Artist Name: Andy Peake Title: As Good As It Gets Genre: Americana/Blues Rating:
Equipment
DAW – Cubase 11 Pro; Computer – Windows 10 Pro; Monitors – ADAM Audio T7V and PreSonus Eris 3.5; Microphone Preamps and Interface – Behringer X32 pres and interface for tracking, Focusrite ISA Two preamps and PreSonus 1818VSL interface for overdubs; Compressors – DBX 163X and DBX 160X compressors with Sparkos op amp mods; Microphones – Electro-Voice ND68 kick, Sennheiser e906 snare, Sennheiser MD 421 II toms, AKG C214 overheads and Avantone Pro CK-1 hi-hat; Microphone Parts S-87 Platinum vocals and harmonica, Sennheiser MD421 II and MXL R80 guitar amps; Instruments – 2012 Fender American Standard Jazz bass, TMG Will McFarlane tele, Reverend Pete Anderson Eastsider Custom, Reverend Rick Vito Soulshaker and Reverend Sensei; Guitar Amps – Fender Princeton, Carr Sportsman and Rivera Chubster 40; Bass DI – Aguilar Tone Hammer Preamp/DI; Keys – Roland/Wurlitzer patch; Plugins – Waves and Steinberg
Music
“As Good As It Gets” is an Americana/Blues song by Andy Peake. Andy was also the arranger, producer, engineer, vocalist, percussionist and drummer, and he mastered the project.
Will McFarlane and Steve Eagon were the guitarists. David Abdo and Bob Marinelli were the bassists. Jody Nardone played the keyboards, and Tim Gartland played the harmonica.
The track feels like a band playing together rather than a song built one instrument at a time—a bit of a surprise, given that the song was recorded one instrument at a time. Special mention should be made of the harmonica solo and the musicians trading off during the last section of the song—it’s fun and obvious that the musicians involved were quite comfortable with this style of music.
Review By Dave Martin
“As Good As It Gets” has an organic, rootsy vibe, enhanced by the use of an old-school Wurlitzer electric piano sound and percussion played rather than programmed, as is more common these days.
I chatted with Andy Peake, a long-time fixture of Nashville’s live and studio scene (and a friend of many decades and hundreds of gigs together); he explained how this track came together from his new project “Pocket Change.”
Andy wrote the song, then recorded himself, playing a scratch keyboard part along with a click. Keyboardist Jody Nardone replaced that scratch keyboard with his own performance (using the Wurly patch on a Roland keyboard), though Nadrone stayed pretty true to the original scratch keyboard part.
Then, Andy added his drum part. After that, the bass part was added, and then percussion instruments. At this point in the recording process, Andy recorded a scratch vocal, which showed the musicians still to come (specifically, the two guitars and harmonica) where the spaces in the lead vocal would allow them to play fills.
Next up was guitarist Steve Eagon, followed by Tim Gartland’s harmonica tracks. Andy wanted to add a guitar with a different texture, so he brought Will McFarlane to add more guitars to the track.
These musicians added some very tasty lines to “As Good As It Gets.” In the second verse, take note of the fills.Where it’s common for one musician to fill the holes though a whole section, in this song, each fill is played by a different instrument. This was possible because both guitarists and the harmonica player played all the way through the song a number of times, leaving the decision about what stays and who plays each fill until the mix stage. Finally, the final lead and background vocals were recorded before Andy mixed and mastered the project.
When mastering, Andy used a handful of plugins: a Scheps EQ, an SSL Buss Compressor, an UltraMaximizer, and the Greg Wells MixCentric plugin, all from Waves.
Dave’s Suggestions
In general, I’m not a fan of building a song one musician at a time—I much prefer recording all of the musicians at once. However, I understand that scheduling conflicts keep the musicians from recording together, and quite often these days, musicians live in different states (or other countries) but still want to collaborate by sending their parts over the Internet.
In this case, Andy’s studio is quite small, so it would have been difficult to have everyone who played on the project in the room at the same time. Since the drummer is also the engineer and percussionist, it was best to decide on the arrangement, record the drum pass first, and then devote his full attention to the other musicians’ parts.
There are advantages to this recording approach, though; there’s better isolation for each instrument. That way, it’s easy to take multiple passes of both lead and rhythm guitar parts (playlisting each one), then pick through each playlist and choose which piece of each musician’s tracks will be in the final mix. I should point out that while the process of recording multiple passes on each instrument is pretty easy, sifting through each of the tracks to choose what gets used and where it will be used can take a lot longer.
At the end of the day, though, the specific recording approach doesn’t matter as long as the track the track works—and this track works. It supports the lyric without stepping on it, and feels great. Listen for yourself.
Summary
“As Good As It Gets” makes me want to listen to the rest of the songs on Andy Peake’s “Pocket Change.” If the rest of the songs feel as good as this one, the record will be a winner!
Dave Martin is a producer, engineer and bassist. Dave owned Nashville’s Java Jive Studio for close to 25 years. Dave has recorded, produced and/or played with symphony orchestras, rock and roll icons and country music legends ranging from the Old Crow Medicine Show, The Dead Pickers Society, Porter Wagoner, Robben Ford, Billy Cobham, The Box Tops, Carl Verheyen, Richie Faulkner (Judas Priest), Adrian Belew, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Eric Johnson, Robbie Fulks, Steve Vai, The Coasters and others. Dave is also a member of the Western Swing Hall of Fame.