Preserving Music History through High-tech Recording If you have spent any time in Floyd, you know that there is an obvious fusion of old meets new. The slow and steady pace of this one stop light town overlays a vivacious, talented and highly skilled population. The locals are always working to improve their community and preserve the lifestyle and culture of a slower day, a different place in time. This true nature of Floyd is exemplified in the story of Dave Fason of Windfall, the band and Windfall Studios. One Friday night, out on the street in front of the Floyd Country Store (one of the major stops along “The Crooked Road”), Dave heard a voice singing that touched his senses from his ears to his heart. “pure country, pure mountain” he recalls. Moving towards this voice his eyes beheld a 5’2”, silver-haired woman “belting out these songs…” That little woman with the big voice was singer, Janet Turner. Dave approached Mrs. Turner, “I know that you don’t know me, but has anyone ever recorded you? I would really love to record your music.” Janet had been recorded before, but only informally, in the living room of a fellow musician. Her husband Lewis was at first skeptical, wondering what Dave wanted out of the deal. “When you hear someone that needs to be preserved, you gotta’ do it,” Dave said. He wanted to record Janet Turner because he realized the priceless value of preserving a piece of Appalachian and American folk music history, and that is the beauty of Floyd and the people here. With the support of The Floyd County Store and the talents of Dave Fason of Windfall Studios and a host of other top area musicians, the recording of “When My Time Comes” by Janet Turner began. The CD is available exclusively at The Floyd Country Store. It was decided, that in order to get the best overall sound and work with other musicians’ schedules, a “discreet” or tracked recording was the way to go. Each of the instruments is recorded independently and then mixed together to create the finished song. Janet picked out the 48
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ten songs she wanted to record, then recorded what are known in the recording industry as “scratch tracks.” Janet sang and played her music live, in order to give the other musicians a starting point to add their instruments. Dave remarked, “She moved through all ten songs with ease and grace.” Over the next 45 days the bass, guitar, and percussion lines were recorded. Finally, Janet’s songbird voice and autoharp tracks were added. The complete process from recording to mixing was completed at Windfall Studios. Dave Hoffner, at Hoffner Haus Studio in Franklin, TN did the final mastering. Other local musicians that Windfall Studios has helped produce include Mike Mitchell and Abe Goorskey with Blue Moonshine, Mac and Jenny Traynham, Windfall, SpoonFight, BigMama Joy, Meters Running and Bill Adams.The studio can be found on Facebook. Dave Fason’s love for music, the mountains of Virginia and its culture, along with his amazing talents as a musician and studio engineer make him an asset to Floyd. We asked Dave about his current activities with Windfall Studios. In the last two years he has worked cooperatively with Floyd Elementary School, Heather Krantz and the Music Lab, and Joe DeJarnette at Studio 808 to record songs that the students wrote. Last year, they had a CD release concert in the FCHS auditorium, accompanied by local musicians. Also in the works are CDs by Mike Mitchell, Gospel on the Connnor’s, Bob Evans of the Cosmic Orphans and Ray Moreland’s Christmas CD. Windfall Studios may be booked at discounted hourly rates in increments of ten hours. Dave also offers weekend packages, for clients to stay on site with studio access for 14 hours a day. The studio has recently upgraded to “ProTools 10”. Dave offers start to finish compact disc production. Windfall Studios’ reasonable rates makes recording your own music affordable. Michael Kovick and Dave, began playing together in 2002, as BrotherWind. Rusty May joined them in 2005, and Kari Kovick
Spring/Summer 2013