Keyboard - February 1999

Home Recording Case Study: Natalie Merchant

The Making of Ophelia

By Greg Rule (pages 71-74)

You're a hugely successful recording artist who's sold millions of records and toured the planet countless times. You're ready to make your new record, and the world is your oyster. You could jet to the Caribbean, hole up in a bungalow overlooking the sea, and record in a world-class studio just steps away from your door. Or ... you could do it all in your home studio.

Which is precisely what Natalie Merchant did for her latest platinum pop CD, Ophelia (Elektra). But why? "The idea was that I would avoid the typical pitfalls I seem to find myself in all the time in the studio where I'm trying to recreate the moment when I first conceived the song ... and never really capturing that essence. I wanted to be able to record it as it was being written. I think that's why a lot of people like to work in smaller home studios. Also, that kind of intimacy keeps you from stiffening up. The performances are very casual, and I think they were inspired by the place where the record was made."

Indeed. Natalie's converted garage "doesn't feel like a commercial studio," she says. "There's light, there's air... Some days we would take breaks and wouldn't work at all because we just didn't feel like it. I always thought that music should be something you do because you feel compelled to, not because you're supposed to."

Keyboard flew to New York recently to watch Natalie film an episode of Sessions at West 54th - a weekly series on PBS hosted by David Byrne. The following day we met at the Museum of Modem Art, where we talked about her home studio and the making of Ophelia.

When you decided to build a home studio, what were your objectives?

I knew I wanted an analog studio, and I wanted a lot of warmer tube technology. I also knew I didn't want the headache of buying all the old gear that needs constant maintenance. The new gear needs constant maintenance too, but I didn't want to buy an old tape machine, so I bought a new Studer 24-track analog. I have a pretty simple board - a Mackie - and so I put all my money into preamps, about six different types. Neves, APIS, Manleys. But the board was just used for monitoring purposes; everything bypassed it to tape. Good recorder, good EQs, good preamps, and a great piano.... That was the main thing. I mean, when I bought my Steinway, it was mainly just in my rehearsal room. And I thought, "This is the most beautiful piano I've ever heard and played, so why should I go to another studio since this is my instrument, and the whole album is based around the piano?" So I started building a home studio around this piano.

What other keyboards were in the studio?

A Hammond M-something - the living room version of the B-3. A Mellotron, which was a nightmare. Don't ever buy a Mellotron [laughs]. Two Wurlitzers. You know what's funny? I was on vacation in Hawaii and I wanted to write. I was compelled. I don't play guitar, so I had no instrument. I went to the local music store on the island, and I bought this cheesy little Yamaha keyboard with all these pre-programmed rhythms, and wrote three songs that ended up on the album.

Which three?

Break Your Heart, Kind and Generous and the beginning of King of May. When I bought the keyboard, the clerk was really irritated with me. "You're in Hawaii. Buy a Hawaiian instrument." [Laughs.]

How long did it take you to make the record?

I think I made the record in three, maybe four months. A couple of the songs had been sitting around for a few months before, but we didn't do the typical "write all the songs, rehearse all the songs, record all the songs" treatment. It was more integrated. It was more like "come up with the melody in the morning, teach it to the band in the afternoon, write the lyrics in the evening, and put it on tape." And that's why I built a home studio. [Pause.] It's a dangerous line to walk sometimes, but I like being under-rehearsed. The show we did yesterday [the filming of Sessions at West 54th].... I don't like being over-rehearsed. I like people to be a little on edge, and I like them to still be discovering how they're going to perform a song and still having revelations about the song when they're in front of people. Like, Susan McKeown, who sang with me on Sessions, the Irish singer. We both loved that song Gulf of Araby [by Katell Keineg], but neither one of us had performed it before. We'd only memorized the lyrics the day before. But that edge is really good, I think.

What were your goals with Ophelia in terms of instrumentation, tones, and so forth?

I wanted a very natural-sounding album, but I wanted it to be more lush than Tigerlily. Tigerlily felt like almost a demo for Ophelia; it was such a bare-bones album. So I met Karl Berger, a string arranger, and we worked together. I was really happy with his arrangements. And I also wanted to experiment with bringing people into this home studio environment, friends and musicians whom I'd met in the preceding two years, like Daniel Lanois, Yungchen Lhamo [vocalist], and Don and Karen Peris from the Innocence Mission. And so I had all these people come for workshops, and that's the way I went about making the record.

And you brought In Lenny Kravitz's keyboardist, George Laks [see Keyboard Jan. '98].

Yeah, George is a great piano player. We met on the H.O.R.D.E. tour a couple of years ago. For this record, I came to the decision that I really didn't want to play the piano myself on all the tracks, because I wanted somebody who had more facility, so I remembered George and what a great keyboard player he was. He only came up for a couple of weeks, but he did a lot of work.

On the songs you played keyboards on, did you overdub those parts or record them live along with the other basic tracks?

My studio is so small that it's hard to record everyone together at once. The drum kit is about four feet away from the piano, but a lot of songs started with just piano and vocal.

Recorded to a click?

