Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential bands in the history of popular music, there is plenty of available literature on the techniques and equipment used to record The Fab Four, including my personal favorite Recording The Beatles by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan.
Here are some examples of creative production techniques used by the group and the talented crew of engineers that helped create a catalog of albums that have sold well over two billion copies:
1. Recording at half-speed on In My Life”
On this song from 1965 Album Rubber Soul, all but the instrumental bridge section had been completed. John Lennon asked Producer George Martin to come up with something baroque sounding.”¹
Martin's Bach-inspired Piano solo was written at a tempo that Martin himself couldn't play. The engineers brilliantly recorded the part with the tape running at half-speed, so when it was played back at normal speed, the solo was an octave higher and twice as fast. Additionally, the timbre was altered, with the attack of the notes played on the piano becoming more prominent.
There are numerous other examples of the engineers using this technique on Beatles recordings, including extensive use on Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Using the varispeed” mode in Pro Tools' elastic audio can perhaps yield similar results.
2. Reverse tape effect on the guitar solo of I'm Only Sleeping”
On this John Lennon tune from Revolver (1966) George Harrison spent a reported five hours meticulously constructing a guitar part by having the engineers run the tape backwards as he composed a solo that would ultimately, when reversed, fit the dreamlike mood.”²
The part was double-tracked, once with fuzz, and once without. Conveniently, you can hear the entire master reversed, revealing what the original guitar recording sounds like at Beatles Bible
Essentially every modern DAW has a reverse audio capability, but actually taking the time to write out the performance before the effect is applied will definitely result in something unique.
3. Randomly splicing tape loops together on Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
For this song, which derived virtually all of its lyrical content from a 19th century circus poster owned by John Lennon, a carnival atmosphere” was desired for the production.
In the middle-eight, we have perhaps one of the most creative techniques used on The Beatles recordings, with engineer Geoff Emerick (as instructed by George Martin) taking tape recordings of fairground organs and calliope music, chopping the tape with scissors, throwing the pieces up into the air, and reassembling at random.⁴
The resulting effect is quite unique, and fits in perfectly with the rest of the psychedelic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
This type of effect (if desired) is not only much easier to do in a modern DAW, it is certainly cheaper than mangling sought-after analog tape.
4. Use of Tea Towels and other drum muffling techniques on multiple recordings
As early as 1962, Ringo can be seen using John's Harmonica to dampen his snare drum.
Throughout the years, it was quite common to use tea towels to muffle the sound of his drums. A collection of pictures and information on Ringo's kits and evolution can be seen at Ringo's Beatle Kits This became a sonic staple for the band.
Using tea towels or other muffling devices can allow for more control over the volume, attack and decay of individual drums. Especially considering it was common for the engineers to apply extreme compression on Ringo's kit with a Fairchild limiter, dampening the drums allowed for a tighter, more focused sound.
I highly suggest having Moongel dampening on hand, but don't be afraid to use something more aggressive. Native Instruments' Abbey Road 60's Drums even come with tea towel articulations, making it one of my go-to virtual instruments for vintage sounding drums.
Bonus: Practicing singing on Oh! Darling”
Performing a song until the performance sounds the way the artist wants it to — what a concept!
During the Abbey Road sessions Paul McCartney would come in early to the studio that this classic album shares a name with, arriving before the other band members, singing this retro-sounding song once per day attempting to capture the raw, strained quality that the production needed. Engineer Alan Parsons recalls:
Paul came in several days running to do the lead vocal on Oh! Darling. He'd come in, sing it and say, ‘No, that's not it, I'll try it again tomorrow.' He only tried it once per day, I suppose he wanted to capture a certain rawness which could only be done once before the voice changed. I remember him saying, ‘Five years ago I could have done this in a flash,' referring, I suppose, to the days of Long Tall Sally and Kansas City”⁴
There is not yet a plugin that can achieve this effect. This is just one of the countless examples of McCartney's complete (and sometimes obsessive) dedication to capturing a musical moment exactly as he envisioned it.
Conclusion
I've always quite enjoyed researching the production secrets of my absolute favorite band. Fortunately, there's a wealth of knowledge available on recordings, in books, and on various Internet sources.
Additionally, much credit to Waves, Softube, and Native Instruments whose lines of Abbey Road-inspired plugins and VSTs help preserve the sounds of this crucial time in recorded music for current engineers.
Showing posts with label secrets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secrets. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Saturday, 15 October 2016
Secrets Of The Engineers The Polymath Perspective
The Decca Sound: Secrets Of The Engineers
Mike Gray's research into the Decca archives began in 1984, when the editor of the Gramophone classical music magazine, Malcolm Walker, asked him if he would like to work with record collector and discographer Brian Rust, who was creating a Decca discography. We obtained permission to visit Decca at Belsize Road,” explains Mike, which is where the studios were and the tape store was, and began looking at tapes on the shelf, which was one way to start! But it turned out to be a much more complicated project because, unlike a place like EMI, Decca was very much seat-of-the-pants in terms of documentation.
As a result, Malcolm and I began to look at paperwork and there was a lot of it. On the producers' side - there was something called the Musical Record of Session, which was taken at the session itself with all the takes. Then there was the Log Sheet, which was a summary of all the information that went into tracking, or putting the sequence together for the LP record.
Then I discovered there was something called the Electrical Record of Session, which was kept completely separate by the engineers, and these almost invariably included a date of session, or at least the first session, plus an indication of the microphones being used, their placement, the tape recorder and tape being used, and who was responsible at the session - that is to say, the initials of the engineer and tape operator.
Delving Deeper
There the story might have ended, had Mike not noticed an article in a magazine called The Absolute Sound. Mike's attention was drawn to a piece someone had written about Decca and its techniques, which he realized was not entirely accurate. Of course, I had all these notes and thought, ‘Oh, that's not right,' so I sent them a letter correcting it and The Absolute Sound editor, Harry Pearson, replied and said, ‘Why don't you write about Decca?'
This led me to contacting former members of Decca staff: Jimmy Brown, Gordon Perry and a number of other staff who helped me understand how sessions worked, on the technical side. And Perry was especially helpful in terms of technique and turned out to be a goldmine of information from the inside; about things that were not often published.
Of course, in those days the technique was a closely guarded secret and, in fact, there was a ‘no poaching' agreement between EMI and Decca. It was an informal agreement which said that when a Decca or EMI technician was let go the other company would not hire them, because they had their own little secrets. That continued well into the '70s and '80s even though their studios were located within a mile of each other!
For instance, in Kingsway Hall the microphone connectors for Decca were wired one way, that is to say either male or female, whereas EMI's were the opposite. So even though they both had facilities there until the hall closed in '84, they were entirely separate.
The Studio Trees
Perhaps the most famous Decca recording technique is the one developed for recording orchestras, known as the Decca Tree, involving an arrangement of microphones which vaguely resembles the branches of tree. In its purest and simplest form, the tree uses one mic facing forward to nail the centre image, and two additional mics placed either side of the centre to capture the panoramic spread of the orchestra or band. There can't be many audio engineering text books which do not mention the Decca Tree, or illustrate it in some way, but Mike is keen to point out that the standard representation of a Decca Tree is merely one of many arrangements tried out by Decca over the years.
It's not well known,” says Mike, but there were at least seven or eight different tree formations with a variety of microphone types, and there were two philosophies of using a tree. One was the Roy Wallace philosophy which was the tree by itself, which produced a wonderful three-dimensional image; the second came from Kenneth Wilkinson who came to stereo in '58 and decided that the tree needed help from outriggers; focussing on violins on the left, cellos on the right. Eventually their techniques blended - Wallace was using outriggers, as were other technicians.”
Not only did the shape and formation of the tree vary, so did the type of microphones that were used in each one. Decca's favourites were Neumann models, namely the KM53, KM56 and M50.
The original trees back in '54, '55, used Neumann M50s with a variety of baffles,” Mike explains. The microphones were positioned close together so the baffles were used to isolate the mics and thereby avoid spillage from one to another. The M50 was omnidirectional mic so the fear was losing that precise centre image. They later discovered that it wasn't necessary to baffle or have the microphones close together.
In the early '60s they had shoot outs. They would take an open non-baffled Neumann KM56 tree and a baffled M50 tree and record portions of sessions with each. All the engineers would listen together and a consensus developed. Wallace had basically decided on his own KM56 tree which was used in Geneva. He was the prime Geneva and Italy guy working in stereo. But Wilkinson was involved in London and London is where a lot of these experiments occurred with different types of KM56 trees and trying out several variations in a session.
Even in the 1960s they still sometimes used a tree with three baffled M50s closely spaced, but by about '64 they finally settled on the standard tree that has mics about two feet apart, left to right, and another about one-and-a-half feet out in front, plus outriggers.
Rival Methods
Some of the recording methodologies of Decca's rival, EMI, have been well documented thanks to the detailed accounts of The Beatles' recording sessions at Abbey Road during the 1960s. In short, when the band first attempted to experiment they found that there were in-house rules governing the placement of microphones and use of equipment and that permission had to be sought if any standard setup were to be altered. Having interviewed many of the Decca engineers who were working during the 1950s and '60s, Mike believes that, in general, their methods were a little less formal and that the technicians had more say in what went on during a session.
