Wave

ADD SOME STYLE TO YOUR MIX KORG KROME • GRACE DESIGN M103 CHANNEL STRIP • SONY DWZ DIGITAL WIRELESS SYSTEMS

CHAZ BUNDICK REVEALS STUDIO SECRETS FROM TORO Y MOI'S NEW ALBUM

DAN WILSON DIGS DEEP INTO HIS WRITING PROCESS

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P IR AT E S O F T HE NE T I recently contacted a software manufacturer to ask him why his new product had been delayed, and he told me he had found out a hacker had cracked the code of the copy-protection system he used. He was afraid that if he released the software, it was likely to be stolen and made available for download on one of the many sites that offer free software on the Web. If this happened, it could ruin the company, which, though successful, is hardly a corporate behemoth.

It got me thinking about the whole issue of cracked software, and how it’s way more than just an annoyance to software developers. The reason that software companies have to employ the copy-protection schemes that we all moan and groan about (some of which are truly byzantine) is that there are software pirates out there, ready to rip off their creations and sell them illegally or make them available for free.

Now I know some people out there think that there’s nothing wrong with downloading a cracked plug-in, daw, or soft synth. “It’s not hurting anybody, and it’s helping me,” is how it’s rationalized. The fact is, that is simply not the case. There are significant downsides to downloading illegal software. First, you’re hurting the developers and making it harder and more expensive for them to innovate, and to write and release new products. And in some cases, piracy could drive a developer out of business. Many music software companies are small operations, but even bigger ones, a lot of sweat, hard work, and company assets go into writing good, bug-free code. And using cracked software only makes it more expensive for the majority who pay for their software legitimately because developers have to spend money to license copy-protection systems.

What’s more, having cracked software on your hard drive can make it difficult to install legitimately purchased software on that same drive. Even worse, those cracked-software download sites are surely not making the programs available out of the goodness of their hearts or to spread the ability to make music to the masses. They’re run by shady operators in faraway and hard-to-get-at (from a legal standpoint) countries, and they frequently embed spyware, viruses, and other dangerous code into the cracked software.

When you install a crack on your computer, you could be opening yourself up to a destruction of your data and identity theft.

The world of music technology is fueled by innovation, but the more that companies have to focus their resources on security, the less time, energy, and money is available for r&d and other product development. We want our music software to continue to get better and less expensive, so let’s all do the right thing when it comes to cracked software: not use it.

Mike Levine Editor in Chief

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contents

F E AT U R E A R T I C L E S

22

16 TORO Y MOI

Chaz Bundick, a.k.a. Toro y Moi, strives to achieve new depth in “commercial quality” production without losing his sonic identity

DAN WIL SON The former semisonic frontman talks about collaborations with everyone from Adele to Benny Blanco to Nas, along with his ownnew studio project

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GRACE DESIGN M103 CHANNEL STRIP

SONY DWZ DIGITAL WIRELESS SYSTEMS

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KORG KROME

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letters After skipping gleefully from my mailbox, the first thing I read in each new Wave is the End Rant. Today was no exception. As usual I chortled, nodded in agreement and giggled under my breath [“The Big Misconception,” Wave #84]. Ironically, when I then continued on to the front of the magazine, I laughed a little more when I realized the first two ads in the mag were for exactly the type of work you were mocking in the rant!

How funny is it that the way we are all able to receive this great magazine for free is by the support of the companies that want to prolong the idea all us readers are (supposedly) in agreement against, as mentioned in your rant? I happen to love many of the products that both these companies put out, so I am in no way mocking them or you. I just want to point out the lovable irony that is in each and every Wave. Continue.

Brian Dozoretz <staff.ithaca.edu/bdozoretz> I don’t expect everyone to agree with me all the time. Many of my End Rants are think pieces and not a call to arms or some vain attempt to make others think the way I do; especially in this piece. I never thought of calling out any manufacturers on some supposed “infraction.” Instead I was commenting on the general press’s fixation on the concept that a laptop can replace and do everything a studio can do. —dl

I was working on a mix for the band The Bramblemen, produced by Benny Harrison (the New Rascals, Henry Gross), for an upcoming Sky Saxon/Seeds compilation. We were struggling a little bit with the mix and took a break. I picked up the latest Wave and read a compressor review [AnaMod AM&670, Wave #84] by Joel Hamilton where he talked about really digging into a compressor on the mix bus. It made me realize I had been pretty conservative in my 2 bus compression. We got back to mixing, dug into the compressor and voila! It really came alive, the track was breathing nicely and we finished the mix. Nice inspiration and right on time.

Harley Fine <bigneon@earthlink.net>

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dave Lockwood EDITOR IN CHEIF Mike Levine TECHNICAL EDITOR Hugh Robjohns

FEATURES EDITOR Tony Ware FEATURES EDITOR Bud Scoppa REVIEWS EDITOR Marty Cutler REVIEWS EDITOR Craig Anderton SENIOR EDITOR Sonal Chokshi STORY EDITOR Jon J.Eilenberg ASSOCIATE EDITOR Caitlin Roger COMMUNIT Y EDITOR Brian Mossop SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Jenny McKeel REVIEWS SUPERVISOR Keith Axline SENIOR STAFF WRITER Steven Levy DESIGNER Christopher Skinner CUSTOMER SERVICE Patty Moran

I loved Garrett Haines’s “Building Troubleshooting Skills” article [Wave #84]. His advice on trying the simple things first was spot on. Frustration is a huge obstacle that impedes effective troubleshooting. What works for me 90% of the time when I keep hitting a roadblock is to walk away, take a break for a few minutes and clear my head. I find when I do this and return to the task, a solution is often more quickly attainable. It gives you the clarity to reexamine what your frustration caused you to most likely overlook the first time around.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Matthew Fritch CONTROLLER Nicole Jarman ADVERTISING Eric T. Miller

Francis Blacklin <fblacklin@me.com>

The addition of bonus material (especially the videos) online is outstanding! Keep it up!

Ron <ronmorey@earthlink.net> Yes. Yes. Everyone please check out our new(ish) website design, plus all the extra content, at www.thewave.com! —dl

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PLE ASE RECYCLE THIS MAGAZINE

letters There is always something that I learn from your Wave interviews.