Yeah, to a click, like My Skin was recorded that way. Frozen Charlotte was originally on grand piano, but then one day I was messing around on the Wurlitzer, along with the bass player. We recorded that, and then everything else was built around it We did things in different ways; we never came up with one way that was better than the rest. Golden Bells was recorded completely live: vocals, guitars, drums, everything.

Was each song mixed immediately following the tracking sessions, or did you mix the entire record later?

We went to Los Angeles to work with Jim Scott, cause I like his mixes. I really like his natural approach; he doesn't hype things. He's mixed Tom Petty, Dylan, Lucinda Williams, a list of people.

What form were the tracks in when you went to L.A. - were the songs on a single 2-inch reel of tape, for example?

We bounced things onto DA-88s, and then transferred them back to analog 2-inch 16-track Studer machines. We used two of them for mixing.

There isn't a producer credit on Ophelia, so are we to assume that you produced this record?

It's kind of a rebellious act. I mean, you could say I produced the last two records ... or not. Because to me production is defined by the artist and situation. I don't like the notion of producer as Svengali. But yeah, I produced, and I've definitely executive-produced both records: deciding what songs go where and when, and who's going to play on them, and who's going to engineer. But I decided not to write the credit, because I feel the musicians have a big part in contributing to the sound of the record, and I'm really open to suggestions. And so to produce ... what does than mean exactly? "I like this note here. I don't like that note there. That take was good. That solo could be better." We all make suggestions, and it's been that way on every record I've ever made.

So when you're tracking vocals, for example, do you decide when a take is good enough?

Yeah. I mean, I always make the ultimate decision, but again I like having input from other people. I don't like seamless perfection, but I don't like flaws either. I didn't want to put a record out that had any flaws. But sometimes something amazing will happen, like on My Skin. Todd [Vos, engineer] was really tired, so we told him he didn't have to come in that day. I was really looking forward to having a day off myself, but I felt like singing, so Peter [Yanowitz, drummer] and I went up to the studio. He didn't really know what he was doing, and he forgot to shut the door between the control room and where I was singing. I did the vocal, and it was amazing, but it had all these clicking noises from the tape machine's transport. And I said, "Oh I'll just sing it again." But Peter, like, threw himself in front of the machine, and said, "You are not recording over this vocal. It's amazing." So Todd came in the next day and spot-erased.

Seeing the forest instead of the trees isn't always easy.

And in this case, technically, the vocal wasn't very well sung, but the emotion was there. I'm so glad we kept that take.

I'm still trying to write .... Look at someone like Bjork. There's always something new she's doing musically and visually, and I really respect that. But that's not necessarily where I'm going. I'm more of a traditionalist, and I sort of look more to the past rather than to the present or future to inform what I'm doing. And I'm still looking for the enduring melody. I love Gershwin. George Gershwin could write a melody that's a living sentiment even 65 years after he's dead, and still inspiring people. I don't really want my music to just be up one moment; I want it to have a timeless quality. And that's why I avoid using synthetic instruments, instruments that aren't real. On the song My Skin, I like hearing my piano working: this hulking piece of wood with metal strings, hammers hitting, things reverberating and squeaking and cracking. I like that we didn't try to cover up those sounds, because that's what the instrument is about. It's an amazing invention.

So, needless to say, this record was made in a traditional way - no Pro Tools slice and dice, in other words.

No, none of that. Although we used a razor blade from time to time. One song was a little long, and Daniel Lanois did a really great edit, but I don't want to tell anyone where it is [laughs]. It saved the song from being 25 minutes long.

When in the process did you use effects - during tracking or at mixdown?

It depended, but never on vocals. I always record them dry to tape. But the Echoplex that's on the Wurlitzer going through the Peavey Classic 200 amplifier with mounds of distortion ... that went to tape as it was. And same with guitars and bass. I want the sounds to be as close to the final result as possible. With the piano, we had to mess around a bit with EQ. That's something I learned: It's really difficult to record a piano. What I did was, I went to the house and got, like, seven different albums that all had grand piano on them. So we listened to everything from Tom Waits to Richard Goode playing Beethoven. But it all becomes relative in the studio. I mean, sometimes my piano sounded great with nothing more than a Shure SM58 hanging over it. It really didn't matter. You can really get obsessed in the studio with perfection, but you just have to settle on what sounds good to you, and not get too caught up in comparison.

One of the great things about working in a studio where I wasn't obsessed with "time is money" is that I could end a day and I might not have had a take to show for it, but I learned. And the next day I would apply what I learned. But when I worked in a commercial studio, I would be devastated at the end of a day if I didn't come away with a take: "Two thousand dollars down the drain! What am I doing?" And it would feel awful.

What mics do you prefer for vocals?

I bought one of the Neumann M149s. It's beautiful. I like tube microphones. As a new series, they're really good.

How involved were you in the mixing and mastering processes?

Very involved in mixing, but for mastering I trust Bob Ludwig, so I didn't need to go. I went last time and all I did was sit there and go, "Sounds good, Bob!" [Laughs.]

Take us inside the songwriting process. Does it usually start at the piano?

