Currently, I play bass for the band The Polyphonic Spree. We've been together for a little over 5 years. In that time, we've released two full-length albums and have appeared on dozens of compilations as well as the soundtrack for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

We've done numerous tours in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. In the spring of 2004, we had the pleasure of opening for David Bowie on his Reality Tour. Also, we performed at the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert and have made many TV appearances including the MTV Video Music Awards, The Tonight Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brian.

Prior to The Polyphonic Spree, I played bass in the band Tripping Daisy. We were together for about 10 years, and much like The Polyphonic Spree, Tripping Daisy did its fair share of touring, TV appearances, and making records.

What are some of your musical influences?

Probably like most musicians, I find inspiration from all kinds of music, but I'm most attracted to rock and pop music from the '60s and '70s.

How does your approach to the bass in Polyphonic Spree differ from your approach with Tripping Daisy?

Well, let's get things in perspective first. The Polyphonic Spree is a twenty-plus ensemble of rock and symphonic musicians. Tripping Daisy was a five-piece dedicated rock band. In both bands, the bass fulfills the traditional role of being the foundation and holding things together. I've done what I can to keep that role intact as well as expand a bit and try to find places to deviate with a bit of melody.

I think in Tripping Daisy, there was more room for that. In The Polyphonic Spree, it's a bit more tricky as there are so many sub-melodies and supporting harmonies with all the various instruments.

Polyphonic Spree was the brain child of [former Tripping Daisy band-mate] Tim Delaughter, who writes and arranges most of the songs. How involved do you get in the song-writing for the Spree?

Well, Tim is the ONLY songwriter of The Polyphonic Spree. Tim usually has a pretty clear vision of what he's looking for, but he can be open to other ideas and looks for additional inspiration from what others might be playing. The ability to improvise while Tim is outlining a song is a requirement of being in the band.

But if Tim asks for my opinion, I will offer it. I’ll suggest arrangements that make space by using sectional playing and sonic coordination among instruments that operate in a similar register. I suppose that is the engineer in me coming out. Things tend to work better that way in the recording world and seem to translate well in a live setting too.

What’s it like touring and performing with a band of twenty-plus people?

Like anything, it has its pros and cons. On the positive side, it is like going on a high school camping trip. It can be a lot of fun, and if you get tired of hanging out with a particular group of people, you can always switch gears and tag along with another faction in the band. I like that dynamic a lot. It keeps things interesting during the crazy travel protocol.

On the flip side, as one might imagine, personal space and privacy can be scarce. When we get hotels, we are usually crammed four to a room, and when we get a tour bus - that's right, ONE tour bus…

We all have to make concessions to stay sane while traveling under such conditions. In The Polyphonic Spree, things are always being done on a budget. But sometimes we are lucky enough to get two tour buses, which really helps out a lot.

We heard that you’ve been using iZotope's plug-ins from the beginning. How did you first hear about them?

I think I first heard about them on the TapeOp forums. It was the Vinyl plug-in that someone was raving about. Then I found out it was free and immediately downloaded it. I was so impressed with Vinyl that I had to check out what else you guys had.

How do you think iZotope plug-ins compare to outboard effects processors?

Let's face it, outboard gear is great but it's just too expensive.

I think plug-ins are an amazing alternative. For a fraction of the price of one really great outboard compressor or EQ, you can get a plug-in suite that will allow you to have many compressors, EQs, etc.

That's what I like about the iZotope products: you get an astonishing amount of flexibility, functionality, and audio-manipulating capability in one plug-in.

As someone who was just getting into the mastering and engineering side of things, how did you find iZotope’s software to work with?

I remember when I got Ozone; the thing that I really found useful was the mastering tutorial that came with the software. Finally, for the first time, someone was demystifying the ideology and techniques used in the mastering process in a clear and concise way.

I'm not a mastering engineer. I prefer to leave the majority of that work to the real pros. But I do like the idea of having a tool that I can quickly use to do my preliminary mastering. I love the interface you guys have created....just the look of the software makes me feel better about my projects.

Tell our users a little bit about Placid Audio and the Copperphone.

Placid Audio is a company I started to facilitate some ideas I've had for various audio and recording devices. The flagship product, the Copperphone, is a handmade, limited-bandwidth microphone I designed a few years ago. It uses a combination of mechanical filtering and vintage components installed in a copper pipe to achieve an AM-radio sound (http://placidaudio.com for more information). Although not as versatile, the Copperphone gets a sound similar to the iZotope Vinyl plug-in.

