Quite a few times the performer Erik: Did he add any other microphones, like lower would come in and Bruce would jokingly say, to his feet, or was it just whatever made its way into “Okay, let’s see if that recorded.” He’d hit Play and the vocal microphone? the sound that would fill the room was amazing. mind that was so conducive to artistic freedom and creativity. Bruce wanted to capture the out to give a performance, they were in a state of entire performance for the sake of realism. That’s what They were prepping them so that when they went Bruce was capturing. Part of it was Bruce and part of it was Quincy. All of would happen in the environment, there would the sound from him moving, his shoes or snapping be a conditioning aspect to the people coming his fingers, those were all things that Michael was in. And I can’t tell you the number When Michael would sing vocals, especially for the of times that people would come in-musicians Bad album, he would sing on the drum platform, to do an overdub-and there’d be this thing that and he would very often do dance moves. It gave that early reflection a little personal party that they were having with reinforcement, and made the sound have fullness. Bruce wanted the sound reflecting friends, it’s like you were you were coming into off of natural wood. He loved to put drums on a themselves, having a great time. First of all, you would be entering into would record something in there for that extra an environment where here are a few guys enjoying kind of kind of sparkle. Studio A at Westlake if you came into a session and it was a Bruce and had a mirrored room with marble floor and we Quincy date. because it was a tiled room, and it had that really, Matt: There was this thing that used to happen really bright reflective sound. We would do other tricks able to do what they do, unimpeded, and express like we would record percussion in the bathroom themselves creatively. And it is important, but more important is done in an acoustic manner, Bruce referred to it as the environment you set for the musicians to be acoustic reinforcement. 57, and that was how we recorded the little voice in Erik: You know, when you’re first starting out, “Billie Jean,” where there’s the “don’t think twice, do you think getting a great recording is all about the think twice” answer. He asked me to put up a Shure relationships. Bruce was always so aware of phase Bruce got excited. So that Michael said, “Oh, I sing a line through this,” and wouldn’t fly. It was about 4 inches in adding a second microphone down by his feet diameter and 3 feet long with drawings on it. I remember the day that Michael came into the studio carrying a microphone because Bruce understood that mailing tube with him. Bruce loved sounds that were engineer Matt Forger in the middle. Are there any Quincy Jones, left, with Bruce other stories like that? Swedien at right and assistant Matt: Sure. Erik: Did Bruce use any sound widening techniques or was it always a natural stereo space? Matt: Bruce had a way of creating a sonic landscape by integrating different aspects of miking technique, along with how the microphone was used in an acoustic space.Įrik: It’s one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs, especially for its sonics. So Bruce would make that thing that was happening in their ears be very live, and very representative of what the musicians were trying to accomplish. You know, in the studio, everybody’s separated, Bruce Swedien, left, with baffled and wearing engineer Erik Zobler at Bernie Grundman headphones. Bruce would get the blend of the instruments so that the musicians could hear themselves clearly. When you have the top studio guys playing, they already know how to execute a performance. He used the dynamics from the performance of the musicians. But if Bruce could have used a straight wire to go from the microphone to the 24-track, he would have. He loved, and he was a master of using tape compression as part of his sound. Or at least not, shall we say, compression from electronic gear. So it was actually a little bit more like a limiter than actual compression because Bruce did not like compression. The only thing he would regularly use was an 1176 on the vocal. He used an absolute minimum of outboard gear to record. Matt: The thing about Bruce’s sound was that he always did everything in the simplest fashion possible. Erik: Bruce is considered a recording God. And then there was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I started with the Lena Horne Broadway show album, followed by Ernie Watt’s Chariots of Fire album, the Donna Summer album for Geffen Records.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |