The first time a song is played on radio is usually an acid test of all the production decisions made during a project. I think it came off rather well. The sound retained its punchiness, despite all the compression that usually is applied in radio airplay. So on the eve of the radio premier of "Kung Ayaw Mo Na Sa Akin" on the radio this morning, I was reminded of one of the issues regarding my production framework in a discussion on a local web-board.

Part of my pre-production homework was to listen to the band's two previous albums. This was one way of finding out what makes the band tick. I had only heard some cuts off these albums, either on TV/Radio, or in record store listening stations. I also sought the views of Angee, who was present in all of their albums. So I was prepared for comments from listeners who have drawn comparisons between previous works. Yesterday, I saw such an exchange of contrasting opinions in Pinoyexchange.com. While it did not erupt into an an argument, it did bring out some interesting points about the role of the producer in a project.

From what I gather, Rico Blanco did a lot of the pre-production, and piloted the band through most of the instrumental work for the 1st album. Angee and the band said that Rico was not only very meticulous, but had a very clear concept of how to handle a 3-piece band. Its a pity that the album was put in hold for so long by the record company they were initially signed to. When the work resumed under EMI, Rico was no longer part of the equation. I would have wanted to hear what would have happened if Rico got a chance to finish it. In his absence, Angee picked up the pieces and literally muscled his way through the record industry until EMI finally picked it up. Angee was determined to let the world hear the band's music, and it was his persistence that made the album a reality. The band was in good, or should I say great hands under Angie's guidance. Not only did he understand Rico's original concept, but he infused his own impeccable musical taste. So when I first heard Mariposa on MTV, I shouldn't have been surprised that Angee played a big part in it. It was a great album, and everyone knew it. It was beautiful in its relative "simplicity".

Sophomore albums are just as , if not more difficult than the first. One has to walk a thin line between coming up with something "new", and yet build on the qualities that made a first album work. Everyone talks about the sophomore jinx as the kiss of death, and it takes balls to even consider working under such pressure. So I consider Raimund and Buddy's efforts as heroic. The textures were richer, and the performances were more vigorous. In my mind, this sense of fearlessness was the right approach, at the right point in the band's career. While some other bands end up either wimp out by going soft, or just repeat themselves for their sophomore efforts, Raimund, Buddy, Angee and the band pulled out all the heavy production artillery and came out smoking. It used a very different approach than "Sa Wakas", and it too worked.

I've heard one comment that Tele-Arawan is a bit more laid-back than previous albums. This is true to a certain extent. I think this impression comes from the fact that the carrier single is less manic. On the other hand, I've read another comment that, upon hearing "Kung Ayaw Mo Na Sa Akin" on radio, the listener found the music unmistakably Sugarfree, but couldn't quite figure out yet if and how the sound differed from previous albums. But don't worry, everyone will get their chance to either love, or hate the album when it comes out on the 24th.

Whereas in the past albums each instrument could be heard in its own discrete space, on this album we allowed certain sounds to fuse, therefore creating the illusion of a larger, more massive sound. For example, most of the guitar parts are actually 2 to 3 different guitar-amp combinations that were intentionally stacked on top of each other. We had to take extra effort to make sure that the overall sound never got crowded. So its like the sound was made to emanate from a larger space. This spaciousness is most evident in songs like "Pinakamagaling Na Tao Sa Balat Ng Lupa" and "Wag Ka Nang Umiyak". Another issue had to do with dynamics. Most pop music is engineered to have a minimum of dynamic range so that listeners don't have to keep twiddling the volume control when the volume gets either too loud or too soft. But I felt that dynamic range is important because it adds an extra dimension that I feel is missing in most pop music. Angee said it has been a while since he mastered an album without having to reach "brick wall" loudness levels 100 percent of the time. But this was necessary to retain the apparent spaciousness of the sound. I've heard too many albums (both local and foreign) in which mastering compression has robbed the mixes of their punchiness. But I am happy with how Angee has managed to maintain the vibrance of the sound while evening out the wilder dynamic swings.

On the one hand, having had different production teams for each Sugarfree album may play in to the hands of self-styled critics who are obsessed with furthering their own hegemonic agenda. But everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, it doesn't bother me that there will be those who will prefer one of the previous albums to Tala-Arawan. All I was concerned with is that we delivered a recording that stands on its own merits, yet cannot be mistaken for anything else but a Sugarfree album.

October 30 was a hectic day for me. It started with submitting my 1st semester grades. Making and submitting grades is the part of teaching I enjoy the least. So I was only too happy to get it out of the way. I got to the studio early and paid my utility bills (via ATM), another thing I dread in life.