I also did work at EMI and it's a funny thing,” recalls Mike. They had the crossed pair - what they called the two-headed monster - which was two Neumann's U49s in a case. Then they changed to KM56s, and eventually started adding outriggers themselves. But it was a crossed pair that was the important part of the system and that derived from the Blumlein experiments and the tests that they were doing in the early to mid 1950s using the Stereosonic technique - and an enormous amount of electronics to shuffle the signal back and forth - and all kinds of things that really didn't work out for them in the end. But that was R&D for EMI. At Decca it was, ‘OK, let's get together and try something,' so it was much looser and more independent.
But there was a famous EMI record called Pineapple Poll, Mackerras/RPO, which was made by an entirely different engineer using an entirely different technique and it turned out to be a very successful record, so to some extent their engineers were also given latitude.
It really depended on the setup. The orchestra was in a certain place in Abbey Road and it was in a certain place in Kingsway. It was also a certain size and had percussion here, horns there; and so you really had to adapt your microphone setup to what the orchestra was doing.”
Sound Engineering
Most importantly, Decca relied on the expertise of their engineers to solve recording issues and obtain the very finest sound possible from every situation. It was their responsibility to get that sound on tape,” says Mike. They would work with a producer but the producer was interested in getting the takes right and working with the artist. The engineer, or his tape op, made sure that the gear worked when they turned it on, that the microphones didn't sputter, the tree they brought in was going to work and the outriggers were set up properly.
There was a rule of thumb but to a certain extent they had to adjust things by ear.
They made diagrams on the Electrical Record of Session notes, because if they ran over to another session, or someone else took over, they could replicate the setup in terms of mic height and placement. They measured where it was set and that was put on paper. Sometimes it was as simple as tree and outriggers, but it depended on the music and the hall.
Kingsway Hall was rather dingy but had a great sound because of its domed ceiling. Walthamstow is basically a box so you got a different sound there. In latter days Decca had acoustic signatures of all their halls and understood their frequency characteristics, but originally Arthur Haddy or Wilkinson would just walk in, clap their hands and say, ‘This sounds good, let's use this!'”
Kingsway was originally a Methodist hall which Decca leased in about 1926. Decca didn't have its own studio except at Broadhurst Gardens and that was a very small venue. Kingsway was by far the best hall. Too bad that by the time it was taken out of service in the mid '80s a lot of recording had moved to Watford and Tooting and other venues and Kingsway was taken over by the Greater London Council and turned into something else. Now it has been gutted, there's nothing left.”
The Decca Sound
Differentiating the Decca sound from that of EMI by ear alone is not necessarily an easy thing to do, but Mike believes that the tracking method used by Decca caused them to mix in a particular way which can be heard on the record.
The key to understanding the difference between Decca and EMI,” Mike explains, is that Decca always wanted to mix to two tracks, although they had four-track backups as early the late '50s, in case they needed to track in a singer who wasn't on their best day, or rebalance. But the whole concept of Decca was mixing to two-track. EMI went to four-track in the mid '60s so their records weren't produced in stereo at the session like Decca's.”
Mike is also keen to point out that something as fundamental as the choice of microphones had a defining affect on the general sound of Decca's output.
The Decca sound was really the sound of the microphones,” he insists. The M50 was omnidirectional, designed for the German radio, with a boost at the top and that was a famous Decca trait from the age of 78s, although it was tamed a bit when the discs were cut. Later they mainly used KM56s and KM53s because they were small enough to put on stands in the back but eventually they started using bigger Neumann U67s, U88s and a whole variety of spot microphones. There would often be spots behind the horn section, percussion, on the woodwind, and that also became a Decca trademark.
They didn't necessarily do that at EMI. But it is hard to generalise beyond the microphones and two-track, because they listened to each other's work. There were sessions at EMI in which their record would be played against the Decca record. They were listening to each other a lot so there was sort of a convergence.”
Tailor Made
From studying the documents relating to the equipment, recording methods, setups and venues that Decca used, it is possible to build up a reasonably clear picture of how their signature sound was created. Nevertheless, there is yet more to it than that data alone seems to suggest, as Mike reveals.
Everything was tweaked by the backroom guys. They might replace a microphone's tube with a MOS-FET, or change some of the resistors to flatten it out, but the key point is that none of the equipment was stock. There was always something done to make it better - make it Decca; put the Decca imprint on it. That was, I think, the genius of Decca: the people doing the mixing were also telling the maintenance guys what they needed. That was Arthur Haddy's work. Haddy was an engineer to his boots and wanted everything to be just right and that's what they got.
Roy Wallace built many of the Decca portable mixers, such as the Storm 64, which had the ability to mix 24 microphones into two tracks and was used all over the world. He developed the cleanest, simplest and most flexible mixers and it was all built in-house. You didn't go to Neve in those days, you built your own.
But the gear was nothing unless you had operators who knew how to use it. It's inaccurate to say it was flat at the board because they made adjustments depending on the piece of music and where they could put the microphone. If you look at the Electrical Records of Session you see all kinds of fixes on the way to tape. Unless you see these documents in bulk you don't realise how much tweaking was done to get the sound onto the tape, in the way they wanted it.
In a pan situation a microphone would be a little bit left or right, there was always EQ used on the board, either a little less bass, a little more treble; plus this, minus that, on the way to tape. So for instance, the tympani might have its own mic but it would be minus five at the bass. Somebody else would have plus three at the top for a little bit more bite.”
BSO Torke Sessions, October 1990
Compressors Off
The sound of rock and pop music is very much shaped by various kinds of compression and distortion. Classical recordings, on the other hand, tend to have a greater dynamic range and aim to capture the instruments as they are by affecting them as little as possible. It is still necessary to process the sound to a certain degree so that it can be reproduced on domestic playback systems, but automatic levelling tools such as compressors, which fundamentally alter the sound in a variety of ways, have not generally been used at the recording stage.
Compression was something used in the pop world to get maximum dB on the tape for AM radio,” says Mike. Decca didn't use compression for classical recording but there was gain riding. The idea was that a loud movement would peak at zero, but the soft movements also had to come close to match. We're not talking about ferocious gain riding, just little tweaks.
The overall gain was basically set, but the other parts were adjusted depending on what the producer wanted. There's an instance in the last movement of the Szell/Curzon Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 where you can hear the gain being pulled up because it was too low. But it was done very subtly and a good operator would never reveal in the sound that you got off the record that he had been doing that. But they had to do it.
When Kenneth Wilkinson worked with conductor Charles Gerhardt for Reader's Digest, Gerhardt was saying ‘Coming up, we'll need a little more of this, coming up, a little less of that,' and Wilkinson would have been moving the potentiometers a little bit here and there. So the producer was listening to the music and anticipating what was going to happen.
It was the same for VHF radio as it was for record. There was a rule that said you couldn't have more than so much dB dynamic range and you subtly took care of that. It was not for instrumentation, it was for the home and they knew it.
Written Notes
When Decca decided to release The Decca Sound box set, comprising 50 CDs of classic recordings selected to broadly represent their repertoire, it was Mike they asked to write the accompanying booklet notes. A winner of the 2011 ARSC Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of his work in published recorded sound research, Mike served four years on the staff of the Washington Library of Congress before directing the Voice of America Research Library and Digital Audio Archive projects.
Over the years he has served as a consultant and resource for countless historical reissues, and is the author of numerous articles, reviews, books and discographies, including The Birth of Decca Stereo and Classical music, 1925-1975.
Mike was, therefore, the natural choice to sum up the story of Decca classics, especially now that many of the key engineers involved have died.
I was very flattered to be asked to write it,” admits Mike. I knew most of these people personally. Almost all of them are gone now so this is a tribute to what they were doing.
Mike Gray's research into the Decca archives began in 1984, when the editor of the Gramophone classical music magazine, Malcolm Walker, asked him if he would like to work with record collector and discographer Brian Rust, who was creating a Decca discography. We obtained permission to visit Decca at Belsize Road,” explains Mike, which is where the studios were and the tape store was, and began looking at tapes on the shelf, which was one way to start! But it turned out to be a much more complicated project because, unlike a place like EMI, Decca was very much seat-of-the-pants in terms of documentation.
As a result, Malcolm and I began to look at paperwork and there was a lot of it. On the producers' side - there was something called the Musical Record of Session, which was taken at the session itself with all the takes. Then there was the Log Sheet, which was a summary of all the information that went into tracking, or putting the sequence together for the LP record.
Then I discovered there was something called the Electrical Record of Session, which was kept completely separate by the engineers, and these almost invariably included a date of session, or at least the first session, plus an indication of the microphones being used, their placement, the tape recorder and tape being used, and who was responsible at the session - that is to say, the initials of the engineer and tape operator.
Delving Deeper
There the story might have ended, had Mike not noticed an article in a magazine called The Absolute Sound. Mike's attention was drawn to a piece someone had written about Decca and its techniques, which he realized was not entirely accurate. Of course, I had all these notes and thought, ‘Oh, that's not right,' so I sent them a letter correcting it and The Absolute Sound editor, Harry Pearson, replied and said, ‘Why don't you write about Decca?'
