This weekend LET HIM BE opens in Hamilton, my hometown. A shameless plug..I know...so let me work this into the blog.I was hired as the arranger on this film which meant that the songs were written by another person (Writer / Director / Composer Peter McNamee) who would deliver the songs in raw form, like an mp3 recorded with one mic. Usually it would be Peter singing and strumming a guitar. From that I would figure out the tuning and chart out the chords and structure. My job was to add guitar(s), bass, programmed drums, and backing vocals. (Michael Blazer arranged all the amazing piano / clavinet)
First thing I did was load the demo track into Cubase onto a track. I would turn on the metronome within Cubase and determine the closest tempo since the scratch drums would be midi. I would then turn off the demo track and based on Peter's notes, add some basic drum beats. Then I would begin by recording rhythm guitar parts based on the charts I created when listening to the raw demos. Since the bass would be replaced with an actual bass (Performed by Gerry Gregg) I used my M-Audio Keystation and entered midi bass lines using the Virtual Instrument bass that came with Cubase. I would send these to Peter for his approval, or disapproval and go from there.
The real fun for me was writing the guitar solos which I usually saved for last. Peter was a fan of my solo work so I always added them last. The icing on the cake.
I would then send Michael the song's tempo and a stereo mix. He was working in Garage Band so he was able to send me the Garage Band project and I exported the track on my end to load into Cubase as an aif file. Now the tracks were complete and ready for Peter's vocal tracks. Peter would record his vocals, I would harmonize them, and harmonize them.
Peter's recording background goes way back and deserves it's own blog. For now, I'll just say that he is a brilliant mixer. He mixes quickly, loudly, quietly, while lying on the floor half asleep and that's it. Export the song as a stereo mix and burn it to CD. A day would go by and he'd send me brief mixing notes until he got the mix that he was happy presenting.
When it came time for removing Peter's vocals and recording Mark's (He plays Noel in the movie) I just muted Peter's vocals and created a new track for Mark which would be the versions heard in the film.
Gerry would come into the studio after listening the tracks with midi bass and put his bass mastery onto the tracks. Again, just mute the midi bass.
Since all this was done on the desktop we needed an option for going into the studio to record the live drums. I had to solo EACH track and export it. I would end up with about 12-20 individual instrument and vocal tracks , called STEMS, all the same length so that they could load into Pro-Tools (I think, I didn't attend the drum sessions) at the studio, line up all the tracks and have the drummer (John Cheesman) add the live drums.
Why did I export STEMS rather than exporting an OMF (Open Media Framework) file? Cubase SX1 doesn't offer that option which would have been much easier.
Now we had the final tracks that would be heard on the big screen. After seeing it at the AMC in Toronto I was blown away by the music even though I had spent years working on it. It was HUGE.
All the years working on the film's soundtrack from the desktop essentially cost us our time. We could work any hour of the day and communicate via the internet to achieve our goals.
I hope that you get a chance to see a screening this week (Sept 19th, 22nd, 24th) in Hamilton. I believe that this is the last North American screening before it heads overseas.
I have a personal favorite, ROCK AND ROLL. I really like the Ebow solo. I also LOVE Michael's clavinet work on I WAS THERE. You can hear that mix and more at lethimbe.com/music. These are the versions that Peter sings, not what you hear in the movie. While he often dismisses his performance as mediocre, they are beautiful and full of meaning.
It is amazing what you can achieve with a Desktop computer, an idea, some good gear, a great team and a dream
A very special thanks to Peter McNamee for his amazing songs and all the great things I learned about recording / mixing that you don't read about in a book.
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