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Follow Jay's NEW article series on THE ART OF RECORDING for EQ Magazine!

WELCOME TO THE GARDEN RAKE STUDIOS!

This is it, my friends! This is where all the MAGIC happens!
Garden Rake Studios

This section will basically concentrate on Jay's guitars, amps, studio work and recording issues and related areas of interest. Jay is currently working on a new signature guitar, so do hang around for cool updates, since you would not want to miss that...

THE ART OF RECORDING

After the appraised article series on Recording the Guitar for Guitar.com a while back Jay will once again share his expertise in all things recording with us in a new set of articles written for EQ Magazine. Please join us for an exciting and educational journey into recording land guided by our host Jay Graydon. As most of you already know Jay Graydon is twice Grammy awarded with 12 top five Grammy finalist nominations, among them are for instance the winning R&B songs AFTER THE LOVE HAS GONE and TURN YOUR LOVE AROUND and the nominations for e.g. the prestigious title "Producer of the Year" as well as a Grammy top five finalist nomination for "Best Engineered Recording".

Jay's profound knowledge of recording, engineering, songwriting, arranging, producing and related areas, has rendered him deep respect within the music industry and he has been called in as a beta tester of music gear a number of times by leading music equipment developers. Jay's music expertise comes from a deep well of experience - recording sessions from his career over the years and a desire to share his know-how with everyone who is seeking knowledge on how to develop his/her skills within the quality recording area.

First article in EQ Magazine deals with Recording Acoustic Drums

Please note that this article is also included in the print version of the September issue 2006 of EQ Magazine.

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RECORDING THE GUITAR
PLEASE NOTE!!! Jay's 32 articles on Recording the Guitar at Guitar.com are currently not available (May 2006 - ) on account of a huge overhaul of the Guitar.com web site! As soon as they are done we will give you the new location of his article series. Please stay tuned!
(Join us for Jay's fabulous series of articles on recording techniques written exclusively for Guitar.com, giving you tons of information from one of the highest ranked guitarists, producers, engineers and more, in the music industry. After 32 comprehensive articles Jay has now taken a break from writing articles to instead be able to focus totally on writing songs and working in his studio.)

GEAR in the GARDEN RAKE STUDIOS

All great producers and great studios must have great recording stuff, right? For many years Jay used these Alesis ADATS.

Alesis ADATS

The ADATS days are over as Jay is now using PRO TOOLS HD3 as his recorder format, which he uses in conjunction with his NEVE V2 console.

Jay bought the PT system in 2005 when he had decided to save a few of his songs from the 70s, which were on 2 inch analog masters. He accomplished this all the long and hard way via "baking" them and then transferring into digital land using Pro Tools HD3, carefully fixing them up sonically without altering the original 70s sound.The finished product was released in February 2006 as the highly acclaimed album Past to Present - the 70s

Jay says about the PT system:
I decided the best way to learn the PT system was to transfer old analog recordings to PT. Since I was going to spend major time fixing the sonics, I thought I might as well make the sound as good as possible and release the stuff. I did not replace any music or vocals except for one bass note that had a serious sonic problem causing my a tape recorder malfunction around 30 years ago. Ironically, I still have the same bass and DI used for the recording. - Jay

Here below are some more photos on Jay's gear over the years in Garden Rake Studios. For comments and larger versions just click on the images.

NEVE V2 Console

Synthesizer Set Up

Synths from another angle

Eventide

For recording guitar Jay uses a Massenburg eq and a Massenburg limiter.

...and two Shure SM57 microphones...

BOSSA Signature

A selection of Jay's great guitars

Here are some of the guitars that Jay has used over the years and is still using for different projects. For a larger version plus Jay's comments click on the image.

Jay's latest addition to his guitar collection - a classic jazz guitar - a vintage Gibson L5 1932.

	Ibanez George Benson Model	Gibson 1963 335	Les Paul
	Valley Arts Strat	Valley Arts Telecaster	Music Man

A few words with Jay regarding his career as an A-list studio musician

Jay, when you started out as a young musician did you know from the start that this was it? "I want to become a studio musician!" or was it the thrill of performing to a live audience that was driving you?

