Under The Influence sees the acclaimed a cappella group reimagining a selection of their all-time favorite songs alongside many of the superstar artists and undisputed music icons that made them famous. Produced by Mark Kibble, founding member of the legendary a cappella group Take 6 and one of Straight No Chaser’s primary influences, the album includes unprecedented collaborations with some of popular music’s best and brightest — including Phil Collins, Dolly Parton, Rob Thomas, Seal, Sara Bareilles, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Jason Mraz — as Straight No Chaser put their distinctive and inimitable spin on songs known and loved the world over.

Recording a group like Straight No Chaser presents unique challenges because of the many layers of vocals — leads, backgrounds, basses, percussion, and textures — that have to be performed, recorded, and synced properly. Also, blending each the original vocals (such as Phil Collins’ original 1984 vocal of Against All Odds) with the newly recorded vocals of Straight No Chaser and making sure timing is perfect, is no small challenge.

Check out the brand new album on iTunes or Amazon. Here’s a little behind-the-scenes video shot during the sessions:

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   The Pilgrimage of Thingamuhjig: a drum odyssey

   Bruce Hornsby tribute album for charity

This song, Disappear, is the result of our collaboration. Since Rachael was out on tour, we worked entirely remotely, sending demos and ideas back and forth, and within the course of a week, we were able to get this song written, produced, and mixed. Rachael is an amazing and accomplished singer-songwriter and I highly recommend checking out her latest EP, Heavyweight, her NoiseTrade album, as well as her prior releases.

The film is in the final stages of post production as we speak, and the score is being mastered in hi-res audio (96k 24-bit) as well as 5.1 surround. More information will be posted here as soon as it’s ready. Meanwhile, enjoy a preview clip of the end credits song, Disappear.

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   Producing the new Shunna Jones project

   Writing and Producing Amy Krebs’s New Single

We did a live session for this song at my studio with Valerie Franco (drums), Leo Budirahardjo (bass guitar), and Chris Wrate (electric guitar), and then I worked to create the complex textures that go through the song — Rhodes, synths, B3, loops, and the unique vinyl flavorings. Finally, Amy recorded extensive lead and background vocals to finish it off. (In the future, we may release the a cappella mix, which is a real earful.)

Story is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon, and can also be streamed from SoundCloud below.

Story, how do I begin to tell a story
Of love and loss and moving forward slowly
It might not happen a lot of time but it plays in my mind
Story, no one since measured up, it got me wondering
If it’s possible to love again so strongly
Did I give up and not win the fight
Could it still be you and I

We haven’t talked in months when it used to be hours
Why does that leave me wanting more and more
I look around hoping to encounter your face in the crowd

Cause every love has life
Mine won’t die despite how hard I try
They say don’t give up the fight
Who knows better than I
Cause once in a blue moon you find someone who
You surrender your heart and soul to
That someone for me was you

Story, I keep trying to rewrite our story
With every option being thrown before me
I’ve justified it a hundred times
How not one could be right
Story, the thought of no more you has got me wondering
If I really want to put this love behind me
Once and for all and be done with it
But I can’t not reminisce

Still haven’t talked in months when it used to be hours
Why does that keep me wanting more and more
Still look around hoping to encounter your face in the crowd

You, you broke me
Now you pretend that you don’t know me
How dare you diminish what we have
You, you can’t deny it, but I bet your heart would agree
That it keeps coming back to me

So why wait another night, lay down your pride
And I promise I won’t desert you
Give it another try
You won’t regret this time
Cause once in a blue moon you find someone who
You surrender your heart and soul to
That someone for me was you

Vocals: Amy Krebs
Drums: Valerie Franco
Bass: Leo Budirahardjo
Electric Guitar: Chris Wrate, David Das
Keyboards and Programming: David Das
Produced by David Das
Words and Music by Amy Krebs and David Das
©2012 Das Bunk Music/Kreblet Music. All Rights Reserved.

