FLIGHT SCHOOL
Sep 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Erin Hutton
Flying is a source of strife for many on the move. If the fear of actually getting off the ground — and staying there until properly returned to the tarmac — isn't daunting enough, lost baggage, delayed flights, subpar food, turbulence and cranky passengers are enough to put the road-weary traveler over the edge. Given those factors and countless others (screaming babies, anyone?), boarding a plane can be simply unbearable. But for those who have been cheated out of frequent-flyer miles or bumped from repeated flights, hope is on the horizon: The Air Farina (Om, 2003) flight experience is a different story altogether.
A plucky amalgam of Mark Farina's penchant for funky Chicago house and sexy downtempo, intertwined with quirky vocal samples and snippets taken from obscure oddity records, Air Farina sees the DJ sidestepping the decks to try his hand at producing original material. Now, Farina finds himself back in the beginner's arena, like many vinyl jocks who have recently taken that route.
For years, Farina has been leading the house scene in San Francisco, the home he adopted several years ago after leaving his hometown, Chicago. Although he bade farewell to the Windy City — the birthplace of Mushroom Jazz, the jazzy cocktail of downtempo and hip-hop that Farina pioneered (not to mention the source of Farina's series of successful comps for Om) — the impression left by his Midwestern upbringing remains, revealing itself in the theme behind Air Farina.
Growing up in Chicago, Farina lived just minutes from O'Hare International Airport. His parents used to drive by the airport to watch the planes take off and land, and Farina and his friends hung out there when they were bored. Because they were unable to go downtown alone, O'Hare was pretty much their only recourse, and the time that Farina spent there planted a seed of sorts. That, coupled with his DJ tenure bringing him to myriad airports worldwide, instilled what has become a lifelong interest in air travel — or any mode of transport, for that matter, as evidenced by the model trains, replica buses and toy cars that are meticulously placed throughout Farina's home studio. It's fitting, then, that in the studio, Farina's Midwestern indoctrination manifests itself again.
“There's a certain Detroit-Chicago method that's different than, say, a West Coast producer,” Farina says. “Maybe you have a bigger mixing board and different outboard gear, different drum-machine units as opposed to doing everything on a computer-based [system]. Maybe you use a computer for edits and a little more production along the line, but you definitely try to integrate a more hands-on feeling by pressing stuff, which is always kind of the way I was taught.”
And those teachers weren't just anybody, but Detroit-techno legend Kevin Saunderson and Chicago-house heavy Derrick Carter. Although Saunderson and Carter had much to do with Farina's love of hands-on production, the process wasn't always ideal. “In the early '90s, I lived with Derrick Carter, and he had a studio right next door to my bed that I would have to listen to all night.” Nevertheless, the sentiment stuck, as he produced the entire album virtually computer-free, save for the jazzy, deep-house track “To Do,” a collaboration with Kaskade's Ryan Raddon that the two did on Raddon's laptop using Digidesign Pro Tools.
BOARDING CALL
Although the Air Farina track ideas had been percolating for a couple of years, Farina felt he lacked the studio prowess to make them a reality. “I definitely didn't still produce stuff because I always didn't feel too comfortable,” he says. “You know, you can have access to the gear, but getting it to do stuff is always a different story. Getting it to do what you want can be so hard.”
Fortunately, Farina has several pieces of gear that he was able to wrangle into submission, including an Akai MPC4000 (his favorite studio item) for vocal bits and a JoMoX XBase09 drum machine for kicks and hi-hats, as well as an E-mu XL-7 and MP-7 for sequencing bass, keys and so forth. “I definitely like having certain elements repeating on an analog level, which just kind of gives it that feel,” he says. “Definitely, with tracks, I always find that less is more. So we try to keep things minimal but still complex in a way by keeping certain parts simple, like a kick drum or snare or hi-hat, also not getting too complex in the synthesizer sequences. Keep a steady bass line and also space out the samples so they don't overlay each other too much, if at all. Once I have a foundation that is fairly simple, then I can kind of go wild with the ‘spices’ that make the end result very complex in flavor.”
To add some garnishing layers, Farina jumped at the chance to use his obscure vinyl collection — he also collects baseball hats; vintage sportswear; and shoes, shoes, shoes — to pull together the album's theme. Instead of the extended DJ-friendly intros and outros that usually accompany dance tracks (and that are usually fast-forwarded through by non-DJ types), Farina used his DJ skills to cultivate the in-flight motif and create more of a listening experience through intermittent “Layover” interludes, which he pieced together from a set of 1960s airport-tower-communication records. “There is a three-record set of things you need to know about runways and talking to airports and flying around the country and then how weather deals with it,” he says. “I don't know, there's something about, like, an old white guy that has a funny tone to it: It's so serious.”
CABIN PRESSURE
Although Farina is a pro at infusing his recordings with vocal bits, incorporating a live vocalist was a completely new experience. Taking the recommendation of a neighbor, Farina brought in guest vocalist Sean Hayes for the late-night house track “Dropped Into Water” and the smoldering, downtempo “Dream Machine.” Farina recorded Hayes' vocals live for the latter, co-opting the tiny record room in his studio to create a makeshift isolation booth. Farina used a Shure KSM44 vocal mic and ran the vocal through the TC-Helicon VoicePrism for a little light reverb while recording. “I picked up a little headphone noise, but that was about it,” he says. “It was pretty clean, actually.”
