Chris Garges of Bunky Moon

Chris Garges is best known as one of the region’s premier recording studio engineers, and as an in-demand, rock and jazz drummer in the southeastern US. His client list spans hundreds of established artists, and includes this blog’s author as a repeat customer. On the live front, you can see Chris regularly drumming for rock legend/producer Mitch Easter, as well as drumming in Washington D.C.’s The Public Good, and he can also be caught playing progressive jazz on any night he’s not recording.

Recently Chris just finished recording his own rock/jazz/prog project Bunky Moon, which is interpretive of some of Chris’s favorite tunes. I’ve found the Bunky Moon recordings to be instrumentally visionary with a delightful 60′s tone pallete. Chris recreates songs like “Boris the Spider,”  and “Maybe I’m Amazed” with originals like “Hypermobility” in unexpected, yet unique ways that showcase Garges and company’s love of eccentric rock via jazz and prog. Need I say more? Take a listen to this freshly mastered sample:

Boris The Spider by Bunky Moon

With Chris’s expertise as a studio engineer, I thought a good angle for this interview would be for Chris to demystify how amplified guitars and microphones interact. While a lot of us understand the tone coming out of our amplifiers, many guitar players struggle with translating their tone through a microphone in both live and recorded environments.

Chris has also introduced me to some unique sounding pedals, such as the Chuck Collins Interfax Harmonic Percolator (a secret weapon Chris uses in the studio, and also used by fellow engineer/producer Steve Albini of Big Black and Shellac).

So without further introduction, let’s dive into the world of Chris Garges and tone!

Name:

Chris Garges

Band(s):

Mitch Easter’s touring band, Bunky Moon, The Public Good, Big Octave, A Town Called Robot (I’m officially the drummer in these bands)

Studio(s):

Old House Studio (As a freelancer, I often work at other studios, as well, but Old House is my favorite base of operations)

Links:

• www.chrisgarges.com
• www.oldhousestudio.com
• www.reverbnation.com/bunkymoon
• www.thepublicgoodonline.com

Do you play guitar on any of the Bunky Moon songs? What was your role on this project?

Troy Conn played all the guitar on the Bunky Moon record. I played drums and keyboards and did a few other oddball overdubs. I was also the engineer and sort of executive producer from an audio standpoint. Daniel Grimmett assisted me in the recording, but I dictated the setup and engineered all the overdubs. There are also some bonus cuts that I mixed, although the album (Schtuff We Like) was mixed by my good friend and (non-Bunky Moon) bandmate Mitch Easter. I decided to ask Mitch to do it because A) he’s REALLY good at what we wanted to do with the record and B) I wanted to take some of the responsibility off. We chose wisely. He did a great job with it, although everyone involved (the band, Daniel, mastering engineer Scott Craggs, and graphic artist Shawn Lynch) just knocked it out of the park, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve been getting really good feedback and press on it so far and it not officially out… until May 17th.

How long did it take to record the Bunky Moon project, and where did you record it?

Technically, it took maybe five or six short days to record and three days to mix, although that was spread out over several months. We did all the tracking at Old House Studio outside of Charlotte and then mixed at Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium in Kernersville. Scott Craggs mastered it at Old Colony Mastering in Boston.

How did you get the guitar tone on “Boris the Spider”?

Most of the album was recorded the same way. Troy got a sound that he liked coming out of two different amps and I tried to capture what that sounded like. That’s my usual method for recording guitars. For “Boris,” that meant Troy’s Custom Ari Lahtela Walnut Telecaster, his Oldfield Club 20 amp, and one of the studio’s custom amps– an Alexander Dumble amp clone built by Scott Applegate, with the signal to the two split by a Lexicon MPX110 stereo reverb unit. I’m not totally sure what kind of pedals Troy may have had in-line for that particular song, but what you hear on the album would have (hopefully) been pretty much what it sounded like to stand in front of those amps. I had a Coles 4038 ribbon mic on the Oldfield, going through a vintage Telefunken V72 tube mic preamp (probably the most classic “tube preamp” in existence) and the Old House amp had an Audio Technica 4050 in figure-eight, with the high-pass filter engaged, also through a V72 mic preamp. No EQ or compression. There was an ambient mic as well– a vintage Neumann U87 in the omni pattern with the high-pass filter engaged. That went through a Sytek preamp with Burr Brown op amps and then a 1974 API 550A equalizer, just to take some rumbly low-mids out of the room sound. When Mitch mixed it, there was very little EQ (if any) on the guitar amps. There is one guitar overdub on “Boris” and that’s at the head out, after the solo. The basic track had a kind of slip of the fingers that sounded ridiculous, so we added another guitar on top of that with even nastier chords, instead of fixing it, just to make it even funnier. Other than that, there’s just the one guitar on that song.

