A vibey drum session

After months of pre-production, I'm so excited to say some official tracks have been recorded. Stuff you will actually hear on the album is finally on tape! Well, saved in a computer file - you get what I mean.

Jackpot Recording Studio in Portland, OR, is a great place for recording drums. Good and plentiful gear, nice acoustics, vibey.

And most of the sound panels are covered with either Barney purple or bright orange fabric, on bright green walls. So retro, you can't help but feel creative there.

I hired Jeramy Burchett, a fantastic session player and producer as well. The set-up of microphones and drum equipment was quite extensive.

There were mics next to the drums, in the drums, over the drums, under the drums, around the room. I'm so glad Dean (producer and engineer extraordinaire) can keep it all straight.

Dean and Jeramy collaborate regularly, so their communication was all dialed in. Dean is also a drummer, so he had a lot of ideas going into the session.

I followed most of their "drum session speak" and really enjoyed watching their creative process.

Jeramy brought a ton of gear. I think I saw around 10 snare drums! He is very committed to getting the right sound. Even with all he brought, he even went to a nearby music shop that day and bought more gear to get the right effects on one of the tunes: a cymbal sizzler and this white pillowy bass drum beater. Instead of calling him the drummer with "all the bells and whistles", I coined a phrase: "the drummer with all the sizzles and pillows."

For one of the tunes, a tom drum groove was front and center in the mix, so Jeramy spent a good chunk of time tuning them in octaves. I was really glad he was such a perfectionist about it. It took awhile but it was worth it for the song.

We had 8 tunes on the docket for the day - which is a lot, usually Dean and Jeramy do only 5-6 in a day. As the day went long, Dean had to tease Jeramy: "We'd be so much faster if you didn't have to tune your toms in octaves on each song."

It was a session full of vibe. We actually used the word "vibey" to describe many things that day. You can use it for almost anything! The urban dictionary defines vibey as: to describe a feeling, a place or atmosphere. Try it. You will feel so vibey saying "vibey".

Thank you to Dean and Jeramy for all the artistry, perfectionism, and commitment to the best sounds possible for each song.