This led me to contacting former members of Decca staff: Jimmy Brown, Gordon Perry and a number of other staff who helped me understand how sessions worked, on the technical side. And Perry was especially helpful in terms of technique and turned out to be a goldmine of information from the inside; about things that were not often published.
Of course, in those days the technique was a closely guarded secret and, in fact, there was a ‘no poaching' agreement between EMI and Decca. It was an informal agreement which said that when a Decca or EMI technician was let go the other company would not hire them, because they had their own little secrets. That continued well into the '70s and '80s even though their studios were located within a mile of each other!
For instance, in Kingsway Hall the microphone connectors for Decca were wired one way, that is to say either male or female, whereas EMI's were the opposite. So even though they both had facilities there until the hall closed in '84, they were entirely separate.
The Studio Trees
Perhaps the most famous Decca recording technique is the one developed for recording orchestras, known as the Decca Tree, involving an arrangement of microphones which vaguely resembles the branches of tree. In its purest and simplest form, the tree uses one mic facing forward to nail the centre image, and two additional mics placed either side of the centre to capture the panoramic spread of the orchestra or band. There can't be many audio engineering text books which do not mention the Decca Tree, or illustrate it in some way, but Mike is keen to point out that the standard representation of a Decca Tree is merely one of many arrangements tried out by Decca over the years.
It's not well known,” says Mike, but there were at least seven or eight different tree formations with a variety of microphone types, and there were two philosophies of using a tree. One was the Roy Wallace philosophy which was the tree by itself, which produced a wonderful three-dimensional image; the second came from Kenneth Wilkinson who came to stereo in '58 and decided that the tree needed help from outriggers; focussing on violins on the left, cellos on the right. Eventually their techniques blended - Wallace was using outriggers, as were other technicians.”
Not only did the shape and formation of the tree vary, so did the type of microphones that were used in each one. Decca's favourites were Neumann models, namely the KM53, KM56 and M50.
The original trees back in '54, '55, used Neumann M50s with a variety of baffles,” Mike explains. The microphones were positioned close together so the baffles were used to isolate the mics and thereby avoid spillage from one to another. The M50 was omnidirectional mic so the fear was losing that precise centre image. They later discovered that it wasn't necessary to baffle or have the microphones close together.
In the early '60s they had shoot outs. They would take an open non-baffled Neumann KM56 tree and a baffled M50 tree and record portions of sessions with each. All the engineers would listen together and a consensus developed. Wallace had basically decided on his own KM56 tree which was used in Geneva. He was the prime Geneva and Italy guy working in stereo. But Wilkinson was involved in London and London is where a lot of these experiments occurred with different types of KM56 trees and trying out several variations in a session.
Even in the 1960s they still sometimes used a tree with three baffled M50s closely spaced, but by about '64 they finally settled on the standard tree that has mics about two feet apart, left to right, and another about one-and-a-half feet out in front, plus outriggers.
Rival Methods
Some of the recording methodologies of Decca's rival, EMI, have been well documented thanks to the detailed accounts of The Beatles' recording sessions at Abbey Road during the 1960s. In short, when the band first attempted to experiment they found that there were in-house rules governing the placement of microphones and use of equipment and that permission had to be sought if any standard setup were to be altered. Having interviewed many of the Decca engineers who were working during the 1950s and '60s, Mike believes that, in general, their methods were a little less formal and that the technicians had more say in what went on during a session.
I also did work at EMI and it's a funny thing,” recalls Mike. They had the crossed pair - what they called the two-headed monster - which was two Neumann's U49s in a case. Then they changed to KM56s, and eventually started adding outriggers themselves. But it was a crossed pair that was the important part of the system and that derived from the Blumlein experiments and the tests that they were doing in the early to mid 1950s using the Stereosonic technique - and an enormous amount of electronics to shuffle the signal back and forth - and all kinds of things that really didn't work out for them in the end. But that was R&D for EMI. At Decca it was, ‘OK, let's get together and try something,' so it was much looser and more independent.
But there was a famous EMI record called Pineapple Poll, Mackerras/RPO, which was made by an entirely different engineer using an entirely different technique and it turned out to be a very successful record, so to some extent their engineers were also given latitude.
It really depended on the setup. The orchestra was in a certain place in Abbey Road and it was in a certain place in Kingsway. It was also a certain size and had percussion here, horns there; and so you really had to adapt your microphone setup to what the orchestra was doing.”
Sound Engineering
Most importantly, Decca relied on the expertise of their engineers to solve recording issues and obtain the very finest sound possible from every situation. It was their responsibility to get that sound on tape,” says Mike. They would work with a producer but the producer was interested in getting the takes right and working with the artist. The engineer, or his tape op, made sure that the gear worked when they turned it on, that the microphones didn't sputter, the tree they brought in was going to work and the outriggers were set up properly.
There was a rule of thumb but to a certain extent they had to adjust things by ear.
They made diagrams on the Electrical Record of Session notes, because if they ran over to another session, or someone else took over, they could replicate the setup in terms of mic height and placement. They measured where it was set and that was put on paper. Sometimes it was as simple as tree and outriggers, but it depended on the music and the hall.
Kingsway Hall was rather dingy but had a great sound because of its domed ceiling. Walthamstow is basically a box so you got a different sound there. In latter days Decca had acoustic signatures of all their halls and understood their frequency characteristics, but originally Arthur Haddy or Wilkinson would just walk in, clap their hands and say, ‘This sounds good, let's use this!'”
Kingsway was originally a Methodist hall which Decca leased in about 1926. Decca didn't have its own studio except at Broadhurst Gardens and that was a very small venue. Kingsway was by far the best hall. Too bad that by the time it was taken out of service in the mid '80s a lot of recording had moved to Watford and Tooting and other venues and Kingsway was taken over by the Greater London Council and turned into something else. Now it has been gutted, there's nothing left.”
The Decca Sound
Differentiating the Decca sound from that of EMI by ear alone is not necessarily an easy thing to do, but Mike believes that the tracking method used by Decca caused them to mix in a particular way which can be heard on the record.
The key to understanding the difference between Decca and EMI,” Mike explains, is that Decca always wanted to mix to two tracks, although they had four-track backups as early the late '50s, in case they needed to track in a singer who wasn't on their best day, or rebalance. But the whole concept of Decca was mixing to two-track. EMI went to four-track in the mid '60s so their records weren't produced in stereo at the session like Decca's.”
Mike is also keen to point out that something as fundamental as the choice of microphones had a defining affect on the general sound of Decca's output.
The Decca sound was really the sound of the microphones,” he insists. The M50 was omnidirectional, designed for the German radio, with a boost at the top and that was a famous Decca trait from the age of 78s, although it was tamed a bit when the discs were cut. Later they mainly used KM56s and KM53s because they were small enough to put on stands in the back but eventually they started using bigger Neumann U67s, U88s and a whole variety of spot microphones. There would often be spots behind the horn section, percussion, on the woodwind, and that also became a Decca trademark.
They didn't necessarily do that at EMI. But it is hard to generalise beyond the microphones and two-track, because they listened to each other's work. There were sessions at EMI in which their record would be played against the Decca record. They were listening to each other a lot so there was sort of a convergence.”
Tailor Made
From studying the documents relating to the equipment, recording methods, setups and venues that Decca used, it is possible to build up a reasonably clear picture of how their signature sound was created. Nevertheless, there is yet more to it than that data alone seems to suggest, as Mike reveals.
Everything was tweaked by the backroom guys. They might replace a microphone's tube with a MOS-FET, or change some of the resistors to flatten it out, but the key point is that none of the equipment was stock. There was always something done to make it better - make it Decca; put the Decca imprint on it. That was, I think, the genius of Decca: the people doing the mixing were also telling the maintenance guys what they needed. That was Arthur Haddy's work. Haddy was an engineer to his boots and wanted everything to be just right and that's what they got.
Roy Wallace built many of the Decca portable mixers, such as the Storm 64, which had the ability to mix 24 microphones into two tracks and was used all over the world. He developed the cleanest, simplest and most flexible mixers and it was all built in-house. You didn't go to Neve in those days, you built your own.
But the gear was nothing unless you had operators who knew how to use it. It's inaccurate to say it was flat at the board because they made adjustments depending on the piece of music and where they could put the microphone. If you look at the Electrical Records of Session you see all kinds of fixes on the way to tape. Unless you see these documents in bulk you don't realise how much tweaking was done to get the sound onto the tape, in the way they wanted it.
In a pan situation a microphone would be a little bit left or right, there was always EQ used on the board, either a little less bass, a little more treble; plus this, minus that, on the way to tape. So for instance, the tympani might have its own mic but it would be minus five at the bass. Somebody else would have plus three at the top for a little bit more bite.”
BSO Torke Sessions, October 1990
Compressors Off
The sound of rock and pop music is very much shaped by various kinds of compression and distortion. Classical recordings, on the other hand, tend to have a greater dynamic range and aim to capture the instruments as they are by affecting them as little as possible. It is still necessary to process the sound to a certain degree so that it can be reproduced on domestic playback systems, but automatic levelling tools such as compressors, which fundamentally alter the sound in a variety of ways, have not generally been used at the recording stage.
