Before building a name for himself as a first-call producer and mixing engineer, Greg Wells worked as an in-demand session musician and multi-instrumentalist for an incredible range of artists.
In this episode of Greg Well's Start To Finish Series, Greg fills out the arrangement of Bryce Drew's "Lucky Number," by tracking multiple layers of guitar and keyboard overdubs, adding gorgeous soundscapes to the production.
Watch as Greg:
Mics up his Divided By 13 guitar amp and cabinet using an SM57 and R121
Performs multiple passes of electric guitars
Records various instrument passes of vibes, flutes, pads and more using his Mellotron
Edits together the numerous takes of guitars and keyboards to create the perfect arrangement
Explains his thought process on experimentation and failure in the recording studio
00:00:23 Here's the morning of day three,
this is our final day here
at Sunset Sound, Studio 1,
and
what I hope to accomplish today
is everything that isn't done.
00:00:34 I want to pick up where we
left off last night.
00:00:36 We'll try some electric guitar
on the track,
and what I normally like to do
because I'm a bit of a
spastic guitar player,
is just experiment and try
a bunch of different things
and don't overthink very much.
00:00:47 And then I'll record
four to eight tracks of that
and then just sort of come in
and comp my favorite bits.
00:00:52 And maybe it will be stereo,
maybe it will be four different tracks,
maybe it's all on one, I don't know yet.
00:00:58 And then, I brought my Mellotron,
the new Swedish digital Mellotron
which is just an amazing,
amazing instrument.
00:01:06 Those guys nailed it
and... it's beautiful,
and I love blending the sounds
and playing with the Tone,
and dropping it down to half speed.
00:01:15 I'll experiment with that
and do much the same
that I would do with the guitar,
and then I want to look at
background vocals.
00:01:21 Bryce is still kind of not sure
that the last line of verse two
is the one,
so she's going to try to beat it
and we'll see.
00:01:30 I like what's there now,
I think it sounds right
and I don't feel like I'm copping out.
00:01:34 I like what's there, we'll see.
00:01:36 And then...
00:01:39 ...mix time on this beautiful
DeMedio-modified API console
that is one of a kind,
and I can't wait.
00:01:48 And we're going to go until we're done.
00:01:50 Here we go.
00:01:52 - We're going to set up the guitar.
00:01:54 The two mics that we're going to use,
one is going to be the Royer 121
and the other one
is going to be the SM57.
00:02:02 All right, the first mic
we're going to use is the SM57,
which is always one of my go-to
guitar mics for amps.
00:02:16 And I'm going to try to get
just a hair off the center of the cone,
so I'm going to need
a little flashlight here
so I can see where the cone is
because this is kind of
a thicker grill.
00:02:33 I'm just going to get a general spot
because I don't even have
my cable in yet,
so I'll place this mic
a little bit better later.
00:02:40 But that should be a good start.
00:02:44 Royer 121.
00:02:58 That's pretty good.
00:03:06 All right, and now I'm actually
going to place it.
00:03:10 I want to go pretty much in the center,
but I'd like to go a little bit off-axis.
00:03:14 The center is so bright and I'd like to
get a little bit of darkness out of there.
00:03:26 - Let's just hit Record
and see what happens.
00:03:29 - All right, here we go.
00:05:51 - Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
- Do you want me to punch in?
- Yeah, I think that was pretty good
until halfway through the bridge
and then I left the room in a bad way.
00:06:01 - Okay. Do you want me to get you halfway
into the bridge, or start at the bridge?
- Keep what we have,
but let's punch at the top of the bridge.
00:06:08 - Sounds good.
00:06:09 - And get anticipated because
I'm probably going to... into it.
00:06:12 - Okay, great.
All right, here we go.
00:06:14 - Okay.
00:07:54 - Okay.
00:07:55 So, what I'd like to do because
I'm sort of a spastic guitar player,
I'd just like to take a bunch of takes
and then I'll come in and sort of
grab the best moments,
if there are any.