We started an hour early (1 pm) because I wanted to do a final remix on two of the songs that I felt lacked that last bit of cymbal sizzle. By 2 pm, we were finally ready to master the album. I had been eagerly looking forward to this stage because Angee had promised to do some extra special processes. Back when we were doing pre-production planning, one of the things I complained to Angee about many recent recordings is the "coldness" of the digital system. He assured me that in the mastering stage, we could include one analog component in the mastering stage. This would make things sound warmer, and prevent the dreaded digital "clipping" that plagues many CDs. He also told me that this would serve as some kind of "glue" that would make the tracks more cohesive. When "Dear Kuya" was finally set up, I wanted to hug Angee because the result was magical.

Just as we finished "Dear Kuya", alarm bells suddenly went off. A frantic Monch called up, saying that EMI was to bring down a copy of "Batang-Bata ka Pa" to the studio. EMI had talked to me about its inclusion in the album in our initial meetings, but I didn't remember any concrete decision being made about it. But here we were, just hours away from the completion of the album, and I had never even heard that recording. In addition, my mind had already been set about the placement of each of the new songs in the album, and I did not have the energy to think about where to put it in the sequence. In my haste, I fired off a panic-striken e-mail message to EMI complaining about the situation. An hour later, I had calmed down enough to talk to EMI over the phone, and ultimately gave way to their decision to put it in as the "last" song. I called Shinji Tanaka, in whose studio (Sound Creation) the song had been recorded and mixed, and alerted him that EMI was on the way to pick up a copy of the mix. Even he was taken aback because he had just learned of the situation from EMI half an hour before I called. But he assured me that he would give me a clean, clear copy. The confusion left me rather rattled, so I just left Angee for the next couple of hours to continue mastering. That was a pity because I missed some of the magic that was unfolding. When I went back in, Angee was halfway through, so I managed to catch the second half of the album. After all the songs had been mastered, we had our regular early (5 pm) supper. We then plunged back into the studio for the assembly. By 8 pm, we had burned the first test copy of the album. I then called in the band to hear the complete album for the first time. Faces lit up, and high fives were exchanged after every song. At the 5th song, the CD had developed an error, so we burned another copy and continued listening until the album ended at 9pm. We then burned the final master CD for EMI, and copies for the band. The project was officially completed at 10pm, right on schedule.

We had asked EMI to throw a listening party at 10:30 in Geilos, Eastwood. So we set off from the studio at 10:15, armed with the master CDs. We arrived unfashionably on time. Of the 50 or so people who were there, I knew only a few. Monch and a bunch of EMI people were there, so were a group of the band's friends. I later heard that there were a few media people, but no real paparazzi. I immediately played the entire album, and like what happened in the studio, good vibes and high fives became the order of the night. Dong Abay had a gig one floor down, and I spent the entire first playing of the album with him before his gig. The two of us screamed with delight at each clever instrumental line, and swooned at every dramatic vocal passage. After three months of hearing the recordings only in the confines of the studio, our car stereos, and our MP3 players, the album sounded brilliant and powerful over the speakers of the club, with no EQ or fancy enhancements. I was tickled pink when after the last strains of "Wag Ka Nang Umiyak", Ebe gave his girlfriend a long, passionate, and loving embrace. After the last song (Ikaw Pala), Dong hugged me as he had done when I had completed his album "Flipino". Ebe, Jal ,Kaka and Angee followed. With those gestures, all my worries and anxieties evaporated. All our hard work was done, and the recording had finally been set free. I could finally stop critically evaluating every element, and just sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Raimund Marasigan showed up moments after the playback. So I played the album again at a lower volume, as most of the partygoers were now engaged in various conversations, and were on their third bottle of beer. Raimund loved the sound, and had special compliments for Kaka's playing. He marvelled at how on Wari Ko'y, Kaka sounded like two drummers.

I left the party past midnight. On the way back to the parking lot I met Mico, one of the bands die-hard fans. She apparently couldn't make it to the party because of work. She told me that although I looked exhausted, I was clearly in a joyous mood. I couldn't have said it any better.

Its been more than a month since we finished the recording, and a week since the album launch. I've read most of the comments on the album in various blogs and discussion groups. Whatever has, and will eventually be said about the album won't really phase me much anymore. What is important to me is that we achieved most of what we set out to do, and learned a lot about music, recording, and ourselves in the process.

