This is Part One of a two part series by Bert Lams on the post-production of the third CGT Album, Pathways, which was released worldwide in June of 1998. Pathways was recorded mostly in Salt Lake City and mixed in Wiltshire, England by both Lams and David Singleton. Click here to jump to Part Two.

Tuesday 3 Feb
I am visiting the studio for 1 hour at noon. David Singleton (producer) and Alex Mundy (production assistant) are listening to separate tracks on a piece called Arroyo. We recorded most of the material in a converted old church in Salt Lake City during a two week recording project.

We used five AKG 414 microphones: one on each guitar (close) and two in the back of the room and also Fishman pickups installed under the bridge of our fairly new Somogyi guitars. In terms of dynamics and tone these guitars are a major improvement. (See "Technical" under the CGT "Resource Room" for more information on their Somogyi custom guitars).

Wednesday 4 Feb
For reference we listen to track nr 6 from John Mc Laughlin's latest The Heart of Things. There is a lot of open space between the notes, creating room to ring out and "sing". We also listen to Tony Geballe's Native of the Rain. excellent debut solo album (released on DGM).

Friday 6 Feb

David and Alex work all afternoon on obtaining a sound for the guitars with Beethoven's Fifth. I come in for a listen at 5:30 pm. I ask D to listen to one of our live recordings from last year for reference. The sound on that is much more lively, possibly because the power amp from the PA system colours the sound. That gives us the idea to run CGT 3 through a PA... We decide to meet at nine PM the same night to select a good system. That night we select an AMCRON amp. It seems like we're on the right track because the direct signal from the guitars is getting more of a "bite".

On Monday morning Alex will set up a PA system in an empty building down the road. We will run each guitar's direct signal separately through that, mike it and listen from the main studio.

Monday 9 Feb
We listen to several speaker cabinet combinations. We decide on a small TANNOY (PA sound) in combination with a huge old speaker made by Tony Arnold (full warm sound). This last one was used for some of the early League of Crafty Guitarists tours. The amp is cranked up loud and a mike is placed right between the two speakers. ( I stick my head out of the door and I can hear Beethovens fifth roaring through the village. I suggest we turn the volume lower). All afternoon we try different positions for the microphone (seven in total). David and I are in the studio with a talk back mike and Alex is down the road positioning the microphones.

6:30 pm: we decide on position one. D& A are in a good mood and there is excitement. We are moving forward. All three guitars are now recorded separately onto ADAT. D wants me to stay and listen to each individual track.

When I come in, D&A are working on Ananda. This piece features Bill Janssen on tenorsax. We work all day on the sound of this piece. We mix Ananda the same night. David mixes in sections, with at least three different variations of each. Later he will glue (and edit) the sections together. Everything is written down in a logbook.

Wed 11 Feb
We start listening to Pathways , with Bill on tenorsax and Trey Gunn on Warr guitar. Ananda and Pathways were both recorded with Bill Janssen physically there. Trey couldn't make it to the recording session so we sent him an ADAT tape afterwards (just like we did with Above the Clouds on Invitation).

The middle sections of those pieces were left open for improvisation. Each take was very different. We pick Trey's best bass parts and some of his more subtle lines. Bill does solos in both. D finds a program on the Eventide which adds two octaves AND reversed reverb to some guitartracks. It transforms the piece, kindof like what Paul's Ebow did for Kan-non Power.

We find that one of the BBE channels went dead, and after its fixed there is a huge difference in overall sound. We will have to remix Ananda later because of all these discoveries.

Thu 12 Feb
We get going on Cantata. David finds a nice sound for the saxes. They sound almost like cornets now.

Trey plays a bass part on this. After a few hours it starts sounding more and more like an early music ensemble.

We will mix tomorrow morning, freshly.

Fri 13 Feb
We mix Cantata. It seems like this may be the last piece on the album. It has a different character than most other, heavier pieces. We get started on the Beethovens Moonlight Sonata. While recording the first movement the mike breaks down. This costs us our morning session. D says it is the damp in the room that caused it to break. All afternoon D works on the second (surfing) Beethoven movement. I come in at five pm. D's been working on this all afternoon without much progress and he looks tired. After another two hours of scrambling something changes and he suddenly finds a good sound for Bert and Hideyo.

Paul's guitar we loop twice through the BBE and then into the subharmonic synthesizer. This trick works and a glorious Moonlight Sonata appears. David's tenacity worked wonders!

Sat 14 Feb
We meet at 10:30 am. By noon we finish mixing the first part of Moonlight. We start with Beethoven's fifth.

Its easy to place Bert and Hideyo with a good sound. We work many hours on Paul's sound. His part determines the character of the piece, mainly because it has all the low end. During the mixing process we are looking for the music to speak to us without being distracted by any of the parts, however great the part may sound!

In the early evening all comes together (David is getting excited and yells in proper English "enough rubbish Mr. Richards!"). We played a very "roudy", rough version of the fifth which does the piece honour and has a lot of spirit.

David is concerned that we may not make the deadline for release. We decide to continue that same night because next week we need to edit and master it all. We listen to Samuel Barber's Adagio Opus 11. David has never heard this piece before.

All goes fast on this one: David feels really inspired and starts creating resonator sounds on the Eventides. After a couple of hours we are ready for the mix. This piece has a complicated setup: each guitar goes through a separate Eventide with resonator programs and all of that goes into a TC Electronic mc 5000.

This is the end of Part One of a two part special featuring Bert Lams' Post-Production Diaries on the mixing of the CGT's 1998 release Pathways.

Continue to Part Two of Bert Lams' Pathways Post-Production Diaries.

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