the Sherpas

A CONVERSATION WITH THE SHERPAS (continued)

TPR: I think what makes the Sherpas thing really cool for me is the fact that we have written a whole bunch of stuff together. I mean, all three of us as well as the different pairs. It's not like Crosby, Stills & Nash, where each person brings two or three songs that they've written separately, and they bring them to the group. We actually started together.

ML: We have a good writing chemistry.

TPR: Yeah, we really do.

ML: And that's been a big part of the pleasure of it, too.

TK: And in every combination. Michael and I have written a few songs, and Tom and I have written songs, and these guys have collaborated.

PM: And even the trained ear would be hard pressed to guess the combinations.

TK: Yeah.

PM: And that's a testament to how good the chemistry really is.

TK: Yeah, you're right.

ML: Whereas, you can tell a Stephen Stills tune.

PM: "Our House," let me guess which one wrote that, uh--"Almost Cut My Hair," yeah, I can't imagine.

ML: Right.

PM: So you did find an investor for this record?

TPR: We did. Harry Remmers.

PM: And how did his support come about? Who went to him? I like those details.

ML: He had mentioned in the past that he'd be willing to help, I think.

TPR: I've actually known Harry for a long time. He's from where I used to live in Maryland. And he helped me on my second album, and put up the front money for that album. But he mentioned to Tom that he'd be willing to assist us.

TK: Yeah, a while back. A while back. He said, "If you guys ever want to do something, let me know, I'd be glad to help out." So when we were looking at the dough, and what kind of dough we would realistically need, I said, "Let's call Harry." Any of us could have called him, but I just volunteered. And he was up for it.

PM: And the album cost...seventeen thousand?

ML: No.

PM: Twenty?

TPR: No.

ML: All inclusive? Printing, artwork, everything, to get 1,000 CDs--

TK: I think we figured about fourteen.

PM: Fourteen. Nicely done. That's a damn good record.

TK: But, of course, we played everything ourselves. Tom played all the bass, and the only guys we hired were the drummer, Mickey Grimm, and George Marinelli. And Mike Haynes plays trumpet on one song.

TPR: You were asking before about the gear. Tom Kimmel and I actually have the same identical rigs that Cliff Goldmacher had. We used Protools on a Powerbook G-4.

PM: Protools on a G-4.

TPR: Yeah, using a CBox Interface.

PM: How much does that cost to set up?

TPR: Well, the CBox plus the Protools itself is pretty cheap. It's like $500.

PM: Get out!

TPR: The laptop is around three grand.

PM: Right. But I got a G-3. Can you do it on a G-3?

TK: You can. You can do it on a G-3.

TPR: The plug-ins are what cost a lot. How much did we spend on plug-ins, two or three grand?

ML: Over a grand. I don't know, it was a lot.

TPR: It was more than a couple grand.

PM: There's got to be folks out there as low-tech as me, what does that mean when people say the "plug-ins"?

TPR: Plug-ins, okay. Well, Protools comes loaded with certain reverbs and compressors and all that stuff, but if you're going to do real pro recording, you want better ones than what comes with Protools. You want better reverbs. Better compressors. Better processors. And so those are the things that really cost, in order to get things that really make your project sound good. Those are the plug-ins.

PM: So if you have outboard processors, if you have Lexicons, if you have shit like that, can you use them instead of plug-ins, or...?

TPR: You can. But a lot of people like to stay in the digital realm, and using outboard processors, a lot of times you have to go analog. And it depends on the interface. Like the interface that we have, you can't use outboard processors.

PM: You have to stay in the digital domain.

TPR: You can't even use digital outboard processors, you use a CBox. If you have other interfaces, like the Digi-01 or the Digi-02, you can use other outboard processors, whether they're digital or analog.

For the bass, I just plugged in--I was up in Vermont, and I had time to work with the tracks. Cliffy copied them onto to my external hard drive. So I'm up there for a week. I didn't even have a bass, so I went and bought a bass for like 500 bucks.

PM: What did you buy?

TPR: I bought a Peavey with Active-I electronics, a five-string. It sounded pretty good. So I just plugged it straight into the CBox, no processor, no compressor.

TK: The box is basically like a little Focusrite channel, so it's not like plugging it in direct.

TPR: The CBox has two Focusrite inputs in it.

PM: Really?

TK: Yeah, so it's high quality. It's good.

PM: And where did you get your EQ? That's in Protools too?

TPR: The EQ is one of the plug-ins. And I don't know how exactly, because Cliff and Tom did the final mixes. So I don't know where they did their EQs and compressions and all that stuff.

TK: Cliff would have to tell you.

PM: When you go for better plug-ins, do they have brand names, like this is a Roland reverb and--

TPR: They do have brand names.

TK: Yeah, like you can get a Lexicon plug-in, or--

TPR: There's a bundle of plug-ins that I think Cliff used a lot called Waves, and we used that. Waves, Native Gold.

TK: Yeah, the Native Gold bundle. It's a whole bunch of plug-ins in one group. And there's quite a few things outside that that Cliff said were--something called Channel Strip?

TPR: It's so thin. It's basically a power book and a CBox, and the CBox is about the size of your tape recorder right now. And that's it.

TK: An 80-gig hard drive, totally silent. You can record with it sitting right next to you, no sound, and it's about the size of your tape recorder.

PM: And what did that cost you?

TPR: The hard drive?

PM: Yeah.

TPR: Oh, I mean, 300 bucks or something.

TK: Really? I thought it was more like 800.

TPR: No, no, no.

TK: See, I'm going to get one, because I'm going to use that for recording, and I'm going to put all my publishing stuff on my hard drive.

TPR: It might have been 400, maybe. An 80-gig hard drive.

PM: That's unbelievable. Man, now I'm thinking screw the Roland hard disk. I've got to get into a system like this instead.

TPR: You know what, I had a Roland. Do you have a 16-in?

PM: Yeah.

TPR: I had one of those. I recorded Cary's album with that. I love that.

PM: And what made you go to this new gear?  continue

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