Mixing As Performance

Mixing is a fascinating process. We're just one day away from the completion of mixing, and Angee and I have had invigorating discussions of the similarities and differences of manual and automated mixing. We remember in the "old days" of manual mixing how much we yearned for even limited automation. But now that we have it in spades, we can't help but reminisce how important the lessons we learned from manual mixing are.

I am partly mistaken in a previous essay, saying that mixing has "less to do with the human performances, and more to do with balance and sound processing". In a sense, mixing is a performance in its own right. In the old days pre-automation, large mixing boards could have more than a hundred faders, pots and switches. It would sometimes take many hands to do simultaneous fader and potentiometer movements, both on the mixing board and outboard processors, while the multi-track tape was running. It would take at least 2 passes to practice all these microscopic movements. Any small error (often in the order of less than a millimeter off the target position of a fader) would result in a bad mix, necessitating numerous passes until it was completed flawlessly. And this "performance" was on top of the two hours needed to bring up all the individual sounds, patch in all the outboard processors, and balance them to satisfactory levels. But automation has changed the nature of the work. A computer can not only memorize static setting, but can perform dynamic changes in almost every conceivable parameter over the course of the song. In one case, we wanted a track to start off with a warm reverb, then slowly but progressively brighten it until the end of the song. In the past we would have avoided this because it was not only hard to pull off with precision, but difficult to hear as the song was playing. But now it just takes a couple of minutes to program the reverb to follow our commands. To me, the big difference is that we can do the performance, then enjoy replaying it ad nauseum. But while this has enabled operations that were difficult in the past, a number of new issues have surfaced.

In the old days, the engineer and producer could take one look at the mixing board and see all the controls at once, much like an conductor looking over an orchestra or choir. One could not only "hear" a mix, but "see" it too. But nowadays, computer displays are limited by the size and resolution of the screen, making it difficult to see all the parameters of a computer-driven mix. Some studios have control surfaces to physically simulate on a board what is happening in the computer. But even large control surfaces I have seen contain "soft" knobs in which several paramters that can invoked one at a time. So the entire surface still can't show the complete picture. and we end up "looking" at the mix in a micro perspective, losing sight of the whole context that is the mix. In addition, some of the displays are so vibrant and attractive that we end up getting enamored, and not informed. The absence of an rational overall visual representation has put more importance on hearing in judging the status of a mix. More than ever, I often have to close my eyes and rely entirely on my hearing to decide if what we are doing is either correct, or what we want in the first place.

In spite of these and other problems, most of us "old school" types still manage to find a way of approaching mixing as a musical performance. This is because every movement has to be entered by humans, whether by numeric data entry, or by direct real-time mouse/controller gestures. Each manipulation must spring from both a technological and musical well. And this takes just as many passes before the computer is left to render the final mix. I feel that a whole generation of sound workers who were born and bred on computers never experienced mixing as we did in pre-automation days. Given some recent mixes I have heard, I sometimes get the sense that many producers/engineers have not yet found a way to articulate this aspect of performance in their approach to automated mixing, wherein the studio becomes a musical instrument, with the engineer and producer playing the role of conductor.

All the songs on the album are quite emotional, and Angee and I often found ourselves getting carried away with all the drama of the songs as we mixed. We felt like having actually played the music, leaving us physically and emotionally spent after each session. Such was the power of the performances, and the commitment that Angee and I made to bring all the wonderful sounds to life. I hope these rather abstract concepts rub off on the mixes on Tala-Arawan, and that the listeners can actually discern it.

The Point Of No Return

We just ended the recording phase of the project. I usually call the last day of recording the "last chance" because I don't like to add anything else during the mixing sessions. In this day and age of digital recording, its very easy to get Obsessive-Compulsive. This is because it is relatively easier to add and tweak things at the last minute, compared to the days of analog recording. But this usually ends up only prolonging the agony, and/or the inevitable. There is a point when enough is enough, and one must make a commitment. Besides, perfection is relative. People are not machines. A great performance strikes a balance between technical accuracy and human feel. Our engineer Angie often complains about some artists and producers who are either too obsessive with insignificant details, or afraid to make a commitment. I try to approach each recording as a performance, and in the case of bands, a HUMAN performance. It must strive to be as technically perfect as possible, but it must also contain a delicate combination of quirks, gestures, energy and vulnerability that makes a performance expressive and yes, human. This is why I don't enjoy a large number of popular recordings. These are either sanitized to the point of sounding mechanical, or contain too much ear candy that distracts from the music. While decisions affecting the recording are constantly made from the very start, this "last-chance" session is a turning point in the project. This is because the next stage, mixing, has less to do with the human performances, and more to do with balance and sound processing.

