All media files. Arranged Alphabetically by artist.
The Audians
The Audians are a Chicago band that I have been in since high school. For more information about this group click here. I have included a few songs that I feel represent something important. Also, I just like these songs…
Ordinary People
Aside from the guitar work and some of the composition of the song, I think my contribution was arranging the song so that it builds. As with most of the Audians stuff it is difficult to remember in great detail how we did what we did.
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So Simple
My contribution to this song was the chord structure and all of the engineering. We recorded this song in my basement. I remember we originally had another verse at the end but I ended up chopping it out of the song after we had recorded it. I felt that it was too long, and upon hearing it, the band agreed.
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Busted Peach
Although this group is no longer performing, this was a very fun project. The rest of the album should still be available though (click here). They hired me to record and help produce their album. We tracked it all in my basement.
Standing In the Bathroom
As with the other songs, the group already had a way that they played it live. I had them add some more acoustic guitars, and we were able to do a little more with harmonies and percussion than they could live. I included this song because this is basically what they sounded like live, except they were in a studio environment. Most importantly, every instrument is tracked individually, so I had to work to get everything to work out right.
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I’ve Been Thinking
This is the most heavily produced song on the album. We started with the acoustic, vocals, percussion, and bass like they play live, and then went to town adding things. First I had them add the electric guitar strums. Then we knew that we would do a trumpet solo, but did not know what it would be. First I had Eli Leki-Albano (the bass and trumpet player) play the first line of the background horn parts, then we worked out a harmony. I made Eli double track the parts so it would sound like a horn section. After that was done we did the solo. I figured since there were already multiple horns it would be good to continue with that, so we broke up the solo he wrote into a few parts. To me, this makes it awesome when the chord change happens and they play together. At the end of the song I amazed the group when I copied part of the solo and pasted it into the fade out. It really adds some book ends to the song. Lastly, I had fun pulling little percussion instances up in the mix for emphasis.
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The Cajun Vagabonds
This is a traditional Cajun group that I am a part of in Chicago. I play the fiddle and accordion, and sometimes guitar. Again, follow the link for more info.
McGee’s Reel
This song is included here because of all of the fiddle parts I tracked. I wanted to have the traditional twin fiddle sound at the beginning, then let the song build when the band comes in. To add further excitement to the song I added a third higher fiddle later in the song.
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Dorian Gehring
These songs are things that I have made on my own mostly for fun, or for music classes or theater productions.
Akarui Song
This song was used in a play Cornell College did in 2010. I created this rave song to open the show with. I used a traditional Cajun tune and adapted it to fit the style of music that goes on in the rest of the play. Unfortunately the copy I have of this also includes the segue into the next scene, which is a song from DJ Tiesto. (So thanks, Tiesto) It transitions at around 2:15.
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Hip Hop Beats
I created a few hip hop beats, many more than are worth putting up. I had fun making them and would love to make them into real songs eventually. I just feel it shows the span of work I can do.
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Jay-z Clash
I did this mashup after listening to Danger Mouse’s “Grey Album”. It’s not perfect, but still a little fun.
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Medium…Something
This song is part of a mostly unfinished project that was an attempt at recording a band that was only really together for a year. It was my freshman year of college and the lead singer graduated before we finished. So, Alex, if you want to send me those files we can finish the album… This song was all tracked individually without a click, so time is a little off, but you get it. The coolest production part of the song is the difference between the two sections, and the strokes-sounding vocals. Also I left in the scratch track at the end, which sounds so cool.
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Kim France
Kim is a musician that I have known since before I was born. I grew up listening to him. Finally after a few years of saying we should record some of his songs we finally got it done. I had Kim lay down his acoustic guitars and vocals live for all the songs, along with some of my dad’s acoustic guitar. We just cranked the initial tracks out in an afternoon. Then I was left with a few tracks per song to do whatever I felt like. I had a lot of fun bringing some of these songs I have heard most of my life into a studio album. I think it really shows the span of what Kim can do as a songwriter. I have only included one song that I think shows perfectly what can happen in this type of situation.
DeFord Bailey
This song is an amazing song, both both before and after we recorded it. On this song there are two acoustic guitars. The one that you hear at the beginning is my dad, Stewart Gehring, and the other is Kim. Those two tracks and the vocal were done in one take at the same time. Then later I had my dad overdub the harmony vocals and a bass track. Everything else is what I did. I was inspired by some stuff that the Wallflowers have done, as well as some stuff that Benmont Tench has done on various people’s albums. Maybe in the future there will be another volume of Kim’s songs recorded.
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The Lost Boys
This group is a few friends of mine from Cornell. They hired me to record an album for them. They had the arrangements and a general sound they wanted, but I ended up feeling like I had a lot of creative input into the mixing of the album. We tracked the guitar, bass and drums live in a small practice room, with the guitar amps in the hall and the bass amp in the closet. We had only two inputs for live recording (Mbox 2 Pro Tools limitations), so we overdubbed the vocals and guitar solos later. All of the tracking was done over about three days during a break we had. I would also like to add that during the recording I could barely hear what was going into the computer because I was in the same room as the band, so there was a lot of “blind” mixing going on. Unfortunately there is no other place to hear these guys online. I may eventually add a link for the rest of the album…
New Day
I picked this song to post because I feel that it captures what they really feel like. In addition to that I added an organ to the song during the mix that the guys really liked. In terms of mixing I chose a fairly obvious reverb on the vocal because I felt like it would fit with the organ when it comes in later. I was going for a church gig sound, as if they were performing in a church and partway through someone was moved enough to come in with the wurli and B3 organ.