Compression was something used in the pop world to get maximum dB on the tape for AM radio,” says Mike. Decca didn't use compression for classical recording but there was gain riding. The idea was that a loud movement would peak at zero, but the soft movements also had to come close to match. We're not talking about ferocious gain riding, just little tweaks.
The overall gain was basically set, but the other parts were adjusted depending on what the producer wanted. There's an instance in the last movement of the Szell/Curzon Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 where you can hear the gain being pulled up because it was too low. But it was done very subtly and a good operator would never reveal in the sound that you got off the record that he had been doing that. But they had to do it.
When Kenneth Wilkinson worked with conductor Charles Gerhardt for Reader's Digest, Gerhardt was saying ‘Coming up, we'll need a little more of this, coming up, a little less of that,' and Wilkinson would have been moving the potentiometers a little bit here and there. So the producer was listening to the music and anticipating what was going to happen.
It was the same for VHF radio as it was for record. There was a rule that said you couldn't have more than so much dB dynamic range and you subtly took care of that. It was not for instrumentation, it was for the home and they knew it.
Written Notes
When Decca decided to release The Decca Sound box set, comprising 50 CDs of classic recordings selected to broadly represent their repertoire, it was Mike they asked to write the accompanying booklet notes. A winner of the 2011 ARSC Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of his work in published recorded sound research, Mike served four years on the staff of the Washington Library of Congress before directing the Voice of America Research Library and Digital Audio Archive projects.
Over the years he has served as a consultant and resource for countless historical reissues, and is the author of numerous articles, reviews, books and discographies, including The Birth of Decca Stereo and Classical music, 1925-1975.
Mike was, therefore, the natural choice to sum up the story of Decca classics, especially now that many of the key engineers involved have died.
I was very flattered to be asked to write it,” admits Mike. I knew most of these people personally. Almost all of them are gone now so this is a tribute to what they were doing.
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
Butch Vigs Drum Recording Secrets
It's quite possible that Butch Vig is tired of hearing his name mentioned in the same sentence as Nirvana's Nevermind, but in this case we think it's justified. The rousing thunder of Dave Grohl's opening drum line in the still-electrifying Smells Like Teen Spirit still stands as the most iconic drum sound since the days of Bonham and Moon.
The Garbage drummer's production credentials don't end there, of course: Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Foo Fighters and Muse have all called on the services of Vig in their pursuit of a mountain-moving rock sound.
In this interview, Vig discusses his key drum recording methods, working with Grohl and what to do when it's not working...
Do you see yourself predominantly as a drummer or producer?
"I probably look at myself as a producer first and foremost. I really love the studio. As I've found out, my live chops need a lot of work. It's one thing recording a song and doing two or three takes but now we're rehearsing six hours in a row to get things tight for live. It's a long uphill battle to get back into fighting shape, but I'm slowly getting there. When I'm in the studio I don't really practice. There was a long chunk of time I didn't even sit behind a drum kit when I was working with Green Day or the Foo Fighters."
Do you have a go-to drum sound you like to get when you're recording?
"It's really project by project. I try to follow during pre-production what everyone is playing, particularly the rhythm section. For instance, with the Foos I'll notice what Taylor defaults to, how he likes his tuning. But I'll be listening in the track too to see what the song calls for in terms of playing and sonically.
"I like drums to be tuned more mid or low, I like mid or lower snares, I don't like super high tuned snares. Luckily, someone like Taylor is pretty easy going. I might suggest a snare to use on a track, we'll put it up and if it sounds right on the track he's not too picky. Neither was Dave. Dave would listen to the drums and say, 'They sound great, man'. He'd leave it up to me to make sure the drums sound good in the context of drums and bass."
Are you hands on with drum sounds and parts when producing?
"I get pretty hands on. I think part of it is that I'm a drummer and I'm always aware of what the groove sounds like, what the drums sound like and what particular fills are. I think that's been one of my strengths. I've always got in the back of my head that it needs to work for the song. That's not to say you can't have moments the drums jump out and get to shine on their own.
"I mean like 'Rope', who does a drum solo in the middle of a bridge these days?! Not too many people! That was a really fun moment. To me that song was totally cool and allowed to have those drum fills. That song with the feel and stop and go rhythm guitar pattern had a prog feel and with the Foos they have that kind of thing every now and then so it made perfect sense that we could do that kind of arrangement."
You helped influence a lot of drummers with the Nevermind drum sound. How do you think it stands up 20-odd years on?
"I think that record sounds great and the drumming and drum sounds are great. Part of that is that it's pretty simple and not gimmicky. Drum sounds can be defined by a certain era and then frequently they sound dated when a style or fad moves into fashion. Just the way I recorded those drums was pretty standard. Miking kick and snare, overheads, toms and some room mics. Having said that the room we recorded that in at Sound City was amazing and part of it was that Dave Grohl is an incredible drummer. I think that helps it all sound fresh. I think it's a great sounding rock record and his drumming is incredible."
Have your methods for getting drum sounds changed much since Nevermind?
"I don't get uptight about how I record drums any more. There was a period post-Siamese Dream where I started getting more and more detailed - using more microphones, more pre-amps, spending more time getting sounds. It was around the time of the first Garbage record where I threw all of that out the window.
"If there's only two mics, lets do kick and snare and record it in mono. I guess for me what's exciting is that I don't think there are any rules. If you've got a track that calls for really precise drums, a Neil Peart drum part or something, you'll spend a lot of time getting things balanced and use a lot of different mics and different drums to get this incredibly transparent, clear sound. But that's not to say if you just want a trashy room sound you cant just put one mic in a corner if you get the right balance.
"It depends on the kind of vibe you're going for. Drums really give the listener a sense of where a song has been recorded and where it's taking place. If you have guitars, bass and drums and put on a huge room-y drum sound with lots of reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in an arena. If you mute those and just put in a tiny kick and snare that's very dry with no reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in your bedroom.
"The decision making process of how you record the drums and how much equalisation and ambience and compression and whatever you put on them defines the space of where the listener perceives the song is. It's powerful when you realise you can radically change how a listener is going to perceive a song."
Do you have a preferred mic set-up when tracking drums?
"It's different from band to band. I usually like a dynamic mic on a kick for a close mic but I like the fat 7s for the thumpier, woollier sound. Sometimes I'll use a 57 on a snare, sometimes I'll use a condenser, an AKG41, I might use a ribbon mic on a snare especially if there's a lot of hi hat bleed.
"I have a tendency to like condenser mics on drummers that don't hit the cymbals real loud, and if they do hit them loud I like to use ribbon mics because they're softer in the top end.
"Sometimes I'll record with stereo ambient mics, sometimes I'll just put up one and try to compress it out of a preamp really hard or run it through an effects pedal to give it a vibe. I'll run the drums to some sort of stereo compression and then really hammer it.
"So any time you feel it's not very exciting, you bring those up and the drums go crazy with compression. A lot of the time we use the Roger Mayer compressor the RM58. It's one of the most extreme, crazy compressors in the world. They're great, there's nothing that sounds like them in the world. It sometimes makes things sound like early Who records."
Do you like to pan the kit in the mix?
"Usually kick and snare down the middle with the overheads wide left and right. Sometimes I'll position them right over the drummer's head so it's from a drummer's perspective. Sometimes I move the overhead mics directly over the cymbals.
"With room mics I'll try to move them around so when you bring them up in the mix you can see the space the drums are in. With toms I usually pan left and right. I don't usually pan them hard left and hard right. I like to get it so it make sense as if you've got a drummer playing ten feet in front of you.
"Sometimes if you're using all programmed beats it's good to throw it all out of the window and f with your head a little bit, so put the kick down the middle and the snare off to one side with maybe the cymbals to the other side and the toms doing a weird automated pan back and forth or something. It all depends on what the song calls for."
When tracking do you prefer the entire band to track live?
"With Garbage, every song is different. With a band like the Foos we tracked that live so it's basically them going for rhythm takes between Dave and Taylor making sure we had a core and then we'd overdub Chris, Pat and Nate. With Green Day I would go in and Billie, Mike and Tre would record live together, but I was just going for keeping Tre's drums. Billie would go back in later and overdub his rhythm guitar and Mike would do his bass."
What preparation do you put in drum-wise before heading into the studio, whether it be with Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Muse or an unknown band?
"I don't get too crazy with tuning. I'm pretty good at tuning but I have a drum tech called Mike Fasano. Usually I'll get him in on the first day, whether it be with Garbage or working with someone else, I'll have him come in and tweak the drums. On Day One I like to have the whole day to set everything up, including the amps.
"The majority, though, is getting drums set up and EQ-ing, compressing or whatever. When you come in on Day Two you're ready to record. I think you should be able to get a good drum sound in a day. If you can't, maybe you're over thinking it or maybe the drummer isn't very good!"
Is there a danger of drummers trying to over perfect their sound?
