Cryin' Holy Unto The Lord

Lonliest Fool Around

Written, Produced, and Engineered by Walker Howell

I wanted to keep the song as natural as possible. I wrote this to be sort of a campfire song, so I recorded outside in the courtyard of a run down dormitory at MTSU at about 4:00 am. The sounds of leaves crunching as I walk up to the stool, the sounds of crickets in the background, the fact that I begin the song with a slight cough, it all is a part of the humanistic, natural, and personal mood I am trying to portray.

I recorded myself with a Neumann TLM 103 about 4 feet away and about 6 inches above the mouth from the instrumentation. It was run through an SSL AWS 900 console. There is no compression or limiting, no equalization, no pitch shifting, and it was all done in one take. The only processing was done with an API 512 pre amp and a touch of reverb with the TC Electronic M2000.

Recorded for a Single Mic Project for Professor Collier at MTSU 4400 (Recording Studio Techniques)

Slow Down

A collaboration of funk, rap, and blues artists into one idea of old school hip hop/funk. 

The idea was to keep it as dry and clean as possible to have a natural integrity to the sound. The drums are left bone dry with mostly just room sound for verb, and they were pocketed very little because Patterson came in and nailed the takes. I wanted a doubling, fat, funky sound from the vocals just like Stevie Wonder did on a lot of his records. The guitar amp effect and pitch shift doubler effect was a technique that has been used in a lot of Kanye West tracks. This was done for a Recording Studio Techniques class at MTSU for Professor Collier. We had more overdubs that we would have liked to added (i.e. trumpets, background vocals, layers of synths, etc.), but alas we were unable to achieve those due to scheduling issues.

My honest opinion about this track is that it lacks heart. Every session performer I hired delivered to the absolute fullest extent. It's obvious there is some great talent on this track like Don and Trevor's inspiring vocals, Allen's moving guitar solos, Kellen's funky bass lines, David's smooth piano/organ chords, and Patterson's great accents and rythms. However, I still feel like there is something missing, and I think that something is a connection to each other and a connection to the sound. It would have been nice to have the time to practice the song with everyone before the studio time and experiment with different sounds and different styles. All in all, I'm pretty proud.

Don Ready: Verse 1 vocals
Tru: Verse 2 vocals
Allen Whaley: Rythm and Lead Guitar
David Wyatt: Piano/Organ
Kellen Shiles: Bass Guitar
Patterson Ford: Drums


Keep Me Going

The Other Day

Live sound and Recording Engineer from Knoxville, Tennessee. Currently Operating in Atlanta, GA.

Walker Howell Productions