by Dave Polster
Dave Douglas is the owner and chief engineer/producer of Danger House, a professional-level recording space located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Dave and his wife, Rachel, have been operating Danger House since 2010. In addition to his recording background, Dave Douglas is also a world-renowned drummer known for his work with Relient K and Attack Cat. Dave Polster sat down with Dave on behalf of CAPO-The Cleveland Audio Professionals Outreach, to ask him a few questions about his recording techniques and to share advice for any drummer heading into the studio.
 |
Dave Douglas, Chief Engineer at
Danger House Studio
Photo by Jason Miller/Pixelate Ltd.
|
DD: It was actually a pretty major factor when we bought the house. Every place we looked at we were thinking, "OK, we could put a studio in here,” or, "This one isn't going to work."
DP: It seems like you've struck gold with your current house.
DD: It's works great! Being the one who is in here everyday, you know, I'm also like "Aw, I'm in a house. I wanna move out,” but it has served us really well. We're able to keep overhead low and do things affordably for bands. We almost always record drums in the basement, often bass and drums at the same time, and it's no big deal. Sometimes it would be nice to have a proper live room, something more conducive to having a bunch of people playing together at the same time. That’s the biggest drawback. If we really need it, we’ll go elsewhere for those days and come back here for overdubs.
DP: There's always a few tricky workarounds to deal with every now and then.
DD: Exactly. It isn't always ideal but rarely is any facility going to be completely ideal. It works really well and we keep it pretty chill. You can wander downstairs, get something out of the fridge if you need to. That kinda stuff. Working in the house is obviously part of the origin of the name "Danger House", we want to make sure people are doing interesting things and trying to encourage people to do things a little outside of their comfort zone.
DP: Just from looking around I get the sense that this is a place that is very inspiring to creative minds as opposed to a lot of other studios. You've created a comfortable and nice space to get things done.
DD: That's part of the idea. It's like, well, we're in this space and it's a house, so let's go and figure out ways to embrace it.
DP: And sonically, everything still turns out great.
DD: Yeah. It sounds good and we have different textures we use specifically for recording this or that. Even outside of the "normal" area where we usually record things, you can wander around and find out, "Oh! This sounds awesome over here!" and I'll be like, "OK, great! Let's drag a snake over there and we'll just set up a mic. No big deal." There are some advantages to that approach. The other thing too, is just with that comfort factor, just keeping things pretty chill and keeping the overhead lower, etc., there tends to be less pressure. If you go into a nice studio it can be an awesome experience but there's also that added pressure of "Oh we need to get this right, we're on the clock" etc. Things take time and cost money regardless of where you do it but we try and make it as professional, yet casual, as possible.
DP: On a related note, I saw on the Danger House site that one of your main points is "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right." Could you elaborate on that?
DD: All kinds of people come to me and say, "Hey I wanna do this project." and lay out their framework and then I will say, "Awesome. That sounds great. How many songs do you want to do?" and they'll say, "Uh, like 10." and I'll say, "Before we get any further let's figure out what kind of ideas we can come up with in terms of your budget." I would way rather do 4 songs really well than 10 songs that are mediocre. I personally don't think it serves either the artist or myself. My name's on it, their name's on it. We both want it to be fantastic! Let's spend the time to deal with the arrangements, make sure the song structure is good, etc.
I see myself first as a producer so I really like to get involved in projects, and you know, it's still their songs, their band, their project, but I don't just want to hit record. You can go somewhere else if you want someone to just record and keep quiet, because I'm not going to keep quiet. I'm going to want to be involved. I want it to be exciting for all of us, I want it to be better than it would be than if I was just hitting record. I believe that I can do that for most projects.
DP: A lot of the projects I've heard you work on have been inherently "musical." There have been a few tracks that I could see before being pretty straight-forward but you add a lot of nice touches.
DD: You don't really think of yourself as having a "sound" as a producer or engineer, but if you listen to one person's work with several different artists back to back you do start to pick up on things. I really like to get involved. I don't want to take over anyone's project though. I want it to be a collaboration. We are all working on this together and all want it to be as good as it can be.
DP: That's something that a lot of recording engineers can work on too. Like you said, a lot of engineers will just hit record and be done with it.
