For Record Store Day this year, Golden Sound Records teamed up with The Record Machine to release a split compilation on 12” vinyl that we haphazardly titled Secret Handshakes. This was an awesome project to put together. The compilation is comprised of twelve unreleased songs from twelve bands; six from each label.
I had the pleasure of tracking/mixing four songs on the Golden Sound side, playing on three tracks, and mastering the whole collection of songs.
Recording/Mixing
If I remember correctly, the first song we tracked for the Golden Sound side was Everyday/Everynight’s Hot Bright Night. All the base tracks (drums, guitars, bass) were recorded live. The drums were captured with Audio-Technica 4041s as overheads, an AKG D112 on the kick, and a Sennheiser MD421 on the snare. Kick and snare got some compression from a couple dbx 163s on the way in.
I played bass on this track, running my Fender Musicmaster through my Gibson G-100B. I believe the amp was miked with a Cascade Fat Head with Lundahl transformer. Guitar amps were miked with the ineffable Shure SM57. Austin Lyon played drums on this track and it was new to both of us, so it was a lot of fun to sit in as “studio” musicians for a live track. We ended up tracking lead vocals with a Blue Dragonfly, which has become Jerad’s go-to vocal mic.
My band Fullbloods laid down our track Heavily Drugged during practice one Monday evening, shortly after we switched to monitoring ourselves via side-fills in the room. Careful enough positioning of mics and speakers yielded minimal monitor bleed. This was another live recording that we went back and overdubbed vocals on.
Bill played his white Rogers kit captured by a Cascade X-15 stereo ribbon as overheads, D112 on kick, 421 on snare, and 57s on toms. I played my Gretsch Duo Jet (DynaSonic) through a 60’s Gibson Scout, miked with a Cascade Fat Head. Glenn played his modded Gretsch Pro Jet through a Fender Deluxe Reverb miked with a 57. Alex played an 80’s Fender Bullet bass through the Gibson G-100B, miked with some cheap Nady dynamic mic. We did several takes, decided on one, and overdubbed vocals using one side of the X-15 through a JOEMEEK Twin Q with some slapback from a Roland RE-501. We achieved good base sounds, so mixing was a breeze.
Millions of Boys were in town for a weekend after a show they played, so we seized the opportunity to record one of their new songs. We tracked three or four songs in that session and landed on using this complete live take. The mic choices were pretty much identical to the Fullbloods session but it was mixed a lot differently. Ryan played Bill’s Roger’s kit with one of my snares, Sara played my Rickenbacker 325 through a Gibson Discoverer, and AVB played a Will’s Geddy Lee Jazz bass through the Gibson G-100B.
The Empty Spaces song on the compilation, The 1960’s Divorce Rate Blues, is a completely live recording. We did only a few takes and chose the best one. Instead of going to tape like we did with Low Noise, all tracks I recorded went to an Alesis HD24 ADAT machine. I can’t express how much I love that thing. Solid as a rock.
I played my Gretsch Catalina Club kit, captured with the same setup used for the Fullbloods track. Mat played his Epiphone hollow-body (not sure of the model) through his Peavey Classic 20… or 30 or 50, I don’t recall what it is exactly. Will commandeered his Geddy Lee signature Jazz Bass through the good ol’ Gibson G-100B. Mat sang through a Shure Beta 87 with some help from the JOEMEEK Twin Q.
Mastering
It was a joy and a challenge to work with the variety of recordings I received from everyone and try to make them sound good together. This is only the second thing I’ve mastered for vinyl specifically (the first being Competing For Your Love by Millions of Boys), so I treaded lightly and stuck to some guidelines I made for myself:
- Leave dynamics intact. It was a breath of fresh air to know that no one would be listening to this in their car and I wouldn’t have to compete with road noise. I made the assumption that contemporary vinyl consumers care more about the ebb and flow of a record than the “radio readiness” of the songs. Some songs are quieter than others. That’s exciting to me.
- Reign in the low end. I cut most low end below 40hz and reduced the stereo width of everything below 200hz or so, depending on how it sounded on the track. Low frequencies with wide stereo images can cause the needle to jump out of the groove, and although I’m sure the actual mastering process at URP takes care of it, I wanted to do everything I could for a consistent and efficient sound. Cuttertone from SKnote was a pretty good utility for addressing these issues. Combined with some gentle EQ and light compression, I was able to pull the tracks into the same universe.
- Don’t change too much. These are mixes that the bands were probably happy with. It’s their sound and that’s important to broadcast on a compilation like this.
- Remember… This was a learning experience like anything else, so I saved multiple versions of master sessions to look back over as reference later.
I made separate masters for the digital versions of the split (available via redemption code with the vinyl) that have more of the limiting and frequency range you’d expect from that type of media.
Distributing
We threw two shows to celebrate Record Store Day and to sell the split. One was a day party at Vinyl Renaissance on West 39th street and a night show at The Brick. Though Record Store Day is over, we will continue to sell the split on both Golden Sound’s website and The Record Machine’s website. Bands included on the split will probably be selling them at shows, too.
This was an incredibly satisfying project to be a part of and really got me excited about Kansas City’s music scene and its future. Both sides are fantastic, with great songs by Soft Reeds, Max Justus, La Guerre, Spirit Is The Spirit, Ad Astra Arkestra, Akkilles, Baby Teardrops, and The Caves.
Grab yourself a copy and support local music!
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