EQ Magazine - May 2008 - (Page 20)

Big Twelve Inches was still impressed with the band, and they also felt Jack and I were a good match for them. So we started Toys in the Attic. Did the band write a lot of Toys in the Attic in the studio? Yes, and also during pre-production with Jack. Certainly, a lot of [vocalist] Steven Tyler’s lyrics were written in the studio. For instance, we all went to the movies one night, and saw Young Frankenstein. The “walk this way” line in the film is what inspired Steven to write “Walk This Way.” The band was in a very creative place. What did you record Toys on? The deck was an MCI two-inch 16-track that was running Ampex tape. We used the Spectrasonics console in Studio A, and we had some really cool outboard pieces such as Roger Mayer limiters, and an old Altec compressor that gave the guitars a cool, subtle squash. How did you track the guitars on that album? Typically, I would use the combination of a Shure SM57, a Sennheiser 421, and a Sony C37. I would place all three mics close to the grille, and mix the signals down to one track. The “edge” would come from the 57 and the 421, while the C37 would provide the “weight.” Sometimes, we would add a little bit of phasing to get some extra edge. We had an Eventide flanger that we used occasionally, as well, and if it sounded really good, we would just print the effect to tape. In the mix, we would usually pan Brad Whitford’s guitar to the left, and Joe Perry’s guitar to the right. They had some great old Fenders, and Joe used a small Gibson stereo amp that just sounded amazing. Most of the time, it was just one or two amps per player being tracked. Once we experimented with assigning one guitar to 13 amps, and miking them up. That’s when we discovered that having 13 amps doesn’t make the guitar sound 13 times better than one amp! What about Joey Kramer’s drums? We set the drums on a wood floor. I would get a Sennheiser MKH 415 shotgun mic up as high as I could, point it straight down at the snare, and then put a Universal Audio 1176 on it, squashing it at around a 20:1 ratio. Generally, I would just add some of that channel under the dry track in the mix. On the snare, I sometimes used an Altec 633A “salt shaker” in place of a Shure SM57. I only miked the top head, and I used a Pultec EQ to boost slightly at around 10kHz and 100Hz. The hi-hat mic would be a Neumann KM 84, and for the toms and overheads, I used Neumann U87s. With the overheads, I would position the mics so I had a good shot at all the cymbals, but I always tried to maintain the snare in the center of the image. For the kick, we used an Electro-Voice 666. We also added some board EQ on the kick to boost the low end at 50Hz, and the attack at around 3kHz. Toys In The Attic had drums assigned to five tracks: kick on one, snare on two, everything else on three and four, and the shotgun mic on five. The exception was “Sweet Emotion,” where the shotgun mic was multed to two preamps. One was limited with a UREI 1176, and the other with a Universal Audio 175. Each signal was printed on a separate track. I rarely adhered to traditional miking techniques back then. I was all about experimentation. You also played some percussion on the album. I played bass marimba on “Sweet Emotion.” We felt the bass part was missing a little edge to it, and Jack knew I played vibes, so I gave it a shot, and doubled the bass part. It worked great with the bass sound. It’s in the intro, and the re-intro after the first chorus. Was Tom Hamilton’s bass sound all direct, or a mix of amp and DI? It was a mix of both amp and DI— which were submixed to a single channel. Tom used an Ampeg B15 amp, and we would take the direct line off the amp head. The mic would have been an Electro-Voice RE20. We also used an old Flickenger tube limiter—a monstrous bass compressor that had its own special sound. If you applied it moderately, it kept the low end from getting muddy, and it added lots of punch in the mids. We would occasionally use a Lang Program EQ to boost the 2kHz range for some added edge. I heard Steven didn’t use headphones for most of the album. How did you record his lead and background vocals? When Steven didn’t hear headphones, I would record him with the shotgun mic because of its narrow polar pattern. I would set him up with a couple of monitors in the live room, and send a mono feed. We’d place the monitors out of phase, and then position Steven in the sweet spot where the two signals almost completely cancelled each other out. If he was hearing headphones—which he did on occasion to sing background vocals and other parts—I’d use a U87. While the backgrounds are mostly Steven, Joe would sing occasionally, too. You can hear him on there if you listen. Was Toys mixed right there at the Record Plant? Yes, and it wasn’t that difficult. Jack and I would both get our hands in there on the mix, and if we needed other hands, we would just ask. You couldn’t be shy about asking for help, because there was no automation. You had to manually ride the faders. The mixes were often a combination of using extra hands, or mixing songs in pieces, and then editing sections together. We would cut and assemble the order on 1/4-inch tape running at 15ips. The whole record took around four months to finish. What reverbs did you have at the time? They had some really cool EMT plates, and a spring reverb. Most of the reverb you hear—like on “Sweet Emotion”—was the EMTs. If we had a cool reverb sound going, we just printed it to tape. Did you rely on a lot of compression for the mixes? We didn’t use much. We would hit the tape hard enough to get some natural compression, and then add just a little to the guitars and bass to even things out. The exception was the shotgun mic above Joey’s snare. I’d really squash that one. Later on, when we recorded Rocks, I’d take the drum mix—mostly kick and snare with a little bit of the overheads— and route it from an aux send to an 1176. I would really squash that signal at 20:1, and I’d have the input level up to the point where you think it’s too much. The 1176’s release function would almost enable you to put the compression in time with the song. What I mean is, based on how quick or slow the release was set, I could try to have the 1176 back to zero compression by the time of the next snare hit. That way, you always hear the crack of that 20 EQ MAY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - May 2008

EQ Magazine - May 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Jamie Lidell, What the New Model of Record Deal Means to You, Part II, Andrew W.K. Tool Box Aerosmith Fast Tracks Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet DigiDesign Pro Tools LE 7.4 Cakewalk Sonar 7 Line 6 UX8 Studio Projects CS5 Art Tubefire 8 Jazzmutant Dexter MCDSP Emerald Pack Overloud Breverb KRK Exposé E8B Mackie MR5 Blue Sky Exo Monitor System Big Fish Audio Around the World in 80 Raves East West Fab Four Virtual Instrument Sony Matt Fink- Starvu Session Keys Room With A VU

EQ Magazine - May 2008

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