EQ Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 25)

RUSH From the earliest days of pre-production, the collective vision RECORDING LIFESON’S GUITARS of Raskulinecz, recording/mixing engineer Rich Chycki, and, of Lifeson rekindled his romance with the acoustic guitar for Snakes course, the band was to create a record that would nod in the direc& Arrows, echoing material from earlier Rush records such as 1975’s tion of Rush’s glorious prog-rock past, pay homage to their influCaress of Steel and 1977’s A Farewell to Kings. For most of the ences, and maintain the band’s relevance in the current mainstream new record, Lifeson played Garrison 6- and 12-string acoustics, rock world. As a result, “new vintage” quickly became the buzz as well as his old Gibson jumbo acoustics, and the Gibson 12-string term of the Allaire sessions. he used on “Closer to the Heart’’ (from A Farewell to Kings). In “‘New vintage’ is a good phrase, Lifeson says. “And Rich was ” addition, he played other acoustic instruments, such as manso quick at creating and pulling up sounds that define ‘vintage’ dola, mandolin, and bouzouki throughout the album. Chris Griffiths — big, ballsy, powerful, and clear. I was getting all the elements I always wanted to hear in my guitar sound.” Battling the room reflections at Allaire Discerning listeners will hear a patented Hemispheres was a challenge for Raskulinecz and company, who ended up surrounding Peart F# chord in the intro of “Far Cry, and recognize the nod ” with a variety of gobos in a semi-circle, dubto Eric Clapton and B. B. King during the opening guitar bing the arrangement “Stonehenge.” break in “The Way the Wind Blows, and Lifeson attribut” es a fair share of the classic sounds on Snakes & Arrows to renewing relationships with old friends. “I was using my Gibson ES-335, says Lifeson, name” dropping the guitar he played on such celebrated Rush classics as 2112 and Caress of Steel. “I was hugely influenced by Eric Clapton when I was young, and it was nice to take a little bit of a bluesy approach to a song.” For his part, Lee fussed over a Mellotron — an infamously unpredictable piece of equipment that he hadn’t used in years. “We wanted to use orchestra-like glissandos on ‘Faithless,” ’ explains Lee. “But I had to play the glisses by manipulating the pitch wheel on the Mellotron, which involved finding the right position on the wheel, marking it with tape, then moving the wheel down to another note, and marking that position with tape. It was all very Rube Goldberg. ” In addition, Raskulinecz convinced Lee to return to his equally temperamental Moog Taurus — a 13-note analog synthesizer housed in an organ-style pedalboard that had, in the past, allowed Lee to accompany Lifeson on guitar or play keyboard while holding down a bass part with his feet. But because the Taurus tuning is so finicky — Lee remembers having to retune the synth for every new part he’d play in the studio — the band had jettisoned the pedals in favor of samples for recent projects. “The Taurus pedals are on almost every song — which is something that hasn’t happened since 1985’s Power Windows, says Raskulinecz. “And that’s one of the rea” sons Snakes & Arrows sounds so big and powerful — you don’t hear the pedals so much as you feel them. To record them, we went direct through a Chandler Germanium preamp/DI, and pushed the preamp’s Thick button to add more of a low-end rise to the sound. Then, the signal went straight to tape. There was no compression, or any other processing.” Chandler’s Cody Brown explains that the Thick button on the Germanium delivers a gentle frequency bump that peaks around 100Hz. “When you push that button in combination with boosting the unit’s Gain and Feedback controls, you can achieve a firmer low end for instruments such as the Taurus, says Brown. ” www.eqmag.com SEPTEMBER 2007 EQ 25 http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - September 2007

Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly Ben and Vesper Kaiser Chiefs Toolbox Ozma Porcupine Tree Rush The Software Power User Guide Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drumheads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Chameleon Labs TS1 and TS2 Primera Bravo Se Disc Publisher Roland MC-808 Magix Samplitude Professional 9.1 Massey Tape-Head Big Fish Audio Revolucion Reggaeton Sonivox World Beats Sony Pocket Diva Adobe Audition 2.0 Cakewalk Sonar 6 Room with a VU: J Street Recorders, Sacramento, CA

EQ Magazine - September 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.