, 151 recorded by Jimmy, 163, 164
arrange, xiv, 31, 38, 42, 50, 99, 101, 136, 206 timbre on “Billie Jean,” 57
Atlantic Records, 16, 19, 39 bass drum
audio engineer(s) absence on mechanical recordings, 9
assisting musicians, 48, 80, 102, 167, 173 as central component of the drum kit, 33,
co-opted by musicians, xvii, xviii, 188, 207 34, 136
learn by observing, 151, 195 Beach Boys, the, recording processes, 41–44
learn by trial and error, 204 Beastie Boys, the
opposition to mixing-in-the-box, 135 and making loops, 146
audio engineering and playing the mixer, 19
emerging from electrical engineering, 10 beats
and the professionalization of recording, 7 the making of, 59, 82, 129, 145–147
skills learned by osmosis, 176 as foundational to contemporary pop music, 64
221
222 I nd ex
Beatles, the Charles, Ray, 39

and Geoff Emerick, 127, 172 Cheiron, 64, 65
and George Martin, 19, 33 Cherney, Ed, 195
writing in the studio, 53, 59 Chess, Leonard, 3
Bechet, Sidney, 12 Chuck D, 61, 62
Bedford Station, 69 Clapton, Eric, 176
Bedford Stuyvesant, 69 Clarkson, Kelly, 64
Beethoven, 5, 9, 79 click and consequence, 91, 95, 123, 192, 198, 207
Bell Labs, 13 clipping, 144
Belle and Sebastian, 127 Coasters, the, 39, 44
Benjamin, Benny, 45 Cobain, Kurt, 166
Berkeley, Busby, 84 Cohen, Leonard, 128, 141
Bernstein, Leonard, 14 Coldplay, 51, 101, 141
Berry, Chuck, 37 college
Beyoncé, 70 and Jimmy, 155, 157, 158, 160
Biggie (Notorious B.I.G.), 156 and Michael, 79
Blaine, Hal, 42 and Tara, 98, 124
Blakey, Art, 67 and Tyler, 126
blog, 137 Columbia Records, 14
Blumlein, Alan, 13 comp(s), 108, 113, 118, 120
Bomb Squad, the, production processes, 61–63 comping, 64, 81, 101, 110, 113, 114, 117–120, 182
Bon Jovi, 117 composition
bounce, tracks, 25, 126, 129, 168 and Jimmy, 156
Bowie, David, 51, 121 and Tara, 98–101, 113, 123
breaks, 59, 60 and Tyler, 143
Brion, Jon, 78, 80, 194 compose, in the studio, 48, 66
Britz, Chuck, 42, 43 composing, at the mixing board, 44
Broadway, 14, 40 compression, 43, 47, 172, 176
Bronx, the, 60, 61, 70 compressor(s), 29, 148, 149, 172, 192
Brooklyn, background information, 69–71, 73 consolidating, 143, 181
Brown, James, 58 control room, 10, 21, 23, 44, 47–49, 61
Brown, Phil, 195 Cool Edit Pro, 82, 83
Brown, Ruth, 39 Cornfield, John, 135
bus, 84 cracks (software), 127
buses, 84 Craigslist, 75
Bushwick, 69, 153, 154 Crosby, Bing, 12
busking, 79 cross-fade, 83
by-processes, 200 cross-fader, 60
Byrne, David, 20, 52 Crown Heights, 105
Crystals, the, 40
cultural capital, 36, 71
Cage, John, 59, 204 cylinder (recording), xvii, 7, 8
Cakewalk Home Studio, 126 cymbal, 9, 34, 137, 146, 155, 163
Campbell, Glen, 42
Carnegie Hall, 70
Carrol Gardens, 75 Davis, Miles, 14
cassette recorders DAW
and ease of use, 25, 26 affordances, 202
and ease of access, 26 description, 4
to make pause tapes, 60 development and proliferation, 27–30
and Michael, 77, 78, 80, 81, 195 influences on music-making approaches, 190–193
and overdubbing, 77, 78, 126 as instrument, 34, 35
and Tyler, 126, 151, 195 as instrument of the contemporary producer, 65
CBGB, 70 Dean, James, 173
CD, 22, 27, 80, 144 delay
burner, 84 and Jimmy, 173, 174, 176
Ced-Gee, 61 and Joe Meek, 47
223
I n dex 223
and King Tubby, 55 sampling practices, 59, 61, 73

