Steve Martin "The Crow - New Songs For The 5 String Ban

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Y'all,

I just got the final Mastered tracks for the new Steve Martin Album.

We spent the last three months recording overdubs, editing, and then mixing this one.

It was a wonderful experience.

It should be out on sale in a couple of weeks.

"Banjo Rules!"

Cheers

Update - When I wrote this the album was going to be named "My Old Banjo"...

Now it officially is "The Crow"

Cheers

[the finger genius]

Wow, I bet that was a ton of fun to work on.

[Jay Reynolds]

You mentioned this about a month ago and I've been telling everyone who would listen about it. The reaction has been the same across the board: "Cool! I can't wait to hear it!"

[cfMC]

neat, I had no idea. but you know, one of my favorite songs is the Steve Martin/Bernadette Peters duet from The Jerk on the Patience & Prudence classic "Tonight You Belong To Me"

[AstroDan]

Steve Martin is a motherfucker of a banjo picker. He can hang with some of the better bluegrass guys.

[Nick Sevilla]

It's supposed to come out on January 27th via Amazon.com, so look for it there.

I had a ton of fun on this one, even though I did not get to record all of it, mostly overdubs at the end, and then mixing it all.

Steve is a wonderful guy, and I hope this does well. We have Earl Scruggs (Banjo) on a few cuts, including the duet with Dolly Parton and Vince Gill, and a few other instrumental tracks. Yes, I said INSTRUMENTAL tracks. There's four tracks with singers on them, and the rest are instrumentals.

John McEuen, the producer, is also a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and was a Joy to work with. He really really really knows his stuff, arrangement-wise. Every time i work with him I know it's going to be good.

Cheers

[AstroDan]

You are lucky.

[Nick Sevilla]

Steve Martin is a motherfucker of a banjo picker. He can hang with some of the better bluegrass guys.

He did share a Grammy (2001) with Earl Scruggs on Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

[Jess P]

A friend of mine does a regular Bluegrass Comedy show in New York and Mr. Martin might be a part of one of them. He was telling me about this record. I'm going to get it when it comes out.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi everyone!!!

Boy do I have an update. It's been quite a year for this album.

The album has been selling very well (thanks to Amazon and Rounder Records great work).It was nominated for a gaggle of awards(over 10), and already took the following:

http://www.ibma.org/ibma.awards/current ... inners.asp
Best Liner Notes for a Recorded Project:
Steve Martin (writer), The Crow, Steve Martin (artist), 40 Share Productions (label)
Best Graphic Design for a Recorded Project:
G. Carr & Salli Ratts (designers), The Crow, Steve Martin (artist), 40 Share Productions (label)

In addition the album is nominated in the 52nd Grammies for "Best Bluegrass Album" :
American Roots Category 65 - Best Bluegrass Album (Vocal or Instrumental.)
? Could We Get Any Closer? Jim Lauderdale
[Sky Crunch Records]
? The Crow / New Songs For The Five-String Banjo Steve Martin
[Rounder]
? Buckaroo Blue Grass Michael Martin Murphey
[Rural Rhythm Records]
? Almost Live Bryan Sutton And Friends [Sugar Hill Records]
? Destination Life Rhonda Vincent
[Rounder]

I'm proud to say that a lot of the album was "home made" the only sessions done in a full-time recording studio were the basic tracks, in of all places, New Jersey (what, they play Bluegrass in New Joisey?) and the vocals and Irish bagpipe and flute parts for "Calico Train", which were recorded in Dublin, Ireland, since the singer could not fly out to LA to record.

I recorded along with the producer, John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band member) most of the incidental overdubs in Los Angeles, in John's Basement (no room treatment at all, noisy drainage, etc...)

I mixed the album together with John completely in my home studio, all ITB using Pro Tools HD 8.

So, to all you home enthusiasts out there, be encouraged, for albums CAN BE MADE AT HOME. AND THEY CAN BE SUCCESSFUL TOO.

Yes, Steve Martin is famous, but once people started to actually listen to the record, word spread out that it was an actually good album. Imagine that, a good music album by an actor. Who'd of thunk that was possible? The sales figures have proven the label wrong, they thought it would only sel a few copies and take a long time to enter the charts. It reached #1 on the Billboard Top Bluegrass records, and #93 on the Top 200 Billboard records, as well as #37 on the Billboard "Independent Albums"
category

I think this and other albums being made "at home" in some part is the future of music making, and I am grateful that there are forums like TapeOp out there to get ideas from, and to continue to make me excel and be inspired by "amateur" recordists such as yourselves. I don't consider you guys amateurs, but brave and imaginative souls who have a lot to give to the music community. Thank you for all the alternative ideas / weird ideas, that helped me make this album better than I though it could be.