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   Producing the new Shunna Jones project

   Writing and Producing Amy Krebs’s New Single

Troy is a singer/songwriter and professional guitarist (T.A.T.U., Wilson Phillips, etc.) The two concerts took place on back-to-back nights on April 5-6, 2011. Both concerts were fairly similar, and both were recorded in multitrack, which made the process of producing the live album much easier, as there was a lot of material to choose from. We had a wonderful band, including Danish drummer Jesper Kristensen, bassist Al Slavick, and the string quartet Thread.

This is the first live concert I’ve ever had the opportunity to mix, and it required a very different approach than regular studio mixing, with the emphasis not so much on every musical detail fitting in perfectly, but more in capturing the vibe, ambience, and spontaneity of the live music. The string quartet was a challenge to blend, because its overhead mics ended up capturing too much room ambience and not enough strings, so we had to rely mostly on the direct pickups from the strings (which produce a dry, direct sound, without any blend from the other instruments).

The finished album was mastered in high-definition (24-bit, 96kHz). We’re currently looking into distribution possibilities for the high resolution audio as well as considering a possible surround mix of the concert.

Click here to download the liner notes to the album as a PDF. Preview or purchase the entire album at iTunes and Amazon MP3 and also as an audio CD at Amazon.

Check out these related projects:

   John Chisum: A Table in the Wilderness

   Aaron Lazar: Caruso

   String Arranging and MD’ing with Troy MacCubbin

I’ve been working with Chicago-born soul singer-songwriter and BMG/Radar/Bug artist Dylan Lloyd recently. One of our songs, “Thankful,” has just been released. Stream the entire song above, or own it by hopping over to iTunes!

“Thankful” is a co-write between me and Dylan. Over a few writing sessions, we came up with the haunting persistent vibe set up by an incessantly four-on-the-floor drum pattern augmented by a simple electric guitar part and a Rhodes. Dylan crafted much of the lyrical content around the topic of healing from depression and on gratefulness as an antidote to hopelessness:

The tears of a cloud formed an ocean of pain
I forgot how the sun felt on my face
You were too hard to reach, I was losing control
Till your light cast the dark from the seat of my soul

See the signs
Let it open up your eyes
Love your life
And be thankful for this time
The fall was a long way down but
I had to reach for something to believe in
You always believed in me

It was tearing me down from the inside out
Every wall that I built trapped in the sound
I was losing the fight and the will to survive
I let the sky unfold and show me the light

See the signs
Let it open up your eyes
Love your life
And be thankful for this time
The fall was a long way down but
I had to reach for something to believe in
You always believed in me

Words and Music by David Das and Dylan Lloyd
©2011 Das Bunk Music (BMI) / Radar/Bug/BMG Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved.

Stream the entire song above, and buy it on iTunes or Amazon!

I’ve previously worked with Dylan as he represented the USA in the international 2011 Crimea Music Festival, singing another of his songs along with a cover version of Elton John’s “Sacrifice” which I produced for him. “Sacrifice” is also available on iTunes and Amazon.

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   Producing the new Shunna Jones project

   Writing and Producing Amy Krebs’s New Single

Finally Free is a perky playful song that came out of a germ of a riff idea I had a while ago (which eventually became the intro to the song). Once we got into the songwriting process, it quickly blossomed in all kinds of fun directions. The rhythm and riff of the intro dictated the flow of the rest of the song, and Andrea came up with a wonderfully sunny lyric concept to complement the oom-pah groove. The final mix of this song is full of quirky orchestral ear candy played by clarinet, bassoon, pizzicato cello, oboe, flute, harp, glockenspiel, and timpani, as well as an upright piano and accordion and some vocal layering. During the production process, I recalled the Disney movie Enchanted (one of my favorite Disney movies, with a stellar score and songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz) and that Central Park scene where “That’s How You Know” takes place. I’m “enchanted” by multiple melodies — in addition to the main vocal, there’s a dozen or so related melodic/rhythmic themes that go weaving in and out of the song at various times, both instrumentally and vocally.

I highly recommend checking out Andrea’s other work, including her most recent album, Slow Miracle. She has a wonderful flavor of hopeful pop across her albums.

Stream the entire song below, and buy it on iTunes or Amazon!

