Pro Techniques from Doc Wiley

Pro Techniques 12.2003

By Randy Alberts


	Doc Wiley

Doc Wiley's reputation as a Pro Tools expert and pioneer has led to some great grooves. He's worked with artists like Ricky Martin, U2, Philly's Most Wanted, Rudy Perez, and Ludacris at Miami's DigiNote Studios, and before that at the legendary South Beach Studios with owner Joe Galdo.

Earlier this year, Wiley had the opportunity to work with Whitney Houston and producer extraordinaire Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs (Destiny's Child, Pink, Backstreet Boys, Blu Cantrell, TLC) at DigiNote. Whitney's resulting single, "One Of Those Days," is on the charts, and Wiley, now an independent engineer and mixer, has moved on to new projects within She'kspere's organization.

"I'm in the middle of upgrading a studio She'kspere has in Atlanta, and building a satellite studio for him down here in Miami, with Steven Gibb, Barry Gibb's son," says Wiley during a break between prepping Pro Tools mixes for K.D., She'kspere's mixer. "We've been overnighting Pro Tools sessions on disc to K.D. in L.A., which is fine for now, but we're really looking forward to using DigiDelivery. She'k will be able to send whatever he needs whenever he needs it, which will accelerate our future projects quite a bit."


Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs

Clearing the Path with Pro Tools|HD
Wiley, who has recently worked with Most Wanted and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson in addition to his She'kspere duties, also found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Howard Shore as the renowned film composer worked through a family emergency in Miami to complete Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. And another American Idol project put him together with legendary gospel producer Fred Hammond.

"I'm grateful that moving on to other things has worked out well for me," says Wiley. "Now we have the space in Atlanta and this great space here in Miami, and it's all Pro Tools wherever we're working, whether it's in person or via DigiDelivery. There was a time when the music had to conform to all this new technology, but thanks to Pro Tools, now it's the other way around."

Pro Technique 1 —
Keep the hard disks rolling and record everything
"During my early engineering and rock bassist days at South Beach Studios, I remember Joe [Galdo] always wanted to get more out of the technology," says Wiley. "I was always coming up with new ways of working to give him flexibility. Those same skills are what I'm still carrying on now."

One of the things Doc learned along the way was to never, ever hit the "stop" button during a session — especially in the post-tape age of Pro Tools and desktop recording, when you can fit the better part of an album onto a single FireWire drive. To illustrate his point, Wiley recalls a story from a Phil Ramone seminar.

"Phil Ramone was talking about a big session he did with Frank Sinatra, where they made a big deal about setting up all these extra tape machines," Wiley says. "The first song take went great, and the engineer stopped all the tape machines. And all of a sudden while everyone was congratulating each other over what a great take it was, Frank started snapping his fingers, and the bass player joined in, and he started singing. They got this great improv moment going, and there was no tape freakin' rolling! They completely missed the magic."

Wiley says Ramone's telling of that story made a big impact on him. "I record everything while I'm getting levels, and I mean everything," he says. "I record headphone checks, and every time a vocalist says, 'Could you check this mic for me?' I even record the assistant walking out there and checking the mic. I just record everything, and I label everything. If you don't want it later, you just trash it — but I won't delete a thing until we're done, because you never know what you might catch."

Doc's "always on" approach recently netted him a perfect light-hearted giggle for Whitney's "One Of Those Days" single. Having nothing at all to do with the song per se, the moment ended up as the intro of the song.

"It was a fortuitous recording that we ended up using in the track," Wiley says. "She was just cracking up about something as we were getting ready to roll one day on that song. She'kspere says, 'We're using that!' and now it's on the song, and it fits perfectly. So record and label everything, because it takes about two seconds to highlight a region and type 'Laughter 1' or something while everything is rolling. I'll set things up in the playlist like 'Headphone Test' or 'Mic Test' before the session starts, so I don't even have to do the labeling on the fly. You just pull it up in the playlist, hit record, test the headphones, and maybe re-label it '1' or '2' or '3' or whatever. If you have more than one headphone check to record, just do a 'Duplicate' in the playlist and go back to the one you just recorded, and it will automatically name it. You're letting the technology work for you here."

Pro Technique 2 —
Knowing how to ask a vocalist for more
Wiley has done research and talked with doctors and vocalists about muscle memory and how it affects his sessions. He points out that although the following vocal coaching tip has little to do with a vocalist like Whitney Houston, the brain's process of "learning" how to best perform a part can lead some singers into a rut of sorts. But no worries, Doc has the cure.

"First, we'll record tracks of them doing several full passes through the song, so they can get their whole idea completely out," he says. "Then, before we start punching in and getting into close scrutiny mode, and with the producer's earlier O.K., I'll say something like, 'We've got your vision, but can we get some safeties just in case?' I introduce the idea of alternate takes while acknowledging they've already got it in the can, so they'll relax more."

Doc says that muscle memory can lull a vocalist into a repeated physical pattern, especially once they've tracked a song a few times. What sounds like perfect vocal intonation, pitch, and inflection in rehearsal can come off sounding stale and uninspired in the studio. That's when Wiley steps it up a notch, coaxing "beautiful accidents" from many of the vocalists he works with.

"You will not be able to move on until they get what they hear in their head coming out of the speakers. So you make sure their vision is recorded before you even introduce the 'alternate takes' idea. Then later, the producer asks you to put together two or three comps. Always in the first comp I give them the straight-ahead, 'Here's the comp you wanted' comp, and then I'll do one using parts or whole sections of the alternate takes."

And how does that tend to turn out?

"No kidding, nine times out of ten it's the alternate takes that usually get chosen at the end," says Wiley. "There's a Japanese saying, 'You can't see the mountain when you're on top of it.' To me, sometimes my job is to not be on top of the mountain with them, but instead to stay down here and tell them, 'Hey, that's really great, now let's try this.' Now with Whitney's voice it's more like, 'Wow, which great take do we throw out in this verse?' I mean even all of her outtakes are completely useable, nothing's a throwaway track with her. Even her laughs are just right."