"I think that happens some times. Everybody will perceive how drums should sound in a different way - whether it's the producer, engineer or the drummer. Sometimes you get obsessed with things, like the kick drum isn't punchy enough, or the snare isn't sitting right and sometimes it's the player, sometimes it's the microphone, sometimes it's the wrong snare for the song and you need to fundamentally change it.
"You can run into those problems and when you do the first thing you have to do is see if the drummer is causing the problem with the way he's playing or the part and then you start looking more at the technical parts of it. You look at the microphones, the kind of drums and try to figure out why it's not working."
Is mixing typically a key point for an album's kit sound?
"On some albums it's defined. With the Foos the sound of the garage - it is what it is. You can EQ and compress a little in the mixing, but it wouldn't change the sound profoundly.
That was good in a way because from day one we knew the sound of the drums. Sometimes in the process of making a record the quicker you can make decisions and move on and not leave it all to the mix process that's a good thing. If you can define those drums early on that will help later on."
The Garbage drummer's production credentials don't end there, of course: Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Foo Fighters and Muse have all called on the services of Vig in their pursuit of a mountain-moving rock sound.
In this interview, Vig discusses his key drum recording methods, working with Grohl and what to do when it's not working...
Do you see yourself predominantly as a drummer or producer?
"I probably look at myself as a producer first and foremost. I really love the studio. As I've found out, my live chops need a lot of work. It's one thing recording a song and doing two or three takes but now we're rehearsing six hours in a row to get things tight for live. It's a long uphill battle to get back into fighting shape, but I'm slowly getting there. When I'm in the studio I don't really practice. There was a long chunk of time I didn't even sit behind a drum kit when I was working with Green Day or the Foo Fighters."
Do you have a go-to drum sound you like to get when you're recording?
"It's really project by project. I try to follow during pre-production what everyone is playing, particularly the rhythm section. For instance, with the Foos I'll notice what Taylor defaults to, how he likes his tuning. But I'll be listening in the track too to see what the song calls for in terms of playing and sonically.
"I like drums to be tuned more mid or low, I like mid or lower snares, I don't like super high tuned snares. Luckily, someone like Taylor is pretty easy going. I might suggest a snare to use on a track, we'll put it up and if it sounds right on the track he's not too picky. Neither was Dave. Dave would listen to the drums and say, 'They sound great, man'. He'd leave it up to me to make sure the drums sound good in the context of drums and bass."
Are you hands on with drum sounds and parts when producing?
"I get pretty hands on. I think part of it is that I'm a drummer and I'm always aware of what the groove sounds like, what the drums sound like and what particular fills are. I think that's been one of my strengths. I've always got in the back of my head that it needs to work for the song. That's not to say you can't have moments the drums jump out and get to shine on their own.
"I mean like 'Rope', who does a drum solo in the middle of a bridge these days?! Not too many people! That was a really fun moment. To me that song was totally cool and allowed to have those drum fills. That song with the feel and stop and go rhythm guitar pattern had a prog feel and with the Foos they have that kind of thing every now and then so it made perfect sense that we could do that kind of arrangement."
You helped influence a lot of drummers with the Nevermind drum sound. How do you think it stands up 20-odd years on?
"I think that record sounds great and the drumming and drum sounds are great. Part of that is that it's pretty simple and not gimmicky. Drum sounds can be defined by a certain era and then frequently they sound dated when a style or fad moves into fashion. Just the way I recorded those drums was pretty standard. Miking kick and snare, overheads, toms and some room mics. Having said that the room we recorded that in at Sound City was amazing and part of it was that Dave Grohl is an incredible drummer. I think that helps it all sound fresh. I think it's a great sounding rock record and his drumming is incredible."
Have your methods for getting drum sounds changed much since Nevermind?
"I don't get uptight about how I record drums any more. There was a period post-Siamese Dream where I started getting more and more detailed - using more microphones, more pre-amps, spending more time getting sounds. It was around the time of the first Garbage record where I threw all of that out the window.
"If there's only two mics, lets do kick and snare and record it in mono. I guess for me what's exciting is that I don't think there are any rules. If you've got a track that calls for really precise drums, a Neil Peart drum part or something, you'll spend a lot of time getting things balanced and use a lot of different mics and different drums to get this incredibly transparent, clear sound. But that's not to say if you just want a trashy room sound you cant just put one mic in a corner if you get the right balance.
"It depends on the kind of vibe you're going for. Drums really give the listener a sense of where a song has been recorded and where it's taking place. If you have guitars, bass and drums and put on a huge room-y drum sound with lots of reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in an arena. If you mute those and just put in a tiny kick and snare that's very dry with no reverb it's going to sound like it was recorded in your bedroom.
"The decision making process of how you record the drums and how much equalisation and ambience and compression and whatever you put on them defines the space of where the listener perceives the song is. It's powerful when you realise you can radically change how a listener is going to perceive a song."
Do you have a preferred mic set-up when tracking drums?
"It's different from band to band. I usually like a dynamic mic on a kick for a close mic but I like the fat 7s for the thumpier, woollier sound. Sometimes I'll use a 57 on a snare, sometimes I'll use a condenser, an AKG41, I might use a ribbon mic on a snare especially if there's a lot of hi hat bleed.
"I have a tendency to like condenser mics on drummers that don't hit the cymbals real loud, and if they do hit them loud I like to use ribbon mics because they're softer in the top end.
"Sometimes I'll record with stereo ambient mics, sometimes I'll just put up one and try to compress it out of a preamp really hard or run it through an effects pedal to give it a vibe. I'll run the drums to some sort of stereo compression and then really hammer it.
"So any time you feel it's not very exciting, you bring those up and the drums go crazy with compression. A lot of the time we use the Roger Mayer compressor the RM58. It's one of the most extreme, crazy compressors in the world. They're great, there's nothing that sounds like them in the world. It sometimes makes things sound like early Who records."
Do you like to pan the kit in the mix?
"Usually kick and snare down the middle with the overheads wide left and right. Sometimes I'll position them right over the drummer's head so it's from a drummer's perspective. Sometimes I move the overhead mics directly over the cymbals.
"With room mics I'll try to move them around so when you bring them up in the mix you can see the space the drums are in. With toms I usually pan left and right. I don't usually pan them hard left and hard right. I like to get it so it make sense as if you've got a drummer playing ten feet in front of you.
"Sometimes if you're using all programmed beats it's good to throw it all out of the window and f with your head a little bit, so put the kick down the middle and the snare off to one side with maybe the cymbals to the other side and the toms doing a weird automated pan back and forth or something. It all depends on what the song calls for."
When tracking do you prefer the entire band to track live?
"With Garbage, every song is different. With a band like the Foos we tracked that live so it's basically them going for rhythm takes between Dave and Taylor making sure we had a core and then we'd overdub Chris, Pat and Nate. With Green Day I would go in and Billie, Mike and Tre would record live together, but I was just going for keeping Tre's drums. Billie would go back in later and overdub his rhythm guitar and Mike would do his bass."
What preparation do you put in drum-wise before heading into the studio, whether it be with Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Muse or an unknown band?
"I don't get too crazy with tuning. I'm pretty good at tuning but I have a drum tech called Mike Fasano. Usually I'll get him in on the first day, whether it be with Garbage or working with someone else, I'll have him come in and tweak the drums. On Day One I like to have the whole day to set everything up, including the amps.
"The majority, though, is getting drums set up and EQ-ing, compressing or whatever. When you come in on Day Two you're ready to record. I think you should be able to get a good drum sound in a day. If you can't, maybe you're over thinking it or maybe the drummer isn't very good!"
Is there a danger of drummers trying to over perfect their sound?
"I think that happens some times. Everybody will perceive how drums should sound in a different way - whether it's the producer, engineer or the drummer. Sometimes you get obsessed with things, like the kick drum isn't punchy enough, or the snare isn't sitting right and sometimes it's the player, sometimes it's the microphone, sometimes it's the wrong snare for the song and you need to fundamentally change it.
"You can run into those problems and when you do the first thing you have to do is see if the drummer is causing the problem with the way he's playing or the part and then you start looking more at the technical parts of it. You look at the microphones, the kind of drums and try to figure out why it's not working."
Is mixing typically a key point for an album's kit sound?
"On some albums it's defined. With the Foos the sound of the garage - it is what it is. You can EQ and compress a little in the mixing, but it wouldn't change the sound profoundly.
That was good in a way because from day one we knew the sound of the drums. Sometimes in the process of making a record the quicker you can make decisions and move on and not leave it all to the mix process that's a good thing. If you can define those drums early on that will help later on."
Sunday, 21 August 2016
Andy Johns On The Secrets Behind The Led Zeppelin IV Sessions
Andy Johns, the younger brother of another famed engineer, Glyn Johns, began his career working as an assistant engineer with Eddie Kramer on Jimi Hendrix sessions. Andy also produced The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and worked with Free, Blind Faith and Van Halen.
More recently he produced Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Chad Smith and Joe Satriani. Andy was instrumental in shaping the sound of Led Zeppelin's seminal fourth album, including John's Bonham's ferocious drum sound on When The Levee Breaks.
Sadly, Johns passed away earlier this year, but in this 2009 interview (first published in Rhythm Magazine) he recalled the highs and lows of those sessions...