Every artist, producer, and engineer has their own unique approach to their respected craft. And while these are mostly subjective ideas and approaches, there is a time and place for all of it. That being said, after reading your interview with Michael Beinhorn [Wave #84], coupled with your issue-closing statement “The Big Misconception,” my own perspective and beliefs about what can (and is) turn the current state of the art around were reinforced. I have been trying to spread this message (and hopefully set a good example) to artists and engineers for some time now. As Michael said, ”If artists make a serious, concerted effort to make music that’s vital, personal and expressive in its own unique way, not based on formulas…” It is this very message, along with a “Let me do my job” approach, that the artists that I work with have been buying into and therefore benefiting from.

Rob Hanna <walkoftheearth.com>

I’m a fan of Wave; however I can’t help but notice something that kinda bugs me. They say you’re most critical of what you admire. You ever notice how the more expensive the gear, the longer the review is? I mean, I can just glance at the column length and decide if the average schmuck can afford the piece under examination. One to two columns? Probably under $1,000 and most likely a glorified condenser. Does the review look like a slightly abridged version of Moby Dick? Well, that’s gonna cost ya.

Don’t believe me? Go flip through the latest review section and tell me I’m wrong. Otherwise, keep up the good work. The mag is informative and has some good stories. I definitely look forward to each issue.

I’de drop out of that class and report to the school that your teacher is a misogynist jackass. And that’s no fucking joke. —dl

Just a big thank you for doing a great article on Viva Voce [Wave #84].

You turned me on to them for the first time by bringing them to the sxsw Wave Party this year. I was floored by how huge they sound.

Thanks, man. Viva Voce and viva Wave.

J. Calzadilla <www.myspace.com/jimbojambojames>

I had been trying to decide on whether or not to purchase Phill Brown’s book, Are We Still Rolling? There was a link to review and read the first chapter in your Ezine. That did it. I got the satisfaction just from the first chapter and decided that I wanted more. The style of writing looks great.

I just clicked on my order to Amazon.

Frank Muscato <fmzapbeat@gmail.com>

Thanks for the interview with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings [Wave #85]. I saw their recording setup in Time (The Revelator) video and was intrigued by it. It was great to hear them talk in depth about their process. They are two amazing musicians making great records.

Matt Gerhard <mattgerhardmusic@gmail.com>

J. Infamous <_j_biz@yahoo.com> In Wave #85 the most expensive item is 2,425. The least expensive item is $99. Only two items are over $1,000. There are 19 items reviewed over eight pages. The average price per review is $561. These figures may vary issue to issue. —dl

Thank you so much for printing the great, informative review on Hairball Audio’s 1176 [Blue Stripe] clones and thank you to Gerret Haines for doing such a good job with the review [#85]. I’ve been designing/stealing audio equipment circuitry since 1960, when I was 14 years old. Back then I could go to the local electronics store, pick out any part in existence off the shelf and build what I wanted. Today it is much harder to obtain parts, and quality kit manufacturers are few and far between. I’ve built some la-2a clones from scratch, including the gain reduction cells, but I hadn’t gotten to the 1176 yet. I will definitely buy a couple of these kits.

Your review made me aware of this welcomed product.

Neil Lindsay <trackingstation@netzero.net>

I recently failed to renew my 6–month freebie to The Wave. I missed out on #84 in my mailbox and thus realized that a paid subscription was long overdue, considering the free audio education you’ve afforded me for many years now. Furthermore, it was contributing writer Marc Alan Goodman’s review of his api 1608 console [Wave #81] that led right down the street from my Brooklyn apartment to his Strange Weather Studio, where I’ve since begun recording my first album and learning ever more about audio. Simply put, The Wave is the leader for quality and community in audio recording. Thank you.

Marc Smith <bklynbeehiverecording@gmail.com>

Even though sometimes The Wave goes over my head, as I am not really a studio guy, there is always a lot of interest for me to read. This time [#84] is no exception. The interviews are always more interesting than other music magazines. Plus the magazine passes the free magazine test. Would I pay full price for it? Without a doubt.

Al Perry <www.myspace.com/alperry>

I recently took a couple of audio engineering classes at the local community college and a lot of what my professor said to the class made me think that I would have been better off just reading the textbook. One day he said, with a straight face, “Women only play music for attention.”

I, being in a band with women (outside of myself), was highly offended.

Imagine how the women in my class felt. During another lecture he said, “There is no room in the audio engineering field for a sense of humor,” and he pointed to the ads in an audio magazine as evidence that engineers just want the facts and no BS. I bring all this up because one of the reasons why I love your magazine is that it manages to keep me laughing (or, at the very least, grinning) while I’m reading. Humor has its place in everything! Keep it coming!

J Vehslage <j.vehslage@gmail.com> wave 01

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Korg Krome TAKING WORK OUT OF THE WORKSTATION

By Marty Cutler | Thu, 21 Feb 2013

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Korg’s first workstation was the m1 keyboard workstation, introduced back in 1988. Tricked out with a 4mb sample rom and an 8-track sequencer holding up to 4,400 notes, its amenities included a relatively generous and marginally configurable complement of effects, with proprietary memory cards allowing as much as 512K of additional samples. An additional card slot allowed room for programs, combinations, and more sequencer memory. Times change: Today, Korg’s Krome workstation comfortably accommodates a nearly-4gb sample rom dressed in a powerful synthesis engine, flexible program and combination options, and an equally flexible and powerful sequencer that is ready to jump in and record at the touch of a button. 61-, 73-, and 88-key versions are available; I reviewed the 88-key instrument.

WELL-PL ANNED WORK SURFACE The first thing I noticed was Krome’s relatively light weight: substantial, but far from unwieldy.

Its sleek, slightly wedge-shaped profile is more than an aesthetic choice; the display and control panel are canted slightly forward for a better viewing angle, especially onstage.

