I by Scoobert Doobert

Hello dear liner-note reader,

While this record is called “I,” I sure used “u” a lot in the lyrics. I guess u are why I’m me???

I intended this album to be a soundtrack for travel, mostly by coastal train or driving in a car (or being driven by a robot car?). I bought a little side monitor on Black Friday for my laptop, so I could watch train cab-view videos while arranging and recording. (I wrote "time with u" after being inundated by Black Friday ads after making that purchase.)

Calling the LP “I” felt like it had to be personal, so I dug into doubt, self-destruction, elation, hope, loss, excitement, discovery, the natural world, and shamanistic voyages. I wrote these songs over about eight months, starting in the Grand Tetons, then to the Sierra Nevada mountains and up the face of Mount Whitney. A lot of songs didn’t make it to the record, but they were important cairns along the way. On these long, grueling hikes, I mumbled into voice notes and captured little glimpses of lyrics.

I programmed many of the electronic grooves while on trains up the California coast, on Shinkansen darting around Japan, and sometimes in the air traveling here and there. I wanted that feeling of movement baked into the music. I hope you feel it. It also forced me to produce fast, get ideas down, and edit later. It's hard to get audiophile quality when there's an airplane engine next to you (though the Dreamliner that Japan Air uses is pretty quiet — my favorite plane). But I dug deep into the sonic weeds later, I promise. The combo of rough and precise made for an interesting audio fingerprint and my favorite-sounding thing I've ever made.

I started this LP with most of the songs already written before laying down a note (haven't done that in a while), but a lot of the demos didn't have chords. They were just little melodies isolated, floating in the wind (and sometimes the demos were super windy because they were written in the High Sierras). It was a fun challenge writing around the melody rather than to the melody. It gave a different sort of flexibility and led me to a more "classic" harmonic structure. I also recorded the lead vocal first for most of these songs, just accompanied by a drone note instead of harmony. Probably because of that, there ended up being a lot of "line clichés" on this LP, which I think lends a Beatles-esque vibe that I'm quite proud of.

Following the classic threads I found in the harmony and demoing process, I set out to have some production flourishes that held constant across songs, like classic LPs had. I used a lot of reversed sounds and tried to keep the reverb (sense of space) fairly consistent from song to song. I selected software and instruments to be my sonic palette and stuck to them. I wanted it to be a coherent work where you could hear everything recorded in the same room, with the same mics and players, mixing engineer, producer, mastering engineer, etc. without getting stagnant. I also tried to record it fast (though this music took a lot of time to make). My apologies and deep appreciation to my wife, Velma von Dink, who barely saw me for about three months.

Early on in the arrangement process, I figured a record with these sorts of naturalistic and emotional subjects would require a lot of vocals. So I called up Lou Roy to track background vocals and elevate the arrangements. She's one of my favorite musicians/singers/songwriters/etc. in the world, so definitely go check out her work! I’ve also always thought reed instruments (particularly clarinet) are very vocal, so I asked Nicole McCabe to lend her talents too. She's one of the best musicians in the world. I know her primarily as a sax player, but I saw an IG story where she played bass clarinet and immediately reached out. It was my birthday that day, so I like to think her saying “yes” was a cosmic birthday present. All-in-all, I think the interplay between muted, cassette-tape-saturated guitars with reedy vocals and a literal reed instrument gives a vocal element across the entire instrumentation. I wanted everything to sing.

I got some new toys for this record. The most important (as it always is) was my room. I finally got out of my bedroom for the first time since 2018! I started this record with “time with u” in my new studio (a converted bedroom haha!), with minimal acoustic treatment. Recording and mixing got a lot easier once I got some stuff on the walls (i.e. acoustic tiles filled with stuff like roxul; foam only deals with high-end and my room's biggest problem areas were in the low midrange frequencies).

I also got a new microphone (UAD sphere mic) about halfway through recording (free on a holiday deal!), allowing me to add more “sparkle” and high-end to my background vocals (thanks to the Sony C800G emulation in the Ocean Way pack). I think it unlocked something v cool, and I can't wait to use it more on my next LP, "US." And by finally having a room that we don’t sleep in, I’m able to play drums again and randomly strum my mandolin into a mic at 2 am. I’m so happy!

A lot of this record was laid down during the biggest rainstorm in like 40 years here in San Diego. I think that calm, contemplative energy seeped into this LP (and the sound of the rain bled into the mic sometimes).

I listed some of my gear on the liner notes here because I think the music instrument makers deserve their shine. Thank you, music people, for making the tools we used to create. A miner is nothing without a pickaxe, or something like that.

The coolest tool? Remember how I wanted everything to sound like it was in the same room? Well, I got to resurrect the sound of Sound City Studios with their reverb plugin! I used it on every song! Most of the time it’s blended in 1% — or less — but it gives the sense of space. And it combines with my small studio to create a great hybrid — lofi meets hifi. One part bedroom-pop one part classic-studio. I didn't want to recreate; I wanted to create a third room by synthesizing the virtual and actual.

