Beat Of His Own Drum

Ten years on the road with blues great Lonnie Brooks helped drummer Patrick Doody hone his chops as a professional musician before dabbling in recording. It was actually Brooks who spurred Doody to broaden his career aspirations when he toyed with the idea of retiring back in 2000 and told his fun-loving drummer to start seriously thinking about taking care of himself professionally. “It was the best piece of advice probably I ever got in my life, because as opposed to hanging on his coattails for another 10 years, I’ve been able to develop my own career,” Doody says.

Enter Doody’s Drumhead Recording in Midlothian. Catering to a three-point clientele – bands looking to capture pivotal drumming beats seamlessly, bands in need of a competent drummer in the studio, and singer-songwriters looking for that elusive band sound on record – Doody assists all in a producer, engineer, and session player capacity.

Advancing technology has closed the gap between musicians with recorded material and those without songs, to use a technological-reverse cliché, on tape. “Your average kid can go to Guitar Center and buy a multi-track recorder for $800,” Doody explains. “And mom and dad don’t want to send the kid to a recording studio anymore, so the kid sets up in his room and pretty much learns how to record a song on his little box and burn it to CD, upload it to the Web, sell it on CD Baby, or put it on . . . his Myspace and people are buying that. It doesn’t have to sound like Steve Winwood 1988 anymore.”

According to Doody, that’s all fine and dandy for musicians interested in capturing guitars and vocals to document an idea, but try recording a drum kit on one of those store-bought, at-home jobs and things become a little tricky. On average, Doody uses 10 to 15 drum mics, which is out of reach for folks at home. “They only have the capacity to plug four or five microphones in there. So, even if they’re gonna record a drum set with four or five microphones, it’s gonna sound really bad,” Doody insists.

The biggest complaint Doody hears about most recordings is the drum sounds are “defunct” because the instrument is difficult to capture. So bands come to Drumhead with Doody’s expertise in mind. He says bands like his studio’s setup and the fact that he can deliver the recording files in the band’s desired format.

“I had one client come in from London. They had their band tracks from London, but they needed a drum track. So they came in with their [hard] drive and then I just recorded the drum tracks on top of their existing material for their project,” Doody remembers.

Most often, Doody sees bands toying around with home recording and eventually seeking the services of a professional studio. “It’s best to get it done right the first time. And in my experience, what happens, is nine times out of 10, they try and try and try to do it themselves and they don’t end up happy when they do it themselves,” Doody says. “They try to cut costs, but in the long run they end up spending more money because of trial and error and they always end up going to a studio and ending up remixing it anyway.”

For singer-songwriters, Doody has a bevy of session musicians at his beck and call. He says the days of spending $30,000 on an 18-song record are over. Now, most projects revolve around fewer songs and those songs might have to be recorded in varying styles to appease investors.

“My clientele base is coming to me because they know me as a producer. They say, ‘We know that you’ve got contacts to be able to get the best guitar players, the best bass players, the best keyboard players, the best horn players.’ They say ‘I’m gonna trust Pat to bring in the best players’ and as far as recording goes, ‘O.K., here’s $4,000 now you make this song happen,'” Doody explains.

So, the singer-songwriter will come in and record a scratch track of the song. From there Doody will personally add drums and then bring in session musicians to add the other instruments before bringing the artist in and presenting the results.

Doody relates the process to building a home. “It’s kinda like guys who do estimates on houses. Like how much are you gonna charge me to build this house and when’s it gonna get done? It’s the exact same thing. A contractor, which is like a producer, the contractor gets his electricians, he’s got guys who do drywall, he’s got his cement guys. He works with people that he knows, that are gonna get the job done for X amount of dollars in this amount of time,” Doody says.

And the balance between the artist and the producer when it comes to creative control can once again fall into Doody’s home-construction metaphor.

“An architect can draw you a blueprint. That architect is the songwriter. Now the architect, he doesn’t build the house. He gives it to a contractor. And the contractor subs that out to subcontractors. One guy’s the interior decorator, one guy does the roof, one guy does the landscaping. It’s the exact same thing as a bass player, a guitar player,” Doody explains.

“It’s my style of producing that the songwriter is having me for. So the songwriter can say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this song, but it’s not doing me any good because I can’t paint the picture, I’ve just created the blueprint.’ So, then he is trusting me with my artistic production qualities. So the artistic representation is his input as [the song] is being developed.”

Trust develops through time between Doody and his clients, which allows him the freedom to cultivate a song’s style to match the artist’s vision. These long-term relationships are the cornerstones of Doody’s business.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling ice cream or studio time. It’s all about customer relations,” Doody says. “You’re not trying to make $1,000 off this client one time. You’re talking about maybe making $20 or $30,000 off the client in 10 years – where they continually come back to you no matter how much technology moves forward.”

Drumhead Recording is located in Midlothian. Call (708) 638-1755 or visit www.patrickdoody.com for more info.

At BOTA STUDIO in Lake In The Hills, studio owner Don Byczynski worked on mixes with The Hannah Ford Band, Oneday Criminal, Cannibal Galaxy, and By Strangulation. . . Thyateira recorded tracks for their first CD . . . Tracking for Nemesis Theory‘s full-length starts in April.

At MILLION YEN STUDIOS in Chicago, owner Andy Gerber had his studio’s vintage British AMEK/TAC Scorpion II 30/8/8/2 mixing board completely re-capped and also replaced all input pre-amps with Graham Langley Design upgrades . . . Gerber also finished mixing 21 live tracks from Metro’s 20th anniversary season for an upcoming release. Expect performances from heroes old (Sonic Youth, Guided By Voices, Wire, Liz Phair) and new (Decemberists, Bright Eyes, The Faint, Alkaline Trio) . . . Local H finished a new CD, 12 Angry Months, for Shout! Factory . . . Smoking Popes finished a new CD, Stay Down . . . The Silents finished their debut CD, Sleepwalker . . . Kevin Flynn & The Avondale Ramblers finished an EP called Don’t Count Me Out for Pop Vinyl . . . The Dirty Blue, I Love Rich, and Kitty Mortland all worked on new material.

At PRAGMA STUDIOS in Chicago, Dietrich Gosser finished mixing his second record with Adam Newman . . . Katie Todd recorded some tracks with Dan Wean . . . Newman tracked and produced the new 8 Inch Betsy full-length . . . My My My recorded and mixed their new album, Conjugation Nation, with Wean . . . Wean tracked the debut album from Van Ghost . . . Bitterson‘s debut record was mixed by Newman.

At SOUNDSCAPE STUDIOS in Chicago, Astonish filmed several scenes of his new music video with owner/engineer Michael Kolar in SoundScape’s Red Room. Astonish’s debut album (released February 26th) was entirely recorded, mixed, and mastered by Kolar in the Red Room.

At PRECISION RECORDING in Carpentersville, former members of Enforsaken (Century Media) laid down three cover songs for their new project, The Shotgun Suicides. The band recorded tracks by Carcass, At The Gates, and Edge Of Sanity with engineer Kurt Larson. These covers are available as free downloads on www.myspace.com/theshotgunsuicides.

At UP ON THE ROOF RECORDING in Lombard, The Mike Michalak Band returned to work on overdubs for a new CD with owner/engineer Mark Blas . . . Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Walters also tracked with Blas.

– Janine Schaults

Category: Columns, Monthly, Studiophile