All Over the Map
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Rhonda Baraka
Lyrics Born steps aside from his lonely sampling ways to be Everywhere at Once with a gang of musicians and influences running the gamut from Timbaland to The B-52’s
Musically speaking, Lyrics Born says he brought in “every musician I know” for “Whispers.” “It's got horns, it's got strings, it's got vocalists. It was a very difficult song to pull off. That's one of my favorite songs on the album, but I never listen to it.”
Even though Lyrics Born puts a lot of thought into his content and the sound of his music, he says he doesn't overthink the recording process itself. “I just get in there and do it,” he says. “On this album, the method was very different. When I'm working on a song, I don't like a lot of people in the studio. I only like to be in there with the engineer or maybe the musician or group of musicians that I'm working with that day. In the early stages of the song, I don't like a lot of people in there because I'm a performer by nature, and if I get a lot of people in there, I'll start trying to perform for them and I just can't get anything done. And when you're first working on a song, you need to get the idea out without being self-conscious about people being in there even if they're not being critical about it.”
Another difference, he says, is that this time around, he already had lyrics written before he had the music. “In the past, I may have gotten the track first and then I would write to it, but on this album I had a lot of the songs written before I even had music, and I think I had an idea of where I wanted the music to go. ‘Top Shelf’ is a good example of that. I had that song written for a year, a year and a half, and I just couldn't get the music right, so I started asking a bunch of producers I know if they had something that would fit.”
Everywhere at Once takes listeners on a scenic tour along the back streets of Lyrics Born's creativity. It's ambitious and pleasantly topsy-turvy — sometimes a bumpy ride, sometimes soothing and relaxing. But it's not for passengers who like straightaways with no tricky curves or unexpected stops and starts. It's an adventurous offering from an adventurous and memorable artist. Novelty notwithstanding.
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE
Engineer Mike Cresswell discusses a few key aspects of collaborating with Lyrics Born on Everywhere at Once.
Was it tougher to mix using live takes as opposed to pretreated samples? Do you have a particular signal chain that you're most happy with when recording live musicians?
The bulk of my experience comes from recording live musicians, so I don't view it as tougher at all. I think it's tougher to mix soft synths and the like. As far as recording chains go, I have my own defaults I refer to for different situations, but these days I'm kind of at the mercy of what gear is available and the environment I'm in. Plus, I get bored using the same old thing every time; I like to try new stuff and just go purely on gut instinct. Also, gear usually reacts differently in every situation, so I try not to get stuck in set ways. On this project, however, most things were shaped in the mix. As long as it sounds all right to Tom going down, we can deal with it in the mix.
There's a nice, wide stereo field on Everywhere at Once. Do you have a particular methodology for getting the bass nice and beefy, the snares crisp, the kick thumping/thick and such a nice chime and clarity to things like guitar?
You have to listen to how every little detail affects everything else. Things that help me are listening at low levels on small speakers and getting everything up in the mix pretty quickly. I use these cheap Roland MA-8 speakers. They were sold as “multimedia” speakers and are no longer in production. I tend to get lost in a mix when listening to normal speakers like Genelecs, KRKs, Dynaudios, etc., for too long. Reducing the overall frequency response helps me focus on getting a proper balance. It's like standing too close to a painting; you need to take a step back to get the whole picture.
What's your theory on panning? There is some interesting automated panning on “Top Shelf.”
More and more, I subscribe to the hard-left, center, hard-right approach, then using effects to pull it in toward center if need be. It gives a much more layered sound, plus it turns out a lot wider and creates more space for the lead vocal in the middle. Tom loves autopanning, so on “Top Shelf,” I used Waves MondoMod plug-in on several tracks for some autopanning sweeps, usually set to the factory default setting. Then in tandem with that, I will do some manual panning of certain tracks.
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