Nimbus School of Recording Arts Peak Performance Project - Kevin Shuttleworth

SEP

2012

Music, mountains and the Peak Performance Project Bootcamp – Kevin Shuttleworth

by voice

My experience at the 2012 Peak Performance Project was truly something else. I met some really amazing and talented people, and had the privilege of helping them turn the ideas in their heads into amazing music. I ate like a king 3 times a day and was subjected to some of the most beautiful landscapes and scenery that I had ever seen.

DAY 1

Our journey was begun Monday morning. I gathered with a few familiar faces, and a few new ones. The Nimbus crew included myself, Oliver Hart, Brendan “Off-Key” Stookey, Isaac “Curtis” Min, Evan Clarke, Joshua Field, and of course the legends themselves, Paul Boechler and Nygel Asselin. Little did I know how close we would become in the following days. We saddled up our noble GMC, Sir Boechler at the reigns, and drove on our merry way, discussing music, life, and everything in between, until we reached the land of Princeton. There we would beseech the Dairy Queen for some of her delicious fried meat and frosty treats. We thanked her and headed on our way. It was only a short jaunt until we reached the dirt road beyond the gates of Rockridge Canyon. Though it was a bumpy ride, it felt as though I was entering some foreign land where strange and exciting things were about to about to happen.

We finally reached our destination and it was a sight to see. The mountains were tall and rife with green trees, and the lake shimmered as though it were a sheet of glass. We were quickly shown our quarters, and got to work right away. Our task was to set up both a control room and a live room for our producers. Apparently bunk bed theft is an major issue at Rockridge, as we had to unbolt the frames from the wall with a ratchet. Furnishings were moved, Pro Tools rigs were assembled, but we were not quite ready to retire for the evening. We soon created a free throw competition involving taped up balls of paper, garbage bins, milk crates and boxes. If I do recall correctly, one Brendan Stookey ended up being the victor, ousting Nygel from the top spot.

DAY 2

Tuesday was where the madness began. The students were to meet with their respective producers, and then join them for pre-production with the artists. After consuming large quantities of bacon at breakfast, I had the benefit of extending my hand to Winston Hauschild, a man whom I had met on a sunny Bowen Island afternoon nearly a year prior. I had heard great things about Winston, and was excited to be paired up with him. As a fly on the wall, I was present for his pre-pro conversations with the two artist pairings he had been assigned to, Redgy Blackout with T.Nile, and Headwater with Dominique Fricot. It was very inspirational seeing the different methods and perspectives the artists had when it came to songwriting, as well as the approaches Winston took to nurture their ideas. Even in these early stages I could tell we had some very talented individuals on our hands, and I couldn’t wait to hear the finished products.

After dinner, it was time for the annual Peak hockey game, featuring the artists clashing sticks with the faculty, producers and Nimbus folk. Nygel strapped in to stand between the pipes. I don’t find the final score necessary to provide, as it was just for fun. In the end, however, the artists prevailed, although I’m sure things might be different if I had had a little more ice time.

I believe sometime around 3 or 4 in the morning, while I was almost fully asleep, Nygel came through my room and asked where I was keeping the granola bars, or something to that effect. This sent me off into a strange dream where I was the farmer in the opening scene of Inglorious Basterds, only instead of hiding Holocaust refugees beneath my house, I was hoarding granola bars. Thanks Nyg.

DAY 3

On Wednesday, it was time to prepare for the tracking that would take place at 2200 hours. Winston had tasked me with the construction of a drum hut built around the entrance of the live room washroom, or “Reverb Chamber” as Winston would refer to it as. I jotted down some ideas in my notebook of how I might make this practical. Eventually we settled on a squared off set-up with dressers perpendicular to the walls, and the opening facing the windows. I had to find some way to fasten the mattresses to the backs of the dressers to deaden the early reflections. Luckily, I was able to secure some ratchet straps from the backseat of the truck. I believe it was at this point that Winston entered the room, and we tried to brainstorm a method of building a roof for our hut. After some half-assed thoughts involving brooms, I took a glance out the window, and suggested we grab some branches. Winston agreed, and we grabbed four, 12 foot dead branches from the brush outside. We laid them out over the dressers, followed by more mattresses. My fellow students and I also disassembled some beds to craft a drum riser. At last, the drum hut was complete.

After the first showcase, which ran from 7 PM til 10 PM, it was time to start recording. Our first artist pairing was Jonas Shandel and Matt Bryant of Headwater and Dominique Fricot. Malcolm Holt of the Gay Nineties provided drums. When I assembled his kit earlier in the day, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. The snare was covered in a blood spatter, The hi-hat cymbal was cracked, and there was no mount for the rack tom. I would soon find out that this was a result of Malcolm’s playing style, as the guy can pound the skins like a fucking beast. Bass was slapped by Erik Nielsen, who provided an awesome groove that really held the track together.

After tracking was finished, Winston showed his tutorial of drum and bass editing. I edited later into the wee hours of the morning until I could no longer keep my eyes open.

It was very inspirational seeing the different methods and perspectives the artists had when it came to songwriting, as well as the approaches Winston took to nurture their ideas. Even in these early stages I could tell we had some very talented individuals on our hands, and I couldn’t wait to hear the finished products.

DAY 4

I awoke on Thursday in a severe chill. Shawn Cole, Nygel and Paul thought it would be funny to make frequent visits to our control room “Reverb Chamber”, and I had forgot that I’d left the windows open to banish the errant stench they left in their wake. This would not be the first time. I proceeded to drag myself out of bed and headed to get breakfast.