Our day started with just Angie and I in the studio doing microscopic spot tweaks on some of the tracks. I hesitate to call these "corrections" because the changes are applied on things that are not necessarily "mistakes". These are little sounds and gestures that are just enough to bother me, but not enough to make me want to sign off. A little pitch correction on a guitar feedback track so that it fits the harmony, a little nudge on the downbeat of a vocal part so that it locks in with the rhythm section, a little noise reduction on a buzzy guitar amp. Microscopic things. A couple of hours later, the band showed up to do some last minute additions and replacements. Lacking a low distorted guitar on an arrangement? Need a screaming guitar solo for the vamp? No problem. Fire up the guitar amp and burn. Background vocals lack kick? Easy. Plug in the mic and redo. Missing off-beat accents on a complex rhythmic part? Grab a shaker and ........ shake! Again, microscopic things that complete the picture.

At the end of all of these small but significant additions, we reviewed each song and made the all important decision of whether they were ready for mixing. Thank God, majority of the recording stage has been smooth sailing. So making these commitments was easier than we anticipated. Angie then made pre-mixes, which means versions of the songs with all the individual parts present. These were then burned to a CD. I intentionally scheduled a one-week break before mixing. This allows me enough time to take a step back and objectively evaluate the recordings, understand how each track interacts in the context of the arrangements, and formulate technical strategies for the mixing stage.

Whenever I hear the expression "point of no return", I can't help thinking that this carries a bit of anxiety over the unknown. But based on the events of this day, I have no fear. The band, the engineers, and I are confident of the outcome. The next phase will not be a piece of cake, but it will be an exciting and rewarding experience.

Options

We've just finished the instrumental tracks, and are preparing for the vocal dubbing.

In my book (yes, I am indeed trying to write a book on record production), each production begins with a framework. In the academe, a framework is a set of philosophies and theories that guide the work. In the pre-production stage, I met with both the band and the engineering team to come to grips with what everyone wanted, and what I felt the album needed. In our very first pre-production conversations, Ebe discussed with me the problems of performing live as a three-piece band. The studio however, allows such a small ensemble to transcend the limitations of manpower. But one has to be careful how this advantage is applied. On the one hand one can take the no-frills approach and record with a minimum of extra instruments, much like in a live performance. "Sa Wakas", while not completely spare in terms of instrumentation, sounds slightly minimalist compared to a lot of other pop/rock bands releases. While it worked on many levels, he found himself looking for more. On the other hand, Ebe felt that, in hindsight, "Dramachine" was the opposite, being about as far as one could go production-wise without blowing things out of proportion. My instinct told me that Ebe was looking for some kind of middle ground on this third album. So my framework involved two targets. It is common wisdom that each musical element has to be recorded not just as an isolated entity, but within the context of the whole arrangement. Its very easy to get enamored by a novel sound or recording technique. But it is worthless if it disturbs the rest of the arrangement. This requires foresight, something Ebe expected me to provide, but which in reality everyone actively contributed to. The second target was provide as many options in the recording of each component as possible. The following are examples of how these targets were operationalized.

Bass players are often the most neglected musician in a band. There is a saying, that "bass is bass", meaning there is only so much that can, and should be done with them technically and musically. This attitude is not only unfair but totally wrong, since the bass line is the foundation of the harmony, specially for a 3-piece band. During the pre-production rehearsals, I reminded Jal that the bass is not only tasked with providing the harmonic root, but is equally responsible for the propulsion of the rhythm section. I've heard a number of recent albums in which the bass, due to too much compression, is reduced to a muddy drone. The way out of this trap is to strike a balance between tone and attack. So for the bass tracks I set up a three-way signal split. The first was sent "direct" into the recorder. The second was sent through an electronic amp simulator (in this case a SansAmp). The third was sent to a real bass amplifier in the studio floor, then miked into the pre-amps. This was done to get a gritty sound of a real amp. All these options were set up so that in the mix, we could use any single, or combination of sounds at any part of a song. All this was done not just as an indulgence, but as a means to access different sounds emanating from one single performance. This might not be "heard" in casual listening, but I guarantee it will be felt in the final mix.