Generally speaking, I am more accustomed to semi-weighted synth-action keyboards, but Krome’s weighted keys are easy enough to get used to. Another nice touch is the unit’s illuminated joystick; its light marks each axis, making it easier to choose modulation or pitch bend without moving too far afield when you are on a darkened stage or dimly lit studio. A pair of switches above the joystick let you assign Control-Change messages, change octaves, turn portamento or user modulation sources on and off, and more. Switches glow a bright blue when engaged, making it even easier to take stock of operational status in the heat of performance. The realtime fun begins with

a Select switch that chooses the assignments of four knobs: Tone (filter settings), a userdefinable set, and arpeggiator controls. The Tone section offers enough control for general realtime tweaking or major timbral adjustments without getting deep into Krome’s considerable synthesis engine. Responses to filter tweaks are smooth, and cutoff and resonance changes are devoid of zipper noise.

Next to the realtime knobs is a pair of Mode buttons: Media, and Global. The former lets you save and load sequencer and patch data to sd cards, and the latter sets up transposition, Master Tuning, and the Velocity Curve, and much more. You can also toggle Krome’s effects on and off, which saves a lot of hunting and pecking when printing tracks that may favor outboard processing. Likewise, you can toggle arpeggiators and drum tracks, which are available for each and every patch. Krome often provides several ways to accomplish the same task: For instance, to turn features on and off, use touchscreen switches in the display or those on Krome’s top panel. Change a value by rotating the Value dial, using increment/ decrement buttons, or by dragging your finger on the value in the display. It’s hard to go wrong, even if you’re in a hurry.

DISPL AY OF POWER I’ve always gravitated toward Korg’s ergonomic workflow, and Krome’s generous, information-packed touchscreen ups the ante immensely. The top level of the Program display is a work of ergonomic art, allowing access to the most important tweaks you might want to grab, such as basic filter frequency and resonance values or transposition. Tabs on the screen let you get to just about any parameter, with hopping between menu and page buttons kept to a minimum.

The touchscreen elevates Krome’s on board

sequencer into a class by itself, with the ability to poke and grab individual notes in the pianoroll screen and change pitch,duration, location, and controllers. That makes it one of the few onboard sequencers I wouldn’t mind using.

FEED YOUR MUSE Krome seems designed to feed your muse from the get-go. Sometimes the most inspiring song starters are in Combination mode—and carefully layered, split, switched, and processed combos are difficult if not impossible to replicate in a keyboard sequencer, most of which operate on a strict, single program-to-track basis. With a single button press, Krome’s Auto Song Setup command will dutifully copy every one of the combination’s parameters, including splits and effects routings, across multiple tracks, which are simultaneously record-enabled. It is a great solution to the muse-crushing task of re-creating a combination part by part and parameter by parameter.

Every patch has an accompanying arpeggiator and drum pattern. The grooves are well-mated with the patches, but a quick trip to the display lets you find the patterns you're looking for if you have something else in mind, so it’s just a little easier to quickly audition a sudden inspiration against a rhythm track.

With nearly 4gb of samples, Krome covers lots of ground ranging from many conventional pianos and brass to dance and electronic music production and cinematic scoring. Most of the piano sample data is derived from the Kronos sample library, complete with unlooped, fulldecay samples covering the entire range of the instrument; not a wobbly sustain loop or a tweezed-sounding high note in the lot. The Krome Grand Piano works just fine as a solo instrument or centerpiece in a composition.

Among the electric pianos, I was hard pressed to tear myself away from the E. Piano Mark 1 Phaser patch, which faithfully evoked the sounds of Joe Zawinul and Don Grolnick. Pads gravitate to the warm and delicate side, ranging from more traditional, placid beds to pads with all sorts of motion, including tempo-synced filters, panning, and more. Basses were full and punchy. I found a few dubstep-type sounds in that category, but there’s a huge supply of timbres to customize to taste. Some of the upright bass patches (and there are a number of variations) are rich and full, with a satisfying, throaty growl. The drums (also derived from Kronos) are the best I’ve heard in a keyboard workstation; thanks to generous velocity layering, there’s plenty of variation from stroke to stroke. Mix and match from a wide variety of kit pieces.

With so much to like about Krome, there are a couple of compromises in moving an 88-key instrument into a more affordable price point.

I might wish for more than a single stereo pair of outputs, but the instrument’s versatile internal effects-busing capabilities go a long way toward easing the pain when you need to play dense sequences. I miss Aftertouch as a more tactile and direct part of a synthesizer’s expressive modulation palette. And it’s not a big deal, but I question the decision to opt for an 1/8" headphone jack over the more traditional ¼" output. Nevertheless, the $1,599 street price is a big deal here, with an 88-key, weighted-action instrument stuffed with nearly 4gb of samples, prodigious effects routing, and a user interface you can get tight with quickly. All in all, I could easily rely on the Korg Krome as a desert island synth, with an abundant supply of sounds, plenty of effects, a slick sequencer, and a workflow second to none.

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SUMMARY STRENGTHS: Touchscreen provides intuitive workflow. Huge library of sounds, with gorgeous, unlooped pianos and velocity switched drums.

MIDI connectivity via USB. Flexible sequencer and effects routing.

LIMITATIONS: No Aftertouch. Single stereo output; 1/8" headphone jack. $999 (61-key) $1,199 (73-key) $1,599 (88-key)

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Grace Design m103 Channel Strip FEED YOUR D.A.W. PROPERLY BY GETTING THE SOUND RIGHT AT THE SOURCE

By Craig Anderton | Wed, 13 Feb 2013

The good news: Analog-to-digital audio conversion and “in the box” algorithms continue to improve. The bad news: Deficiencies in the analog elements feeding your daw become more apparent. In that respect, Grace Design was a bit ahead of the curve with the singlerackspace m103—an all-analog, mono channel strip dedicated to signal purity. But as more people concern themselves with getting the signal right at the source, before it hits the converters, the m103’s time has come. Interfacing Separate mic and line xlr ins, with separate xlr mic pre and main outs, complement three additional ¼" jacks for unbalanced mic pre out, balanced main out, and unbalanced main out; a front-panel ¼" jack provides a hi-Z instrument input (2.5m balanced, 5m balanced). The ¼" sidechain compressor input jack is switchselectable to provide a stereo link when using two units, while the iec cable jack feeds a global (100-240v) supply.