The Hayes sessions may have been smooth, but the bouncy hip-hop track “Travel,” which features People Under the Stairs, posed a more significant challenge. Unlike Hayes, PUTS' Double K and Thes One didn't come to Farina's studio; rather, the duo furnished an a cappella of an unreleased track that fit in with the Air Farina theme. “The tempo they originally had it at was 10 to 15 beats slower, and I had to make it a little more uptempo,” Farina says. Never having restructured an entire vocal track, Farina faced the task of stretching the vocal without it sounding abnormal — and without the use of time-stretching software, of course. “I did it in a rather simple method,” he says. “I played the a cappella off of CD through a Pioneer DJM-500 effects unit and pitch-transposed the vocals with one of the effects, re-EQ'd it and recorded it. Then, I just laid it over the track DJ-style.”
Getting all of the “Travel” elements to gel took Farina a couple of days — just within the eight-hour to two-day basic time frame that he sets to complete tracks. “Generally, you can [put together] any track, I'd say, in a minimum of six to eight hours,” he says. “If you're really going fast, you can get all of the basics done and then tinker for a while. I like to bang things out; you don't want to dwell on something for too long because then it'll mutate into something else and lose the feel. So it's best to either just do something, I've found, and then move on. You can come back and retouch, but I always try to keep to a time frame.”
Keeping to that time line also helps Farina stay on target to meet the deadlines determined by Om. “Producing on your own time, if you're not used to deadlines and having other people ask you for stuff, makes you take the opportunity,” he says. Although he likens meeting deadlines to turning in homework, Farina appreciates Om's professionalism and stricter release schedules, as many of the house labels that he's worked with in the past have been casual at best.
CROSS-CHECK
Although diligent at sticking to schedules, Om was, perhaps, not so adept at adjusting to Farina's production methods. “I know on my production technique, the sort of Midwestern way, it was definitely different than Om had dealt with,” he says. “They're used to a lot of computer stuff. I'm still not advanced enough to say that somebody can send me some computer sound files and [then I'll be able to] load them up.”
However, Farina tapped San Francisco DJ Iz (aka Joshua Michaels), who was both familiar with the Midwestern method and computer-savvy, to assist with some of the edits. Iz, who weighed in on about a third of the album, received tracks from Farina in AIFF format and used BIAS Peak 3.2 for the 2-track edits. “On most of the tracks, Mark just wanted me to edit out certain pieces of the tracks both for length and for content,” Iz says. “A few tracks, we sort of rearranged the structure, although only by editing the audio. Mark was pretty organized, so he already had mapped out what he wanted to do.”
“Editwise, I'm still not prolific enough on the computer,” Farina admits. “Most of my production was at home, based downstairs, mixed to DAT, and some pieces were edited together, but a lot of it was still mixed live.” Farina remains partial to mixing down live because he feels that it gives tracks “a housier feel.” “I definitely find that I get big breakdowns that way as opposed to thinking about arranging on a computer,” he says. “It's more fun to just press buttons.”
CLEARED FOR LANDING
Deciding on the Air Farina track order was somewhat difficult for Farina, as he didn't think about the arrangement of the tracks until they were finished. He did, however, make preparations for two listening environments: The vinyl version of the album contains separate tracks whereas the CD is a continuous mix. “I just kind of decided that a CD audience and a vinyl audience would be two different audiences, pretty much — similar, but there would be different uses for both,” he says.
And with Air Farina now ready for public consumption, Farina has been playing some of the tracks out and gauging the dancefloor reactions. (The response to “Leaving SF” — the funky, key-laced house joint with Lance Desardi — has been receiving praise thus far.) Despite Farina's comfort in the DJ booth, he is somewhat reluctant to feature too much of his own material during his sets. “I know some DJs who have no problem, and they can play a whole set of their own records, and they come to be known for that,” he says. “But I've always found it a little bit weird. You know, I'll kind of test stuff. I'll hear stuff out, and I'll go back home and change things. But I find, once I'm done … I tend to play less of my own stuff, which can probably be bad from a self-promotion standpoint.”
Given all of the studio work that Farina has completed for this release, his skills have vastly improved and his productivity sped up. As his comfort level rises, he plans to incorporate more digital means, as well as more live vocalists and musicians into his work. Farina is also looking to catch up on the various remix offers that have been accumulating since he committed himself to finishing the album. But first, it's enough to let Air Farina sink in. “Always when I put out any tracks, I'm a little nervous because, as a DJ, you play certain things, and you never know if the two intertwine in a way,” he says. “It can be two separate things, but it's a lot of fun to see it all kind of come together as a concept.” And from how things are shaping up, skies look clear.
INSTRUMENT PANEL
Akai MPC4000 sampler/sequencer
Alesis 3630 compressor
Alesis M1 reference monitors (2)
Alesis MidiVerb II effects processor
Alesis MidiVerb 4 effects processor
dbx 266XL compressor/gate
E-mu MP-7 Command Station groove instrument
E-mu XL-7 Command Station groove instrument
HHB Radius 5 Fat Man 2 tube preamp/compressor
JBL 4206 monitors (2)
JoMoX XBase09 analog drum sequencer
Korg EM-1 Electribe M music production station
Korg ER-1 Electribe R rhythm synth
Korg Kaoss Pad dynamic effect/controller
Mackie 24•8 digital mixing console
Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD turntables (2)
Rane MP 2016 rotary club mixer
Roland HPD-15 HandSonic percussion controller
Shure KSM44 vocal mic
Sony DTC-790 DAT
Sony MDR-7506 headphones
Tascam CD-RW2000 CD recorder/rewriter
TC-Helicon VoicePrism vocal processor
Technics SL-1200MK2 turntables (2)
Vestax GFE-1 graphic frequency eliminator
Vestax FDG-1 3-band isolator
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