00:08:05 - Sounds good.
Yeah, we can just keep rolling.
00:08:06 - I'll just check tuning.
00:08:11 Always check your tuning
in between takes, fellow guitar players.
00:08:17 That's something I learned the hard way,
but also really, really learned
from genius studio guitar player
Tim Pierce.
00:08:27 He's always, always checking tuning,
even in the middle of a take
he'll check tuning.
00:09:31 First chorus, please.
00:09:33 Anticipate it.
00:12:28 Okay.
00:12:30 One more, and I'll call this sort of,
like, 'super noodley' track.
00:12:34 - Okay, great. I'll make some notes.
00:15:58 - Okay.
00:15:59 There's enough in there to pick through.
00:16:02 So, while I'm here,
why don't we experiment a bit
with the Mellotron?
- Oh, cool. Great.
00:16:10 - I'll just put some stuff down
and then I'll come in and kind of...
00:16:13 - ...machete through everything.
- All right, sounds good.
00:16:16 - Okay.
00:19:39 - Okay. Start again.
00:19:42 Right on the bridge, please.
00:19:44 - Cool.
00:21:19 - Okay.
00:21:20 Let's keep that track,
that was a pretty good one.
00:21:22 And now I want to sort of
dress up the bridge
and make it sort of dreamy and orchestral,
and put some other fun overdubs
of this guy on it.
00:21:31 - Okay, great.
00:21:33 - So, just give me a minute
to come up with a sound.
00:21:36 - Okay. Do you want to hear the previous
recorded keyboard take?
- Yes, 3 dB down.
- Great.
00:21:43 - Okay.
00:21:44 - All right, here we go.
00:22:33 - Okay, let's keep that
and turn it down 5 dB for me.
00:22:38 - Okay.
00:22:42 - You can call that one 'Vibes',
it's a vibraphone.
00:22:45 It's actually vibes and marimba,
but 'Vibes' is fine.
00:22:48 - Okay.
00:23:19 - Let's try this. Call it 'Low Brass'.
00:23:23 - Okay.
00:24:07 - Okay.
00:24:09 Let's call this one 'Flutes'.
00:24:33 - Okay.
00:24:35 - All right, here we go.
00:26:04 - One more time?
- No, I liked it in the bridge.
00:26:07 Let's keep the bridge, and then as soon
as it goes to the breakdown chorus
just record right on the 1.
00:26:12 - Cool. All right, here we go.
00:27:13 - Great!
One more, let's call it 'Harp'.
00:28:09 - Nope!
You're fired!
Let's get out the sickle, sharpen it up,
and...
00:28:20 What I'm doing right now is I'm sort of
pastiching stuff.
00:28:24 The minute I hear something,
I want to grab it, I want to keep it
so that I can always hear it.
00:28:28 I don't want it hiding in a playlist,
so I'm going to duplicate these tracks.
00:28:33 There are two tracks, one is a 57
and the other one is a Royer 122.
00:28:38 I have another destination
to have things playing at the same time
as another guitar part.
00:28:44 I don't need any of that...
okay, maybe the Sends.
00:28:49 Let's take a look at this guy.
00:28:52 And let's go to this here
where I can just...
00:29:02 Okay, so now I want to hear this.
00:31:28 So, it may not require explaining,
but the reason I haven't dragged
any of that stuff anywhere
is because I don't think
it's that special. It's okay.
00:31:34 I'm only keeping stuff that kind of makes
me go, "Ooh! That’s cool!" You know?
And it's like... I'm being picky,
and I know there's a lot more
to go through here.
00:31:43 All right, let's check out
the bridge on this take.
00:32:42 That's all a bit
Bryan Adams-sounding to me,
so I don't think I'll use
the sort of more open thing.
00:32:47 It felt great to play,
but so often, you know, the stuff that...
00:32:52 It still haunts me even though
I've been doing this for so long,
but as a musician
on whatever instrument I'm on...