PREAMP The transformerless preamp sounds—well, it doesn’t “sound,” really; it just amplifies, with a range of 10 to 65 dB of gain in 12 steps. It has a clip indicator, mic/ line switch, phantom power enable, and 75Hz (12 dB/octave) highpass filter. Enabling the innovative “ribbon” switch simultaneously increases input impedance, disables phantom power, and bypasses the phantom-power coupling capacitors. I also like this position with dynamic mics, due to the input impedance increase.

EQ This is not your surgical, digital eq—do that in the daw. Rather, the eq’s three bands gently correct for deficiencies at the source. The mid band (500Hz to 4kHz) is parametric, with variable q. The lower and upper bands can switch between shelving or bell response, with the

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low frequency variable from 20Hz to 750Hz; highs range from 3kHz to 20kHz. Gain for all stages is ±12 dB. The fixed q for bell mode isn’t specified, but sounds fairly broad; I tended to use the shelf mode more, although the bell response is useful when you want, for example, a little more “boom” on acoustic guitar without amplifying frequencies below its natural range.

DYNAMICS This isn’t a brick wall limiter, but an easy way to tame dynamics and add a bit of a “lift” to signals while remaining unobtrusive. Based on optical technology for an inherently smooth response, controls are the expected threshold, attack, release, and ratio (1:1 to 12:1). Attack goes down to 3ms, while release extends out to 3 seconds. A 10-stage gain-reduction meter provides visual feedback.

EX TRAS Both the eq and compressor have in/out switches, but the coolest switch reverses their order in the signal chain. There’s also a master trim control, 10-stage vu meter, and peak meter that monitors the internal headroom. Also noteworthy: the packaging. The m103 is suspended within the box, almost like it’s shock-mounted—take that, ups.

HOW TO FEED A DAW The m103 isn’t cheap, but the sweetness and transparency explain why. For capturing a vocalist going through a quality mic, retaining the nuances of an acoustic guitar, maintaining the crispness and snap of percussion, or for any

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other critical acoustic instrument tracking, it doesn’t get much better—or more importantly, less intrusive— than the m103.

SUMMARY STRENGTHS: Contains clean path with innovative “ribbon” switch as well as Transparent EQ and compressor.

Can switch EQ/compressor order. Solid construction. Stepped gain control for repeatability. Global power supply.

Hi-Z instrument input.

LIMITATIONS: Nothing significant. $1,895 MSRP

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Sony dwz Digital Wireless Systems AFFORDABLE, MUSICIAN-FRIENDLY RIGS FOR GUITAR/BASS OR HANDHELD MIC

By Craig Anderton | Thu, 21 Feb 2013

I never used wireless because of sound and reliability issues, but digital wireless changed my mind. There’s no companding, and as long as you’re within range, forget about pops or the signal cutting out. And if you go out-of-range, the signal usually disappears more elegantly than with analog.

The Sony dwz-b30gb and dwz-m50 systems have much in common: 2.4GHz, licensefree operation over six channels; 24-bit pcm digital audio; transmitter switches (3-position attenuator, lock/unlock, mute/power, and channel select); +12v ac adapter for the receiver; usb ports for firmware updates; and a compact size. Choose wideband mode for minimal interference to other gear, or narrowband for minimal interference from other gear. Now, let’s consider the differences.

DWZ-B30GB Optimized for guitar and bass, this includes a bodypack (which runs on two aa batteries), compact receiver, guitar-to-bodypack cable, and belt/strap clip. The receiver also accepts 9v battery power or a pedalboard’s—9v power distribution—genius if you want to go wireless to your pedalboard. The unique, 8-position “Cable Tone” control is a high-cut filter that emulates the cable capacitance for seven different cable lengths so you can match your wired and wireless “sound.” Outputs are xlr, ¼" phone, and a second ¼" phone tuner out that generates audio even when the system is muted from the transmitter. With alkaline batteries, Sony estimates about 10 hours’ battery life for the belt pack, and 3.5 hours for the receiver.

DWZ-M50 The mic is a cardioid, unidirectional dynamic type; the feel, size, and weight are comparable to an sm58, and both the wind screen and capsule are removable/ interchangeable. (Sony

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offers three compatible capsules, and some third-party capsules are compatible.) Unscrewing the hand grip accesses the “set-and-forget” controls, while power and mute are always available.

IN USE Both systems are easy to set up and use—just don’t place the receiver close to rf interference sources (like a wi-fi router). The dwz-m50 can choose the clearest channel, or scan them and display the best candidates; or, you can choose channels manually. For the dwz-b30gb, you need to try different channels manually to determine which works best. When I tested both devices indoors, even in a space with intervening objects, operation was 100% reliable to at least 70 feet. Maximum line-of-sight goes up to about 200 feet for the dwz-b30gb and 300 feet for the dwz-m50, but lessens with increased interference or objects (especially walls) between the trans-mitter and receiver.

Overall, Sony’s debut of musician-friendly wireless systems is auspicious. If you’ve avoided wireless because of analog’s limitations, you may be very surprised by digital’s offerings, and what’s more, with these models you’ll probably be able to afford to go digital.

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SUMMARY STRENGTHS: Easy to use. Affordable.

24-bit digital audio quality. Includes some useful, unexpected extra features like the DWZ-B30GB’s Cable Tone control and the DWZ-M50’s automatic channel evaluation.

LIMITATIONS: You don’t get a $700 mic in a $700 wireless system, although you can change capsules. The DWZB30GB has less maximum range than the DWZM50, and a more primitive channel selection process. $499.99 MSRP (DWZB30GB) $699.99 MSRP (DWZ-M50)

photography: Evan Peebles

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CH A Z BUNDICK , aka TOR O Y MOI, S TRIV ES TO ACHIE V E NE W DEP TH IN “C OMMER CIA L QUA LIT Y ” PR ODUC TION WITHOU T LO SING HIS S ONIC IDENTIT Y

By Tony Ware | Wed, 13 Feb 2013 wave 01

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C CHAZ BUNDICK grew up in humidity. Born and raised in the Southern college town of Columbia sc, he came of age in a setting of sticky summers, of months on end when you live and work through an ever-present film of sweat. It’s a city where even the frosty beverages that promise momentary relief drip with perspiration, like they’re longing for night to fall and the mugginess to drop from oppressive to merely stifling. The air is heavy, to say the least.