For the guitars, Ebe had a special request. He specifically asked if we could dispense with using "stompboxes" (foot-controlled guitar effects) in the whole album. He is apparently going though some sort of "gadget overload". This was providential because I too had grown quite weary of too much dependence on these kinds of devices. One of the problem I have noticed of many recent local band recordings is that guitars are so heavily processed/distorted that you can't hear the tones anymore. Call me "old school", but I've got this thing for "physical" sound, and I am only too happy to surround myself with real amplifiers and microphones. So I eagerly agreed to Ebe's request. We rented three amplifiers, a Laney full stack, a Fender Twin, and a Fender Hot Rod. Together with Ebe's three guitars (a Fender Strat, a Fender Tele, and an Epiphone with humbuckers), we could come up with an infinite number of combinations. Of course, I have to mention that we also used Vin Dancel's now legendary Norman acoustic guitar. Again, we have come up with a wealth of options that can be deployed come mixing time. The guitar tracks are everything I aimed for, and more.

Through the whole process, our engineering team, chief engineer Angie Rosul and assistant engineer Mark Villena, have been instrumental in giving us the most fantastic sounds for all our instruments. I've worked with Angie for many years, and he actually has more experience with the band than I do, having engineered all of the Sugarfree albums, as well as producing most of the first. What I find especially valuable about him is that he can not only immediately "get" some of my more abstract ideas, but can make it come out even better than I originally imagined. In addition, Angie has his own set of favorite sounds, and we welcomed those he suggested because they added even more options than we originally planned. Mark, on the other hand is an interesting fellow. He seems to have this obsession with constantly tweaking things. These incremental tweaks may not always work, and I have on occasions gotten a bit impatient. But when they do work, his contribution is invaluable.

I'm very, very happy with what I have heard so far. There are a number of pleasant surprises that have popped up, but these have resulted from a careful application of the framework. When my wife first heard the instrumental tracks, she immediately bugged me to start on the vocal tracks because she liked what she heard so much that she couldn't wait to hear the completed songs. We still have some way to go, but I can't wait either.

Kaka

I thought I'd write a little about Kaka, because he is the "new kid" in the band, both literally and figuratively. One of the problems with his coming into such an established band is that he was expected not to stray too far from the legacy left by Mitch, but at the same time had to establish his own musical identity. Raimund Marasigan, Mike Dizon and I had a chance to listen to both Mitch and Kaka casually in the backstage during the anniversary gig, and for the most part, we couldn't distinguish between the two. But on closer listening, I sensed a number of differences.

On a personal level, Mitch strikes me as "pilyo" and "malikot". This is evident even from the pictures on the 2 previous album liners. This is also noticeable musically. Mitch has a tendency to play "on top" of the beat most of the time, regardless of tempo or feel. And his repertoire of pinpoint-accurate fills are the envy of not just a few drummers. Kaka, on the other hand looks more "boyish" compared to Mitch. His playing style is looser, with more wrist action. Because of this, he has a wider range of feel, from laid-back to anticipated (which I partly discussed in an earlier entry on tempo).

When I started attending their rehearsals, I found Ebe and Jal were having difficulty adjusting to the fact that that Kaka's playing carries more sustain than Mitch's. This was most evident in the way he uses the ride cymbal. Kaka has a tendency to lean into his ride cymbal A LOT, and the band was initially put off by what seemed to be an excess of what they called cymbal "wash". While at first I told Kaka to use the ride more sparingly, I had a hunch that the problem had more to do with equipment than style. So my impulse was to inspect Kaka's ride cymbal. It is a 20" K. Zildjian Custom. K's usually have a "dark" sound that is fine for jazz drummers who play at soft to moderate levels, and are looking for a more mid-range swishy sound. But this is too much for a pop/rock drummer who plays at loud levels. So for the studio sessions, I lent him my own ride, a 30 year old, 22" A. Zildjian medium ride, which Raimund and I have dubbed "the infinite ride", and which can be heard on a number of Eraserheads songs through the years, as well as a couple of cuts off Dong Abay's "Flipino". It still packs a lot of sustain that Kaka seems to like, but has just a little more "ping" than the K. The slight added definition was just enough to please not only Ebe and Jal, but surprise Mitch as well (he attended a couple of drum sessions). For crash cymbals, Kaka has a fantastic K. Custom projection crash which sounded great in the studio. So just to give him an alternate color in the crash department, I also lent him my 16" A. Zildjian thin crash, which has a higher relative pitch but a much faster decay.

In the course of the guitar sessions, I found Kaka's drum tracks sound slightly "barumbado", like a little boy who likes to crash and bump into things. This fits right in with the rest of the arrangements because this album contains more heavy guitars than previous albums. The "ringy", sustained sounds allow it to cut though, and brighten up the dense guitar parts.

The sound of Sugarfree as a band is still unmistakable, but Kaka has managed to add a new, interesting, and youthful voice. I am confident that even the most die-hard Sugafree purist will enjoy the new musical identity that Kaka brings to the band.