00:32:58 I'm sure all musicians recording
experience this
where there will be a thing
that you're playing to the track
and it just feels right
and it feels great,
and you really feel, like, "Yes, this is
the part it's supposed to be."
And every once in a while I'm right,
and I come in and it's, like,
"Yeah, it was great!"
But more often than not
it doesn't sound special
in the way that I thought it did
when I was playing it.
00:33:21 It's this weird, weird, weird transference
of your musical instincts and aesthetics
to then have it sound good
coming through the speakers.
00:33:30 That's a whole other thing,
it's really weird,
and I think that that's why
there are so many incredible
musicians in the world,
all over the place,
male and female, old and young,
any country, any area code.
00:33:44 However, there is a really short list
of musicians
that can come under the scrutiny
of a microphone
and
help the song sound better.
00:33:56 It is just the most bizarre, hard...
00:33:58 It's so hard, there's so many great
musicians I've been in the studio with,
and on a good day
maybe I'm one of them, you know?
Where it's like...
00:34:07 I have all this sort of music,
I can muscle flex,
I can play crazy classical stuff
on the piano.
00:34:11 I've done nothing
but music my whole life,
however,
that stuff isn't really so helpful.
00:34:17 It gives me some kind of thing
to fall back on,
it gives me a craft that I can plug into,
but
in terms of providing
that sort of special "Ahh!",
that thing that makes the song
feel better coming through the speakers,
that's what I'm looking for from me
or from whomever is helping make
the noise in the studio,
definitely from the singer.
00:34:37 And that's a really short list,
it's a different muscle
and it took me so long
to access it, you know?
I still...
00:34:44 I mean, we're looking at it right now.
I played a thing,
I'm playing through one
of the world's best amps,
through one of the best signal paths,
it's a beautiful guitar,
a Waterslide guitar, I love it.
00:34:55 I'm not a terrible guitar player,
but I'm listening to it and it's like...
00:34:59 I don't need it.
It's not special, you know?
I'm looking for, like,
the really special stuff
that gives me that kind of
feeling inside, so...
00:35:09 I don't know.
00:35:10 I don't know how you beat it,
I think I got slightly better at it
from just sucking
for so many years, you know?
Like playing something
that I really thought,
"This will sound great
when I go in and listen to it,"
whether it's a drum fill
or a certain sound.
00:35:25 And so many times I just had
this sort of slap in the face, like,
"This doesn't sound the way I thought
it did through the speakers.
00:35:31 Why? I really felt that I..." You know.
00:35:33 It's like I feel I know
what I'm saying right now,
and maybe what I'm looking like,
but when I watch this back
I'll probably think,
"Wow, I didn't know I said it that way,"
or, "I look angry,
but I wasn't feeling angry."
I don't know, it's just
weird stuff we can't control.
00:35:46 Back to the guitars.
00:35:49 Let me go to another take.
00:38:13 I really love having fun
with long crossfades.
00:38:16 It just does this beautiful thing,
and it works best if it is on Equal Power.
00:38:22 Equal Gain sometimes gives me
a bit of a dip in the volume
right in the middle of the crossfade.
00:38:28 This is kind of fun,
this is two different takes.
00:38:37 I loved how this take swelled in...
00:38:46 ...into the top of the last big chorus,
but I also loved this sort of
high harmonic...
00:38:52 ...volume swell that I did.
00:38:58 And I'm kind of imagining
some swimmy delays on this track.
00:39:02 Anyway, so,
even though the crossfade
will have already been over
we'll still be hearing
some of that high harmonic
as the other guy slides in underneath.
00:39:10 And I'm happy to commit that all
to the same track,
I feel like it's...
00:39:14 it's doing what I want it to do.
00:39:25 I also moved that high harmonic thing
to happen a little later,
maybe a quarter note later.
00:39:30 There's another thing
happening here underneath...
00:39:36 ...that I wish sustained longer,
so I may time-stretch it,
or delays might help me,
and I might also make it happen
a bit later. Let's see what that does.
00:39:52 It's too late for me, let's try this.