We heard your friend had a little run in with the law.

The Copperphone is housed in a copper pipe and bares a striking resemblance to a pipe bomb. Last year, our percussion player, Brian Teasley, borrowed one to try out in his studio. He was flying back home to Birmingham, Alabama, via the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Although he made it past the security checkpoint, his bag containing the Copperphone didn't. ATF workers held back his luggage because they were suspicious of a "bomb-like device."

During his flight, the bomb squad was called out and they immediately shut down the terminal. They had to use a robot to retrieve the bag and placed it in a bombproof container where they shot it with a water cannon to disperse the contents.

Meanwhile, Brian landed in Birmingham, where the FBI was waiting at his home to apprehend and interrogate him. By the time Brian was telling his story to FBI agents, the bomb squad back in Dallas finally realized they had a confiscated a microphone and not a potentially lethal pipe bomb. The news was all over it. It was quite dramatic and fortunately nobody was hurt. In retrospect, we all found it quite funny.

What sorts of engineering and mastering work are you doing these days?

I'm not a mastering engineer...yet. However, I have been getting into recording, engineering, and producing more and more over the last few years. From my years making records with Tripping Daisy and The Polyphonic Spree, I have had tons of experience working in professional studios as a musician and as a co-producer.

For me, engineering always seemed like a natural bridge between the two roles. When I was able to start putting together some of my own recording gear and make my own recordings, engineering just became another part of my repertoire.

I do a lot of engineering and recording for friends of mine as well as bands I'm interested in. However, I am becoming a primary engineer for The Polyphonic Spree. We just put together a project studio in a building that Tim owns, and now we have been working like crazy out of there. It is a great facility for doing demo work or things like movie soundtracks and other creative recordings.

You are recording music for the upcoming film Thumbsucker.

Doing the Thumbsucker (http://thumbsuckerthemovie.com) soundtrack was really fun. With soundtracks, mood and feeling are more important. We were able to get more experimental and creative with the sounds.

Can you give us an example?

Although we had the Thumbsucker soundtrack mastered by a professional mastering engineer, I did my own pre-mastering with Ozone. I especially like the muli-band stereo imaging feature and used it on a few tracks. I am a fan of the old-school recordings where things are hard panned right or left; however, you give up the impact of what I call the "superwide stereo sound" of today's mixes.

Ozone helped me get the best of both worlds. I can have a sound or instrument way off to one side but still keep the track sounding wide by broadening only the upper frequencies of the whole mix. It really is a useful tool.

I also used the multi-band compression on the overall mix for tracks that had a lot of low end. Because the feel of the soundtrack is so intimate and natural, I didn't want to lose all the dynamics by compressing all the frequencies. So I put a light compression on everything under 100hz just to keep the low end under control. I don't know of many digital audio tools that allow you to do that within a host application like Ozone.

Did you also use Vinyl on the Thumbsucker soundtrack?

I used Vinyl on a few individual instruments to help add more character to the sound. One neat thing about the Vinyl plug-in is the "wear" feature. That one parameter alone can warm up the sound by taking some of the edge off as well as adding a bit of distortion. It made things nice and fuzzy sounding.

Do you have any tips you’d like to share with other iZotope and Vinyl users?

As a bass player I am constantly trying to find ways to add character to my sound...namely distortion. However, just adding distortion to the whole track tends to thin out the sound. You lose all of your low end.

Sure, you can record with the classic approach of taking a DI signal and a distorted amp signal and blending the two together at mix down. But I find that approach leads to an inconsistent bass sound. Due to the phase cancellation effect, some notes are more prominent, and others tend to disappear.

So how do you use Ozone to solve the phase cancellation problem?

First, I record my bass track through a direct box. Then, I copy the performance so I have two identical tracks. Next, I plug in Ozone on both tracks and select a crossover point from one of the multi band effect menus. I usually go for something between 250hz and 1khz.

On the first track I will add a some type of distortion, and then mute everything below the selected crossover point. This track will end up being the 'high' channel.

On the second track I'll mute everything above the selected crossover point. This track will be the 'low' channel and can be compressed to provide the fullness of the bass sound.

Now I can EQ or mix both signals to my taste without having to worry about resonating frequencies or phase cancellations.

I think what is really unique about Ozone, Trash, and Spectron, is that they deal with the audio on a multi-band level with selectable crossover points. That gives us engineers a great way to handle the audio without all the typical phase issues.

To read more about Mark Pirro and the Copperphone, check out www.placidaudio.com.