Anong Ulam Ngayon?

I'll make this quick because I've got a pile of term papers to check, and I also have to evaluate the album tracks before the recording session tonight.

People will do anything for food. They will jump through flaming hoops for hot rice, walk barefoot on hot coals for tasty "ulam", and sleep on cold concrete for refreshing beverages. OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit. But as most people involved in media production will tell you, the quality and speed of people's work markedly improves when they are fed well. I was talking with a television executive who was a former producer/director, and he said this is why people love working for stars like Dolphy. The food on their projects are always good, and the same for the stars and crew alike. Talk about social equality.

Back when I was working with the Eraserheads, while food wasn't one of my responsibilities, we were always reasonably well fed. There were times when we ordered out from fastfood places. Most studios have a folio filled with flyers from fastfood delivery places, so this is the fastest way to get food to hungry musicians and engineers. But one can only take so much of burgers or pizza before getting "sawa". Except for Raimund, who can't seem to get enough of fastfood, I noticed we had a tendency to order from places that had "lutong bahay" type stuff, like "Binalot". There were occasions however, when (the legendary) Tita Beth would send down some nice "sinigang na isda" or some other good old pinoy dish. We enjoyed this a lot, and hoped it would never end.

When I worked on Dong Abay's album, I decided not only to buy good food on the way to the studio, but when I had the time, my wife and I would actually cook at least once a week. This proved to be time consuming, because I had to plan and buy things in advance. But it was well worth it because I saw the smile on peoples faces from having had a nice meal before or during the session. Since Shinji, our engineer was Japanese, we even got a chance to make some quasi-Japanese dishes we had been practicing for years, like kani salad and fresh tofu sprinkled with with nori. Surprisingly, this costs about the same, or at most only marginally more than ordering out from Jolibee or McDonanld's.

For the Sugarfree sessions, I purposely built this into the production logistics and budget. Day 1 has been the only day I ordered for delivery, from "Rufo's" in particular. On day 2, which was Jal's birthday, he brought a kaldero of spectacular binagoongan. Since then, I've tried to buy food from "pinoy" food restaurants. like Ninang's, and a similar place near my house called Lola's. I have also made it a habit to have rice cooked fresh in the studio, either in my own, or the studio's rice cooker. This makes a big difference, so I just have to get something like a kaserola worth of adobo or kare-kare on the way to the studio, and let the hot rice warm everything up. Last Wednesday, Monch brought over a hugh pizza from Yellow Cab for our 4pm merienda (Wednesday sessions are 1-9pm). Although I thought the guys would still be too full for dinner at 7pm, I went ahead and cooked dinner in the studio anyway (yes, I know how to cook!). To my surprise, they finished everything. This kept them going until the end of the session, and presumably until their gig at 11pm.

I'm planning on bringing something Chinese on Tuesday if I have the time to pass by a nice restaurant, and a kaldero of my wife's special spare ribs soup on Wednesday. I don't know what I'll end up buying tonight though. Ironnically, it might be something "fastfoody" to contrast all the saucy food we've been having. Whatever it is, it will probably be something I myself would look forward to eating.

Tempo: The Transition From Live To Recorded Performances

I'm in the process of writing the dissertation proposal for my PhD. One of the areas involves the ways music is performed in the studio as opposed to other musical venues. This is providential because we right in the middle of a critical transition. As some of you may have noticed, the band began performing some of the new songs before we entered the recording studio. This is because they had been learning and practicing them in the rehearsal studio for more than a month. But performing a song live is very different from recording it in the studio. So the transition requires special adjustments to the arrangements which, while recognizing the unique nature of the studio, does not rob the music of the vibrance of live performance.

One of the things we had to do was to determine the correct tempos that would be used in the recording. Tempo in a live show is influenced by a number of variables. First off, many musicians don't have perfect tempo sense, meaning 1) they don't always perform a song at the same tempo twice, and 2) the tempo may change within the course of performing the song. There are a number of factors that will affect this. First, an excited audience makes for an excited band. And an excited band may result in faster tempos. Nervousness and tension among the musicians are another factor. Small playing errors, malfunctioning equipment, and bad hall acoustics may lead to frustration, hence the band may speed things up just to get it over with. Fatigue and illness may also contribute to tempo instabilities. Popular music audiences don't usually notice these fluctuations because they are too busy getting caught up in the moment. But studio recorded versions are different. It is assumed that a recording will be listened to hundreds or even thousands of times. Miniscule "errors" therefore become more evident and irritating with each playback. So recordings must be at the least, proficient, if not perfect.