amd Michael, 84 and Tyler, 126
democratization (of technology), 27 dub, 47, 54–58, 60, 61, 64, 67, 74, 92
demonstration recording, 46 Dye, Charles, 29
demo(s), 25, 27, 39–41, 57, 64, 99, 123, 126 Dylan, Bob, 38
demoing, 50 dynamic processors, 199
Denniz Pop, 64
determinism (technological), 35, 36
Detroit, 44, 70 E-mu
DIGI 192, 74 Emulator, 59
digital audio, 26, 28, 100 SP–12, 61
disc (recording), xviii, 7, 10–12 Eagles, the, 127
Dischord Records, 3 East-West (software), 98
disco, 60, 70 echo, 14, 20, 22, 38, 43, 44, 47, 55, 174
distortion, 164, 165, 174 economic inequality, 71
divide-and-isolate, 20 Edison, Thomas, 5–8, 10, 30
DJ edit(s)
as Jimmy’s musical background, 155–157, 160, and Jimmy, 164
162, 176, 190 and Michael, 83, 90, 91
as sampling predecessor, 59 and Tara, 108, 113, 120, 122
DJ Hi-Tek, 61 and Tyler, 144
DJ Kook Herc, 60 editing
DJing ease with Pro Tools, 28
and making beats, 59 as integral to recording, 17, 49
do-it-alone (DIA), 186–188, 196, 198, 201 and Michael, 82, 83
do-it-together (DIT), 189 with tape, 18
do-it-with-others (DIWO), 188–190, 195, 198, 201 and Tara, 120
do-it-yourself (DIY) and Tyler, 142, 143, 146, 150
definition, 3, 4 effect(s) (audio)
producers, 31–67 and Buddy Holly, 38
recording history, xviii, 3–30 and dub, 53
scene in Brooklyn, 71, 72 and Jimmy, 176
studio definition, xvii and Joe Meek, 47
studio classification, 186–189 and King Tubby, 55
double bass, 9 and Michael, 77, 84, 91–94
double-tracking, 38, 43, 182 and Prince, 51
doubling, 166, 173, 182 and Tyler, 127, 129, 132
Dowd, Tom, 16, 19, 48 Electric Lady Studios, 49
download Emerick, Geoff, 127, 172, 205
software, 86, 126, 142 Emerson, Keith, 78
music, 131, 174 emotional labor, 108
Dr. Dre, 32 engineering
Drifters, the, 40 and Jimmy, 167, 168, 192
drum(s) and Michael, 77, 95
emulating electronic sounds in hip-hop practice, 58 and Tara, 109, 110
kit, origins of, 33, 34 and Tyler, 188
machine(s) Eno, Brian, 32, 33, 51–53, 64, 101
and the Bomb Squad, 62 environmental sustainability, 71
in hip-hop, 59 equalizer(s)
and KRS-One, 61 description, 171
origins of, 5 and Jimmy, 171, 172
and Prince, 50, 51 EQ (magazine), 24
proliferation of, 24 EQ
and Sly Stone, 49 description, 171
and Stevie Wonder, 49 and Michael, 93, 94
and Michael, 76 and Tara, 103
programmed by Jimmy, 163, 164 and Tyler, 127, 145, 148, 149
224 I nd ex
EQing guitar
and Michael, 80 acoustic, 92, 133, 140, 153
equalization classical, 79
description, 145 electric, 44, 78, 80, 92, 157, 164, 172, 199
equalizing recording process of
beats by Tyler, 145 Frank Zappa, 57
guitar by Jimmy, 170 Jimmy, 164, 166
Ertegun, Ahmet, 16, 205 Joe Meek, 46
ethnicity, 36 Les Paul, 11
Eurythmics, 23 Michael, 87–90, 92–95
experiment, in the studio Prince, 51
Michael, 82, 89 Talking Heads, 52
Motown, 45 Tyler, 133, 140, 144, 145
Rolling Stones, the, 48 solo, 81, 140, 158, 172
Talking Heads, 53 synthesizer, 82, 85, 87
Tara, 99, 100
Hall and Oates, 175