00:40:01 That's really interesting.
Hear how the three things kind of show up.
00:40:11 That's really nice. Okay.
00:40:14 Is there anything else to listen to here?
[French]
What do we got here?
Let me turn this guy off.
00:40:28 I love doing that,
playing a little sort of...
00:40:30 It's not really a polyrhythm,
but just kind of a different...
00:40:56 So, even though that was
incredibly fun to play and I love...
00:41:00 ...things like that,
I don't think we need it.
00:41:03 But it was fun.
00:41:16 Nope.
00:41:35 Close, but... I'm not going to keep it.
00:42:05 I think I want to keep the...
00:42:08 I'll pop that on a comp track
we got going here.
00:42:14 Let's go back, 09.
00:42:24 You know, another really key thing too
when doing tracks like this,
it's very... I'm improvising,
it's very improvisatory.
00:42:30 I'm improvising right now.
00:42:32 I don't really know what I'll say
10 seconds from now, that's okay.
00:42:35 So, when you're... you know,
allowing yourself to just sort of go,
"What about this?
What about this? What about this?"
The thing to...
00:42:46 to really try to manage in the studio
is not to get embarrassed
and not to feel like,
"Oh, I'm sucking."
Like...
00:42:54 I really like the movies
made by Ron Howard,
movie director Ron Howard.
00:42:57 And he's a very thoughtful guy,
he's really sort of...
00:43:01 I get a lot of inspiration
from movie directors
and the words and thoughts
they have on making movies,
from Akira Kurosawa to...
00:43:08 ...Ron Howard, who got started
on Happy Days.
00:43:10 Actually, he got started on
The Andy Griffith Show as a young boy.
00:43:13 So he's been around storytelling
and moviemaking and TV shows
since birth, really.
00:43:19 His dad was an actor,
his older brother is an actor.
00:43:21 He often cast his dad and his older
brother in most of his movies.
00:43:25 And Ron did a Masterclass,
the Masterclass series,
and there's a trailer in it...
00:43:31 a trailer for his episode, and what
he says is just a beautiful thing,
he says, "We have to remember
as creative people
that most of what we do
winds up as failure."
And I love that because
it's so true, you know?
Success...
00:43:45 You don't learn very much from success.
00:43:48 It's nice to have success, obviously,
but I've never really learned from it.
00:43:53 And in fact, if you have too much of it,
especially too much
in a short period of time,
it's really stunting, you know?
It really kind of inhibits... growth
and you start to kind of...
00:44:03 ...think your poop doesn't smell,
and just all of this ridiculous stuff.
00:44:06 You drink your own Kool-Aid, you know?
And if anything, it's not just stunting,
it actually makes you
sort of revert in growth.
00:44:12 And
all my spastic and really
embarrassing failures
have been the thing that...
00:44:18 If I pay attention to them, I get better,
and I learn a little bit
of what not to do next time.
00:44:26 And also hopefully
a little bit of an inclination
of what I should try to do next time.
00:44:31 Not just what not to repeat,
but where maybe to aim my sights
the next time.
So, like, guitar takes like this,
I don't really know what I'm going to play
before I play it,
and... there's a bunch of people watching,
and of course, here we're filming this,
but at some point you got to get over
your own thing of not...
00:44:49 You know, like, we all want to be cooler
than we are. I know I certainly do.
00:44:52 But you have to be willing to just...
just fail, just pants drop.
00:44:56 You know, that's what happens
in the studio,
and it's about collecting
the best bits of that stuff,
that's what comping a vocal is.
00:45:04 Even mixing, you know?
Sometimes mistakes in mixing can be...
00:45:08 like an accidental mute scene...
00:45:11 A lot of people know
what I'm talking about.
00:45:14 It can be better than the thing
you've been working on for 8 hours.
00:45:16 You accidentally...
something is grouped, you hit a Mute,
and someone in the room
is like, "What's that?"
and then that becomes
part of the mix, so...
