Adventure Hat’s First Single!

Perfectly happy in the Arizona Pines

Adventure Hat has a single! It’s our first one—the first of many yet to come.

I’m proud of it. It was harder than I thought it would be. I learned a LOT. I already have notes for ways to improve for the next one.

And I’m incredibly grateful to my musical collaborators who brought their time, energy, and talent to this first Adventure Hat recording project.

I want to tell you about how we put this song together in the studio.

But first, here’s the backstory of how and why I wrote this song in the first place.

The gang:

• Seth Colaner: Lead vocals, guitar, bass

• Erica Kallis: Violin

• Kristi Larsen: Piano, background vocals

• Drums: Katie Brown

Recorded by Seth Colaner. Mixed and mastered by Wil Reeves at Centro Cellar Studio.

Even though I’ve been making my own music for…wait, lemme do the math…29 years (oh my god), and have recorded lots and lots of my music, I’ve never attempted a professional-level recording before.

I’m a DIY guy to a fault (and too cheap to book a proper recording session for a full band), but I knew I couldn’t do this whole project soup to nuts. After researching and experimenting, I felt that I was capable of doing the actual recording with my own gear, but that I would need to pay a professional for mixing and mastering.

And so it came to pass.

For the most part, I’m really happy with this decision, and the result.

Vocals

I wanted my vocal on this to be loud and energetic. I howl and whoop. Usually, those words describe angry music, so it’s somewhat counterintuitive to this joyful song; the lyrics are about being happy and satisfied in one’s life.

In any case, it was a fun experience to essentially abandon all vocal technique and any need to sing beautifully. I could only manage a few takes before my voice was tired. Fortunately, I only needed one.

I’m almost surprised at how well Kristi’s background vocal harmony works. Her singing voice is sweet, and in this song I think it nicely balances mine out. And she kept the lines simple but effective, which was a smart choice.

Guitar

I recorded my guitar part in stereo, with a matched pair of condenser mics. Usually, you record each track in mono. But I wanted to get a wider, fuller sound, reminiscent of 1970s power rock sound, even though I was strumming an acoustic instead of shredding lines on an electric.

I figured worst case, I could pick whichever of the two tracks sounded best. But in the end, I kept the stereo image and hard-panned them.

In the actual performance of the track, I banged on that guitar as hard as I could without breaking any strings. I wanted to get as much energy into the sound as possible, as if the guitar was about to burst into pieces.

Bass

I have lots of bass player friends who can lay down a bassline much better than I can on any given day. But I really like playing the bass. So I did this track on my own.

I tried micing a bass amp (actually a small PA system), but it was too noisy. I probably should have borrowed a real bass amp and been more patient, but instead I just recorded the bass directly into the interface.

As a result, the bass tone is more lyrical—you can hear it more than you can feel it. And I think that works just fine for this song. Especially because I wrote the lines to be somewhat lyrical throughout the verses. Then in the breaks, I kept it super simple and just drove with the drums and guitar.

Piano

It’s fascinating to me how the act of recording a song forces you to focus on the composition of each part and also the song as a whole.

Even though we’ve played “Arizona Pines” in rehearsal and on stage many times, Kristi hadn’t ever settled into a piano part that she loved. So when it was time to nail down the recording, we spent time playing through and talking through ideas.

We discovered that the piano needed to change roles throughout the song. I wanted the introductory and transitional parts to feel like the band was one unified wall of sound, so those sections needed big chunky chords. Then as soon as the lyrics enter, the piano takes off on these flowy, lyrical tangents.

The tricky part turned out to be the lyric-less breaks. They’re long builds, with a big payoff at the end. I wanted those sections to drive hard, with all the instruments (except the violin) doing essentially the same simple things. So when Kristi came up with the rhythmic piano idea (that we ended up using in the recording), I wasn’t sure about it at first.

I pushed us to tinker with other ideas. There was one idea that I felt strongly about: Sort of a climbing, undulating arpeggiation that I thought would bring drama and tension to the build. I threw her that curveball while we were in session. It was tricky to execute (the way I wanted it done) because she had to do this wonky crossover fingering, but because she is kind and patient and game for anything and a stellar player, she figured it out on the fly and nailed it in one or two takes.

When I sat down later to edit the piano part, I realized that these cool arpeggiated figures I was so keen on…stomped all over the violin, which was already playing similar figures. It was bad composition on my part, and it didn’t work.

Kristi was right all along: The rhythmic figure she came up with was the best choice for the part. It brings a needed percussive counterpoint to the rhythm section and flowing violin. (She has accepted my apology.)