DD: There's always the aspect that you need to work and pay bills. But given the option, you're going to be excited about projects that you can grab onto and really be a part of. I want to be able to really sink my teeth into it. When it's done, I want to be able to play it for people and be excited about it. I want to be proud of it. I want everyone to walk away feeling they have something fantastic, so we gotta do it right! There's no point otherwise. It's frustrating for everyone, you know? You're making a record. We toss the word "record" around all the time. But if you think about it, we're doing this for posterity. In 40 years, someone could listen to the "record" that you made.
DP: That's what they are going to think of when they think of your group.
DD: Exactly. You play a live show and it's gone. You do it, it's a moment in time and it's done. Well, with recording it is still a moment in time, but it's captured for later reference. So, it's gotta be good and we've gotta do it right and let's take the time to do it right even if that means cutting songs. And that's stuff that we always figure out on the front end when figuring out budgets and whatnot.
DP: It's better to do it that way, definitely.
 |
Dave Douglas in the control room at
Danger House Studio
Photo by Nina Park/Rutabaga Photography.
|
DP: And at this point you have the experience to know how it goes.
DD: Yeah, I try and schedule it all out ahead of time before the project starts.
DP: And then you can have your own life that way too.
DD: Yeah. You can't work on one project at a time. People's schedules just don't line up that way. Sometimes it's 3,4,5,6,7 projects at once and you have to develop schedules to make it work. It's beneficial for everyone to have a good idea of schedule and budget upfront.
DP: And that hits on a touchier part of the recording process. No one likes talking about the money aspect.
DD: Right. It costs money, so let's get that conversation out of the way and then we can be creative, have a good time and enjoy the experience.
DD: Use a metronome! That is probably by far the most important thing you can do. Secondly, be able to balance your playing. You're playing an instrument. One instrument. It doesn't matter how many drums you have, it's still one instrument. Just like a guitar has six strings, well- it's still one instrument. You know when you play a cheap guitar and one or two of the strings seem to be jumping out in a weird way? It just doesn't seem balanced. Same idea with the drums. You've got to be able to balance yourself and that means not playing your cymbals too loudly. I'm the biggest culprit of that. Historically, I just destroy cymbals. It's one of the worst things you can do in your recording, really. I mean, you want to play it with effort of course, and be expressive.
DP: But it's not like you're trying to rock out a full house at a gig or something.
DD: Right, play the drums to the floor. Like play them all out. Drums almost always sound good when they're hit hard, so hit 'em hard. But, don't hit the cymbals like you're trying to break them. They just destroy any good sounds you might be getting. I just gave a drum recording workshop at Malone in Canton. It was myself, [NE Ohio native] Joe Vitale from the Eagles, and his son Joe Vitale Jr. who has played with Crosby, Stills, and Nash and when I saw the press release I was like "Are you kidding me! That's awesome!" One of the things I was stressing was if you can't get a decent, balanced, cohesive sound out of your overheads, then you're just trying to dig yourself out of a hole. If you're crushing your cymbals, you're never going to get a balanced sound.
DP: You're never going to get them out of those mics once they bleed into others as well.
DD: That's it. It doesn't matter what you do, the cymbals are in there. So, do whatever you can to keep that in check. I did this record once recording at this studio called Bay 7 in LA with [producer] Howard Benson and [recording engineer] Mike Plotnikoff. This is a super nice studio where all these people are making platinum records, cranking them out one after another. All-American Rejects had just recorded there, and Hoobastank, Daughtry, all these huge radio bands.
The monitoring setup was limited. In my headphones, the kit was mostly overheads. It was such an interesting thing. I walked away from that saying, "Oh, what a great trick." If you only listen to your overheads while you're playing you automatically start to balance yourself. If you're just destroying the cymbals, you're going to say "Give me more snare." and they'll say no. It's like, "Oh, I actually have to play it the way I want you to record it?" Ingenious. You figure out little tricks like that. It nudges people to be more aware of what they're doing. Be aware of the way your kit sounds. Don't treat it like, "Oh, I'll turn that cymbal up or down later. Or I'll turn the snare up later." If you start with a nice, balanced sound, you're going to make life easier for everyone.