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Love Is
This song is here partially because of how beautiful it is, but also because during the mix we added a pad sound in the background that I think really ties the song together, and helps it to build. I love how the drums sound on this song. They sound really realistic and raw to me, because they are on the same stereo track as the bass and guitar. I think that the fact that we had limitations really made this album have a unity that is rare.
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Take You Out Tonight
This is one of those songs that I did not think a lot about when we tracked it, but when I got back and started mixing it I was really taken with the vocals. I ended up not adding any reverb to them at all. I felt that the performance Zach Freeman gave was amazing and that I had nothing to add. Plus the little room reverb that made it on to the track is the same room as the drums… Again, unity. After a while I even liked the hum from his guitar…
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Momo And The Coop
This is an A Capella group from Lewis & Clark College in Portland. My friend Jonah Geil-Neufeld (Audians Member) (Click here) is/was a part of the group. He recorded the tracks and then we sat down and mixed them in Chicago over the summer.
Billie Jean
I tried to make this song sound like the MJ and also to sound like they really sound. It was a lot of fun messing with the vocals.
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Sima Cunningham
Sima Cunningham (click here) is a member of the Audians, as well as an accomplished solo performer. We have been working and writing music together for years. In terms of producing, I have probably done most of my work in this capacity with Sima. We recently finished up an album that is available from her site. I have included a few things that I want to specifically talk about.
Warm White Echo
This is one of our earlier songs. Most of the tracks were recorded by me in my dorm room. After about a year we finally did the final vocals and mix and put it on an album. I recorded the acoustic guitar and emailed it to Sima who added a vocal which is no longer used. Then I took that and made the song. Most of what you hear is exactly what I imagined in my head.
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Boon
Sima had a very clear idea for the guitar line and the vocal when we started recording this song. Originally it was for acoustic guitar and vocal. Sima had expected that I would jump on an electric guitar and we would have a song, but I really was not sure what I could do. So I had her do it with the electric instead. I felt that there was no need for me to add anything. We double tracked the guitars to give it a fuller, chorusy sound. Then a few months later we found that a bit of tambourine, kick drum, and mandolin really gave it some focus.
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Beyond the River
This song had a complete demo before I ever got involved with it. Sima adapted a Chopin nocturne and turned it into this. Sima sent it to me with a few piano tracks and a vocal and the drum beat at the end, to which I added more drums. I heard the song and felt that it really kicked, but also had a very laid back quality. I added the most searing guitar line I could come up with. In the final mixing stages we had a lot of fun allowing the vocals to just be mercilessly attacked by the drums and guitar; but in the end they win the battle.
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Simon MacKenzie
Simon was almost a stranger to me when he hired me to do his album. We met a few times, then sat down in my dorm room and cranked it out over a week or so. Mostly we just wanted to capture his solo sound, but I took a few liberties and added some stuff to fill it out a little bit. I only included 2 tracks, but you can learn more about Simon here.
Relief
This is the title track from the album, so it starts with just Simon and his guitar. I wanted him to sound really close, so I used a very light reverb. I then added a three-part string section. I did all of the violins myself, and I double tracked all the parts to make it sound like a section. Then we doubled his voice for the final chorus. I left the last phrase very intimate and close like the beginning.
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Daydream
This song is pretty simple. I had Simon double track the vocals to give the chorus some more depths because it is so short. Then I played some electric guitar. I added the strums first, but then he liked it enough to let me do the solo too.
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SmazE
This is this first rock group I was a part of. The members of this band joined forces with Sima Cunningham to create the Audians. I think we still have a myspace though (click here). Some of these songs are so old that I don’t remember how we thought of everything, but it is really some of the first stuff on which I spent time thinking about how to produce the songs. I am really amazed by some of the things we did, and at times I feel like I need to live up to the future that we created with this album in 2004.
Tree House
My contributions to this song are all the guitars, piano, backup vocals, and much of the noise. I was listening to a lot of Wilco (and frankly I still am) when we recorded this song. For that reason I added the piano, and the breakdown in the middle. I really liked the idea of the song being strengthened by a loss of meter, this is because it is so strong when the meter is re-introduced.
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Song For A Shoe
The intro for this song was partly my idea, I think. I recorded and reversed the acoustic guitar clip that you can hear at the start. Again, this song utilizes some things that we could not do live, like double track guitars, and a breakdown with lots of weird noises and talking and stuff. I basically learned to play trumpet only for this song.
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Reconnecting
Lastly, I added this song because I love it so much and it is so good. I don’t really have much to say, except I don’t know how we did it. Just enjoy!!
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Twice In One Night
One weekend Bill Frisch, John Wilson, James Ostrander, and I decided it would be fun to make an album. We did not have any songs, or really much of a plan. We brought all of the music and recording gear from our dorm rooms down to the orchestra rehearsal space and started working. We mostly operated by thinking of an idea, then working out a few parts, then making another section of music, then combining the two together, and within a couple of takes we had most of the instrumental sections done. We then overdubbed vocals over the course of the next couple of weeks. Within about 3 weeks we had a nine or so songs and we gathered them up and put them online for all to enjoy. Since we were in the orchestra space at Cornell, the instrumentation varies from marimbas, vibes and timpani, to analogue synths, guitars and noise loops. It turned out to be both a fun process and a fairly interesting album. On this project I was in charge of recording and production, but I also had an amazing time collaborating in a very free way. We named the group Twice In One Night because when we asked what should we call the group James immediately, without hesitation said Twice In One Night. It stuck, so it is available to download at our bandcamp site (here)