The Recording of Shove The Sun Aside (this is more for gear heads or anyone interested in recording):

When I set out to make this cd, I basically had no clue what it would take to make a real recording. I did, however, know that I didn't want to put up with other people's schedules, a clock running, engineers, producers, etc. If I was going to do this, I wanted to have complete freedom of choice over the entire process. So I started planning how to transform my apartment in Hollywood into a studio and prepared myself for the long process of how to become a producer, engineer and recording musician.

Anyone can make a real, professional recording in any place imaginable with great equipment and great knowledge of how to use it. After getting a lot of advice from Vai, his engineer Neil Citron and a few other people in the know, I learned that you need some great recording software and a REALLY good front end to get started. A front end is how your sound will get into your computer which is basically mic pre's and A/D (anolog to digital) converters.

I did about a year's worth of research (while on tour) figuring out what equipment I wanted to use. There are so many kinds of mic pre's, EQ's, compressors, software, sound cards, etc... it really can get overwhelming. But I did have a concept in mind. I wanted what the listener was hearing on the final cd to be as close to the original sound (that the mics were picking up during recording) as possible. So that meant using gear that wouldn't really color the sound on the way into the computer.

So here's a list of what I chose for the front end (see all of this in the GEAR section or click here):

Avalon 2022 Dual Mic Pre's
Avalon 2055 Dual Eq's
Manley Variable Mu Dual Compressor
Apogee PSX-100 SE A/D - D/A Converters

I chose the Avalon gear because it's Class A and tubeless. They have a very transparent quality which helped get what was coming out of the cabs into the computer with no coloration. The Manley Compressor is tube however. But I only compressed slightly on the way in so levels weren't going nuts from the get go. It also warmed up the sound a bit.

That went into an Apple G4 desktop with Protools software. I monitored with Yamaha NS-10M speakers.

Now that I had the recording gear, I had to figure out how I was going to record my guitar in my apartment. Tube amps have varying sonic qualities when they're used at different volumes. Most amps sound better when they're pushed a bit louder. I used a VHT Pitbull Ultralead head for this entire cd. It's a 120 watt tube head and is very loud to say the least. The Ultralead actually sounds just as amazing when it's down around 2.5 - 3 as well as cranked at 7 - 8. However, even 2.5 - 3 is way too loud for apartment playing. So to get these volums under control, I had Kriz Kraft build me 2 custom isolation boxes. These boxes each hold 1, 1x12" Mesa Rectifier cab (with a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker) and could utilize 3 mics at once. They were just what I needed.

So now that I had everything I would need to record, it was time to get started. Of course, I didn't really know how to use anything, so it was a learn as I went kind of thing (which is another reason this cd took so long). The first thing I did was record one scratch guitar track to a click for each song. I gave that to Virgil (Donati) and Steve (Wilson) so they could plan out their drums. We recorded the drums up at Vai's Mothership studio in a day.

I brought the drum tracks back down to my place and had Philip (Bynoe) and Graeme (Rappaport) come over to record the bass. With that done, I started back on the rhythm tracks and planning the structures of the songs. (This all sounds so streamlined but trust me, it wasn't as easy as I'm portraying. Now, I could get all this down in a matter of days, back then, it took a lot longer.) As far as creating these songs, you can read about that here, but for this section, I'm going to skip over that whole process.

So back to recording the guitars... Here's how the signal chain went:

guitar - amp - isolation boxes mic'd by a Shure SM57 in each box - Avalon 2022 - Avalon 2055 - Manley Compressor - Apogee Converters - optically into the G4 on Seagate 15 or 10k RPM SCSI harddrives - Protools.

I used 2 Ibanez LACS 7 strings for all the electric parts. The green/blue (DW7-1) one for all the cleans and the silver/orange (DW7-2) one for the distorted rhythms and leads. See them here.

I recorded completely dry; no effects. This was very uncomfortable at first but I did it this way because I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted any of the effects to sound. So I applied those after recording was done. Most of the effects were produced from a TC Electronic G-Force or a TC Electronic Fireworx. Recording dry also helped my guitar playing improve; it cleaned up alot of things I could get away with while using effects and made me pay more attention to the detail and articulation of every note.

Fast fowarding a bit...

After months and months and months of trial and error, running into every snag possible, being frustrated beyond belief and losing all faith in music and life in general, I finally was able to breathe a sigh of relief and get a sense of accomplishment. The recording was done and it was time to move onto the next step, mixing. Just when I thought I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.... mixing.

Mixing is the process of taking all of your individual tracks and eq'ing, compressing, adding fx, automating (volume, pan, mutes, etc) and making them all fit together to sound "like a song". Vai told me to mix with someone experienced to get to know how to do it and said it takes about 5 years to get really proficient at mixing. I of course didn't listen and start doing it myself. Big mistake. 6 months later, I had the concept down, but it's such a combination of art and science and really comes together with experience which I didn't have. I was running out of time and patience.

A fan contacted me and told me about this guy, David Franz, who is a recording engineering teacher at Berklee in Boston. I ended up getting together with him to get some help with mixing. We were able to get this experiment of a cd sounding better than I ever thought it would. Mixing was done. Now, onto the final step, Mastering.

Mastering is the process of taking the stereo tracks of your mixed songs and "polishing" them up. You can tweak the eq and compression in this process to bring it up to standard "pro" levels and get it sounding really nice and in your face. For this, I went to Scott Elson at Gateway Mastering in Maine. He banged it out in no time and all of a sudden.. after 2 and half years.. my first instrumental cd is done.

That may sound like a long time to do a cd.. and you're right. 2 and a half years is ridiculous. But it had to happen this way for 2 reasons: 1) I was on tour alot. 2) I didn't walk into Capitol Records Studio A with the top engineers in the world and a record label backing me. I did this by myself for the most part. I basically went through an entire college education of engineering to learn the process front to back. And now that I know it, it's all downhill from here. I've been producing and engineering other bands and plan on releasing a lot more cd's myself.

Do I recommend this process to other aspiring musicians? Yes and no. Definitely yes if you plan on being an independant artist and want to become self-sufficient. You can really get to know your way around a studio and be able to get the music that's in your head onto a disc in the best way possible. But don't get trapped in the perfectionist thing. With the technology now, you can record and re-record something so many times until it's perfect, but will probably be sterile. Plus most of the time, that first take will sound just as good to the listener as the 50th. Do the music your way, but don't sweat the details.

It's a frustrating and overwhelming process at first, but in the long run, the rewards are well worth it.