Step into Studio Two in the basement of the Hopkins Center, and you'll be confronted with intimidating stacks of equipment, a hard-working Power Mac G4 and an incomprehensible web of wires. Chances are you'll also see Britt Myers.
Myers, a senior, has spent much of the year working on "Every Great City," an album he has produced for his honors thesis in music. The disc comprises 10 tracks, most of which were composed by Myers between December 1998 and September 1999, and most of which feature Myers supplying the vocal and instrumental tracks by himself.
I ventured into the cramped Studio Two to ask Myers about his creative process, and he faced the challenge of explaining a painstaking, complex methodology to somebody who knew just a little bit about music, just a little bit about computers.
Myers started out by noting that he used a Pro Tools system that utilized 12 DSP chips on two PCI cards, and I started to sweat as I scribbled the acronyms into my notebook.
Turns out it's not so complicated. Pro Tools is a program for the same old Mac OS that most Dartmouth students work with, and it uses the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chips to do things with sound that the computer can't handle by itself.
Even with 12 of those, Myers pushed the limits of his system. He was having chronic trouble applying effects to one of his tracks, and the problem was exasperating both Myers and the Pro Tools technical support. After a thorough investigation, it turned out that Myers was putting the Pro Tools system to such a test that he had discovered a new bug -- a glitch that none of the thousands of previous Pro Tools users had ever encountered. Upon learning this surprise, Myers says that Mary Roberts told him "They're not USING it like you are, Britt!"
Roberts, a professor in the Electro-Acoustic Music department, has used her expertise as a recording engineer to guide Britt through the production process this year. Myers is no novice in the music recording field, but he considers Roberts's collaboration invaluable. "She has really gotten into the project," he said, "not just EQing the tracks, but understanding the lyrics and talking about their meaning. I've never had someone that involved or collaborating at that level."
"One of her is like 15 of me -- it's so incredible everything she's done."
An example of Roberts's help came when the CD was nearing the point at which it would be sent off to the presses. Having worked with ideally configured studio monitors, it was time to see what the average listener would hear when he put the disc in his system. Roberts insisted that they go to great lengths to make sure the CD would sound good anywhere.
The pair hijacked every CD player they could find, from car systems to home stereo setups to the cheapest mini boombox. They pretended they were buying speakers at local electronics stores so they could listen to multiple brands in one sitting.
The electronics store isn't unfamiliar territory to Myers. As early as middle school he was frequenting his local shop, learning the intricacies of the equipment. He began writing his own material for acoustic guitar in fifth grade. In junior high, he was playing in "really bad punk and grunge bands," and at this point he tried his hand at recording.
His first tape "sounded horrible," but Myers was undeterred and continued familiarizing himself with the tools of recording. Late in his high school career, he interned at Line 6. The company had formerly been FF Design, which designed ADAT, a medium that made home recording accessible to amateurs and started the home studio revolution.
While at Line 6, he researched artists in the 18-24 age range and why they weren't buying Line 6 products. "It was great," Myers said, "I sat in front of these CEOs and told them what they were doing wrong."
Another nice feature of the internship was the huge discounts he got on recording equipment, which, according to Myers, made the production of "Every Great City" possible.
The discounts were put to good use, for "Every Great City" is a masterfully produced album. There is a richness to the sound and a flow between tracks that is rarely heard even on label-backed studio recordings.
Interested listeners can go to brittmyers.com to sample the CD. And if you like what you hear, Myers's web design team has provided an easy link to an online store where you can purchase the CD -- not a typical feature of your standard honors thesis.
The site also features a photo page, and one of the pictures presents Myers peering meekly out of a taxicab window with his trademark half-smile. After my interview with the modest and amiable Myers, this calm fellow who had accomplished a task that would've broken most lesser musicians, I realized that this cab snapshot was the quintessential Britt Myers -- he knows he's going places, but he plans to enjoy the ride.
Britt Myers Online: http://www.brittmyers.com.