Cheers

[Sean Sullivan]

There are some amazing musicians on that record, and it shows. I've had the pleasure of working with a few that appear on "The Crow" (Stuart Duncan and Tim O'Brien) and as good as those players are, Steve Martin holds his own.

[Nick Sevilla]

So, this album won the Album of the Year Bluegrass Category last night!!!

Someone emailed me with some questions about the recording, so I am copying my response to Doug here :

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the compliment on the advice I give on TapeOp... I enjoy giving as well as getting advice from here.

I did record some of the final overdubs and did the final mix. Some of the overdubs I did were the harp (harmonica) with an AKG 414, Ac Gtr overdubs with a Neumann TLM103 and a Neumann KM84 (original,not the new ones) through a Neve 1272 mic preamp.

I know some of the mics used by the other engineers,as there were three recording studios involved in the process :

For Steve's Banjo I recommended the producer use 4 at all times. Depending on the studio, it was a combination of Neumann U87 / U67, AKG 451 / AKG 414, and some others I don't know about. But those I remember as the tracks were labelled with the mic.

He was set up with mics all over the place, including behind, above, and two in front. I along with John McEuen, the producer, would choose at mix time which mic or mics to use for each song, to keep Steve's banjo sound slightly different and interesting throughout the record.

As far as vocals go, Dolly has her mic, an AKG 251E original which she uses on all her recordings, Vince Gill used a Neumann U67.
Tim O'Brien used ??? as there were no notes, as well as Mary Black, who used two mics, a U87 and a ??? of which we chose the U87.

As far as mic preamps and compression goes, I'll have to email the recording engineers and see what actual signal paths they used.

I do know that for the main basic tracking, (Bass, Ac Gtr, two fiddles, Steve Martin's main banjo) a Neve 80 series board was used, and a lot of spot mics, along with three room mics (which I ended up not using at all unfortunately, because of phase issues between them and the spot mics.)

At my home studio, where the final mix took place, I only have one real compressor : an LA2A. This I used on some vocals slightly, as well as the electric bass, again slightly (yes, there IS electric bass in there, pay attention to where...)

We did go to Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, and put some of the instruments through their real acoustic reverb chambers, which are 30ft underground, in their parking lot. We went in on a Sunday, so I could use all 6 chambers at once!!! They do sound a lot better than any other simulation of chamber reverbs.

The final mix was done completely inside Pro Tools HD 8, using Waves Mercury processors, mainly the Neve EQ, the API EQ, and some PuigChild compressors (similar to the Fairchild 660 / 670 series). Also I used the Focusrite Red EQ and compressors for the acoustic bass sound.

Some instruments I ran through and reprinted through AMEK 9098 EQs, to get a more defined sound and bigness, which I could not find in a plugin.

Hopefully this gives some idea as to what we did on the album. There's some secret stuff... which will remain secret...

BTW we did get the Bluegrass album of the Year Grammy yesterday, and also the Billboard Bluegrass album of the year for 2009, along with a couple more awards from the American Bluegrass Players' Association.

If you ever need any advice on recording, or you actually need me to engineer something for you, don't hesitate to email me.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Sevilla-Zamoyski

[Nick Sevilla]

You are lucky.

And Blessed to work with such fine musicians...

[T-rex]

Thanks for the info and congrats on the Grammy!

[Nick Sevilla]

If there are any more questions about engineering this album, and I can't answer them, because I mostly mixed it, here is a list of the other engineers that recorded this album: I apologize if I don't get the country right... it's been a while.

Ok, now I have a CD in my hands, so I can tell you which recording engineers were at what studios :

Pat McMakin, Rob Clark and George Tutko at
Ocean Way Studios, Nashville TN

Dae Bennett, Johhnie Truesdale, and Travis Stefl at
Bennett Studios, Englewood NJ

Michael Manning, Billy Robinson, and Ciaran Byrne at
Cauldron Studio, Dublin Ireland

Myself and John McEuen at
Acoustic Traveller Studio, Hollywood CA and at
Nick's Sound Studio in Northridge CA

Great company to be with... thank you to all of you.

Cheers