Most recordings nowadays are done in pieces in an effort to gain maximum control over all the elements. In multi-track recording systems, instruments are added one at a time while listening to previously recorded tracks. The first track laid out in the recording process is a "guide track". This contains usually draft versions of the vocals, and harmony instruments such as guitars. It also contains a "click track" which serves as a metronome. This makes adding additional tracks much easier. In a rehearsal the weekend before we were to lay down the guide tracks in the recording studio, one of the last things I did was to ask the band to decide on the tempos to be applied to the guide tracks. We used a Kaka's pocket metronome to make the computations. I then asked Kaka and Jal to make a special guide click track that we would download to the studio track. These guide click tracks were not just the usual quarter-note beeps as in an ordinary metronome. Raimund Marasigan and I worked out a technique many years ago when we were still recording the Eraserheads. Raimund was always frustrated using a plain metronome because the absolute accuracy of the metronomes short "beep" prevented him from being able to put incremental rhythmic manipulations or "feel" of his playing. One way human "feel" is articulated into music is to delay or anticipate a note on a beat. For example, "sugod" refers to a deliberate anticipation of a beat to suggest excitement and tension. "Hila" on the other hand is what one calls a slightly delayed, laid-back feel. "Bulsa" or "in the pocket" refers to a feel that is right on top of the beat. So for the quarter notes, he eventually settled on using a cowbell sound, and for the 8th notes we used a tambourine, both of which are slightly longer and more "natural" than an electronic beep. Jal and Kaka spend a whole day creating these rhythm guides using Jal's laptop computer and sequencing software. But when we got to the recording studio, we noticed not only were all the tempos off, but they were unstable. We hypothesized that the either the laptop's internal clock was not that dependable, or the software was using too much CPU processing power for it to stay stable. So we ended up doing everything on the studio's drum machine, because we figured a real drum machine is optimized for stable tempo. But this wasn't the end of it.

A few days after the guide track session, we had our last practice in a rehearsal studio. I asked Kaka to bring his pocket metronome because I wanted him to play using the tempos we laid down in the guide tracks, and for Ebe and Jal to get used to having the fixed tempos. But Kaka forgot the earphones that fit the metronome. So he ended up using another laptop (that Kaka borrowed from someone else) as a drum machine. To our surprise, four songs seemed uncomfortably slow and inconsistent. So we upped the tempos again, and waited for the next trip to the recording studio to verify why the tempos were once again off.

Sure enough, when we got back to the recording studio, four guide tracks in question were uncomfortably slow. After a lot of headscratching, we realized that when we laid down the guides in the recording studio, the manner in which Ebe had been strumming the guitar used alternate up and down strokes, and not the straight 8th note downstrokes that he used in live performances. The former technique usually produces a slightly laid back feel, and the latter is more anticipated. Hence the guides were too slow by an average of only 2 beats per minute (BPM). This might seem insignificant on the surface, but it is a big deal to us. This is just one example of how exacting recording studio work can be. So on the next session, we took a few minutes to lay down completely new guides for Kaka to play over.

I just came up with an interesting analogy about tempos. Its all about eating. In a party (or fastfood restaurant), I notice that I don't really get to taste the food. This is because eating is accompanied by a host of distractions, like multiple conversations, noise, and general festivities. I figure the reason I can't taste anything is that my taste buds are so distracted that I end up gobbling up my food, and getting full quickly. This is much like attending a pop/rock concert. Its noisy, the lights are blinking in all sorts of color combinations, people are dancing their heads off, and you are going nuts from being in the same space as your idols. A lot of of the subtler musical elements naturally go unnoticed, such as tempo and rhyhmic stability. On the other hand, eating in an elegant, expensive restaurant forces me to savor each moment, from the time I smell the food, to the time the food enters my mouth, to the point at which the taste begins to explode, to the time the initial taste evolves into something else, to the time after swallowing when the aftertaste evolves even more. This is like a recorded performance. Each note and lyric must be given its own space and time. And both performer and listener must be allowed to savor each of these musical events.

This is just one area of the difference between live and recorded performances. On the other hand, future essays will try to discuss some characteristics of live performance that I try to simulate in a recorded performance.