Recording as Toro Y Moi, a project that has grown from its sample-based bedroom studio origins to include a touring band and live-room tracking sessions, Bundick has never shied from similarly abundant saturation. Having now released Anything in Return, his third Toro Y Moi full-length, Bundick has entered a more upbeat, modern pop-influenced phase of his production career through expertly permeating his work with immersive wooziness even as he explores balmier swatches.

Hanging out at Columbia coffee shops populated by skaters and art students, Bundick found his initial moments of overdriven lucidity. “When I first heard Weezer, I knew immediately I had a love for distortion, which was reinforced by At The Drive-In, and Sonic Youth,” he recalls. “Pretty soon, though, I realized what I really was drawn to was the ability to affect space while keeping some original signal intact. I really liked thickness, but with clarity.”

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Balancing out every Pixies or My Bloody Valentine album with Michael Jackson, A Tribe Called Quest, or Daft Punk, Bundick headed to the University of South Carolina with a laptop, Fruity Loops, and a growing interest in audio production. Pursuing a degree in graphic design while making music on the side, Bundick moved his workflow into Reason (Version 4 at the time) and toyed with ways to combine his innate musicality with creative production techniques gleaned from online forums. Bundick started piano lessons at age 8, followed that by teaching himself guitar at 12, and was fronting an indie band and 4-tracking by 15.

The resulting experiments in lo-fi funk and sidechain hiccups caught the ear of Carpark Records, which released Toro y Moi’s debut full-length, Causers of This, in early 2010. Unapologetically referencing shoegaze and synthpop equally, aggressively filtered through house music-style compression, Toro Y Moi’s music was quickly lauded while being pinned with the term “chillwave” (as well as the even more ludicrous “glo-fi”), the latest in a long line of lazy catchalls for self-produced, dance-influenced electro-acoustic composition (such as “folktronica” a decade previous).

“I was a fresh-out-of-college kid just making songs that a label happened to like, and in a way I’m embarrassed that entire album was done solely in the computer, but at the time it was fitting and gave it the characteristics

people appreciate it for now,” reflects Bundick.

“I knew, though, that I didn’t want my songs to continually live solely in a computer file . . . it feels like they end up sounding boxed in more than I’d like.”

A little over a year later came Toro Y Moi’s sophomore Carpark release, Underneath the Pine, where Bundick took his reservations to heart and applied digital wow and flutter to a wider range of organic instrumentation. This collection of psychedelic r&b gave nods to Brian Wilson, Arthur Russell, Lonnie Liston Smith, Boards of Canada, J Dilla, and Elliott Smith, among many others.

“I feel like my age group [Bundick is 26] was the last to experience home recording without computers, and I’m holding on to that a little bit,” says Bundick. “So when something sounds good in the laptop, I still wonder how it would sound using some hardware, and I’ve worked more and more in a direction that incorporates all those options—the nn-xt [one of Reason’s samplers], Thor [a Reason polyphonic synth], the Roland jx-3p [vintage analog synthesizer], upright piano, live drums, bass guitar, etc.

“I still work within Reason for most tracks, but I’m not interested in maintaining any specific workflow,” continues Bundick.

“When I’m writing, I might just put on a click track and work out an entire song—intro, verse, chorus, bridge—on the guitar, then on the drums, the bass, and the keys, or it

photography: Evan Peebles might all start with a floor tom sample that I’m going to stack. I do not want to get bored of the process, and the only signature I really want is my songwriting.”

Now arrives Anything in Return, a collection of 13 songs in part precipitated by the transition from one college town (Columbia) to another: Berkeley, ca. Where as the tightknit Southern scene moved at its own humble drawl, Berkeley provided a more brisk comple-

which were his first to fully incorporate a professional studio in both tracking and mixing capabilities.

“I wrote and arranged the record at home, on the road, but the goal was to achieve a commercial quality similar to what’s on the radio without taking away from the sound’s integrity, so I booked sessions at Different Fur Studios [located in San Francisco’s Mission district],” says Bundick. “I live a good 40-minute train

“I RE A LIZED WH AT I RE ALLY WAS DR AWN TO WAS THE A BILIT Y TO A FFEC T SPACE WHILE KEEPING S OME ORIGIN A L SIGN AL INTAC T. I RE ALLY LIKED THICK NES S, BU T WITH CL ARIT Y.” ment, a city of fierce locavore movements and quick-to-critique progressive activists. Both, however, gave Bundick the latitude to let Toro Y Moi’s freak flag fly as he sees fit.Berkeley’s atmosphere might not have the same clamminess as Columbia’s, but the Bay Area has already managed to be soaked into Bundick’s music. For starters, field recordings from the bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system pepper Anything in Return’s opening track “Harm in Change” and its closer “How’s It Wrong,” and this ambiance represents both Bundick’s transcontinental move and his more regimented commuter approach to the album’s sessions,

ride away, so going there was like going to work, in a good way. The excitement would build up on the train ride in, I could reflect and critique mixes on my headphones on the way home, and it was nice to go somewhere other than just across the hall. Working at home, there’s no telling when you’ll stop, no sleeping, and it’s harder to get out of your head and get some perspective. You can really end up overproducing something. Having a schedule, visiting a separate studio gave my ears a rest and just felt like a healthier experience.”

To capture his jx-3p, Nord Electro 3, Yamaha dx7s, Moog Voyager, and Roland

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sp-404sx sampling workstation, as well as lay down guide vocals, bass lines, and other elements, Bundick has compiled a collection of Boss, Line 6, ZVex, Ibanez, and Electro-Harmonix pedals; vintage Akai compression and eq modules; a Focusrite Saffire pro interface; and a Shure sm57 mic. This set-up served Bundick well for the self-recorded, critically acclaimed Underneath the Pine, but the desire for a top-end signal chain to showcase a taste-fully polished appeal brought Bundick to DifferentFur. The songs themselves were written with live performance in mind, augmented by a few tricks, such as sampling chords in the sp404sx and using its playback to stagger delivery on tracks including “Rose Quartz.” The sonic treatments,

you can hear every hi-hat and it’s not all blown out of the water when a kick drum comes in,” says Bundick. Bundick and Brown’s collaboration can best be described as complex but not complicated. “Chaz would say what needed help, or what he wanted to feel more or less of, and I would just start smashing, squashing, and chipping away till he’d shake his head ‘yes’ or scrunch up into an ‘ew, no’ face,” laughs Brown. They used trial-and-error to find some workable templates in order to achieve their desired response outside of the box as well as avoid letting configuring stand in the way of creativity later in the process. “Chaz is really good at finding and positioning the sounds he wants, but Reason’s audio engine isn’t the most robust . . . things can sound flat and thin and need replacing or thickening,” says Brown.