Where did you kick off the sessions for Led Zep IV?
"The Rolling Stones had the first mobile recording unit in europe. I had done the Stones' album 'Sticky Fingers' and I had also done two other album projects at Mick's house, Stargroves, with the truck and I really liked it. It was a lot of fun and you got so many different spaces and it was better than being stuck in some airless, windowless room.
"We were getting ready to do the next Led Zeppelin album and I said to Jimmy Page: 'Why don't we use the Stones' truck and we'll go to Mick's house?' So Jimmy says: 'How much will that cost?' It worked out to be the same as a regular studio and a thousand pounds a week for Mick's house. He said: 'I'm not giving Mick Jagger a thousand pounds a week for his place.
I'm going to find something better than that.' And he found Headley Grange, which was rather fortunate. We did a few tracks there including When The Levee Breaks, Rock And Roll and Boogie With Stu."
What was your approach to recording at that time?
"I'd been using very few mics on tracks like Can't Find My Way Home by Blind Faith. I had recorded the whole thing using just two mics including vocals, guitar and Ginger Baker's drums. So I was really getting into that."
John Bonham was famous for his very particular drum sound. How hands on was he?
"I never had Bonzo turn round to me and say, 'oh that's a great drum sound, Andy.' He'd just say, 'There's not enough 'frudge' on the bass drum.' That was his word and I knew exactly what he meant by 'frudge'."
"We took Bonham's kit and stuck it in this lobby area. I got a couple of microphones and put them up the first set of the stairs"
When The Levee Breaks put Bonham centre stage, held down by that monstrous 26" Ludwig bass drum. What was the process behind achieving that sound?
"One night Zeppelin were all going down the boozer and I said, 'You guys bugger off but Bonzo, you stay behind because I've got an idea.' So we took his kit out of the room where the other guys had been recording and stuck it in this lobby area. I got a couple of microphones and put them up the first set of the stairs."
The drum sound on When The Levee Breaks is one of Johns' greatest contributions to IV
It wasn't just the stairwell that got that famous, earthy delay sound though...
"I used two Beyerdynamic M160 microphones and I put a couple of limiters over the two mics and used a Binson Echorec echo device that Jimmy Page had bought. They were Italian-made and instead of tape they used a very thin steel drum.
"Tape would wear out and you'd have to keep replacing it. But this wafer-thin drum worked on the same principle as a wire recorder. It was magnetised and had various heads on it and there were different settings. They were very cool things!
"And so playing at that particular tempo on 'Levee the limiters had time to breathe and that's how Bonzo got that 'Ga Gack' sound because of the Binson. He wasn't playing that. It was the Binson that made him sound like that. I remember playing it back in the Stones' mobile truck and thinking, 'Bonzo's gotta fking like this!' I had never heard anything like it and the drum sound was quite spectacular."
What was Bonham's reaction to hearing the track back?
"I said: 'Bonzo, come and listen to this, dear chap.' And he came in and said, 'Oh yeah, that's more fking like it!' And everyone was very happy. I guess I must have done it as a one-off thing and I didn't start using that technique of room mics all the time until later in the '70s with people like Rod Stewart. Jimmy picked up on it and used it on 'Kashmir'. When The Levee Breaks came out quite well and people still ask me about it when I appear on music biz panels and what-not."
You then moved onto Island Studios…
"Black Dog was the first thing we did there. That was a collaboration with Pagey and John Paul. My contribution to that was triple-tracking the guitar riff played on a Gibson Les Paul. I used a couple of universal limiters. It worked really well but as soon as Jimmy stopped playing, with all that gain it went 'Ssshh woarg!'"
Tell us about the recording of Rock and Roll and Stairway To Heaven…
"Rock and Roll was a little tough to record because with the hi-hat being so open and Bonham hitting it that hard it was difficult to control. But I managed somehow or another. We did Stairway To Heaven upstairs in the big room at Island.
"I had said to Jimmy that we needed a song that builds up and hadn't been having much luck. But then he said: 'I think I've got something that you'll like and we'll do it next week.' And he came in with Stairway To Heaven.
Johns helped nail Jimmy Page's 12-string sound on Stairway To Heaven
"We tracked it with drums and acoustic guitar and John Paul was playing an upright Hohner piano. I'd never even seen one before or since. The drums come in later because it's a 'building song', innit! I didn't have a lot to do with Stairway except for the 12-string guitar sound that I really liked at the time.
"Jimmy was always running his 12-string Rickenbacker through a box, which is a good sound. But if you do it direct and compress it, you get a much more bell-like quality. So I suggested we try that and he really liked it. There was a bit of a struggle on the solo. He was playing for half an hour and did seven or eight takes. He hadn't quite got it sussed. I was starting to get a bit paranoid and he said, 'No, no you're making ME paranoid.' Then right after that he played a really great solo."
The initial mixing sessions took place at Sunset Sound studios in LA...
"I had mixed an album with Gary Wright at Sunset and there were some wonderful mixes coming out of that studio. We got there just after a big earthquake had struck in 1971 and we were running around like maniacs. In Going To California there is mention of an earthquake in Robert's lyrics. I remember Jimmy saying: 'oh don't put that on there, it will cause another earthquake.' I said, 'oh, don't be so bloody stupid, gimme a break!'
"As it turned out, mixing the album was an absolute disaster"
"So the tapes began rolling and sure enough there was an aftershock. Totally coincidental of course but Jimmy was convinced it was the power of the music. So that was rather funny.
But Peter Grant Led Zep manager would lie on his bed clutching the sides. He was a hard-nosed character but he was petrified of the earthquakes. Everyone thought the place was going to fall into the ocean. And as it turned out, mixing the album was an absolute disaster. That's why I didn't get to work with Zeppelin again after that album.
"It all sounded great at Sunset but the only mix that got used was When The Levee Breaks. That, for some reason turned out alright. But we did this playback at Olympic Studios in London and it wasn't the greatest place to hold a playback session. I should have chosen Island. Anyway the first song goes by and it doesn't sound very good at all. Jimmy and I are sitting on the floor with heads in our hands going 'What the hell is this?' Then we played the next one and the next one… and it all sounded 'orrible.
"The other three guys were turning round and giving us funny looks. 'What's happened here?' If it had been anyone else I would have been booted off the project there and then. Jimmy said: 'Well, that's not very good is it? Let's go back to Island where we should have been in the first place. We'll mix it there.'"
You must have been devastated?
"My bottle had gone and obviously I was shattered. The previous stuff I'd done at Sunset had come out Jim Dandy and was really good. I thought Sunset was a cool place but they had changed the room since I was last there. I don't know what happened. So we went back to Island and re-mixed Zeppelin IV although we still used the Levee Breaks mix from Sunset.
But it had all cost a few bob, flying us over there to LA and staying at the Hyatt House. And I know that Bonzo was furious about it."
The When The Levee Breaks drum sound has been sampled and copied many times over the years, notably by the Beastie Boys.
"It's funny actually. I remember mixing some tracks in Tokyo and there were three 32-track machines all strapped together. It was insanity. One machine had all the percussion tracks and I found it even had a little of bit of When The Levee Breaks. Who would have thought all those years later I'd be stealing my own stuff!"
More recently he produced Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Chad Smith and Joe Satriani. Andy was instrumental in shaping the sound of Led Zeppelin's seminal fourth album, including John's Bonham's ferocious drum sound on When The Levee Breaks.
Sadly, Johns passed away earlier this year, but in this 2009 interview (first published in Rhythm Magazine) he recalled the highs and lows of those sessions...
Where did you kick off the sessions for Led Zep IV?
"The Rolling Stones had the first mobile recording unit in europe. I had done the Stones' album 'Sticky Fingers' and I had also done two other album projects at Mick's house, Stargroves, with the truck and I really liked it. It was a lot of fun and you got so many different spaces and it was better than being stuck in some airless, windowless room.
"We were getting ready to do the next Led Zeppelin album and I said to Jimmy Page: 'Why don't we use the Stones' truck and we'll go to Mick's house?' So Jimmy says: 'How much will that cost?' It worked out to be the same as a regular studio and a thousand pounds a week for Mick's house. He said: 'I'm not giving Mick Jagger a thousand pounds a week for his place.
I'm going to find something better than that.' And he found Headley Grange, which was rather fortunate. We did a few tracks there including When The Levee Breaks, Rock And Roll and Boogie With Stu."
What was your approach to recording at that time?
"I'd been using very few mics on tracks like Can't Find My Way Home by Blind Faith. I had recorded the whole thing using just two mics including vocals, guitar and Ginger Baker's drums. So I was really getting into that."
John Bonham was famous for his very particular drum sound. How hands on was he?
"I never had Bonzo turn round to me and say, 'oh that's a great drum sound, Andy.' He'd just say, 'There's not enough 'frudge' on the bass drum.' That was his word and I knew exactly what he meant by 'frudge'."
"We took Bonham's kit and stuck it in this lobby area. I got a couple of microphones and put them up the first set of the stairs"
When The Levee Breaks put Bonham centre stage, held down by that monstrous 26" Ludwig bass drum. What was the process behind achieving that sound?