Facebook, 131, 159 Hall, Rick, 3, 41
fader(s), 19, 84, 134–137, 186 HammerHead, 126
fades, 83, 113 Hammond, John, 14, 32
fidelity, 9, 26, 29, 111 Handel, 5
FL Studio, 82 hardcore, 25
Foo Fighters, 163 harmonizer, 140
Ford, Mary, xvii, 11, 13, 17, 18 harpsichord, 143, 144
formal learning, 124, 180 Haydn, 5
Fostex, 25 heavy metal, 79, 164
four-track, 22, 25, 26, 50, 80, 81, 126 Hendrix, Jimi, 38, 49, 158, 173, 176
Fruity Loops, 82, 126, 129, 145, 194 heteronym, 137
funk, 58, 59 high fidelity, 15, 17, 18, 22
Funk Brothers, the, 45, 62 hi-fi, 18, 22–24, 26, 29
high-pass filter, 55
Hindemith, Paul, 11
Gaisberg, Fred, 32 hip-hop, 25, 29, 34, 58–63, 66, 67, 70, 82, 155, 156,
GarageBand, 66, 83, 140 203, 205
Garcia, Jerry, 203, 204, 207 Hittsville, 44–46, 65
gender, 36, 72, 73 Hoboken, 70
Gentle Giant, 78 holistic learning, 194, 197, 198, 201
gentrification, 69 Holly, Buddy, 37
Georgia, 7, 76, 125 Hollywood, 12
Gibbons, Walter, 60 homemade, 12, 27, 55, 71, 201
Glasslands, 69 homogeneity, 183
Godrich, Nigel, 32 hooks, 40, 64, 65
Goffin, Gerry, 40 horizontal composition, 189–191, 198, 163
Gold Star Studios, 41 horn (recording), 7, 8, 10
Gordy, Berry, 3, 33, 44–48 Horn, Trevor, 32, 57
Gould, Glenn, 14, 54 horns, 54
gramophone, 7 hum, 45, 101
Granddaddy, 127
Grandmaster Flash, vi, 60, 205
Grateful Dead, the, 203, 207 IBM 7094, 140
Gray, David, 102 immersive learning, 194, 197, 198
Green, Lucy, xvi, xviii, 76, 83, 89, 95, 123, 151, implicit learning, 179, 180, 200
156, 162, 176, 180, 181, 183, 186, 193, 202 improvise
Greenwich, Ellie, 40, 41 and Michael, 83
GrooveAgent, 129, 146 improvising
grunge, 26 in the studio, 52
225
I n dex 225
indie, 25, 26, 70, 130 by tacit means, 199–202