Any guitar tones that you would like to demystify from the Bunky Moon CD?

It really is mostly just the one guitar performance throughout the record. Not many overdubs. We switched up guitars and amps and pedals for each song, but didn’t add much on top of what Troy played during the basic tracking, which was all live. We did do a few funky things, just for fun, where in addition to the “normal” guitar mics, we would record something more bizarre– maybe an odd mic in a terrible-sounding location or we’d overload the mic preamp of the additional mic or maybe we’d do the same thing with Troy’s talkback mic and print that. That way, we had some extra textures that we could bring in and out on certain songs or in certain sections of songs without resorting to overdubs. We approached the bass and drums the same way and if you listen carefully, that’s kind of the secret to why the album comes across like it does. In reality, there are very few overdubs on the record, so it’s really just the performances, but they’re recorded in interesting ways that allowed for some oddball stuff without having to have a million different parts. I think the result is an album that feels like live performances, but doesn’t get boring or seem too “documentary.” A lot of my favorite albums have a similar feel to them. Also, in the grand tradition of the greatest prog rock bands, we’ve included a lengthy and accurate gear list in the credits section of the CD cover that might be amusing to some “techy” people.

I will say that we LOVE the guitar sound we got on our version of Deep Purple’s “Maybe I’m A Leo.” The basic guitar part was recorded as described above (Tele replaced by a Gibson Les Paul Studio with a Fulltone OCD pedal in front of the Oldfiled and the Dumble replaced by a vintage Vox Pacemaker with an Old House Custom Klon Centaur clone in front of it), but we added two “accent guitars” that doubled (or sometimes tripled) parts of the melody. One of them was an Epiphone ’59 Les Paul Gold Top reissue through a tiny, awful-sounding Fender Squier amp and the other was the Epiphone Gold Top into a Marshall half-stack, but through a Boss OC2 octave pedal. The effect of all that is pretty huge.

I usually ask about the live pedal chain, but in your case, perhaps you can showcase and name the make and model of a few of your tone boxes.

At Old House, we have a plethora of pedals available (you can see the list on the website), but here are a few of the ones that I own that get a lot of use. I often bring these with me if I’m doing a session at another studio.

1. Tuner- I have three different tuners: a really good, really complicated one, a normal, reliable one, and a kind of simple “tuner for dummies.” The Boss TU-2 gets the most use.
2. Boss TR-2 tremolo- I’ve had this for years and a it’s a totally, great-sounding, extremely flexible, easy-to-use tremolo that sounds great on a bunch of instruments.
3. Chuck Collins Interfax Harmonic Percolator- A sort of secret weapon for me. It’s a bizarre distortion pedal that can add a little bit of subtle sparkle or a really nasty, nasty, harmonic complexity.
4. Paul Cochran Timmy (v2)- a line boost/distortion that can be really nice for just adding a bit “more” of something. Not necessarily gain, but biggness or tone or something hard to describe.
5. Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi- The classic. It can be tricky to dial in, especially on bass, but it just works so well for the huge thing.
6. Electro Harmonix Holy Stain- What a great-sounding reverb pedal! Lots of flexibility… Great for amps without built-in ‘verb. The other effects on it are pretty good, too.
7. Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer- Also a classic. Rarely gets used on guitars, but I use it all the time on keyboards, and on drums and vocals and stuff during a mix.
8. Old House Custom Klon Centaur clone- Built by Scott Applegate. This thing is such a great distortion. Troy Conn liked mine so much that he had Scott build him one, too!
9. Old House Custom Regulus VIII fuzz clone- Another pedal I had Scott Applegate build for me based on the fuzz circuit from the Os Mutantes records. Totally outrageous, broken-sounding fuzz.
10. Tech 21 Sans Amp Classic- I know–what a 90′s guy thing to use–but it really doesn’t get old for me. Just a little bit behind a drumkit or on a bass or vocal goes a long way in a mix.

Oh, wait– it just occurred to me that I HAVE to add a number 11: My Trek II Leslie preamp pedal. Technically, maybe it’s not really a pedal since it’s basically just an interface to the Leslie speaker, but without it, I wouldn’t be able to record guitars, vocals, bass, or other keyboard sounds through my Leslie 122 cabinet and that’s a glorious sound!

I have so many others that I love, but those are probably my current favorites.

