For this unique session we assembled a group of Philadelphia friends, and Shaking Through alumni. Steven was joined by The War on Drugs' David Hartley and Robbie Bennett (on bass and keyboards respectively) and our good old buddy, Christopher Powell of Man Man (who curated December's Grant$ episode and played along with Sufjan Stevens in Cat Martino's episode in 2012). On backup vocals we enlisted the help of Becca Kauffman and Felicia Douglass of Brooklyn's Ava Luna from the June 2012 episode.

To start the day we gave Steven and the band a few hours to learn the song and to acclimate to one another musically, though they were a natural fit after only a few minutes. Engineer Jonathan Low and his assistant for the day, Felix Espinosa, proceeded to set up the basic track that would include Powell, Hartley, Bennett playing to Steven’s scratch vocal.

Drums
Chris Powell plays a beautifully made four piece C&C Custom kit. The dimensions are quite unusual - mostly on the small side of normal. Jon mic’d the kit using the usual Weathervane Method - a modified “Recorderman” pair of small diaphragm Telefunken ElaM260s, with a third Coles 4038 as the mono mic up the middle (see video). The snare and floor tom was captured with a Telefunken M81, and the kick with an AKG D112 (in) , along side a Shure KSM32 (out). Lastly, the room was captured with a single Cascade Fathead ribbon about 6 ft out front with the null turned toward the kit.



Bass
Dave played his vintage Fender Precision Bass into the studio’s Matchless Thunderman - a rare 70 watt flip-top amp with a single 15 inch speaker. Jon mic’d the cabinet with the Neumann U67 alongside a microphone he constructed himself out of an 8 inch speaker for the sub-frequencies and “a little dirt.”

Keyboards
Moog Music sent a treasure trove of gear for Steven’s session, including a Moog Voyager, and four Moogerfooger pedals. Robbie’s keyboard rig consisted of the Voyager, a Roland Juno 60 (modified with midi), a Nord Piano, and a Roland Juno 1. His track from the basic was ultimately replaced using the same set-up, mixing melotron strings and the variety of classic synth sounds these keyboards create.

Piano
Robbie’s quick blast through the piano was captured the pair of Telefunken ElaM260s on the soundboard - ie. “behind” the piano. The pair was spaced about 2 ½ feet apart and about 6 inches from the wood of the piano and were run through a vintage DBX 162 compressor, which accounts for the warm, gummy, albeit slightly unnatural sound of the piano in Bounty.

Vocal
Steven was born with a huge voice, that can most likely be recorded well using anything... nonetheless, when you have an incredible signal path, it’s that much more incredible with a voice like Steven’s. Jon placed a vintage Neumann U67 running through the DW Fearn VT2, The Manley Massive Passive and a Universal Audio LA2A compressor about 8 inches out in front and the results were as stunning as can be expected.

For backup vocals, Ava Luna’s Felicia Douglas and Becca Kauffman made the trip all the way down from their home in Brooklyn. The two started out singing into the same mic set-up, though with the U67 switched into Figure of 8. The balance of their voices was harder to strike than expected though, and so they eventually broke out to do their parts separately. Just as we did in Ava Luna’s song “Water Duct”, after we got a few great takes, Becca and Felicia each sang the other’s part - something of a Roy Thomas Baker trick used in Queen and Cars recordings. It worked like a charm!

After the girls left for their train back to Brooklyn, Producer Brian McTear and Steven continued to work out additional vocal harmonies, perhaps the most notable being the call-and-response vocals in the second verse. Steven also added his own harmonies to the choruses and vocal hook.

Mix
Remember those Moogerfoogers? Ha! Well... if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past two years or so, it’s that Producer Brian McTear and Jonathan Low like to “create their own” when it comes to reverbs and ambient effects. The Moogerfooger chain fit beautifully into that scenario, alongside a pair of ZVex pedals, also graciously provided for the session.

Signals are sent out of ProTools via the Creation Audio Labs MW1 reamping tool, which passes it along to a vintage Roland RE150 Space Echo, and the assortment of Moogerfoogers and ZVexes before they split out to a pair of Fender amplifiers with the reverbs turned almost all the way up. Each amp was mic’d with a Telefunken ElaM260 into the DW Fearn VT2 stereo tube preamp, recorded back into ProTools.

Editing
Bounty was so fun for everyone to play, we hardly considered the fact that it was over 7 minutes to be a problem. We stayed with the full length version as long as we could, but ultimately came away with about 3 minutes shaved out of it. The raw tracks in the download files, however, contain all the audio for the full original recording. Viewers who want to create their own remix of the song can have a field day of extra audio and parts not included on the final mix!