“So a lot of what we did was processing, push-

“ WE’RE JUS T HIT TING IT HARD AND USING THE INP U T AND OU TP U T TO DO THE WORK , THOUGH I DID USE S OME BRITISH MODE TO GE T TH AT S QUASHY CRISPNES S.” —Brown meanwhile, showcase Bundick’s increasing arsenal of tuneful embellishments. “When I did Underneath the Pine, I was completely by myself, mixing into this old Yamaha mixer that looked like something from the ’80s, with its black body, red knobs, and two meters at the top,” says Bundick. “With this album I wanted a sonic quality in line with and maybe even beyond what people are putting out nowadays.

Having a daw at home is great for laying down ideas, but I wanted songs where the high end and low end have much higher status, and I knew I couldn’t achieve that on my own.”

Working with Different Fur owner Patrick Brown as mixer/first engineer, Bundick set out to make Anything in Return into an album that could play as easily next to the drums of Drake and The-Dream as it could sit on a mixtape with Serge Gainsbourg, The Internet, Todd Rundgren, Four Tet, Talking Heads, and Stereolab. “I wanted the level of crunchy, stacked texture of someone like Kanye but the radio quality and purity of Michael Jackson, where 20 APRIL 2013

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ing stereo stems through our ssl 4000e [g series] into my insert and aux sends to set up various chains to apply a variety of interesting space effects but also achieve some consistency from song to song . . . getting some analog on it before Pro Tools for automation and a little additional processing.” The preliminary sessions, captured appropriately on the song “Day One” (even though they took two days), helped establish the prime combinations for various parts. For example, drums often went through an Empirical Labs el8-x Distressor, Empirical Labs el-7 fatso jr, and gml 8200 eq, “to fatten them up, make them hit harder, make the kick really snap, and to add a little bit of softness and harmonic on the top end so they didn’t sound too brittle out of Reason,” says Brown. Bundick admits to not liking big-sounding drums, preferring them super dead with hardly any room reverb, but he remains a sucker for stacking live and sampled percussion with attacks and decays to create a lot of interesting detail. “A lot of

and a homemade square-wave, octave-down fuzz-pedal effect created a low rumble, adding more sub to increase left-right dimension while maintaining signal integrity in the center.

Similar effects were occasionally used to put a compressed slap on certain tribal drum patterns, as well as warble on vocals.

While Bundick entered the studio with guide vocals, they were primarily re-recorded, with the originals used only sparingly for background effect. Vocals were tracked using a Shure sm7b into an Avalon ad2022 preamp, a gml 8200 parametric eq and a Retro Instruments Sta- Level compressor. “Chaz has a pretty smooth voice, but you don’t want him to sound too high and young, so we used a lot of comb filtering and compression to maintain smoothness without having him disappear into the mix,” says Brown. “We would do a slight slap delay on most everything, and light Auto-Tune throat modifying on certain tracks to make it deeper, then clean it up with some Waves Renaissance eq We avoided overusing Auto-Tune, never using it on an entire lead vocal as that’s been done to death, but there were times it could be tastefully applied.”

Subtle, and not so subtle, use of the Lexicon 480l reverb, Lexicon pcm 42 digital delay, and Eventide h3000 Factory Harmonizer also helped create the sessions’ stacked subgroups.

A simple gated reverb off the Eventide was applied underneath several vocals, and helped make piano into “an amazing orchestra,” says Bundick. “Also, a lot of the weird pitch-shifting

you hear in ‘So Many Details’ came from that ” These go-to modules provided that key enriching agent to add without exaggerating.

“I don’t like using stereo wideners because of how almost mono things can go and how much you can lose with that, but using minor amounts of chorus adds a little bit of buzz and makes the background appear wider while you keep the lead vocal center,” says Brown.

After layering analog modules from the gut, Bundick and Brown worked in Pro Tools with spl Transient Designer, Waves Renaissance Vox, and Waves Renaissance Bass to fine-tune volume, pull back attacks, and tighten bass.

Additionally, they applied mild Waves MondoMod Modulation Chorus rotation to the effects channels rather than the dry signal to further the goal of creating shimmer without distraction. “We worked to get the sound, then the movement,” says Bundick. The channel count may have quadrupled on some songs, and the sub bass (especially around 50Hz) increased, but the snap was never muddied. Anything in Return remains an appropriately moist and spacious South Carolina/Northern California hybrid. “Putting together this album in the studio helped me realize new ways to give songs depth and height, how you can mess with reverbs and short delays to give a little extra stereo dimension without resorting to heady-handed panning,” says Bundick.

“I feel more ready to compete with the way pop is mixed so forward, but without losing my sonic continuity.”

photography: Evan Peebles

Chaz’s songs are based in fusion, parts funk and r&b, and a lot of hip-hop on this album, so instead of using sidechaining to get the drums people know him for, we would use the board for broad-stroke eq and compression, push the Distressor and Fatso for thickening, and have the gml for clean up, for subtraction, because it’s more detailed and sweeter than the board,” elaborates Brown. “And I don’t use the actual ratios on the distressor; we’re just hitting it hard and using the input and output to do the work, though I did use some British Mode to get that squashy crispness.”

Balancing compression and distortion harmonics, assisted by a liberal use of Thermionic Culture’s valve-powered Culture Vulture distortion enhancer, would prove to be key to sitting drier percussion resolutely in the mix.

“We used that to tuck distortions under certain things, making a heavier, darker low end to help piano float on top or vocals sit in the mid; it’s those harmonics that people are missing when they talk about analog tape or big consoles,” says Brown.

For lead Korg ms3000 synth, detuning arpeggios, slow lfo drones, Rhodes, and upright piano, an additional set of tools was applied.