Preferred Instrument(s):

Drums! (HAHA!) As far as guitars, in a recording situation, whatever is appropriate, but I personally have a soft spot for Rickenbackers. I also love SGs. And some of my favorite guitarists are hard-core Strat guys. I’m also a sucker for the slightly unusual instruments like 12-strings, baritone guitars, lap steels, etc.

Cable brand:

Mogami with Neutrik connectors (I usually make my own)

Pedal board used: N/A (I assume you don’t use one)

I do have to say that I’ve got one of those old Korg PME pedal boards with the modular effects units and it’s pretty badass. Probably not what you mean, though.

Amp(s) and Cabinet(s) used live: – Maybe name a few that you like to have people record through

I own a Vox AC30 that gets used a lot, but I also really like small amps. My two favorites that always win people over are my very rare, late 60s solid-state Vox Pacemaker and my oddball little Airline tube amp made for the Mongomery Ward department store chain. I’ve heard consistently good-sounding original Matchless, Orange, and Matamp amps. And the newer Fender Hot Rod Deluxes sound great with a Tone Tubby speaker in them. Very versatile. I’m not terribly picky, though. If the sound coming out of the amp is awesome, then making an awesome-sounding record is A LOT easier.

In four words or less, how would describe your approach to using pedals?

Imagine “Also sprach Zarathustra”

Editor’s Note: Check out this link to further explain Chris’s answer.

What is your pedal philosophy?

Pedals are a fun way to experiment easily with different sounds. They’re a nice way to add a different kind of texture on an overdub or to give a guitar sound a little something extra if it needs that. I also love using pedals on stuff in a mix because a lot of times, pedals are capable of very simple versions of awesome sounds that aren’t always readily available in the studio rack boxes. It’s also easier to get some fresh inspiration by adding a new pedal every once in while than it is to drop a few thousand bucks on a fancy studio box!

Have you experimented with pedals in different positions in a sound-chain? If so, explain the order preference of your pedal chain.

I do think about the order of things, but it’s always on a sound-by-sound basis. Since I don’t have to have the setup work the same way over an entire gig, I have the luxury of seeing what works for the song. The tuner’s usually first, though, followed by some kind of distortion, then the “effects.” It’s usually important to establish the basic tone before coloring it with reverbs, delays, choruses, or whatever. My friend Chris Cooper, who’s a terrific guitarist and a really tone-conscious guy, really got me thinking a while back about how different effects work together. He was in this struggle to find the perfect wah-wah/envelope filter tremolo kind of effect and we talked about it a good bit. It really made me think about that kind of thing– creating weird sounds through different combinations of effects– in a way that I hadn’t before.

In terms of using pedals in the control room (in the mixing stage), I usually find myself blending a bit of “modifed” pedal signal in with the original signal through a console aux send or buss. This is easy to do on a real, well-designed console, where you can control the signal level going to the pedal, as it can be easy to blow up some pedals by sending full-on +4 balanced line-level signals into them. (I’m big into unity gain, too.) The tricky thing with doing this is getting the phase right when combining the two signals. It seems like every little adjustment can mess with that, so it’s important for me to check the phase with the flat signal, then again if I EQ or filter anything.

I’m just curious if I hear a Mooger Fooger ring modulator on “Hypermobility”?

Good ears. Troy’s got a Ring Modulator and a Murf, both of which loom large on “Hypermobility.”.

How settled are you on your current pedal set-up?

I’m very happy with the ones that I have, but I’m always buying new ones. My friend Dan Hood is usually a good source for turning me on to new, fun stuff. He’s a bit of a pedal geek as well and has great taste in guitar tones. Scott Applegate is the same way. We have new pedals popping up at Old House all the time.

What pedals and pedal combination have you found interesting?

I’ve been experimenting a lot with various pedals on bass in the tracking stage lately, especially in front of a DI. (The Bunky Moon record was pretty much the extremity in this regard.) If I have time to goof around with that during the setup, I’ll go ahead and print it. If not, I might throw something in line during the mix or if I reamp the bass signal, which I’ve also been doing a bit of lately. I’ve also been doing more guitar amp splitting and recording two amps at once, again, if I have time. Sometimes it’s tricky and a bit time-consuming to get that set up, but if there’s time for that kind of thing on a project, it’s often worth the experimentation.

I really, really love terrible-sounding distortion pedals and have been fortunate to have several friends “donate” their worst ones to me. I have quite a collection. One other thing that I LOVE is the sound of a dying distortion pedal. I keep a bunch of almost-dead batteries around in order to get certain kinds of guitar sounds. The problem is that those almost-dead batteries have a limited lifespan, so it’s important to try and get the sound set up and captured as quickly as possible in one or two takes. Otherwise, you have to put in another dying battery which might sound different from the previous one. (You can hear this on one of the guitar overdubs towards the end of the guitar solo on “Hypermobility.” The guitar kind of goes away by the end of the bass solo, though, because they battery completely died!) It’s fun stuff, though.