It's the same deal with the Hitsville reverb plugin. I’ve added some dashes of the classic Motown sound, sometimes liberally, on things like tambourines or snare drums. The beauty of that bit of software was that it emulated a chamber. Chamber verbs are created when you run a pre-recorded sound into a speaker and re-capture it with a microphone, adding the sound of that new room in, and then you blend the two signals to get a punchy dry signal and a vibey wet signal. But the beauty here was that Hitsville was just an attic. It was an imperfect chamber, the OG home recording studio move, recreated with math and stuff. Yes!

Beyond that, I used a copious amount of spring reverb, a synthetic verb created with a transducer at one end of a spring and a pickup at the other. It’s the sound of surf guitar. I remember my grandpa burning me a CD of the Ventures when I was first learning guitar. That’s why my LP “Moonlight Beach” starts with an instrumental cover of “Walk Don’t Run.” I used that type of ‘verb to give that surf vibe in this record (especially since it name-drops San Diego a lot). Shout out to Waves Magma Springs and MixWave Benson Tall Bird for a good chunk of that vibe. The trick to all reverb is to use less and have a shorter decay than you think. It adds up. Sometimes 1% of three different reverbs is better than 60% of one. Maybe that’s a metaphor for creativity writ large?

Finally, I added a little wifi to my lofi-and-hifi with Adaptiverb, a "reflectionless reverb." It's the most otherworldly reverb because it doesn't emulate a room at all. It's just bizarre math, adding endless expanses of harmonics and synthesized pitches. To create larger-than-life moments, I reached here. You can hear it in its full glory at the very end of Side A. My vocals swell into the plugin and drift out into space itself, with no reflections!

I also played with tuning all of my instruments down… a lot. Most of these songs were written on my acoustic guitar tuned down a minor third (three half-steps further than where guitars are usually tuned). It adds woody richness and a pitch warble. The guitar doesn’t want to be that low. A tension comes from the lack of tension…

I hope the combination of the gear, the environment, the spirit, the subject, the goal, and the love all connect with you. It was some v difficult music to record, but the beauty was it all revealed itself effortlessly. In other words, I’d start recording background vocals and all at once the whole part would be revealed. I’d sigh because I’d know it would take about 7 or 8 more hours to lay it all down — and these ideas can be fragile, so I’d have to skip lunch to not forget anything, but there was very little forcing or searching involved. It was more just doing the work – attaching to the golden thread of the muses, taking the next step across the mountain pass, and losing myself in the trail.

I hope you like this little handful of sand I laid on that mountain top, and I appreciate you for taking the serious step of buying a physical music product. Did you know the Library of Congress still backs their music up on vinyl? It’s more durable. I finally get to make something that might last, even if Spotify or Apple Music disappears. Someone could invent a record player in a post-apocalyptic world, and this thing could still work (don’t leave it in the sun!). It might be the only thing of mine that survives long term. I tried to live up to that when recording it. I hope I did. Forgive me if I didn’t.

Every time you drop a needle, you give the music life again. It's born with each play and dies with each stop. That's why I like music as an art form so much. It's just like life itself. Time delimited. Ephemeral. And even more beautiful for it.

Thank you for reading the ramblings of a San Diegan at 1:46 am on February 9, 2024. I appreciate you, and this is my best way to show it.
Also thank you to Sam, who helps me keep the main thing the main thing every day. To Max, who is a sonic sherpa pushing the art through animation and sharing artistic references only he can find. To Marco, who navigates the deep sea of business and legal that could easily break a career, but he urges us on sagely, while in board shorts and flip flops. To Grizz, who made incredible art that forced me to make better music. Seriously, I was trying to just make silly music, and then this guy shows up, illustrates these incredible things, and now I actually have to live up to his illustrations. What an asshole! To Riley, who has mastered so much of my music since college, thanks for helping me turn into a real mix engineer. To Lou, who makes me a better singer somehow by just listening to and editing her voice. How is that even possible? To Nicole, who I hope to make lots of music with because I'll never be as good of a musician as her, so I'll always be inspired! How cool is that! To Bubby, my bass mentor, friend, and fellow Japanophile. I hope to be 1% as cool as you someday. To my wife, who yet again, let me wake her up with my alarm at 5 am to go produce music, and wake her up again when I came to bed at 1 am after finishing the song. I hope you don't mind me releasing my cheesy love songs about u to the world. To my family, who invested so much time, energy, love, and support throughout my childhood and beyond. They've never given up on my dream, even though it would've been more rational to have done so. I hope to live up to your gifts. To my friends, for giving me a reason to write happy songs. Love you all.

The world in 2024 is what it is. But it's a lot easier to change the world with a smile on your face and the joy from friends and family in your heart. I hope my music can share some of that joy, fill you up, and help you to take on the challenges that you need to take on. Go change the world for the better. Thank you, again, for choosing to spend time with me. You could be listening to the Beatles, but instead, you're listening to Scoobert Doobert. Odd choice, but you're not normal, are you? I mean, you read this whole thing, weirdo. But I’m not normal either. And it feels good to be spending time together.

(If you liked this, I also have a podcast called Love Music More that you might enjoy. It’s marginally less weird - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scoobertdoobert )

Happy listening,
Scoob

scoobertdoobert.pizza

Like the majestic poinsettia, I (Scoobert Doobert) was birthed from the sandy soil of Encinitas, California.

Business stuff: beformer@aol.com

scoobertdoobert.pizza
lovemusicmore.substack.com
Instagram
podcasters.spotify.com