"One night Zeppelin were all going down the boozer and I said, 'You guys bugger off but Bonzo, you stay behind because I've got an idea.' So we took his kit out of the room where the other guys had been recording and stuck it in this lobby area. I got a couple of microphones and put them up the first set of the stairs."
The drum sound on When The Levee Breaks is one of Johns' greatest contributions to IV
It wasn't just the stairwell that got that famous, earthy delay sound though...
"I used two Beyerdynamic M160 microphones and I put a couple of limiters over the two mics and used a Binson Echorec echo device that Jimmy Page had bought. They were Italian-made and instead of tape they used a very thin steel drum.
"Tape would wear out and you'd have to keep replacing it. But this wafer-thin drum worked on the same principle as a wire recorder. It was magnetised and had various heads on it and there were different settings. They were very cool things!
"And so playing at that particular tempo on 'Levee the limiters had time to breathe and that's how Bonzo got that 'Ga Gack' sound because of the Binson. He wasn't playing that. It was the Binson that made him sound like that. I remember playing it back in the Stones' mobile truck and thinking, 'Bonzo's gotta fking like this!' I had never heard anything like it and the drum sound was quite spectacular."
What was Bonham's reaction to hearing the track back?
"I said: 'Bonzo, come and listen to this, dear chap.' And he came in and said, 'Oh yeah, that's more fking like it!' And everyone was very happy. I guess I must have done it as a one-off thing and I didn't start using that technique of room mics all the time until later in the '70s with people like Rod Stewart. Jimmy picked up on it and used it on 'Kashmir'. When The Levee Breaks came out quite well and people still ask me about it when I appear on music biz panels and what-not."
You then moved onto Island Studios…
"Black Dog was the first thing we did there. That was a collaboration with Pagey and John Paul. My contribution to that was triple-tracking the guitar riff played on a Gibson Les Paul. I used a couple of universal limiters. It worked really well but as soon as Jimmy stopped playing, with all that gain it went 'Ssshh woarg!'"
Tell us about the recording of Rock and Roll and Stairway To Heaven…
"Rock and Roll was a little tough to record because with the hi-hat being so open and Bonham hitting it that hard it was difficult to control. But I managed somehow or another. We did Stairway To Heaven upstairs in the big room at Island.
"I had said to Jimmy that we needed a song that builds up and hadn't been having much luck. But then he said: 'I think I've got something that you'll like and we'll do it next week.' And he came in with Stairway To Heaven.
Johns helped nail Jimmy Page's 12-string sound on Stairway To Heaven
"We tracked it with drums and acoustic guitar and John Paul was playing an upright Hohner piano. I'd never even seen one before or since. The drums come in later because it's a 'building song', innit! I didn't have a lot to do with Stairway except for the 12-string guitar sound that I really liked at the time.
"Jimmy was always running his 12-string Rickenbacker through a box, which is a good sound. But if you do it direct and compress it, you get a much more bell-like quality. So I suggested we try that and he really liked it. There was a bit of a struggle on the solo. He was playing for half an hour and did seven or eight takes. He hadn't quite got it sussed. I was starting to get a bit paranoid and he said, 'No, no you're making ME paranoid.' Then right after that he played a really great solo."
The initial mixing sessions took place at Sunset Sound studios in LA...
"I had mixed an album with Gary Wright at Sunset and there were some wonderful mixes coming out of that studio. We got there just after a big earthquake had struck in 1971 and we were running around like maniacs. In Going To California there is mention of an earthquake in Robert's lyrics. I remember Jimmy saying: 'oh don't put that on there, it will cause another earthquake.' I said, 'oh, don't be so bloody stupid, gimme a break!'
"As it turned out, mixing the album was an absolute disaster"
"So the tapes began rolling and sure enough there was an aftershock. Totally coincidental of course but Jimmy was convinced it was the power of the music. So that was rather funny.
But Peter Grant Led Zep manager would lie on his bed clutching the sides. He was a hard-nosed character but he was petrified of the earthquakes. Everyone thought the place was going to fall into the ocean. And as it turned out, mixing the album was an absolute disaster. That's why I didn't get to work with Zeppelin again after that album.
"It all sounded great at Sunset but the only mix that got used was When The Levee Breaks. That, for some reason turned out alright. But we did this playback at Olympic Studios in London and it wasn't the greatest place to hold a playback session. I should have chosen Island. Anyway the first song goes by and it doesn't sound very good at all. Jimmy and I are sitting on the floor with heads in our hands going 'What the hell is this?' Then we played the next one and the next one… and it all sounded 'orrible.
"The other three guys were turning round and giving us funny looks. 'What's happened here?' If it had been anyone else I would have been booted off the project there and then. Jimmy said: 'Well, that's not very good is it? Let's go back to Island where we should have been in the first place. We'll mix it there.'"
You must have been devastated?
"My bottle had gone and obviously I was shattered. The previous stuff I'd done at Sunset had come out Jim Dandy and was really good. I thought Sunset was a cool place but they had changed the room since I was last there. I don't know what happened. So we went back to Island and re-mixed Zeppelin IV although we still used the Levee Breaks mix from Sunset.
But it had all cost a few bob, flying us over there to LA and staying at the Hyatt House. And I know that Bonzo was furious about it."
The When The Levee Breaks drum sound has been sampled and copied many times over the years, notably by the Beastie Boys.
"It's funny actually. I remember mixing some tracks in Tokyo and there were three 32-track machines all strapped together. It was insanity. One machine had all the percussion tracks and I found it even had a little of bit of When The Levee Breaks. Who would have thought all those years later I'd be stealing my own stuff!"
Sunday, 31 July 2016
The Secrets Of Recording Great Vocals
Recording vocals might not seem like the most challenging of tasks when producing a CD, but this delicate and crucial process often ends up being quite draining and taking longer than expected. Producer Larry Hammel , who has just finished shooting some instructive videos focused on this topic, has agreed to share some of his experience with us.
Recording the perfect (or the best possible) vocal track is an art that involves not only technical knowledge but also a certain amount of psychology. Which of these two elements is more important?
I think they are of equal importance, they are both tools used to reach the ultimate goal. When recording a vocal you first need to know what you are looking for ,which sometimes is very elusive and may only rear its head during the process. I go into a session with my toolbox, if you will, consisting of my tuned room, my gear , my experience and my knack for feeling what the artist can do and a sense of where we are at the time. In recording a vocal, you must take a very sensitive, empathetic approach, and you must constantly go with your gut, and that's where the psychology comes in to play. You have to read the ebb and flow of an artists head space and emotion and react accordingly. The pacing in the studio is critical, you can destroy a session by simply pushing someone too hard or making a ill taken comment, you have to tread lightly and really get into their body, mind and soul. At the best of times, I feel communion with an artist, like I am singing along with him or her, it allows me to sense exactly where we are going and know how far we can get, and thats why I do what
I do.
As far as the gear goes, that's the other side of the coin, its the lens we are all hearing” through so to speak, and like a great cinematographer you need equipment that will help make tangible, this exchange of feelings, words and language that is music. I use a myriad of lenses” in my recordings from an amazing $10,000 German mic that literally helps to expose the molecules of ones soul, to a $100 handheld mic that allows someone to be more carefree and live. We combine these with preamps and compressors that symbiotically react to an artist and their unique voice. We are either going for purity, larger than lifeness or some creative statement. Its reaching your goal that matters.
Singing is very self-exposing, in particular for people who enter the studio for the first time. How do you deal with insecurity?
First understand that anyone that sings, is naturally not an introvert. I believe there is a latent or as yet unexperienced need for self expression, analogous to a baby chick pecking its way out of an egg. My job is to get them to peck a little harder and help expose their feelings in song. I have worked with hundreds of singers, and with the proper coaching and coaxing (my trade secrets) they have all come out of their shells and have thrived in the studio. All artists need to be exposed slowly and comfortably as they evolve in the studio.
Metaphorically speaking, soon you won't be able to get them to put their clothes back on.
Should all singers do warm up exercises before they record or are a couple of takes enough to get their voice ready? What kind of exercises would you recommend?
A singer is an athlete, and even more so in the fact that the small muscles used to vocalize are very sensitive. Taking care of one'ss voice is a lifelong endeavor and should include warm up exercises each time you sing whether you are on the road or in the studio. I usually do a combination of yodels and lip trills to get my self ready before I sing. I also like to do a light aerobic workout to get the heart pumping and to get in touch with my breathing. I recommend a visit to a vocal instructor or coach at some point in your career From personal experience I can say that my coach the amazing Cari Cole here in New York saved my voice when I was singing 4 nights a week. To this day, I do my exercises before I sing and I also help my clients with these as warmups. Its not worth hurting yourself by being lazy or naive. Do your warmups!
How long does a session with a vocalist normally last before the performance starts suffering?
I have another analogy I use with singers called the Are you a Rocket or a Rocky” Some singers are like rockets in that they can do 3 or 4 takes and then fizzle out, where some are like Rocky Balboa, the harder you hit them the stronger they get. I like to first evaluate a singer based on this, so I can develop a sensitivity for their physical being. From there I am interested in their spirit, and how I can push the boundaries of performance without hurting them in any way. We could go 2 hours and get great stuff, or 8 hours with breaks and really work our asses off to get the same results, the adventure is in knowing that the precipice of the mountain is sometimes a few steps away.