informal learning, xvi, 89, 124, 156, 180, 183, 186, by trial and error, 204–206
193, 203, 205 LeBlanc, Keith, 59
instrumentality, 33, 35 Led Zeppelin, 77, 146, 194
in-studio composition, 51, 52 Lee, Bunny, 54
Internet, 24, 25, 91, 126, 131, 132, 137, 156, 179, Legge, Walter, 32
182, 188 Leiber, Jerry, 33, 38–40, 44, 67
iPhone, 66 Lennon, John, 64, 72, 172, 173
Irvine Plaza, 85 Leon, Craig, 49
isolate (sound), 10, 19–21, 136 Les Paul, xvii, xviii, 11–15, 17, 18, 22, 29, 37, 39, 59,
isolation (sound), 13, 19, 21 62, 64, 65, 77, 205, 207
isolation booth, 21, 23 lessons, 76, 77, 79, 95, 97–99, 101, 124–126, 151,
iTunes, 100, 159 157, 176
Levine, Larry, 41
limiters, 14
Jackson, Michael, 19, 57, 63 limiting, 43, 183
Jamerson, James, 45 Linn LM–1, 50, 51
Jay-Z, 70 Linn, Roger, 50
jazz, 9, 11, 14, 59, 78, 127, 158, 203 LL Cool J, 4
Johns, Glyn, 48 Logic (software), 74, 83, 98–100, 102, 103, 118,
Jones, Steve, 165 119, 124, 191, 192
Lookout! Records, 3
loop, 55, 60, 90, 93, 94, 131, 132, 140, 145, 146
karaoke composition, 98, 99, 123, 129, 191 looped, 144, 146
Kaye, Carol, 42 looping, 90, 132, 146, 182
keyboard, recording loops, xvi, 49, 60, 82, 146, 147
by Tara, 99 Lord-Alge, Tom, 205
by Tyler, 126, 132, 140 low fidelity, 18
kick drum, 58 lo-fi, 18, 22, 24–26, 29, 39
King, Ben E., 40 Lower East Side, 101, 175
King, Carol, 40 lyrics
King, John, 205 writing process of Jimmy, 161, 162
King Tubby, 33, 54, 55, 62, 67 writing process of Tara, 99–101
Kirshner, Don, 40, 44 writing process of Tyler, 127, 141, 149
knob(s), to alter sound, 19, 53, 57, 84, 136, 172, 183
Kraftwerk, 53
Kramer, Eddie, 49, 173 MacKaye, Ian, 3
KRS-One, 61 Mackie, 26
Madlib, 177
Manhattan, 37, 38, 70, 73, 101
La Mama E. T. C., 84 Mann, Aimee, 80, 194
Lacy, Steve, 66 Mantronix, 4
Laico, Frank, 14, 15 Marley Marl, 4, 59, 61
Lamar, Kendrick, 66 Martin, Chris, 141
Lanois, Daniel, 78, 204 Martin, George, 32, 33, 48, 64
learning Martin, Max, 33, 63–67, 202, 205
Ableton Live, 86–94, 132 Martin, Ricky, 29
approaches in DIY studios, 193–198 masculinity, 172
curve with DAWs, 28 Mast Brothers Chocolate, 71
by doing, 23, 205 mastering, 192, 199, 207
history of Jimmy, 155–160 Mayer, John, 166
history of Michael, 76–85 Mbox, 74, 83, 102
history of Tara, 97–101 McCartney, Paul, 64, 173
history of Tyler, 125–127, 129–130 Meat Loaf, 175
by making, 206, 207 mechanical recording, 8–10
producing, 179–184 Mediasound, 21
by self-sufficient means, 29 Meek, Joe, 32, 33, 44, 46–48, 56, 64
226 I nd ex
Mel Bay, 79 Motown, 44–47, 62, 65, 139, 159