In between being the wheel man that day, hauling gear up to the cabin and finishing up the editing, I managed to jury rig what I’ve dubbed a “Wildlife and Landscape Appreciation Station” together using a mic stand and some binoculars. I’m sure those who used it appreciated the change of scenery from staring at a computer screen.

During the filming of the showcase that night, Evan and I were allowed to cue the crossfades between the two camera feeds, which was pretty fun, I must say.

Tracking that night began with vocals. We had a “shootout” to see which mic would be used. The contenders were a U87, and SM7 and a strange mic from the far east that Jonas and Matt had brought in. In the end, this mic took the cake. It was pretty great to hear the way the 3 guys built harmonies off of each other’s voices, and traded vocal parts.

Once the vocals were wrapped up, Michelle Faehrmann, Hannah Epperson, and Michael Fraser of Four on the Floor arrived to track strings. Their performance was my personal favourite flair to the song, and, in my opinion, really helped the recording feel “alive”.

By the time strings were finished, it was getting quite late. It must’ve been around 3:00 in the morning. There were many people passing through our control room for a listen at this point, including an appearance by Ryan Guldemond of Mother Mother. Shawn Hall of The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer happen to wander in, and he rallied the troops to record the awesome gang vocal that is heard on the latter part of the song.

After everything had come to a close, I was remorseful that we weren’t working with Headwater and Dom anymore, but was nonetheless excited for the next day.

DAY 5

Now my memory may be betraying me, but I believe on Friday at around 7:30 AM, Paul, Nygel, Josh, Stookey and I, who were all running on little to no sleep, decided to jump into the lake. On the count of 3, everyone but Paul jumped in. The water was at a pleasant freeze-shock your balls until they die temperature. Nevertheless, we were wide awake for breakfast.

After eating, I decided to try and catch a few hours rest. I fell asleep to the sound of Winston editing, and awoke to the sound of Nygel yelling “FIRE!” about 2 feet from my face.

It was the day of bedtrack recording for Redgy Black and T.Nile. After the showcase, I had to rush back to the cabin to set up and mic a drum kit. We had a few issues eliminating the rattle from the floor tom, but eventually drums were tracked. The highlight of the song for me was the driving bassline provided by Marcus Abramzik.

DAY 6

Early Saturday I believe we had Carly Walde in to track vocals for the “Call Me Maybe” parody. It was also the birthplace for the idea to have Shawn and Nygel shave their beards.

At some point during the day, the Nimbus students went down to lend their voices to Condor, who needed to record a gang vocal for one of the songs he was working on.

That evening we recorded guitar, banjo, and Scott Perrie’s vocals. It was cool to hear him out of his comfort zone, using phrasings with his voice that he might not otherwise use.

DAY 7

On Sunday during the day, T.Nile was in to record her vocals. After that had wrapped up, tracking was finally complete. Most of my afternoon was spent trying to locate a table so that I could set up an editing station for Winston in the common room of our cabin.

That evening was one of my favourite moments from the trip. Paul and I went down to the main lodge, and set up a 414 Blumlein pair in the center, and two 451s angled downwards on the balcony above the stage. The plan was to help Condor get as many people as we could to record a gang vocal for the Fields of Green/River & the Road collaboration. Once everyone was present, I got to join in too. After the vocal was recorded, we moved on to stomps and claps. We caused such a shake that the cable fell out of Paul’s rig. Twice.

DAY 8

On Monday, the producers had to have mixes printed by 6pm. I helped Winston set up mattresses around the ProTools rig so that his mixing station would be a little more sound.

After that was taken care of, Shawn put me to work doing some drum samples. At this point the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll on me, and I managed to fuck them up. The end result was a pretty hilarious set of death metal drum tracks. Everyone had a good laugh and I fixed them up.

That night we were all to listen back to the songs that had been crafted over the course of the week. After a few headaches getting everyone’s mixes down to the listening room, it was finally time to hear what everyone had been working on. Going through the songs was really awesome, as was having all the memories of the recording process come flooding back.

As that came to a close, the Nimbus students went back up to the cabin to tear pretty much everything down for the next morning. I tried to do this as fast as possible so I could join the party.

There was dancing, drinking, singing and good times to be had on our last night together. At one point about 50 of the artists were crammed into one room all singing songs, using bottles as percussion, and just generally rocking out. It was pretty amazing.

It was quite a bittersweet feeling as the night wound down, like graduating high school all over again. As the last of the infamous Ballentine’s was polished off, I decided it was time to retire for the evening.

DAY 9

At breakfast Tuesday morning, I enjoyed my last massive pile of bacon. We headed back up to the cabin, emptied the rooms and packed all of our gear into the truck. We waved goodbye to Rockridge Canyon. Driving through the mountains listening to the songs we had all worked on was pretty surreal.

As we were about to leave Princeton, we were informed that Ali Milner and Erik’s truck had broke down, so we went and rescued them at an auto body shop.

The rest of the ride was spent dozing off and reflecting on the crazy week I’d just had. Also jamming out to Top 40 Pop music with Nygel and the boys.

After we arrived back at Nimbus, I trained back to my apartment, crawled into bed and went comatose for about 18 hours.

My week at the Peak was possibly the best one I’ve ever had.

–Kevin Shuttleworth