Yes, and I like methods. I like ergonomics. I like to own a method so that it becomes ... so the process is almost an art form in itself. I've investigated a lot of different ways to write songs, but I like to just go into the room with the piano and choose a set of tones. I think I'm sort of free of conventional ways of thinking about tonality and harmony because I didn't study it. So I just sit down and I.... It's almost like ringing bells for me.

You hold the sustain pedal and find a series of notes?

Yeah, maybe not even a series. just a single note, then an interval. Whether it's a minor or major interval will bring on a certain mood. Or else I'll be in a particular mood and I'll force the piano to join in my mood. But that's the way I approach it. And then it grows from there to melodies with the right hand. Not too many melodies with the left: I don't have a lot of facility with the left hand, so I tend to gravitate toward playing octaves just to keep it pure in the left hand.

Do you usually build up to a chord progression and then later add the melody to it?

No, not always. Sometime I'll be singing gibberish and come up with a melody that's complete nonsense, and then other times words will just pop into my head. They'll just come to me and that might be the basis of the song. That could be the working title of the song for three months, and then one day I'll just wake up and completely rewrite the lyrics. It'll have nothing to do with what it originally did.

Do you carry a notebook for jotting lyrics?

I carry a notebook, I carry a sketchbook, I carry a Dictaphone, I carry everything. I'm well prepared if the moment strikes and I need to write something down, record something, remember something.

As you're sitting at the piano and starting to come up with a promising idea, how do you save it? Cassette recorder?

A [Sony] DATman - my electronic brain. But then I also have a system that I devised. I drew diagrams of the keyboard and then copied them. So I have stacks of those pieces of paper with the diagrams of the piano And then I have different colored markers that I use to mark the progressions. Different colors for introductions, verses, choruses, bridges, and that's it. It's a private way that I've devised to remember. Or if I want somebody else to play the songs, which I did on this record ... I had a lot of other people come in, and I chose a couple different piano players to play the parts for me, and even the string arranger wrote from those charts with my voicings. He thought it was kind of ingenious for someone who didn't know how to read music.

William Orbit talked about how he and Madonna used wax pencils to write on the keys.

I would love to learn the language, and maybe someday I'll find a teacher who has the method that I can just key into. I think it's also because I can't visually move from the end of the staff to the beginning of the staff. When I read in a book, I have to use a notecard. My eye swings, and I have a lot of trouble finding the beginning of the next line. So I think that might be part of my problem. I get through the end of the line, and then all the notes are like little black dots. They start swimming in the lines. I meet so many classical players who tell me, "Don't worry about it," and I'm like, "That's easy for you to say because you've learned the language." It's another language, you know?

How structured is your songwriting approach, in terms of verse, chorus, bridge, etc.?

A lot of my songs.... When it gets to rehearsal stage, the musicians are arguing amongst themselves: "What's the verse, what's the chorus? What are we calling the verse? No, that's the chorus." And I say, "Well, there are two different choruses in this song." The chorus to me is just the repetitive, memorable melody. You know, the repetitive motif that you're drawn to and it lifts your spirit. That's what I think of as a chorus, and sometimes I like having two parts in a song that are like that. The verse I see more as the storytelling portion of the song that sets the characters and the scene, and tells the story.

Do you always write alone, or have you had songwriting collaborators lately?

Well, I was in a band for 12 years and I co-wrote most of the songs.

But since going solo.

My drummer and I work together a lot, but not on the chord progressions - just on my rhythms. And aside from trying to write with Billy Bragg and Michael Stipe, I've never collaborated on lyrics.

Now that you have two solo records under your belt, are you at a point where you're ready to throw everything out the window and try something radically new next time around?

No, because I'm trying to learn from my mistakes and my successes. I'm more methodical than that.

Do you ever experience writer's block?

Oh yeah, everybody does. It's awful.

As a writer of words, sometimes ideas pour out of me faster than I can type them, and then sometimes I'll labor over a sentence for hours.

That's when I go engage myself in toil. I go toil for a while. I do physical labor sometimes for days or weeks until I can sit down at the piano and have an idea again. Or I'll sit at the typewriter.

Looking to the future, do you think you might ever dabble with things like drum loops?

Drum loops are interesting, because drummers can't consistently play the exact same pattern. Even though there's something hypnotic about mechanically generated beats, they usually put me off. But the idea of a human being playing and then looping it appeals more to me. I hate quantizing, though. We're humans! We're breathing, and we have a natural pulsation. This obsession with perfection, I think, all starts with digital recording - the idea that you go from complete silence to noise. But life isn't like that. You don't usually go from an environment that's totally silent. There's always an ambience. Also there's a ceiling and a floor to digital recording; the machine just won't recognize sound above a certain decibel level, and I really think that we perceive sound on levels above and below what we actually, consciously hear. Digital sounds can sometimes be really pristine, slicing like little bullets through the air, and sometimes you can be seduced by it. It can sound really powerful, but on a song-by-song comparison, I always gravitate toward the analog. I want the warm, cushy sound. I like the breadth of it.

Have you started to visualize or work on your next wave of material?

Yes. I have big plans. Big, secret plans! [Smile.] I want to delve into an area that I haven't gone into before.

Do tell!