While recording piano, which provided a lot of the acoustic reinforcement on the album, Sennheiser microphones taped to the instrument’s body captured a slightly boxy, perfectly imperfect tone that distorted in the right way.

In terms of processing, running effects channels with a ZVex Instant Lo-fi Junky pedal

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photography: Brett Bäkermann

Since reinventing himself as a songwriter for hire, former Semisonic singer/guitarist Dan Wilson has been on quite a roll.

by Bud Scoopa | Thu, 10 Jan 2013

The launching mechanism for Wilson’s second act was the Dixie Chicks’ 2006 hit album Taking the Long Way, for which he collaborated on six songs, including the anthem of defiance “Not Ready to Make Nice.” He hit his next home run by co-writing and co-producing Adele’s chart-topping big ballad, “Someone Like You.” In the two years since that memorable collaboration, Wilson has been all over the place, geographically and stylistically. The locales range from Nashville, where he partnered on Dierks Bentley’s country chart-topper “Home,” to Australia, where he and Missy Higgins came up with her single “Everyone’s Waiting.” In the most improbable of his collaborations, Wilson co-wrote and co-produced a track on Nas’ Life Is Good, his first foray into hip-hop. Wilson’s recent writing partners include Pink, LeAnn Rimes, Kim Perry of The Band Perry, Keith Urban, Michael Fitzpatrick of Fitz & The Tantrums, Josh Groban, writer/producer Benny Blanco, and Taylor Swift. Between co-writing sessions, Wilson has nearly completed a studio album of his own, the follow-up to his solo debut, 2007 ’s Free Life. In the following conversation, the affable and articulate Harvard grad describes the process that led to some of his biggest songs and generously shares his co-writing and producing secrets.

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Semisonic’s “Closing Time” really put you on the map as a songwriter. What inspired that modern-day standard?

Semisonic had just come off the road from [1996 debut album] Great Divide, and the guys were clamoring for a new song to end our sets with. They were tired of playing “If I Run,” which was my favorite song to end the set lists with. I don’t mind repetition—I like to eat the same breakfast every morning—but I took it upon myself, almost like an internal commission for the band, to write a new closer for us, and thought of the title “Closing Time” in terms of this mission. About halfway through the writing of the song, I realized that I was writing this sort of pun about a baby being born, because my wife was pregnant at the time. So the song took on a double meaning for me, and I ended up making sure that every line was doubly interpretable. It was about being bounced from the womb, I guess. But I wrote the whole thing in a very short time—about 20 minutes. Only two things changed about it after I wrote it. One, I went to [Semisonic bassist] John Munson’s house to do a demo of it, and while I was there I wrote a chord progression that could be an instrumental bridge. Then, when I sent the demo to our a&r guy at mca, he suggested that the lyrics were too repetitious and the second verseneeded some variety. So I did those lines that go, “Gather up your jackets/Move it to the exits/Hope you found a friend.”

That’s the one variation in a pretty strict lyrical pattern.

I have that experience that all songwriters have where you hear something on the radio and you go, “Ooh, I wish I had written that.” There’s a Bennie Blanco/Shellback/Maroon 5 song “Payphone,” and the first time I heard it, I immediately had that super-excited but envious kind of feeling. So I definitely enjoy really poppy stuff, but I’m more interested in great songs than I am in slammin’ tracks. With a lot of songs that are hits right now, you almost feel like they’re hits because of the mechanics

I’m very fortunate in that, when I like something, there’s a really good chance that other people will like it.

When you get input like that from your A&R or publishing rep, you have to consider it carefully, right? You’re in business with these people, so you can’t be precious about it.

That makes some sense to me, although I must confess that it’s difficult for me to make a change in a song because someone said it would be more “commercial” that way. My hunter instinct does not kick in when somebody says, “You could make more money if you did this.” But that same kind of hunter/seeker instinct totally kicks in if somebody just says something as raw commentary or potential input for a song.

And following your artistic impulse has frequently led to commercial results for you.

I’m very fortunate in that, when I like something, there’s a really good chance that other people will like it. And I can tell if I like it. With a lot of people, they know when they like something, but not if they have to know—not when it’s their job to know if they like it. Once it becomes a job to know whether you like something, you become very confused.

Having worked in A&R, I know exactly what you mean.

Right. So, with me, if I really love something, it often turns out that everyone else loves it too. I have this tendency to discover music that comes to me through pop culture, and it’s not gonna be like the tastemaker, cool-guy kind of thing—it’s always the huge, smack-down-the-middle hit that everyone’s really tired of within a few months.

Do you have an appreciation for the side of mainstream pop dominated by writer/ producers like Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Bennie Blanco?

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of the production. They hit you with a really hard, beautifully constructed kick drum, and then they hit you with an even harder, more beautifully constructed kick drum for the chorus, and they also hit you with even more blaring guitars or synthesizers. It’s like the difference between getting a nice backrub from someone you love as opposed to a professional masseuse. You’re definitely gonna get your bones cracked in all the right ways by the pro, but there’s not a lot of feeling in it.

So much of the current pop stuff rigidly hews to a particular structural and dynamic formula. You have to shoehorn content into that approach, rather than the ideas dictating the approach.

It just feels very functional. I read a couple of very different books at the same time that coincidentally pointed me in the same direction; one was Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin, which is about the shared emotional lives of people and animals; and the other was Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus, in which a young composer sells his soul to the devil to become the greatest composer alive. Animals Make Us Human said that the experience of following your curiosity is the most powerful neurological circuitry in the animal brain, and it’s the same in human brains too. The book describes that feeling of being about to open a present after coming downstairs on Christmas morning as being the queen bee of all the emotions. And one of the characters in the Thomas Mann book says to the other, “Love is strongest emotion of all,” and the second character says to the first, “No, there’s one stronger—interest.” To me, that’s the flag I try to wave to myself. If I’m writing something and I’m really, really interested, and I don’t know where it’s going, it’s almost like I’m just about to open a present on Christmas morning. That’s the feeling I want to have about writing a song. I don’t want to be satisfying a checklist of criteria and secondguessing whether I could make someone else excited; I have to have my own curiosity totally engaged.