DP: So you were engineering before the Relient K studio experiences, correct?
DD: Yeah, I was going to school for music production. I figured, "Who's in a band that actually makes money?" you know, who knows? So I'm gonna try and learn some production stuff. Growing up my dad had a 4-track, and I was always messing around with it, recording stuff in the basement. I was in school and playing around with local bands and whatnot and that's how I got to know the Relient K guys and started playing with them. So, yeah, I was engineering but in an amateur, student-level way. Relient K got to record with so many incredible people. Top notch producers and top notch engineers. I was always the guy asking questions. "Oh, what do you think about that mic? What settings on that compressor do you like? etc."
Thankfully, people were super cool about it and very kind. Most engineers are excited when somebody is interested in what they have to say about whatever piece of gear or recording technique they use. That's one thing that's great if you're interested in engineering. I was always a fanatic about what gear was in the racks and what mic was on what.
DP: And you already had that recording background to start those conversations.
DD: I knew a little bit about what I was talking about. I learned a ton of stuff from years and years of being around those people and being able to ask those questions. That's where most of my learning really came from. I essentially got little internships with a bunch of people who also happened to have Grammy's.
DP: Well, if you're going to ask anybody, they are the ones to ask! In your mixes, it seems like you make a point to carve out spaces for things specifically. Do you have a general philosophy with creating space in a mix?
DD: It has changed over time. I feel like all of my techniques are constantly evolving and changing. I always feel like I'm making these strides, like "Oh, I've finally turned a corner and am cranking out these awesome mixes now!" and then I'll go and listen to something from a few years ago when I did things totally different and I'm like, "Oh, well that sounds pretty good too..." The heavy work is done just EQ'ing and I almost always EQ before compression. Also, I used to spend way too much time with things soloed, and I really made it a point to spend as little time with anything soloed now. If I can't quite hear it nowadays I'll just turn it up too loud but at least I'll hear it interacting with everything around it. If you solo something up you can make it sound fantastic, but then you un-solo it and you're like, well, now it's gone, or sounds terrible, etc. It's all about context. Sometimes you do things and you're like, "Whoa, that's really starting to sound good" and then you solo it and it sounds terrible, but it really doesn't matter because no one hears it that way. We're trying to make sounds that work together, where you can hear each piece but that piece fits the whole idea. You have to cut out all kinds of garbage. All kinds of great sounds have a ton of garbage when you throw them all together, it'll just all be mud. Pull out the garbage first.
DP: What's your most vital pieces of gear that you have and why?
 |
| Jackson Kelly KE1 Trans Black Source: Photobucket user Johnnyryche |
DD: I used to have a secret weapon guitar, it was a Jackson Kelly, total metal guitar. It was the Marty Friedman (of Megadeth) signature and it was beautiful. All neck through one piece of wood. Single pickup. Just a volume knob, that was it. It sounded so incredible! It had all this grit to it. It might be the Seymour Duncan JB pickup. It had all this grit yet a sense of clarity to it as well. That guitar sounded fantastic and I used to use it on all sorts of projects and then I went through a period where I wasn't using it much and was thinking I'm never going to play it live because it looked ridiculous, so I got rid of it.
I have a Neumann M-147 microphone that I use all the time. It’s a cardioid pattern tube large diaphragm condenser. It's my main vocal mic. It's the same capsule as the Neumann U-47. It's also really good for low-end sound sources too, like bass, upright bass, or kick drum. If you're doing a 4 or 5 mic drum setup, it's awesome to just throw in front of the kit. I have a few Vintech pre's that are similar to Neve's and an Avalon 737 that I use constantly. My main vocal chain is the Vintech pre, and line level into the Avalon to get the tube EQ and compression. And oddly enough, I have a cheap ART all tube preamp. These are like $300 for two channels. I run guitars through this and run it into the red; make the tubes work. It sounds great on distorted guitars. Nothing like a SM57 into a cheap tube preamp and run everything into the red, you know?
DP: I've always heard "It's not the gear that's important so much as who is using it." On behalf of CAPO, I'd like to say thanks for taking the time to speak with us!