00:45:24 ...I encourage you, if you have the luxury
of some time, to experiment.
00:45:28 And you can experiment with effects too,
just guitar pedals,
or plug-ins, or whatever.
00:45:33 Just experiment, get down on the garden,
dig up a whole bunch of dirt,
make a mess,
and don't worry about how good you look
with dirt all over your face.
00:46:24 I like a lot of that,
that's really cool.
00:46:30 I'm just going to, for now,
drag this whole thing down here
and call this guy 'gtr solo'.
00:46:39 It's sort of a solo.
00:47:12 I really love that sound!
That's the neck pickup with the tone
rolled either all the way off,
or almost all the way off.
00:47:20 And it sort of sounds
like some weird French horn
through a guitar delay.
00:47:26 I really love all the Larry Carlton
noodley stuff on so many things,
from Joni Mitchell to the
Donald Fagen solo record
and lots of Steely Dan stuff.
00:47:37 He's just the most gorgeous noodler.
00:48:41 Such promise, and then such... tragedy.
00:48:52 Let's see what happened on the next
Larry Carlton-French horn
wannabe track.
00:49:17 I feel like I'm at a point now
with these guitars
where I've just kind of gotten rid
of anything that didn't really
hug the track and sort of stick to it.
00:49:24 And I'll probably wind up
taking away more stuff
once I get into the keyboards
and into the mixing stage
in a little bit later, today.
00:49:33 But I like what I've got and...
00:49:36 you know, again, harkening back
to what I was saying before
about not being afraid to just try stuff,
I had no idea that I was going to play
this kind of guitar on this.
00:49:45 In fact, the truth is I thought
I had no idea if the electric guitar
was even going to fit,
but I think it did a thing
and the volume pedal sort of opened up
a whole new set of possibilities
of what the guitar can do
with a little delay.
00:49:58 I actually used two different delays,
I like to use two delays very rolled off,
very, like, tape-sounding delays,
and at different speeds
so there's kind of, like,
modulating and warble in a way,
and each one marching to
their own drummer.
00:50:12 It just creates this nice swimmy thing
that I seem to like.
00:50:15 I'm going to go get Bryce
and get her to listen to
where I'm at with the guitars.
00:50:19 I want you to hear where I'm at
with 12 guitar takes, I think,
and I've sort of taken out all the stuff
I didn't really think was... useful.
00:50:28 I want to give you an MP3
of the bridge section because...
00:50:33 ...you're trying to write an alternate
lyric, like an answer there.
00:50:38 However, I really don't want you
to fall in love with the mix of it
because there's no mix, you know?
But the minute I...
00:50:44 If I gave you the whole track
and you listen to it 20 times,
it's probably never going to sound
right to you if I change it.
00:50:50 So I'll just give you the bridge
and you're only allowed to
listen to it... twice.
00:50:56 - Twice!
- All right, let's check it out.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Grammy award-winning, Canadian musician, songwriter, and record producer, Greg Wells, has been dubbed “A Swiss Army Knife” in the recording studio by the legendary Stewart Copeland for good reason.
As a multi-instrumentalist, he has the ability to artfully mold his productions with incredible precision, craftsmanship, and most importantly, taste. Combining his musicianship with his uncanny abilities as a producer, engineer, and mixer, he has seen album sales top 120 million, with streaming numbers in the billions. With a B.
His diverse list of credits includes superstars such as Adele, Dua Lipa, Twenty One Pilots, Katy Perry, Keith Urban, Celine Dion, Deftones, Kid Cudi, Weezer, OneRepublic, Ariana Grande, Pharrell Williams, Aerosmith and so many more that we would need a really long scroll bar to list them all.
Greg has seen monumental success recently with the release of the motion picture soundtrack for “The Greatest Showman”, which he not only produced but played on as well.