I hear a heartbeat
It’s in the air with the butterflies
In fields of honey
With buzzing bees twirling in the sky

My ray of sunshine
You tell a story so shiny I believe
Float on the water
My sparkly laughter makes marionettes upon the sea

Shine your light above me now
Dance me on the skyline
Sweep me up to touch my dreams
High up where I’m finally free

Now stars are smiling
And all the air’s singing lullabies
Our floating lanterns
Like fairy tales flying right before our eyes

Words and Music by David Das and Andrea Hamilton
©2011 Das Bunk Music (BMI) / Andrea Hamilton Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved.

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   Producing the new Shunna Jones project

   Writing and Producing Amy Krebs’s New Single

I’ve been involved in a cappella for more than two decades now. I got heavily involved in a cappella arranging during my high school years, before the college a cappella mass explosion, when there was barely any pop a cappella around except for Bobby McFerrin and Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.” I cut my teeth transcribing charts by Mark Kibble, Mervyn Warren, and Cedric Dent (of Take 6, one of my all-time favorites) and Gene Puerling (of the Singers Unlimited), performed and recorded a lot of vocal jazz in college (with the University of North Texas Jazz Singers), and have retained a love for the genre ever since. Earlier this year I got to work for the hit NBC a cappella competition The Sing-Off (see details on those projects here and here).

Here’s a clip of the song:

This Christmas arrangement, more pop than jazz, began life as a strict 4-part SSAA arrangement, but once we got into the nuts and bolts of the arrangement, it quickly expanded beyond that. Brit and Brey are great vocalists, and we chose to meticulously double-track each of the background parts. Because they are sisters, their blend is exceptional and natural. After all of the backgrounds were recorded, we attacked the lead vocals and ad libs. After twelve hours of work (done across three separate sessions), the recording sessions wrapped and the song was ready for mixing.

For the technically curious, the vocals were recorded through an MXL V69 tube mic and an Audio-Technica AT4050, going through a Metric Halo ULN-2 mic preamp and converter. Brit and Brey recorded each part together, so there’s a thickness to the background parts. Everything was recorded dry, without reverb or compression, then later I used Universal Audio’s LA-2A and 1176 to even out the parts. Each part was panned away from center, but randomly, so that both Brit and Brey’s vocals are evenly spread across the stereo field. Two separate reverbs were used to add depth: a plate reverb and a convolution hall reverb. Then quite a bit of volume automation became necessary to get the song to play smoothly and let the parts go in and out of each other and receive the necessary focus. Finally, to add a bit of analog warmth and bake the layers together, I ran the entire mix through the Universal Audio Studer A800 which adds some tape saturation.

The song was released today and is available for purchase on iTunes!

Check out these related projects:

   A (somewhat) a cappella Sony Ericsson commercial

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   The Pilgrimage of Thingamuhjig: a drum odyssey

Amy is a pop/R&B/soul singer-songwriter who appeared on the sixth season of American Idol. She is a great songwriter with a haunting voice reminiscent of Adele. I like to call her my “female Peter Gabriel” and we have some more projects in the works that’ll be seeing the light of the day in the months to come.

The genesis of Move On is that of a simple heartbreak song. The acoustic guitar offers a steady 6/8 triplet pulse, accompanied minimally by a Mellotron flute, Beatles-esque upright piano, and string quartet. While others often take days, weeks, or months, this was a quick song to write; the writing process took only a couple of hours, after being inspired by the breakup of a friend. Have a listen:

Visit the Viinyl single here or find it on iTunes.

There’s someone in my mirror crying
And there’s nothing to make it alright
The story came to an obvious ending
Now the pain is frustrating my fight

So if there’s no way to change it
I’ll rewrite the pages
And push through the hurt that surrounds
If there is healing in sorrow I’ll be fine tomorrow
I’ll take what I’ve got and move on

There’s a fountain inside that is waiting
A flood that would bring down the dam
If I let it explode would it drown me
If I hold it back what if I crack

They say there’s no way to change it
The ages of sages tell me to pack up and go on
They say time could erase it
Can none else assuage it
I’ll take what I’ve got and move on

Vocals: Amy Krebs
Guitars: Michael Elsner
Mellotron, Upright Piano, Strings: David Das
Graphic Design: Sarah Armstrong
Special Thanks: Randy Coppinger and Rachel Walsh
Produced by David Das
Words and Music by David Das
©2011 Das Bunk Music (BMI). All Rights Reserved.