What pedals do you have that aren’t used, and which ones would you like to acquire?

I guess in my case, the Mr. Fazedelic pedal is an extremely cool pedal, but it seems like phasers are sort of out of vogue these days– or at least people seem less interested in that sound– so it doesn’t get as much use as I wish it did.

I would love to have one of the Moog 12-stage phaser pedals. Just haven’t shelled out for one yet. Of course, your Mosrite pedal is pretty great! I’d love to have one of those! And one of these days, I’ll get a Prescription Experience pedal. And I’d REALLY love to have a Mutron Bi-Phase for that Big Star “Thirteen” vocal sound. There’s also a couple that pop up on ebay occasionally that I’m not going to mention just yet.

Do any of your guitar heroes use a pedal similar setup?

I’m a pretty big David Gilmour fan, so pedals have always been okay in my book. Andy Summers, too. Tchad Blake is a big engineering influence, so in terms of studio pedal usage, the things that he does have had a huge effect (pardon the pun) on my work, even though my stuff doesn’t sound like his. I’m just not that good!

If you had one pedal, what would it be (besides a tuner)?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. Maybe the Harmonic Percolator because it’s such a weird and useful pedal. When it’s the right thing, it’s REALLY the right thing and it’s often surprising. That and NO ONE ELSE has ever brought one of those into the studio. But the Sans Amp and TS9 get a bunch of time in the control room, so that’s really hard to say.

What pedals have been disappointing & why?

Hands-down, the Danelectro Sitar Swami. I bought it when it first came out, so this has been going on for almost a decade, but I’ve sort of got a bet going with anyone who comes into the studio and finds a real use for it. Just turning it on and letting it make its annoying sound doesn’t count. It’s got to be some real contribution. For nearly ten years, no one’s been able to do it, but I just CAN’T bring myself to get rid of it. I never for one second thought that it was going to sound anything like a sitar at all, but I also never for one second thought that it would be such an utterly useless pedal. I think if you could adjust any of the parameters on it, it might be pretty great.

How important is your pedal selection with a guitar and amp rig?

It depends on the setup. Some people just need a little help in the tone department and something subtle like the Harmonic Percolator or the Timmy can really be the right thing to make something exciting. Other times, some guys come in with a stellar sound with one cable going from the guitar to the amp. I like having a bunch of pedals around, though, just because even when they’re not some kind of session-saver, they can be fun to goof around with if people are in the mood to do some goofing around. I like textures and pedals are a great way to get some of that happening.

How do you like to set the tone(s) on your guitar and amplifier?

Whatever’s either going to be completely and totally un-noticable because it fits the song so well or something so over-the-top awesome that it really gets someone excited. Sound itself can be really exciting. In more hands-on terms, I probably find myself suggesting that guitarists back off a bit of their gain more than anything else in the studio. Sometimes all that fuzz that sounds really good and exciting live can be a little bit on the muddy side on a recording.

I have a few more questions for you in the realm of the guitarist’s sound-chain – in that the microphone is part of that. I think your .02 would be greatly appreciated by guitarists. We like our fingers, guitars, pedals, and amps, but we need input from an experienced sound engineer to really understand how that translates to both recording and playing live.

Let’s talk about microphones. What microphones do you prefer to use on guitars in the studio & why? I know you probably like to experiment, but what have you found that works best for recording?

Since this is a pedal site, I assume we’re talking electric guitars. As a VERY general statement, I like ribbon microphones on most guitar amps. There’s something about the way a ribbon mic responds to air movement and the limitations of basic ribbon mic design make them really useful for capturing what’s good about a guitar sound. They’re fragile, though, and not always tolerant of loud sounds, so sometimes a ribbon mic isn’t the answer. In those cases, or in the case of a dark-sounding amp that needs every bit of detail preserved, I might use something brighter, like a high-quality condenser mic. If I’m recording a TOTALLY raging amp or if I need less detail, I might use a dynamic mic. For instance, on a lot of the “chug chug” metal guys, I might use mics where the frequency response is tailored to be useful on bass drums. That kind of thing can be really helpful. But I think it’s important to listen to the sound coming out of the amp first and then decide what it needs. Does the amp sound muddy? Then a brighter mic is probably going to be the thing. Is the amp all mid-range? Then something with a bright, forward mid-range probably isn’t the best choice. (Same goes for preamp selection, etc.) I usually weigh these factors and then make my decision. Then I might listen in the control room and realize I’ve made a mistake and start all over again!