When I first started playing the guitar, I knew that my life would be in music. When going to college, I found out what a studio musician was and this became my goal. One of the musicians in our Valley College "big band", Ray Jackson, did a lot of arranging for R&B records. He liked my playing and this was the start of my studio career. My years in the studio would read like a novel. Looking back, playing in the studios was so much fun!

What is your advice to young guitarists who are hoping to get into the studios?

If you get a chance to play in the studios, act professional. Do not try to impress the other players by playing your "hip licks" between takes. This interrupts the flow of the session. Do not ask stupid questions like if the chart had a "C major 7th chord" on the first bar, and the rest of the band was obviously playing a C7, don't try to impress the leader by asking time wasting questions. Just change the mistake on your part and move on.

If the chart is a rhythm chart (nothing written out), listen to the song or demo and try to find a part that is complementary to the song and does not get in the way meaning do not overplay. Listen to the "groove" and fall into the "pocket" of the drummer. Play "in tune" and strive for a good tone.

So much more to offer on this subject but one last thought. A player usually gets one chance to be a studio player so practice and be prepared. Learn to play all the styles of music that you might come across. Learn to read music!

Now tell me how do you create that special warm sustaining kind of "hanging" tone of your guitar? Do you use any effect gadgets to achieve this?

"My sustaining warm tone" is most fun. The key is that the guitar and amp must like each other which they do. It is easier to get "consistent sustain" in the studio on solos because the amp speakers are isolated in another room. I can crank up the amp as high as I want without "screech" feedback from the pickups. Playing live is more difficult since every night is in a different venue and has different acoustics. I learn each venue meaning that I will move the guitar at different angles to control the feedback in a friendly manor. This is not always that easy to do. The volume pedal is the key to controlling unwanted "screech".

I use a Vintage Orange Squeezer" and an Ernie Ball volume pedal.

That is all that goes to the amp. In the studio, I add an Eventide Harmonizer (set to .005) and a delay line set to 45 milliseconds from buss sends off the console amp signal and blend in with the straight guitar. Sometimes I may use a short room reverb to tape as well. I also compress the amp with a GML Limiter but only a few DB of compression on "peaks" so the sound will not get too "squashed".

One more thought on this. If you have a compressor in the "guitar amp loop", this is not good in my book since the compressor will "brick wall" the guitar signal. As you increase the guitar gain to the amp, it will not get louder and will just get smaller and "squashed". The Orange Squeezer in front of the amp only compresses the guitar and not the overall volume.

Check out the NEW Orange Squeezer Compressor clone called
ANALOG MAN JUICER COMPRESSOR!!!

DESCRIPTION: Juicer: A hand made Dan Armstrong� Orange Squeezer clone (orange box).

As most of you know, I have been using an Orange Squeezer compressor for many years. I have tested many stomp box compressors over the years and to date, the Squeezer is still the best. Obviously, the original version has not been manufactured for quite some time.
Now for great news!!! A friend of mine told me about ANALOG MAN stating the company has released their version of the Orange Squeezer. I tested their version ("Juicer") and I must say it is surely as good as the original!!! If you want a great stomp box compressor, I highly recommend this unit!!! Btw, they make other products as well and I am looking forward to testing soon. - Jay

Some vital data and a few reviews on the Juicer.

NEW VERSION of the AMAZING SLOWDOWNER Available!

The AMAZING SLOW DOWNER is a tool that every musician must have! We have all performed "take downs", written out solos, etc. Before I discovered this tool, when trying to note complicated lines, chord changes loaded with extensions, etc., I would rewind the cassette tape, CD (whatever format) many times as to figure out the musical information.
Those days are over as the AMAZING SLOW DOWNER allows the user to slow down the CD to a speed that makes blazing up tempo 16th notes sound like whole notes! No annoying data seem glitches in the process! Further, you can tune to any key! And apart from slowing down CDs, the program is also capable of slowing down MP3 and AIFF (Mac) / Wave (Windows) files.
So many options as well and the price is extremely reasonable! Simply download the demo and try for yourself and you will be amazed!!! - Jay

All written material, all images and photos in all sections of this website copyright © Jay Graydon/KEO 1996 - 2008. All rights reserved. Comments, suggestions, appreciation, corrections... whatever... talk to us.

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