Forest: Down By Your Fire

Down By Your Fire was the last song on Forest. But I'm blogging it first because I think I think it's the best track on the album.

Down By Your Fire

This is a great song. A great, great song. Thom used to play it with guitar only. And we played a guitar + piano version on the Regent Street album (1991). Listening back to the Regent Street version, I notice that some of the Forest piano part was already in place. Over time I started adding more of Thom's guitar part on piano and eventually he stopped playing guitar on the song altogether.

The instrumental part is much more relaxed than other tracks on the album, and has better time and feel. It's probably because I'd had the part under my hands for years by the time we recorded it (in contrast with the song Why, where the piano part was written just prior to recording it).

The keyboard sound is my E-mu PROFormance/1+ layered with my Roland D-50. The PROFormance piano sound can't really compete with modern, multi-layer, disk-streamed, non-looped, gigabyte sampled grands. But it actually holds up ok in this context, even out there all on its own. I guess the one part of the sound that bugs me is the ridiculous sustain. But in 1995, this was a really good piano-in-a-box (and it was already five years old at the time).

It seems I have some deficiency that renders me incapable of finishing a song on a straight major chord. I have to play the ninth. Chris Chénier's wife Nathalie once asked him after one of our shows: "Why does Ken always play that funny note at the end of every song?"

I miss playing this song with Thom.

Forest: The Recording

We recorded the album at the old Sound of One Hand studio in Ottawa (when it was still in The Market, before they moved to that business park off Innes Rd. and ultimately changed their name to the considerably less inspired Liverpool Court Studios, after their street address). Marty Jones was the engineer.

Despite what I said in an earlier post, I think this was before Sound of One Hand got their Neve console. I'm pretty sure that's not the Neve in the photo. But we did record to two-inch, 24-track tape. You can see the tape machine in the photo below, along with various testaments to Marty's shark obsession.

What other equipment did we use? I'm pretty sure Thom used his blue Yamaha acoustic. I don't remember what vocal mic we used, but it was a large diaphragm condenser. For keyboards I used my Yamaha KX-88 controlling my Roland D-50, the studio's E-mu Pro/Formance (piano module) and the studio's Roland JV-1080. We also used the studio's sampler, though I can't remember exactly what it was... probably an Akai S-series or Roland S-series. I'm thinking maybe a Roland S-550.

For bass I used my old Yamaha TRB-5p direct through an original Sans Amp DI. What a great little box. The original Sans Amp didn't have the knobs on the outside (like its successor, the Bass Driver DI), so you had to unscrew the back and dial in your settings with those tiny little plastic screws. That meant that you'd usually come up with a sound you liked and leave it that way. The sound Marty liked (the sound everybody liked back in '95 when they discovered the Sans Amp) was with the "Drive" cranked. So that's the sound on Forest. It's probably got too much dirt/wool/Ampeg for my current tastes, but it's sure full of character. And I'll be darned if it doesn't sound like we mic'd up a big ole tube amp through a huge cab. I also used my Steinberger XL-2A for the solo on Cuba.

Ok. Enough mumbo-jumbo. Let's get to the music!

Forest: The Album

Listening back to The Forest for the Trees after all this time, two things stand out for me. First, the songs have held up; the songwriting is really the highlight of the album by far. Second, many of the recorded tracks are a mess. The timing is sloptacular and everything is out of tune. Thom, if you're reading this, I mean no offense. My bass parts and bvox are the worst of all.

But in spite of the warts, I still really enjoy listening to many of these tracks.


So I'll probably only blog the less egregious tracks. Or maybe I'll leave the rough ones until a later date when nostalgia defeats shame. Either way, lets jump right in.

The Forest For The Trees

The Forest For The Trees was the third Thom Barker album, and it was our first CD. Marty Jones was the engineer at Sound of One Hand studios in Ottawa, where we recorded it between August 1 and September 14, 1995. I forget how many sessions there were, but I remember there were some longish gaps during the recording and between the recording and mixing while Thom scared up the money to pay for it all. I'm guessing there were at least a dozen sessions. It's probably been close to ten years since I actually listened to Forest, but I remember being pretty impressed by the sound quality at the time. Marty was a good engineer, and Sound of One Hand had recently bought a great Neve console. Also, we were recording to 2-inch tape. So, as you'd imagine, the raw sound was kind of like butter melting on hot asphalt in the summer sun (poetic, no?).

Well, I listened to the album yesterday and two things struck me:

1. In comparison, the quality of Twice the Usual is much better than I've been giving it credit for
2. In spite of some truly cringe-worthy moments, there is some Gold! on Forest

Listening to the album also brought back a flood of memories from the sessions, inspiring me to do a little Forest-blogging. Thom has given his permission for me to bare the skinny and post the audio. Are you guys in?