melodies MOTU Traveller, 74, 133
and Tara, 99, 101, 102 Mozart, 5
and Tyler, 144 multitrack
melody ADAT, 26–27
and Jimmy, 160, 161 cassette, 24–26
and Tara, 101, 102 DAW, 27–29
and Tyler, 143, 144, 149 description, 13
Messina, Joe, 45 reel-to-reel, 22–24
Metallica, 117 Muscle Shoals, 41
Method Man, 156 music degree, 79, 124, 155
microcomposition, 143 music education, 194, 198, 199, 202–205, 207
microphone(s) music inventing, 203
description, 105
limitations, 170
placement, 42, 43, 103, 104, 116 National Association of Music Merchants
selection, 43, 80, 127, 128 (NAMM), 28
as similar to a recording horn, 8 Native Instruments Battery (drum sampler plugin),
techniques, 103, 104, 114 163, 176
MIDI, 24, 57 natural double, 165
controller, 98, 135, 162, 164, 176 neoliberalism, 187
editing, 143, 144, 164 network (social), 131, 137
grid, 144 Neumann U87 (microphone), 162, 166
keyboard, 99, 102, 132, 134, 140, 163, 164 Nevins, Al, 40
recording, 82, 87, 90, 163 Nirvana, 155, 166
Milhaud, Darius, 204 noise
Miller, Mitch, 14, 32 avoidance in recording, 21, 45
MiniDisc, 81, 83, 84 as an issue in Tara’s recordings, 102, 104, 110,
Mix (magazine), 24 111, 115, 118–120
mix as an issue in Tyler’s recordings, 127
and Brian Eno, 52 non-formal learning, 180
and Brian Wilson, 43
and Jimmy, 156, 167, 172–174
and Michael, 77, 84, 93 Oberheim DMX (drum machine), 59
and Motown, 45 orchestration, 80, 81
and Tara, 121, 122 Otter, 141, 142, 147
and Tyler, 135, 136 overdub
mixing, 18 and Daniel Lanois, 78
actions, 19 early examples, 11, 12
board(s) as musical instrument(s), 44, explanation, 13
53–55, 62 overdubbing
and Berry Gordy, 45 and Les Paul, 11–13
and Brian Wilson, 43 and Michael, 77
console(s), 49, 50, 53, 77, 84, 135, 136, 169 and TASCAM, 22, 23
design, 19 and Tyler, 126
and Jimmy, 169
and Michael, 84
and Tyler, 135, 136 Page, Jimmy, 158, 176
and dub, 54, 55 panning, 77, 80, 81, 166, 194
and Jimmy, 167–175 Parker, Colonel Tom, 32
and Les Paul, 11 Parliament (musical group), 58
and Michael, 80, 95 pause tapes, 60
mixing-in-the-box, 29, 84, 135, 136 Peart, Neil, 67
and Tyler, 134–137 pedagogy, xvi, 72, 77, 183, 184, 202, 205
Moby, 27 peer-guided learning, 180, 181, 193, 195, 198
Moore, R. Stevie, 3 Peer, Ralph, 32
Morisette, Alanis, 26 Pensado, Dave, 29
227
I n dex 227
perfectionist, 64, 110, 191 QuickTime, 75, 86

