The tenth and final Homegrown CD Award winner is singer-songwriter/fingerstyle
guitarist Chris Bucheit’s Hand to Mouth, a varied collection
of pop songs and instrumentals. The songs evoke a wide range of moods,
from quiet introspection to anger to joy. Their foundation is acoustic
fingerpicked guitar, but touches of electric slide, heavy drum parts,
and other unexpected samples and sounds add an edge. Bucheit is the
only Homegrown winner who recorded and mixed his entire project using
the Roland VS-880 (actually his own 880 and project partner Jason Knox’s
machine slaved together to create a 16-track system). Bucheit admits
that he and Knox went a little crazy on some of the tracks, including
the opening song "Speak to Me," trying out the unit’s various built-in
effects and adding layer upon layer of sound. But Hand to Mouth is
a testament to the depth and variety you can produce with just a portable
digital multitrack, one or two good microphones, and a preamp.
When Bucheit first began writing songs, his focus was on the vocal
melody and the lyrics--the guitar’s role was purely rhythmic. But five
or six years ago he immersed himself in learning to fingerpick and found
himself writing instrumental music for the first time. Hand to Mouth
integrates the two styles, although Bucheit never uses a flatpick
anymore, even on his pop songs. "Instead of picking up a pick every
time I write a song with lyrics, I just keep my fingers on the guitar,"
he explains.
The CD was born when Peppermint Online, a music cooperative based in
St. Paul, Minnesota, invited Bucheit to contribute a track to Peppermint
Sampler, Vol. 2. Bucheit decided to record "Speak to Me" for the
project, and he and drummer/recording engineer Jason Knox pooled their
recording equipment to see what they could come up with in Bucheit’s
"stinky little basement." Between them they had the two Roland units,
an Audio-Technica 4033 mic, a Sunrise soundhole pickup, and a Pendulum
preamp. "We had hardly any equipment," says Bucheit, "and we actually
made it sound pretty good. So we decided to do a whole album’s worth."
Bucheit generally takes a full-steam-ahead approach to songwriting;
he finds that the songs that come quickly and don’t require a lot of
editing and re-editing tend to be the strongest. "‘Lovers' Last Day’
was one of those lucky things where it was just stream-of-consciousness,"
he recalls. "I came up with the fingerpicking hook, turned on the VS-880,
and it just gurgled out of my mouth. I came back the next day, hit play,
wrote everything out, and then just fine-tuned it."
Most of the cuts began with a rhythm loop or drum machine over which
Bucheit laid down the basic track with acoustic guitar and vocals. The
rhythm track kept the tempo rock-solid so that he and Knox could add
parts cleanly, and it was often replaced or paired with real drum parts
for a more natural sound. Bucheit would generally rerecord the guitar
part and then build the track from there, adding such lo-tech sampled
sounds as a wrench dropping onto a concrete floor or the thud of a Rubbermaid
plastic garbage can. "Jason just kept compressing, compressing, compressing
until it sounded like a huge bass drum," says Bucheit.
They used the Audio-Technica mic and Pendulum preamp for just about
everything, including the vocals, an idea Bucheit picked up from singer-songwriter
Patty Larkin. "It was fairly transparent," he says, "and it was a good
match for my voice. It toned down my sibilance. Sometimes we’d use the
Sunrise pickup on the guitar, sometimes we’d do a stereo miking setup
with the 4033 and a dynamic mic, and sometimes we just used the 4033.
When we started recording the drums, we borrowed a couple of AKGs for
overheads."
Additional effects were created by fusing together sounds created by
everything from an EBow string vibrator to a melodica (mouth organ).
Bucheit recalls, "The guy that mastered the album said, ‘How did you
make that sound on "Speak to Me"?’ It was Jason humming, kind of buzzing
his lips. We would do lots of things with the EBow, too, maybe double
it or put something on top of it. There’s also a pile driver sound on
‘Hand of Man’ that came off of one of those K-Tel sound effects CDs."
Other instrumental parts they recorded included the mandolin and electric
guitar work of Bucheit’s guitar teacher Mark Stumme and cello (on "Left
a Few Things") by Beth Woodward. Some of the guest musicians were recorded
in Knox’s apartment. "He bought some near-field monitors," Bucheit recalls.
"We had the person do three takes, and sometimes we’d cut and snip takes.
They’d sit out in the living room, and we’d run a mic cable out there.
That VS-880 generated a lot of noise, so you had to be on the other
side of the wall."
Another challenge Bucheit faced in using the Roland VS-880 was the
fact that the faders needed to be reset for every session. "In a studio,
you’ve got automated faders," he says. "You grab them and pull them
up and down, and the next time you come back it does it automatically.
With the Roland, you have to go in there and set edit points, and it’s
very, very tedious. The other drawback is that tiny little screen you
have to hunch over."
But Bucheit also had a lot of praise for the Roland unit. "Almost all
the effects were in the 880," he says. "All my electric guitar work
used the Roland’s amp simulations. Some of them really stink, but if
you want, like, a Fender Tweed sound, it’s dead on. You just plug your
guitar in there and sound like a Fender Tweed."
Generally speaking, Bucheit and Knox tracked to one of the VS-880s
and then when they mixed everything they slaved both of their 880s together.
"You had to back up everything separately," Bucheit explains, "but you
can slave them together so they’re synced, so it became a 16-track mix-down
process. Sometimes we’d have three tracks on the acoustic guitar, drums
always took three or four, the electronic drum machine took something,
lead vocal was sometimes a double--it fills up pretty quick." Oasis
Recordings printed the CDs, and Peppermint Online fulfills the orders
and does some publicity.
Bucheit has since sold his Roland VS-880 and is now working with a
Macintosh computer outfitted with Mark of the Unicorn’s 1224 system,
which features Audio Desk/Digital Performer software and a PCI soundcard.
He’s been studying jazz guitar and playing with a bass player and drummer.
For his next recording project, he plans to take a more organic approach
and capture the whole trio performing each tune. "It’s kind of a jazz
sensibility," Bucheit says of the new music he’s writing, "but we’d
probably offend jazz purists."
He plans to spend the $1,000 Sweetwater Sound gift certificate that
comes with his Homegrown award on Allegro music notation software and
an upgrade to the Digital Performer software for his 1224 system. Hand
to Mouth can be purchased on the Web from Peppermint Online, www.peppermintcds.com.
The learn more about Chris Bucheit, go to www.chrisbucheit.com.
––Simone Solondz
This is the last installment of our Homegrown CD Awards. Thanks to
everyone who submitted a CD and to the folks at Sweetwater Sound for
the generous $1,000 worth of equipment awarded to each of the ten winners.
We also selected two runners-up out of the hundreds of recordings we
received: Matthew Dunne’s Music in the Missions, a beautifully
recorded program of contemporary and ageless classical guitar music
performed at Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas; and Orville Johnson’s
Slide and Joy!, which features Johnson’s adept and expressive
Dobro playing on jazz, R&B, Latin, and bluegrass instrumentals.
We will be releasing a compilation CD entitled The Artists Label
Collection in March that includes a track from each of these 12
outstanding, self-made recordings. For more information, call (800)
827-6837 or visit us on the Web at www.acousticguitar.com.
Check out the other
winners online.
Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine,
March 2001, No.99.
