Tommy Detamore
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Tommy Detamore
and His Pedal Steel |
 Production
and Studio Gear |
 On-Line
Guitar Sessions |
| Guitar
Gear and Technique |
| Audio
Clips |
Texas-Style Steel:
In Studio and On-Line
Producer, engineer, and steel guitarist Tommy Detamore has a simple motto that speaks volumes about his passion: Music without emotion is like a river without water.
Well, Tommy's music oozes emotion and his river is flowing fast and furious! Detamore has worked on well over 100 albums for performers including George Strait and Grammy Award winner Bobby Flores. He has also contributed to hundreds of demo projects for artists all over the world.
He owns and operates Cherry Ridge Studio, located between Austin and San Antonio, where he has been been recording and producing traditional, modern, and alternative country music since 1990. The studio also pumps out contemporary Christian, Gospel, and Texas- and Americana-style music. Tommy recently launched a new website, Steel Guitar Tracks Online in response to the ever-increasing demand for his services.
Production and Studio Gear
RS: Tommy, welcome to Rocket Sounds! Glad you could make it...
TD: Thanks for having me, Stuie!
RS: Based on your website www.cherryridgestudio.com you look like one busy guy!
TD: Yes, I have been very lucky. I stay pretty well booked up, usually 4-6 weeks out. I have a lot of repeat business, which to me is the highest compliment I could ever receive. It is gratifying that someone would make a record and be so satisfied with not only the finished product, but also with the recording experience itself, that they would want to come back and do it all again.
RS: What kind of projects are you doing at Cherry Ridge Studio? Who is your typical client?
TD: It runs the gamut, anywhere from self-contained band album projects to custom albums using all studio players. But I would say my typical client is the singer-songwriter looking to do a full CD or demo their material for pitching to other artists.
RS: I notice you also do mastering. Do you typically take a project from tracking to mastering?
TD: I would say I do 85-90 % of my own mastering. I know that flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but it seems to work out okay. In the past, I slaved over projects getting them to sound a certain way, only to have them destroyed by outside mastering engineers who thought my mixes needed “fixing.” So after a few of those experiences, I decided that if my stuff was gonna get messed up like that, I could mess it up that good myself!
RS: How difficult is to be a tracking engineer, then turn around and do mixing and mastering?
TD: It actually all works together quite well for me. If I have done the tracking, then I know what I’m dealing with from the start. Thoughout the course of all the overdubbing, I am tweaking things,“mixing as you go” you might say. So when mix time comes, I usually have tones and compressors and ambiences dialed in pretty close. That was hard to do before DAWS and “mixing in the box” with total recall, but I think it is pretty common method of working nowadays.
And by the time everything is mixed, it has gotten so close to the way everyone wants it to sound that mastering really just becomes the final polish . The real beauty of self-mastering to me is that if sonic problems do crop up at the mastering stage, you can go back to the mix and fix the critter that’s causing the problem, instead of trying to correct it on the two-track mix, where there is usually some kind of trade-off.
RS: How is your studio equipped?
TD: My studio is centered around the Paris system that was manufactured initially by Ensoniq and later by Emu. It is a cross-platform, card-based system similar to Pro Tools, in that the heavy processing is handled by the chips on the cards, not natively by the CPU of the computer. This has many advantages, including near zero latency and less stringent computer requirements. The channel EQ and effects also take place on the cards, and you can always count on 4 fully parametric bands to be available on each channel, no matter what. So you never “hit the wall” as far as that goes, like you can with native systems.
You also have a guaranteed track count (16 per PCI card). Notoriously processor-intensive things, like reverb, are also available “built in” on the cards, which is a plus. You are able to use third-party plug-ins along with the internal stuff too. (VST on the Mac, and DX and VST on the PC side). And Paris was designed to easily interface with external analog boxes. For example, I am using a Kurzweil KSP 8 as an external effects box with no hitches. I save presets per song, so when I call up a new song on Paris, it has become second nature to simultaneously dial up the corresponding preset on the KSP.
RS: Do clients come to you specifically because of the Paris system?
TD: Well, I do know some folks come to me because of these sound I get, and Paris is a big part of that. But most people have never even heard specifically of Paris.
RS: Is it ever a liability to be running a studio and NOT using Pro Tools?
TD: I don’t think so, at least not for me. There has never been a situation where I couldn’t make a transfer in and out. I suppose if a transfer involves a sample rate conversion, then theoretically you compromise the quality of the tracks, but I have done it plenty of times and the outcome is always fine.
A lot of times when people first visit the studio, they ask “So are you running Pro Tools?” I tell them no, I used to (which is true!), but now I am running something with a similar functionality that I like better (also true!). And Pro Tools, while extremely popular, is certainly not the only game in town. I get nearly as many calls to work with material from Nuendo, for example.
RS: Why so loyal to the Paris system?
TD: Even though Paris has been discontinued and is no longer supported, I continue to use it because it works smoothly and sounds great. It reacts more like an analog system if you push levels hard. Unlike any other digital system I know of, in Paris, “red” can be your friend! The signal can be made to compress and spread out, not unlike the effect of hitting 2” tape hard. This was not a touted feature when the system was being marketed, but rather it was discovered by some of the more rabid Paris users and abusers over time. Maybe if Ensoniq had hyped this feature, they would have sold more systems and Paris might have lived!
When Paris was discontinued, I went on a hunt to acquire some spare parts in case of breakdowns. I have essentially two full systems at the moment, one online and one stored away. I have yet to have had use any of my spare parts, but I am sure the day will come sooner or later. Since I run Macs. I also bought a spare OS 9-capable Mac, just in case.
RS: You're very prepared! Do you use any other software?
TD: Since Paris development ceased a few years ago, I have set up another computer to handle some of the things that Paris either can’t do or doesn’t do particularly well, like MIDI, for example. I used to use Logic for MIDI, but last year started using Digital Performer. With DP and a 2408 interface, I can also blow audio back and forth between machines via lightpipe, in case there are tracks that need some audio processing that DP is better suited for.
RS: How difficult is it when somebody brings you a project that has already been started in a different format, like Pro Tools?
TD: It’s not too difficult if they give me rendered files, all with the same start time. That gives me contiguous files to work with and not a bunch of little regions that Paris would not know where to place in a document. The only catch is if someone wants a sample rate higher than the Paris maximum of 48 khz. Then I have to do a conversion, but it always seems to work out ok. The purists may howl, but none of my clients have complained!
RS: Have they typically burned their effects and Inserts to track?
TD: Most always the tracks I get are dry, unless they involve a particular effect that is critical to the sound of the track. Like for example, an electric guitar run thru a Leslie, or a vocoded vocal or something like that.
RS: You specialize in country projects, but that's not all you do?
TD: No, I also do a lot of what has come to be known as “Texas Music”, which I would consider for the most part to be a melding of country, rock, folk, and blues in varying proportions, with the occasional added spices of Latin, western swing, and Cajun styles. Some Texas artists may lean more one way, and some more the other. It has become quite a deal down here, and has been very good for the studio business I think. I also do a fair amount of Christian and Gospel, with both country and rock stylings.