Pessoa, Fernando, 137, 150 quintain, 185
Petty, Norman, 32
Pharrell, 205
phasing, 104 race, 36, 72, 73
Phillips, Sam, 19, 22, 32, 48, 205 Radiohead, 140, 194
phonograph, 5–7, 34, 202, 203 Ramone, Phil, 32, 111, 195
phrasing, 46, 81, 99 Ramones, the, 49
piano Rampal, Jean-Pierre, 79
and Tara rap, 58, 60, 61, 160, 173
comping, 118, 119 rapper, 61, 157, 160
learning to play, 97–99 RCA (studio), 21, 38
recording, 102–113 record sales, 22
writing parts for, 101–102 recording
and Tyler consciousness, 176
learning to play, 125, 126 consoles, 16, 19
piano roll, 5, 144 recordist, 7, 10, 11, 17
pitch, shift, 82, 147 Redman, 156
Pitchfork, 130 Redwood, “Ruddy,” 54
player piano, 5, 35 reel-to-reel, 10, 16, 22–24, 26, 37, 38
plugin(s) reflexive recording, 98, 100, 190, 191, 193, 207
and Jimmy, 169–172 religion, 36
popular music, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, 17, 38, 51, 57, remixing, 101
65–67, 79, 184, 203, 207 rent, 69, 125
pop, xv, 14, 29, 41, 51, 57, 67, 73, 101, 165, 191, 196 reverb, 14, 20, 21, 29, 47, 55, 56, 84, 92, 93, 122,
pop filter, 114 129, 140
Portastudio, 25–27 chamber, 15
power chords, 164, 165 digital, 20
presets, 92, 94, 148, 180–183, 192 pedal, 133
Presley, Elvis, 33, 38, 39, 67 plate, 20
Prince, 32, 33, 50, 51, 53, 64, 150, 202 reverberation, 15, 19, 20, 21, 176, 182
Prince Jammy, 55 ReverbNation, 159
Prince Paul, 205 revise, 101
Prince Smart, 55 Rhythm King (drum machine), 50
Pro Tools, 28, 29, 64, 65, 74, 80, 83, 84, 132, 160, robot, 139–141
162, 169, 176, 192, 197 rock, 26, 33, 37, 38, 41, 44, 67, 73, 77, 78, 81, 155,
producer(s) 163, 164, 173, 203, 205
roles, 31–33, 111, 123 Rock, Bob, 117
pedagogies, 193–198 rock and roll, xiii, 17, 22, 37, 39, 75, 79
programmer, 35, 99 Roland
programming, 5, 51, 62, 64, 163, 181 GK–2A, 82
project studio, xvii, 26, 197 GR–30, 82
Prokofiev, 79 TR–808, 59
pseudonym, 137 UA–30, 82
Public Enemy, 33, 61, 62, 64 Rolling Stones, the, 38, 48, 53, 57
Puig, Jack Joseph, 166 Ronettes, the, 40
Pultec, 14 Rubin, Rick, 4, 32
punch, 81, 109 Run DMC, 61
punch-ins, 25, 81, 182 Rundgren, Todd, 175
punk, 25, 26, 49, 70
Putnam, Bill, 19, 22, 195
Pythian Temple, 21 Sadler, Eric, 62
samplers, 59, 62–64, 146
samples, 62, 63, 82, 100, 129, 132, 192
Q-Tip, 61 sampling, 57–61, 82, 147, 181
Queens, 98 Santana, 77, 194
Questlove, 58 Savannah, Georgia, 76
228 I nd ex
Schaeffer, Pierre, 12, 59, 204 snare drum, 34, 50, 55, 59, 61, 127, 136
Scheiner, Elliot, 195 social class, 36
Scientist, 55 social media, 66, 132
Scott La Rock, 61 social network, 137
Scott, Raymond, 10, 12, 37, 65 Solid State Logic (SSL), 169, 170
scratch (turntable technique), 60, 62, 156, 157 solo button, 144
ScreenFlow, 142 song-makers, 206
screen recording(s), 72, 75, 85–87, 90, 143, 144, song-making, 199
146–148 songwriter(s), 38–40, 44, 51, 63–66, 139, 198
Segovia, Andrés, 79 songwriting
self- and Jimmy, 161, 162, 175
directed learning, 123, 151, 193, 195, 196, 198 recording as, 37, 38, 40, 49, 64, 65, 190
educated, 197 and Tara, 100, 101, 123, 124
evaluation, 191 and Tyler, 149, 151
guided learning, 151 Sound On Sound (magazine), 24
led, 77, 125, 151, 180, 202 sound-on-sound, 11, 12, 59, 78, 95
produce, 7, 44, 139 SoundCloud, 159
production, 175 Spears, Britney, 64
reliant, 189 Spector, Phil, 32, 33, 40–42, 44, 45, 48, 63, 64
sufficiency, 3, 30, 66 Spin (magazine), 130
sufficient, 4, 5, 7, 18, 23, 25, 29, 32, 33, 51, 66, splice, 18
139, 151, 187, 202 St. Ann's Warehouse, 84
taught, 124–126, 151, 176 Starr, Ringo, 89
teaching, 129, 181, 195, 204 stems, 136, 137, 182
sequence, 4, 194 Stevie Wonder, 32, 49, 50, 53
sequencers, 24, 52, 63, 176, 194 stimulated recall, 108, 109, 142, 143
sequencing, 24, 57, 126, 200 Stoller, Mike, 33, 38–40, 44, 67
Sex Pistols, the, 165 Stone Roses, the, 135
sexual orientation, 36 Stravinsky, Igor, 203
shift pitches, xvi, 82, 147, 181 stream (music), 174
Shocklee, Hank, 62 streaming (music), 131
Shocklee, Keith, 62 Stylus RMX, 163
Shure subception, 200
SM57 (microphone), 127 Sugar Hill Records, 59
SM7b (microphone), 128 Sumac, 141
Sibelius (scoring software), 98, 102, 124, 190 Suzuki method, 97
Sidore, Joe, 43 Swedien, Bruce, 19, 128, 167, 174, 195
signal processing, 47, 51, 57 Swift, Rob, 60
signal processors, 18, 29, 176 Swift, Taylor, 65
Simmons, Russell, 4 Sydney, Australia, 85
Simpson, Mike, 205 synthesizer(s), 4, 49, 57, 59, 192
Sinatra, Frank, 65, 70 soft-synth, 162
sing(ing), approaches to
by Brian Wilson, 43
by Jimmy, 161, 173 tacit, 177, 179
by Mary Ford, 11, 13 learning, 184, 199–201
by Michael, 82 Talking Heads, 51–53
by Tara, 99, 101, 102 tape recording
when recording, 113–117 and Bob Dylan, 38
by Tyler, 128, 129, 139–141, 147, 148, 150 and Brian Eno, 51, 52
skeuomorph, 84, 197 and Buddy Holly, 37
sliders, 19, 53, 77 and Chuck Berry, 37
Sly Stone, 33, 49, 50, 53 and DIY approaches, 11, 16–18, 22–26
small-batch, 71 and Jimi Hendrix, 38
Smith, Byron, 54 and Joe Meek, 47
Smith, Elliott, 129 and Jon Brion, 78
Smith, Larry, 61 and King Tubby, 55
229
I n dex 229
and Leiber and Stoller, 39 uncanny valley, 139