Habang Naghahantay Sa Unang Araw Ng Recording

6 Septyembre 2006

Sa tutoo lang, sandali pa lamang ang pagsasama ko sa Sugarfree. Oo nga, naging estudyante ko si Ebe, ngunit hindi kami noon naguusap tungkol sa kanyang banda. Una ko lang nalaman ang banda mula kay Raimund Marasigan. Naikwento niya nung taong 2000 na masaya silang panuurin sa gig, at malakas sila sa mga fans. Balang araw, sisikat sila na parang Eraserheads. Nung 2003, nakita ko ang video ng Mariposa. Napabilib ako sa musika, at sa video. At nangyari nga ang sinabi ni Raimund, naging napakapopular nila.

Nung kalagitnaan ng 2005, kinuwento ni Raimund sa akin na may plano nang mag-record uli ang Sugarfree. Dahil si Raimund at Buddy ang nag prodyus ng "Dramamachine", kukunin sana sila ulit. Ngunit bising-bisi sila nung panahong 'yon, kaya't pinayo ni Raimund na halungkatin nila ako sa UP para tumulong sa kanila. Kung kaya, maaga pa lang, alam kong may balak tawagin ako ni Ebe.

Matagal ang lumipas bago makipagkita sa akin si Ebe. Sa isang gig ni Dong Abay noong patapos na kami sa album na "Flipino" nung Marso 2006, kinuwento ni Ebe na 2005 pa sana ang deadline ng album ng Sugarfree, pero hindi niya ito masimulan. Sobra ang pagod niya sa dami ng gig at iba't ibang trabaho, at parang "burnout" na siya. Isa pa, ang mga naumpisahan niyang kanta ay kahawig ng mga dating kanta, at parang inuulit lang niya ang sarili niya. Ang payo namin ni Dong ay gumawa siya ng panahon para 1) makapagsarili muna siya na walang manggugulo sa pagiisip niya, at 2) lumayo siya na mga parating pinupuntahan niyang lugar, para magkaroon ng bagong pananaw at kwento.

Sa wakas, nung Agosto ng 2006, binisita ako ng Ebe, dala niya ang isang demo CD na may labing-tatlong bagong kanta. Ayon sa kanya, nagkulong siya sa isang condo ng buong Hulyo para mabuo niya ang mga kanta. Sinimulan na rin niyang ituro sa banda ang mga kanta. Pinakinggan ko ang demo ng isang linggo, tapos sumulat ako ng mga mahabang kritikal na rebyu tungkol sa mga kanta. Sa akin, ito ang simula ng pagkasali ko sa proyekto. Nag-attend ako ng mga ensayo nila, at pinanood ko sila sa ilang gig para makilala ko ang kanilang kakayahan, at estilo ng pagtugtog. Sumali rin ako sa e-group ng banda, para malaman ang mga katangian na hinahanap at hanahangaan ng mga fans sa banda. Natutuwa ako sa lalim ng suporta ng mga fans sa kanila.

Hindi tumagal at sinimulan ko ang negosasyon sa EMI. Nakilala ko si Chris Sy, ang managing director ng kumpanya, at ang ibang tumutulong sa banda tulad to Monch Bontogon. Madali kaming nagkasundo sa budget, dahil buo ang suporta ng EMI sa banda. Nakipag-usap na rin ako sa studio para sa iskedul. 2001 ang huling pagtatagpo namin ni Angie Rosul sa Tracks studyo. Matagal kong nakasama si Angie sa pagrecord ng Eraserheads, kung kaya naging reunion ang pagkikita namin. Naging malalim ang pag-uusap tungkol sa karanasan niya sa banda, at sa mga balak kong gawin sa bagong album.

Unang araw namin ngayon sa studyo. Bagama't sandali pa lang ang pagsasama ko sa Sugarfree, pero parang kampanteng-kampante na ako sa kanila. Matagal at maselan ang trabahong hinaharap namin, subali't buo ang loob ko na maganda ang magiging resulta.

Simula na!

Sa minamahal naming fans ng Sugarfree,

Magandang bati sa inyong lahat. Nais kong ipaalam na magsisimula na ang recording ng pangatlong album ng Sugarfree sa susunod na buwan. Sa kasalukuyan, puspusang ine-ensayo ng banda ang labingdalawang bagong kanta. Ayon kay Ebe, ang ilan sa mga ito ay tinugtog na sa mga gig nila nitong nakaraan na buwan.

Magtatayo ako ng blog (http://sugarfreethirdalbumblog.blogspot.com) kung saan ako mag-uulat tungkol sa mga pangyayari at isyung bunga ng recording. Sisikapin din naming maging aktibo sa e-group na ito. At tuloy pa rin ang mga gig nila sa iba't-ibang lugar.

Umaasa kami sa inyong walang-sawang suporta sa banda.

Robin Rivera

Prodyuser