That whole bit from 32:30 - 35:50 struck such a chord with me (no pun intended) I had to watch it a few times. Powerful, powerful words. I'm a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who has been working on my craft since I was 10. I'm now 38. I got a Tascam 4-track tape recorded for my 15th birthday, and I've been obsessed with recording and writing ever since. I absolutely feel this same way. Brilliant words, and inspiring, knowing that one of the world's best feels the same. I'm a music and recording arts teacher now, and I want to share this with my students. Keep it real, Greg!
alex.
2020 Feb 24
Love this series. But WTF You can't use the word SPASTIC in that context!!
L Pass
2020 Feb 04
Signature parts, great arranging, doing what's best for the song, that's the stuff. When a song can go in infinite directions ,we're looking for the musical sensibilities that emotionally make the song great.
rwhitney
2020 Jan 25
Fantastic insights and perspective. Brilliant guitar playing, too.
Nicholas Goodwin
2020 Jan 17
Greg Wells: candid and straightforward ... very inspiring. Thanks.
iann72
2020 Jan 15
Greg Wells is a pure Genius! Proud to be Canadian :)
reidrob@hotmail.com
2020 Jan 15
Awesome series guys! Just wondering if they ran the guitar mics through any outboard gear like mic pres, eq's, or compressors? Greg didn't seem to talk much about that. Maybe they are using the API pres and eq's in the desk? Thanks again, loving this series! Awesome voice Bryce!! Great playing Greg!
Chuckswice
2020 Jan 15
Nice deleting any negative comments! I guess they cant take criticism.
I-Hung
2020 Jan 13
Bryce is so wonderful!
hummarstra
2020 Jan 13
Greg's rant at 32:45 about the short list of musicians who can enhance a song in the studio. SHOULD BE SHARED AS A CLIP ON YOUTUBE. It's one of the deepest incites he's given in this entire and wonderful series.
Pearlpassionstudio
2020 Jan 12
Very well done. Coming along. Everyone is doing a great job. Artist should be pretty happy with this, great song. Thanks for doing the series too.
brycedavidson
2020 Jan 12
Hey Leobro- yes! The lyric is airplane rows. I’m always ticketed a seat in row 19 :) - Bryce
studiosix
2020 Jan 12
Really wanted Greg to show us some of the pedal efx used... but he did say he uses 2 delay pedals and a volume pedal. Some tasty playing here and there to hug the track. The mellotron really blew me away... instant Smashing Pumpkins Melancollie album. For the other puremixer, Waterslide is the brand of the guitar.
leobro
2020 Jan 11
I love this series. I am super impressed with Greg, and the song runs through my head for days after I watch every episode. But it's been making me crazy for eight weeks: what's the word after "airplane"? "Rows"?
mataran
2020 Jan 11
Amazing! Greg is incredibly talented! Learning from failures... That I know for sure!! :-) Thanks Greg! I'm going right back to my garden to dig a little bit before sleep.
MrMaxxProductions
2020 Jan 11
Went to Bryce's show last night and she rocked. I know ya'll are here for the knob turning but please notice the artist! Met Brian Lucey, what a great guy!
Michaeltn86
2020 Jan 11
incredible and inspiring musicianship.
slammy80
2020 Jan 11
I know I may be a minority here, but I didn't care for any of those guitar parts - except - the "bridge" section. The bridge section is good! All of the other parts seem to me to be distracting and out of place. I don't know. Mellotron is killer, though.
aristaghes
2020 Jan 11
Thanks for this great video
Greg’s a real musician with taste and I love the thoughts and comments he gives about his work
We need more of these series guys !
JP59man
2020 Jan 10
Greg is a monster! This video series is amazing! I have really enjoyed my three years subscription and this series is just amazing.
telepathy
2020 Jan 10
If that harp part stayed I would've canceled my Puremix subscription immediately.
plays_gibsons
2020 Jan 10
Can Puremix folks advise what make of guitars Greg was using in this vid? They look absolutely sick and I'm pretty sure I need one in my life now :D
rklemple
2020 Jan 10
I love these videos, thanks so much! Am I the only one who always leaves these videos singing "Bring Me a Higher Love" by Steve Winwood? lol