and Les Paul, 12, 13 undo, 193, 198
to make music, xvi Unique Studios, 59
and Michael, 77 Universal Audio, 14, 19
and Prince, 50
and the Rolling Stones, 38
and Tyler, 126 Vampire Weekend, 4
TASCAM, 22, 23, 25, 26 Van Gelder, Rudy, 127
US–122, 74 version (dub), 54
TEAC, 22 versioning, 54
teaching, xv, 23, 71, 87, 126, 129, 181, 184, 195, vertical composition, 99, 189–191, 198
204, 206 video camera, 75, 97, 108, 109, 167
technological enthusiasm, 78, 195 Vig, Butch, 166
“technology,” 36 Village Vanguard, the, 70
Telefunken (microphones), 14 Visconti, Tony, 32, 121
Ten Years After, 76 vocal
Text Edit, 140 recording, 101, 114, 117, 119
text-to-speech, 140 ranges, 141
Thomas, Chris, 165 takes, 117
Tibbett, Lawrence, 12 windscreen, 114, 115
Timbaland, 61, 205 vocalist, 8, 81
Timberlake, Justin, 65 vocals, recording
timbre(s) and the Beach Boys, 42
and dub, 53–56 and Jimmy, 166, 167, 173, 174
and hip-hop drums, 58 and the Ramones, 49
and Jimmy, 164, 170 and Tara, 114–120
and Les Paul, 11 and Tyler, 127, 128
and Michael, 92 VocalWriter, 140
and pop music, 57 vocoder, 132, 140
and referents, 56 voluntarism (technological), 35, 36
Tin Pan Alley, 38
tinker, 11, 192
tinkering, 53, 57, 77, 78, 183, 194, 196 Wagner, Richard, 41
top-liner, 65 Wakeman, Rick, 78
Toscanini, 79 Wall of Sound, 40, 41, 139
Totem, 141, 142 Webster Hall, 21
tour, 85, 130 Weil, Cynthia, 40
touring, 85, 130, 188 Western (studio), 42, 43
tracker, 65 Wexler, Jerry, 16, 39, 205
tracking White, Robert, 45
Jimmy, 164, 166 Williamsburg, 69, 70, 97, 101, 125
Tara, 105 Williamsburg Bridge, 101, 190
tracks, description of, 13 Willis, Eddie, 45
Treasure Isle Studio, 54 Wilson, Brian, xiv, 33, 41–45, 48, 53, 205
trial and error, xv, 23, 89, 90, 95, 126, 151, 175, 179, wire recorder, 37
180, 195–199, 202–207 Wrecking Crew, the, 42
tuba, 9
Turner, Joe, 39
turntable(s), 11, 34, 60–63, 155, 157 Yamaha NS10s, 159
turntablism, 60, 156 Yes, 78
tweak, 94, 173, 188 Yo-Yo Ma, 129
two-track, 55 YouTube, 29, 86, 87, 129, 132, 151, 156, 159, 175,
195, 197
U2, 51, 52, 78, 101, 166