Update (2/07/2009): Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure Sound of One Hand didn't yet have that Neve console.

Video: Danza de la Moza Donosa

Danza de la Moza Donosa (Dance of the Graceful Young Maiden) is Ginastera's second piece from the Danzas Argentinas. I like playing this piece a lot, but I can't seem to play it at the speed indicated. Every couple of months I force myself to speed it up, but it gradually settles back down to the tempo I'm playing it in the video. For some reason, this is its natural speed in my brain.

The video itself turned out ok, I think. But I really need to find a camera with manual exposure control (or even just fixed exposure). I wore a brighter shirt in this one to fool the camera into making the video darker than the last one. But the automatic adjustments it makes as I'm moving around are really annoying.

All part of the big experiment, I guess.


Ginastera: Danza de la Moza Donosa from Ken Barker on Vimeo.

Video: Laments or The Maiden and the Nightingale

The Maiden and the Nightingale (Quejas ó la Maja y el Ruiseñor) is the fourth piece in Enrique Granados' Goyescas suite for piano. It's not really fair to say that one piece of music is "better" than another, but I think it's probably safe to say that Goyescas is the best music ever written by anybody.

I like to think of Maiden as a battle between a young maiden who is determined to be dark and dramatic and a little bird intent on pulling her out of her funk. You can hear the bird fluttering in and out through most of the piece. But you'll have to listen through to the end to find out who wins.


Granados: Laments or The Maiden and the Nightingale from Ken Barker on Vimeo.

Video: Pathétique Sonata, 2nd Movement

This is the second movement (Adagio Cantabile) of Ludwig van Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata (Sonata No. 8). It's another piece my mother used to play that has always stuck with me. I decided to learn it because it's a (relatively) simple way to add entertainment to the repertoire. Many people recognize and love the piece. Even if you've never heard it, it's recognizable because it's been "quoted" a lot in popular music.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've made some changes to my recording setup. Better lighting makes the video a little clearer. Better mic pres and converters make the audio much better, and I'm recording in stereo. But the biggest improvement is probably due to using a different video hosting service. YouTube is great for quantity and variety, but the video and audio quality are terrible. Google Video was supposed to be better, allowing higher resolution and stereo audio. But after uploading the video I found it was no better than YouTube. I finally settled on Vimeo. I love this site. They actually play the video at the quality of the uploaded file! Brilliant!

So here goes... let's hope the embedding works properly.

Beethoven Pathétique Sonata (2nd Movement) from Ken Barker on Vimeo.

Art Facts Video -- Take 2

I was pretty disappointed with my first attempts at piano video. The audio quality was nasty, the video was iffy, and of course, YouTube does its best to convert mediocre to horrible. So I'm trying again, attempting improvements on all three fronts. Johanne bought me new mic pres and converters for Christmas, so the audio should be much better. I picked up a thousand watts of lighting to improve the video. And I'm going to try streaming off of Google Video instead of YouTube, so I can at least have stereo audio in the video.

I'll post the first new video as soon as Google has finished processing it. In the meanwhile, here's a picture of my recording setup. In the photo, my new lights, my Essex with two AKG mics on it, and on the half-wall, left-to-right: hygrometer, metronome, headphones, Lexicon Omega (mic pres and converters), trackball, keyboard, monitor. Of course, Johanne's paintings hang off the picture rail, with a couple of gaps for the recently sold.

2x: Finding Twice the Usual (P.S.)

Just noticed that Twice the Usual is also available on Amazon.com. You can download the whole album or individual songs. These are mp3 versions, so the sound quality won't be as good as if you buy the physical CD from Thom's website. But it's still pretty cool to see the album on Amazon.

2x: Finding Twice the Usual

What would prompt me to blog about 2x after almost a full year since the last post?

Two things.

First, after the album was manufactured/released, I took down the unmastered recordings linked from this blog. That's because Thom is trying to recoup some of the costs of production (by selling the album instead of giving it away free). It's also because the recordings were unmastered, and considerably inferior to the finished product. But I still get some clicks on those audio links, so I thought I'd make the album a little easier to find. The links now take you to the 404 page at art-facts.com, which itself now has a link to Thom's website, where you can buy the album.

Second, I never blogged about the mastering session. It's definitely blogworthy (a low bar, admittedly), but not today. Short version: I took the recordings to Nick Landis at Terra Nova Mastering. Terra Nova is one of the premier mastering houses anywhere, and Nick has ears the size of satellite dishes. Going to him was kind of like asking Picasso to put some finishing touches on your pencil doodles: he'll probably make some great improvements, but bring a mop and bucket for your self-esteem.

To be continued....