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photography: Brett Bäkermann

photography: Jessica Miller You’ve produced a number of the commercially successful songs that you co-wrote with the artist, including Adele’s “Someone Like You.” Do you walk into the room with that intention? How do you become the producer as well as the co-writer?

We were halfway or two-thirds of the way into the song on the first day, and she laid down some amazing stuff. So we had a recording of most of the song, but there were big gaps missing.

On the second day, we wrote the bridge and finished the second verse, and it was interesting— she had a different sound to her voice. It was more cracking and distorted-sounding; it sounded more hurt and weary—it had this extra element of blues and sadness. So I asked her to go back and re-record the choruses of the song, even though we had nailed them the day before. So half of that second day was spent writing the bridges and the second verse, and the tweaking of details about the voice and the melody, and half of it was spent rerecording the vocal parts that were perfectly good the day before, but they just weren’t as captivating.

So “Someone Like You” as it appears on 21 was written and recorded from scratch in the studio.

From beginning to end, yeah.

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What was she singing to?

Just me playing the piano. She was gonna produce the record with Rick Rubin at the time, and he ended up producing the other two that I wrote with her, “One and Only” and “Don’t You Remember.” I thought he was gonna produce “Someone Like You” as well, so partly I was thinking, “This piano demo is gonna blow Rick’s mind. He is gonna love this.” But what happened was everyone fell so madly in love with the piano-vocal demo that they made it the record. They decided no one was gonna beat it. I imagine you could do an amazing classic-soulpop version of “Someone Like You,” but there was no need for it.

You’ve been working on your second solo album. Can you describe your process in writing and producing it?

I started out with 30 or 35 songs in Minneapolis, and right before I moved to la, made a big batch of simple piano-vocal or guitarvocal demos and ended up with a very isolated and mournfulsounding batch of songs. So when I moved to L.A. a year and a half ago, I came with this notion of doing the record alone, like Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, or Elliott Smith. I ended up doing that, but for some reason it just didn’t feel right or sound right. It didn’t have the depth of emotion I wanted, and I’m not

The professional country writers I’ve talked to seem to have a very particular kind of discipline and methodology. Did you find that instructive in any way?

I learned a ton from going down there once or twice a year for those six years.

One enormously useful thing I learned was the idea of getting a song done in a day, which they do routinely in Nashville. There’s a power to that—it goes against the “I’m not feeling it today” kind of mindset. I recently found this quote: There is always little muses around you all the time, so keep working and you’ll have small inspirations all the time, and you might get a big inspiration once in a while. So don’t just sit around waiting for the big inspiration. I learned that in Nashville.

There’s a power to that— it goes against the “i’m not feeling it today” kind of mindset. the best drummer in the world. So this year, I wiped the slate clean and gave a whole bunch of those songs another shot.

I collaborated with some musicians that I’ve met in the year and a half that I’ve lived here and brought them into the album.

Did this new crew cause a chemical reaction with the lonely material you’d written?

It’s funny because, with my own playing on the first version, the songs almost sounded too joyful and too bright. It seems like I’ve been able to get a simpler, darker sound with the musicians that came on board for this second try.

Were you recording live off the floor with the band?

There’s only a handful of band takes on the record, and a couple of the most band-sounding ones were pieced together. In that way it’s another real departure from Free Life, and really interesting to explore working that way.

Let’s talk about some of your more recent collaborations.

You worked with Pink on her new album; how did that go?

It felt like a really fruitful session. She had a brand new baby and was basically coming from that mommy fog back into the world of concentrating on things, and I was lucky enough to be part of those early days. We finished four songs, and one was way too country for a Pink album—but she’s definitely got that in her dna. Another song is called “Exit Strategy”; I think it’s gonna be a B-side or a bonus track. “The Great Escape” is a very grand orchestra/piano/vocal number with me playing piano and acoustic guitar, and a lot of people sawing away at the strings.

You’ve also spent some time at the other end of the stylistic spectrum, with left-ofcenter artists like Britt Daniel of Spoon and Divine Fits, Ben Folds, and Lykki Li. Did anything come of those get-togethers?

With Britt, it was more like us just hanging around and talking, telling each other what our favorite tracks were and listening to things. It was fun. Ben and I got together a bunch; we talked about music and jammed on some of his new ideas. It felt like we had a real meeting of the minds. My hope is that I can get him to help me out on some track of mine someday. With Lykki Li, we started a song that I think is pretty cool—I’m supposed to send her a demo. But I feel like my role in situations like those isn’t to try to write some big song for their album. It’s something that you make up as you go along.

You co-wrote a song, “Treacherous,” with Taylor Swift for her recent album, Red. How did that go?

We squeezed in two days before a trip I was taking, and we did a song each day, totally countrystyle. But it was extremely inspiring. She gets such a backhanded appreciation from the press, but that’s just a bunch of bullsh*t. She’s so talented and so spontaneous, and she really was on fire for the sessions that we did together.

I was taken aback when I heard you had a song on Nas’ Life Is Good. What was that like?

It was fascinating. The song is called “Roses,” and I produced it You crashed the Nashville party with “Home,” your co-write with Al Shux. I got together with Nas and we talked about songs with Dierks Bentley, which became a Number One country hit. and subjects. I played the piano and he’d say, “Oh, I like that,” or And since then you’ve collaborated with LeAnn Rimes and “Mmm, I don’t know.” I’d play the piano again and he’d say, “I like Kim Perry of The Band Perry. Seems like the dominoes have that.” We did that until we got a piano theme that was inspiring started to fall for you down there. and beautiful, and then Al came with his beats and amazing Maybe. It’s funny, because I’d done so much writing in Nashville sounds, and turned my piano piece into a track. And then, after between 2000 and 2006, and nothing ever came of it. Then I left, Nas did the rap. I never heard Nas’ part until the album the Dixie Chicks album happened, and I almost felt permission came out, and all I was thinking was, “I just hope it’s not so ofto not go back because they were so mad at the Chicks for the fensive that I can’t play it for my parents.” album. And then, writing that song with Dierks, which went so And? well, maybe there’ll be some more coming down for me in NashI’m not playing it for my parents. ville. LeAnn, Darrell Brown, and I did a three-person session that was super-fruitful. We wrote a great song on day one and another one on day two. Very revealing, exposed, raw songs that I like to write.

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