Technically, what are the main reoccuring problems when recording a vocalist?
Sometimes its hard to decide on that perfect” combination of signal path. The mic, pre, compressor etc. I go nuts over this at times because I would hate to miss a golden moment by not getting the sound just right. So to avoid any unnecessary pressure on an artist, I like to casually record a half day to explore various gear combinations without any stress. You'd be amazed at the great stuff we get a lot of times and if the budget allows, its nirvana. Another issue that crops up is an artist that is under the weather or not warmed up. Here you must do what you can to physically, get the artist up to speed. Drinks, aerobics, rests between takes, coaching and positive reinforcement are all things you use and do to get what you need in maybe the only day you'll have. 99% of most things can be overcome in the studio with the right approach.
Modern, cheaper recording technology seems to enphasize the high frequencies a lot, and this often creates problems with trebly sounds like esses and tis. How would you deal with that if you didn't have a whole cabinet full of mikes to choose from?
There are a few ways to conquer sibilance” both physically and in the mix. An extreme example is a singer I once recorded who just had dental work done (front teeth veneers) and she had this very sibilant whistle sound around 12,000 hertz. I had her go back to the dentist and she had him lightly file between teeth a bit. Sibilance gone! Now you can't file everyone's teeth down, but you can use multiple pop filters to help attenuate some of the high end, sing at an angle to the mic to avoid direct sibilant air blasts (this helps for plosive p and b sounds as well) and adjust the singers technique a bit to avoid the problem in the first place.
The beauty of recording in a computer workstation are the great plugins designed for this, we call them de essers”. Get your self a few of these and see what works best. Remember it's always a compromise when using plugins like these because overdoing it tends to darken up the overall vocal. These generally work by honing in on the offending frequency and notching out, so I like to get it to work about 60% and live with a little sibilance, better then a lifeless vocal.
Are there some kind of mics that work better on male voices and others that are preferable for female ones?
Traditionally I would say sometimes, technically I would say no. In the past, a Neumann U47 was a most coveted vocal mic, and used on Sinatra, the Beatles and Aretha. A Telefunken 451 was typically used for big airy voiced females like Celine, but there are no rules. There are an amazing amount of microphone types out there and if you have a wide variety in your locker it's wise to try a handful out on an artist and get the best match, male or female.
Are there some kind of mics that work better for different kinds of music?
In my experience yes, depending on the music, I may pull out a certain combination of mics that I have had success with. For example, the German mic I mentioned earlier, the Brauner KHE, is incredible microphone for ballads and softer songs, think Janet Jackson or John Legend, where you need to hear every gorgeous breath and nuance. For rock, a handheld indestructible mic like Bono's favorite SM 57 may suffice or the aforementioned Neumann U47 or its modern day clones.
Alex Nuca
Recording the perfect (or the best possible) vocal track is an art that involves not only technical knowledge but also a certain amount of psychology. Which of these two elements is more important?
I think they are of equal importance, they are both tools used to reach the ultimate goal. When recording a vocal you first need to know what you are looking for ,which sometimes is very elusive and may only rear its head during the process. I go into a session with my toolbox, if you will, consisting of my tuned room, my gear , my experience and my knack for feeling what the artist can do and a sense of where we are at the time. In recording a vocal, you must take a very sensitive, empathetic approach, and you must constantly go with your gut, and that's where the psychology comes in to play. You have to read the ebb and flow of an artists head space and emotion and react accordingly. The pacing in the studio is critical, you can destroy a session by simply pushing someone too hard or making a ill taken comment, you have to tread lightly and really get into their body, mind and soul. At the best of times, I feel communion with an artist, like I am singing along with him or her, it allows me to sense exactly where we are going and know how far we can get, and thats why I do what
I do.
As far as the gear goes, that's the other side of the coin, its the lens we are all hearing” through so to speak, and like a great cinematographer you need equipment that will help make tangible, this exchange of feelings, words and language that is music. I use a myriad of lenses” in my recordings from an amazing $10,000 German mic that literally helps to expose the molecules of ones soul, to a $100 handheld mic that allows someone to be more carefree and live. We combine these with preamps and compressors that symbiotically react to an artist and their unique voice. We are either going for purity, larger than lifeness or some creative statement. Its reaching your goal that matters.
Singing is very self-exposing, in particular for people who enter the studio for the first time. How do you deal with insecurity?
First understand that anyone that sings, is naturally not an introvert. I believe there is a latent or as yet unexperienced need for self expression, analogous to a baby chick pecking its way out of an egg. My job is to get them to peck a little harder and help expose their feelings in song. I have worked with hundreds of singers, and with the proper coaching and coaxing (my trade secrets) they have all come out of their shells and have thrived in the studio. All artists need to be exposed slowly and comfortably as they evolve in the studio.
Metaphorically speaking, soon you won't be able to get them to put their clothes back on.
Should all singers do warm up exercises before they record or are a couple of takes enough to get their voice ready? What kind of exercises would you recommend?
A singer is an athlete, and even more so in the fact that the small muscles used to vocalize are very sensitive. Taking care of one'ss voice is a lifelong endeavor and should include warm up exercises each time you sing whether you are on the road or in the studio. I usually do a combination of yodels and lip trills to get my self ready before I sing. I also like to do a light aerobic workout to get the heart pumping and to get in touch with my breathing. I recommend a visit to a vocal instructor or coach at some point in your career From personal experience I can say that my coach the amazing Cari Cole here in New York saved my voice when I was singing 4 nights a week. To this day, I do my exercises before I sing and I also help my clients with these as warmups. Its not worth hurting yourself by being lazy or naive. Do your warmups!
How long does a session with a vocalist normally last before the performance starts suffering?
I have another analogy I use with singers called the Are you a Rocket or a Rocky” Some singers are like rockets in that they can do 3 or 4 takes and then fizzle out, where some are like Rocky Balboa, the harder you hit them the stronger they get. I like to first evaluate a singer based on this, so I can develop a sensitivity for their physical being. From there I am interested in their spirit, and how I can push the boundaries of performance without hurting them in any way. We could go 2 hours and get great stuff, or 8 hours with breaks and really work our asses off to get the same results, the adventure is in knowing that the precipice of the mountain is sometimes a few steps away.
Technically, what are the main reoccuring problems when recording a vocalist?
Sometimes its hard to decide on that perfect” combination of signal path. The mic, pre, compressor etc. I go nuts over this at times because I would hate to miss a golden moment by not getting the sound just right. So to avoid any unnecessary pressure on an artist, I like to casually record a half day to explore various gear combinations without any stress. You'd be amazed at the great stuff we get a lot of times and if the budget allows, its nirvana. Another issue that crops up is an artist that is under the weather or not warmed up. Here you must do what you can to physically, get the artist up to speed. Drinks, aerobics, rests between takes, coaching and positive reinforcement are all things you use and do to get what you need in maybe the only day you'll have. 99% of most things can be overcome in the studio with the right approach.
Modern, cheaper recording technology seems to enphasize the high frequencies a lot, and this often creates problems with trebly sounds like esses and tis. How would you deal with that if you didn't have a whole cabinet full of mikes to choose from?
There are a few ways to conquer sibilance” both physically and in the mix. An extreme example is a singer I once recorded who just had dental work done (front teeth veneers) and she had this very sibilant whistle sound around 12,000 hertz. I had her go back to the dentist and she had him lightly file between teeth a bit. Sibilance gone! Now you can't file everyone's teeth down, but you can use multiple pop filters to help attenuate some of the high end, sing at an angle to the mic to avoid direct sibilant air blasts (this helps for plosive p and b sounds as well) and adjust the singers technique a bit to avoid the problem in the first place.
The beauty of recording in a computer workstation are the great plugins designed for this, we call them de essers”. Get your self a few of these and see what works best. Remember it's always a compromise when using plugins like these because overdoing it tends to darken up the overall vocal. These generally work by honing in on the offending frequency and notching out, so I like to get it to work about 60% and live with a little sibilance, better then a lifeless vocal.
Are there some kind of mics that work better on male voices and others that are preferable for female ones?
Traditionally I would say sometimes, technically I would say no. In the past, a Neumann U47 was a most coveted vocal mic, and used on Sinatra, the Beatles and Aretha. A Telefunken 451 was typically used for big airy voiced females like Celine, but there are no rules. There are an amazing amount of microphone types out there and if you have a wide variety in your locker it's wise to try a handful out on an artist and get the best match, male or female.
Are there some kind of mics that work better for different kinds of music?
In my experience yes, depending on the music, I may pull out a certain combination of mics that I have had success with. For example, the German mic I mentioned earlier, the Brauner KHE, is incredible microphone for ballads and softer songs, think Janet Jackson or John Legend, where you need to hear every gorgeous breath and nuance. For rock, a handheld indestructible mic like Bono's favorite SM 57 may suffice or the aforementioned Neumann U47 or its modern day clones.
Alex Nuca
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