ukulele(s), 134, 136 Zappa, Frank, 56

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i

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

1. A History of DIY Recording: Striving for Self-Sufficiency 3

Space-Less Studios: Dawn of the DAW (1990–Present) 27

2. The Studio: Instrument of the Producer 31

Using the Studio as a Musical Instrument with Others 37

Producing Without Producers 47

The Contemporary Collaborative Producer: Max Martin 63

Part II MADE IN BROOKLYN

Walking and Writing: Distinguishing the Song from the Recording 101

Preparation (Saturday and Monday Morning) 102

Hypercritical: In Pursuit of the Pristine Piano Performance (Monday Afternoon,

Recording the Piano for “Chesterfield” (Wednesday) 108

Technical Difficulties (Thursday) 113

5. Track 3: Tyler 125

The Cartographic Composer: Mapping a Musical Existence 130

A Guided Tour Through Tyler’s Bedroom Studio 133

Audio Avatars: Otter, Sumac, and Totem 141

“Technology is the Reason”: Conclusions 150

6. Track 4: Jimmy 153

“I Woke Up With the Melody”: The Making of “Lost and Found” 160

FINGER DRUMMING 163

TRACKING, LAYERING, AND TWEAKING GUITARS 164

“Me and Him Have This Synergy”: Mixing with Bill 167

Recording as Second Nature: Conclusions 175

Part III LEARNING PRODUCING | PRODUCING

7. Mixing the Multitrack: Cross-Case Analyses 185

Music-Making Models and Digitally Afforded Techniques 189

Producer Pedagogies: Acquiring Skills and Know-How 193

TAPE TRAVAILS 195

DOMAIN OF THE DAW 196

Summing the Tracks: Conclusions 198

8. Mastering the Multitrack: Conclusions 199

The Les Paul Legacy of the Producer 207

Home Recording Revelations

Recording was a relatively simple process in which a band lined up in front

Stokes, Star-​Making Machinery, 136.

Moorefield, The Producer as Composer, 19.

Music Education and Recording

McClary and Walser, “Start Making Sense!,” 282.

DIY Recording Studios

As portable computing devices enable recording to occur ubiquitously, the more

The “project studio,” as an umbrella term, encompasses an unknowable

The Difficulty of Defining DIY

what constitutes a professional studio and working in opposition to it, such as

• Mantronix recording The Album (1985) in Al Cohen Studio, an apartment in the

A His t ory of DI Y R e cordin g 5

DIY Recording Before Records

method by performers to record the piano. The significance of these perforated-​

Tinfoil Revolutions: The First DIY Audio Recording

The phonograph will undoubtedly be liberally devoted to music. A song

A His t ory of DI Y R e cordin g 7

introduced a structural and social division between making a recording

As a consequence of this conceptual shift, “recordings would be made solely by

Mechanical Recording (Pre-​1925)

A recording director (who might also be a conductor or serve other func-

In many regards, performing to a horn is similar to performing to a microphone:

A His t ory of DI Y R e cordin g 9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stokes, Star-Making Machinery, 136.

method by performers to record the piano. The significance of these perforated-

Mechanical Recording (Pre-1925)

The Electrical Era (Post-1925)

Les Paul and the Tale of Tape (Post-1945)

the bathroom, which produced an echo-like sound, and once I determined

Virgil Moorefield suggests that the overdub-dependent approach to recording

Craft-Union Mode: 30th Street Studio

the resulting reflections—natural reverberations—were sought after; the room

DIY Recording Post-1945: Sticking to

Starting in the early 1970s, the company TEAC/TASCAM (hereafter abbreviated

Space-Less Studios: Dawn of the DAW

The three aforementioned quotes aimed at DIY recording enthusiasts—from 1985,

The shift to software-enabled recording has significantly reduced the cost

with ever-improving computers and plugins (software-based signal processors) dis-

Lastly, in The Musicology of Record Production, Simon Zagorski-Thomas describes

This mode is one emerging due to the software-based digital recording

• It involves real-time sound manipulation;

Anecdotes abound of rock and roll–era musicians using recorders themselves or

In the 1970s . . . the focal point of the studio-as-instrument had shifted