Check out these related projects:

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

   Producing the new Shunna Jones project

   Finally Free!

I’ve previously written articles showing some of the behind-the-scenes development of a few of the songs (Before You Fly and the title track Get In I’m Driving) from the album, where I showed each respective song from its genesis then chronicled its development and evolution through the production process. For today’s Songblog, we’ll look at Lay It Down, but in reverse. We’ll start with the finished version, then deconstruct it into its component pieces.

Lay It Down is much more of a hybrid R&B/hip hop track than the other two we looked at, although we mixed in some pop elements too. Here’s a clip of the finished version:

As you can hear, there’s a lot of programming (loops, synths) that form the bedrock of the song. Producing a song in this style is less about performing great virtuosic parts, and more about choosing simple elements that lock well together and create the overall groove that we’re going for.

Here’s a look at the root of the rhythm section, the drums. The first half of this clip is a custom-programmed loop that’s used mostly in the verse of the song, then mixed in with some tambourine to keep the motion going. The second half of this clip adds another loop of a live drummer playing on the ride cymbal, which adds a vintage-live air to it:

But there’s one more percussive element I added to the chorus: an acoustic drum kit. The part was fairly simple so it wasn’t necessary to bring in a live drummer, so this kit was programmed using XLN Audio’s wonderful Addictive Drums, and I chose a dirty garage-style kit with lots of room mic, then laid this drum part on top of the ones in the previous clip:

So, taking the sum of all those drum parts, here’s a clip of the complete drum mix in the chorus of the song, which takes brings all those elements together:

Let’s look at the bass. The bass plays a pretty distinctive riff, but it’s not just the notes that are being played but also the distinctive sound of the bass that gives it its character. Usually, a part like this might be played by a synth bass, but I preferred to play it on a real Epiphone bass to give it more human nuance. Here’s the finished bass riff, isolated, and you’ll clearly hear lots of ugly dirty finger noise that I think gives it a special quality:

The bass obviously has a lot of processing on it. To get this overdriven bass tone, I used Native Instruments Guitar Rig and designed a patch with heavy tube compression, a midrange EQ bump, and an octaver, which you can see in the screenshot. Because the octaver adds the octave below, I had to play the riff one octave up. Here’s a clip of the dry bass part with no processing:

Moving beyond bass and drums, several other instruments occupy the middle ground between the core rhythm section and the vocals, but they are sparse. The signature Rhodes sound is constant through the song, and it’s a simple arpeggiated part which I purposely played a little bit loose. The Rhodes was passed through a 70′s British guitar amp and also EQ’ed (rolling off all the low end) to give it a more brittle texture:

There are some B3 punctuations that come in and out of the song here and there. For this, I used the Native Instruments B4 softsynth, one of my favorites:

There’s also some piano with a stereo ping-pong delay that adds a little contrast in the prechorus:

And for some icing on the cake, there’s some high strings added to the chorus. They’re playing very simple whole notes, but they really elevate the chorus:

In the chorus, I felt like the song really needed a little more of a pop flavor, so I called in my friend and session guitarist Kip Haynes who added some Maroon 5-like guitars to the chorus that gave it a lot more lift and bounce. He recorded two slightly different guitar parts, which in the mix we ended up hard-panning left and right:

Ginny ended up adding a dozen or so tracks of background vocals, which really support the vocal well. In the final mix, the background vocals are actually more prominent than the rest of the band, which gives the production (which is pretty electronic for the most part) much more of an organic feel. Here’s the clip of the BGV’s isolated:

So in the above clips, I’ve isolated every element of the song. Once recombined, you can now hear it all come together in the full clip:

Since I said I’d deconstruct this song in reverse, this Songblog wouldn’t be complete without a look at where the song started. Ginny has posted her own blog about the genesis of the writing of the song here, and with her permission, here’s a short clip of the very original songwriting demo she sent me. As you’ll hear, it’s pretty barebones, which is typical during the songwriting process. Her focus is not so much on how it sounds, but on making sure words and melody are in their place:

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out other behind-the-scenes articles about this album on Before You Fly and Get In, I’m Driving. Keep an eye out for the full album (see it at iTunes or Amazon), which releases on September 13, 2011.