Specifically, I tend to use these mics on guitar amps frequently: Coles 4038, RCA BK5A, RCA 77DX, Beyer M500, Beyer M160, Royer 121, Oktava ML52, Lomo 19A9, Neumann CMV563/M7, Neumann U47FET, Audio Technica 4050, Audio Technica 4047, Audio Technica 4051, B&K 4001, Avenson STO-2, Sennheiser MD409, Beyer M88, EV 653A, AKG D112, AKG D12E, Shure SM77 (not the 57 and not the SM7). For ambient mics, I tend to like the Neumann U87, AKG 414, Oktava MC012, EV 635A, or RCA BK1.

What type of microphone placement also seems to work well in the studio?

I think understanding how the speakers make a sound and how the microphones capture a sound is the key to all that. Different speakers in a cabinet often sound different, so it’s good to figure out what each speaker sounds like and start from there. Speakers generally put out the brightest, most aggressive sound right in the middle of the cone. That’s where you know you’ve got the brightest, most aggressive spot you’re going to get out of the mic you’re using. I usually start in that spot and adjust as needed. (I often use a flashlight to see the center of the cone.) I know that as I move the mic outward from the center, the sound gets darker. I know that directional microphones usually exhibit an enhanced proximity effect, which means that the closer the mic is to the source, the more low frequency information will be represented by mic placement. A bidirectional ribbon mic generally has more proximity effect than a caridoid mic and an omnidirectional mic is generally devoid of proximity effect caused by mic placement close to a speaker. (Phase interference caused by reflections off of a wall or the floor is another matter.) Moving certain mics closer or farther away can affect the way the low frequency information is captured. But taking this kind of stuff into consideration and knowing what your mics and speakers sound like can allow you to tailor the recording to a certain type of sound rather than limiting you to one way to capture whatever’s there with the idea that you’ll mess it up… uh… I mean, mess with it later. I also usually like recording with some kind of ambient component to the sound, since guitar players and audience members don’t generally listen to the speaker from inches away, where the close mics are. Even a little bit of a room mic can make for a more realistic representation of the guitar sound, especially on a basic rhythm guitar part. An ambient mic can also be a nice component in creating depth through stereo and/or binaural recording techniques, but that’s a LONG discussion.

What types of microphones should guitarist use live? Most of us have to settle with the old trusty SM57. What types of mics do you think would be best – something both affordable and durable for live sound? Also – can you demystify the microphone placement (ie – on-axis, off-axis, in front of the cone, at 45* from the side, etc).

I’m not a huge SM57 fan. They make a noise that can be wrangled into submission with EQ and you can drop them and they probably won’t break, but to me, that’s where their usefulness really shines. They don’t reject nearly as well as many other mics, their off-axis sound isn’t very good, and there’s very little accurate about the way that they sound when compared to the human ear. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any durable, inexpensive mics that totally rule in this regard, but I do have to say that I’ve been fairly impressed with the sound of the Sennheiser 906 on guitar amps. They’re durable little mics that can be placed easily due to their small, flat shape. They have a tone switch on them that semi-closely emulates the sound of the classic Sennheiser MD409 and probably makes them a little less rumbly if the mic is crammed right up against the speaker. I think they’re a couple hundred bucks, if that, and if you were a home recording guy, you could probably sing into them and record congas and snare drum and stuff and it’d be perfectly awesome.

As far as placement goes, all the stuff I said before is true. The origin of the off-axis technique is a mystery to me, but I do know that if you put a mic off-axis on a sound source, there’s a phase anomaly introduced because the arrival time of the signal is stretched across the capsule, so there’s generally some smearing of the sound as the end result. Sometimes this sounds good, so people do it, then other people see those people do it, and the technique often gets passed down without really understanding what’s happening and also often without listening and comparing the results. I sort of prefer predictable results, so I don’t usually play with the off-axis thing unless I’m feeling the need for some random experimentation.

Anything you would like to add?

I’d just like to say that one of the things that I spend a lot of time doing in the studio is helping guys get their pedal relationships together. I’m constantly amazed at how many guys have the clean sound as loud as or louder than their distorted sound or they might have a ridiculously huge difference in the two sounds. Or oftentimes, an effect can change the overall volume of the guitar sound in a way that’s not very helpful and that gets ignored. I think it’s important to kind of get that end of things together so that when the band wants to get big, the band can get really big, you know? Or that when the guitar gets really big, it does so without drowning out everything else. Those kind of things can make a really big difference in the overall presentation.