Violin

Erica is a unicorn. In classical settings, she reads complex music and plays beautifully, blending with the orchestra with precision. In more popular-music settings (country, bluegrass, and whatever genre Adventure Hat is), she reads no music at all, playing entirely by ear and feel..and plays beautifully, standing out from the group in all the right ways.

When we recorded her part for “Arizona Pines,” I gained an even greater appreciation for not just her skill, but her innate musicality.

She virtually never plays the same thing twice when we perform “Arizona Pines.” Which made capturing multiple takes a very different animal. Usually when you record a part, you play basically the same thing again and again, and you can edit together a perfect track from the best bits and pieces of each take. Or, more simply, if you flub a note or a rhythm, you can “punch in” and re-record just that little bit. Then you create one smooth version with a final edit.

But instead of playing multiple takes of the same thing, Erica lays down different lines each time. No matter; with a handful of takes, I knew I would have more than enough great material to edit together one terrific take.

That’s what I did for most of the song. But when I started working on the climax, I discovered a Bob Rossian happy accident: Out of pure musical instinct, with each different take, Erica essentially harmonized with herself. As in, Idea #1 laid neatly on top of Idea #2, and Idea #3 was lower-pitched and rhythmically contrapuntal, etc.

To be clear, she wasn’t listening to one take and playing along. She just instinctively came up with multiple ideas that happened to complement one another perfectly. When you listen to the climax, you can hear multiple violins. There are three, actually, and they build together incredibly well.

If I had sat down and composed that section for three violins, I would be proud of myself, but our brilliant friend came up with it literally without trying. Goosebumps every time.

Drums

Wowee, recording and editing the drum part was an adventure. And a multi-pronged learning experience for me.

For me, and probably lots of other folks, drum tracks are the biggest barrier to making recordings. Compared to other instruments, they’re much more complicated to mic, and there’s no room for error in the performance. (A slightly sloppy guitar lick can sound really cool; a sloppy snare hit sounds like a train wreck.)

So I called in Katie Brown. I didn’t tell Katie this until we finished, because I didn’t want her to freak out, but this was the first time I’ve ever recorded anyone else playing my music. Prior to this, it’s been all demo-quality recordings, and I’ve always performed all the parts myself. (Thanks Katie!)

I researched the many different ways to mic a drum set in a recording setting. My conclusion is that it’s one of those things that’s actually pretty easy to do if you’re okay with a “good” result. But truly mastering the art of recording drums is a whole beast.

I was okay with “good.”

I used the three-mic approach: I positioned two matched condenser mics above the kit, one hovering above the snare and hi-hat and one poking down at the toms. And I put a dynamic mic in the bass drum.

Part of the limitation of my gear is that although I can record something like 14 tracks at once, I can only output stereo. In a professional studio, you could throw a dozen mics all over the drum set and around the room, and mix them together with precision AFTER you record. With my stereo-only output option, I had to mix BEFORE I recorded.

I am not generally good at mixing. At all. So this step was perilous. Fortunately, Katie patiently helped me dial in a mix that worked.

The next l’il bump in the road was that “Arizona Pines” is more complicated to play than it sounds. (Great composers, songwriters, and soloists learn to do the opposite: Make music that sounds complicated but isn’t. Ope.)

Katie was struggling to feel the song’s twists and turns and wanted to count it, instead. (Y’know, like a professional.) So I charted it all out for her.

My goodness. No wonder it was so hard to feel. Every musician’s least favorite number is seven, and there are a lot of sevens in this song. Four plus three all over the place. And asymmetrical phrases a-plenty.

That wasn’t intentional on my part. It just felt right when I was initially sketching out the song. And I wouldn’t change a thing. But it definitely needed a chart.

With chart in hand, we laid down a bunch of takes, with varying degrees of complexity. Katie suggested a “shaker” track, which was a good idea that we kept in the final cut of the song.

The editing process was…long. The biggest thing I learned was to fall back onto my composer training at the outset. I was too focused on each part and not focused enough on the whole composition. For example, in my first “final” edit of the drum part, I crammed in everything but the kitchen sink, Keith Moon style.

When I proudly played it for the team, they were…quiet at first. Their consensus: It’s too busy. There’s no room for anything else. They were right, of course. So I started from scratch with that guidance and edited together a much better, more musical, drum part.

Mixing and mastering

I knew I needed professional help for the final steps in the process. When it comes to mixing, I lack the expertise, I lack the skill, and I lack the physical ability (partial hearing loss and tinnitus in my left ear).

And I barely know what mastering is, let alone how to do it.

So I did what many local and regional artists do, and I turned to Wil Reeves at Centro Cellar Studio. Wil is super easy to work with, and fast, and affordable, and delivers great results!

So. That’s the story, adventurers. Pleeeeeease have a listen (or 50), add it to your playlist, give a like, and share share share!