This post is part of the Songblog series, a series of essays dissecting a selection of popular songs from a songwriting and production perspective. Please contribute to the discussion by leaving comments below. Keep up with future Songblogs by following me on Twitter.

Check out these related projects:

   Ginny Owens: An Inside Look at “Before You Fly”

   Songblog: Ginny Owens: The Sessions for Get In, I’m Driving

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free

Ginny has previously written about her inspiration for this song on her own blog. She has a fantastic sense of humor about being blind, and has more than once attempted to steal the keys to my car.

THE LIVE SESSION

The live session for this song took place on February 25, 2010 at Stagg Street Studios in Van Nuys, CA. Similar to Before You Fly, we tracked drums, bass, and guitar together, with Ginny playing and singing at a piano in an iso booth. This gave us the flexibility to capture the feel of a live band playing with each other, yet each instrument was recorded in isolation, giving us the flexibility to use or manipulate each instrument later as necessary. Stagg Street is a wonderful facility with a medium-sized control room, a large central tracking room (where we set up drums), and three smaller isolated rooms (where we set up upright bass, piano, and guitar amps, respectively).

The drummer for this session was one of the busiest session and live drummers in Los Angeles, Curt Bisquera. Curt has played with an endless list of music’s royalty, including Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Mick Jagger, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLachlan, Johnny Cash, and more. On bass was a frequent musical partner of mine, Dan Lutz (Jonathan Butler, Taylor Hicks), and on guitar was James Harrah (Madonna, Melissa Etheridge, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles).

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SONG

The album as a whole had a long gestation period of almost two years, and in those two years we underwent a significant shift in the sound that we were going for, as we discovered, often through experimentation, what approach fit each song best. The evolution of this particular song is a perfect and most extreme illustration; in the end, none of the recordings we did during the original live session made it to the final version. But here’s a look at the process that we went through to get to the final version.

During the original live session for this song, we recorded about four takes of the song, which were later comped (edited) into one master take. Ginny laid down a temporary placeholder scratch vocal. Curt recorded a separate pass of tambourine, and I added some additional guitar to James’s wonderfully funky wah guitar, and here’s an excerpt of the result – our first complete version in a rough mix:

That first version had a decidedly laid-back and vibey feel. After sitting with it for a while, we decided we needed the song needed much more drive, so I programmed a new drum track, and called guitarist Kellen Mills, who added some wonderfully flavorful melodic touches. I also added some Rhodes lines that added some spice:

After that, we decided to blend in a more R&B, programmed direction. The drums were redone (again) with more of a heavy loop feel in the verses, then I brought in drummer Valerie Franco to elevate the chorus. Our next version:

One of my favorite parts of this version is the bridge, which bassist Dan Lutz brought to life with this strikingly catchy part. Enjoy the ending too, which, although recorded loosely as an experiment and never tightened up, turned into a major jam:

After this, we decided to explore an entirely different direction, a much more programmed, R&B version, which ended up being our final version. Here’s a clip of how the entire song finished up, and in this version you’ll hear the background vocals for the first time, which ended up being a very important part of this song:

It’s unusual for songs to go through this many changes and re-recordings, but as I said before, the evolution of this album was a journey for all of us, and incredibly inspiring to be a part of.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out a similar behind-the-scenes look at Before You Fly. Keep an eye out for the full album (see it at Amazon), which will hit streets on September 13, 2011.

This post is part of the Songblog series, a series of essays dissecting a selection of popular songs from a songwriting and production perspective. Please contribute to the discussion by leaving comments below. Keep up with future Songblogs by following me on Twitter.

Check out these related projects:

   Ginny Owens: An Inside Look at “Before You Fly”

   Songblog: Lay It Down: Deconstructing an R&B/Hip Hop Track

   A song on Virtue’s new album, Free