EQ Magazine - May 2008 - (Page 21)

Track this Way—Douglas (left) and Messina (second to left) keep an eye on the levels while guitarist Joe Perry (right) breaks into a screaming solo. next snare fully. Also, if you were hearing too much of the cymbals, you could slow up the release, and it wouldn’t pull up a lot of cymbal bleed. When mixing, I would add the compressed signal in parallel to the other drums to get an apparent loudness to the kick and snare without adding much meter level. This is how we got that “hit you in the chest sound” for Joey’s drums. How many tracks did you use? When we remixed Toys in the Attic for 5.1 surround a few years ago, I had it transferred from the 16-track master to Pro Tools. When I looked at the track sheets, I noticed that there was at least one track open on all the songs. We basically used only 15 tracks for the whole record. What did you print the mixes to? The final master was a 1/4-inch Ampex tape. We were very conscious of the low end and any out-of-phase material, because we didn’t want the vinyl records to skip. Doug Sax did a great job mastering the record. He sonically brought it up another notch. Let’s move onto Rocks. What’s the story there? The guys were rehearsing in a warehouse in Waltham, Massachusetts, and they were getting really comfortable up there. It turned out that everything sounded really good in the room, so we just parked the Record Plant mobile truck in the warehouse. So you just miked everybody up where they were in the room as if they were practicing? Yes—even to the point of using this huge speaker cabinet Joey had set up behind his drums for the rehearsals. He had a mic just lying in his bass drum, and we ran the signal through a little MXR equalizer with everything from 125Hz and up rolled off, and everything below 125Hz boosted all the way up. A big woof of air would come out of that cabinet, and he’d feel it every time he hit the bass drum. It made for a really cool bass-drum sound—although it bled through everything except the guitar mics that were positioned right on the speaker grilles. How were the band members positioned in the warehouse? They were set up in corners. As you walked in, the drums were just to the right. There was a guitar amp in the far right corner, a guitar amp in the far left JACK’S TALES FROM THE ATTIC Often referred to as the “sixth member of Aerosmith,” Jack Douglas was instrumental in helping shape the band’s early sound. With a long track record that includes the likes of John Lennon and the Who, Douglas is certainly no stranger to making hit records. Here, he reflects on working behind the scenes with “the bad boys from Boston” for Toys in the Attic. What were some of the challenges in making the album? At that time, their performances could be dodgy. They would get a few moments of brilliance, and then fall on their asses, but I wouldn’t want to stop the take. I would just go for whatever I could get. Sometimes, I would be banging a cowbell in a booth just so the tempo would stay straight. That way, I could edit all the takes together when it was done, because the brilliant parts would just be incredible. The band has often called you their “sixth member.” Explain the specifics of that role. That “sixth member” phrase is because of the situations that went down in preproduction, when I would basically move in with them. We would create songs from the ground up, and, because of their touring schedule, they would just show up and ask, “Got any songs?” We would develop stuff from the ground up—such as the riff on “Walk This Way,” or the bass part to “Sweet Emotion.” The major contributors were Steven, Joe, and myself, but everyone certainly pitched in. You mixed Toys with flying fingers. That’s right! We would mark fader levels with pencils—and even tape razor blades down to block faders from being moved past a certain point— and then it would be all hands on deck. Sometimes, you would just do a verse, then reset for the chorus, and make all your pre-planned moves. There would be stop points set for the drum fills, and so on. I miss that process, because things happened by accident on those records that were just really cool. Did you realize how great Toys was when you were working on it? No. I was too close to it. When Bruce Lundvall [president, Columbia Records] came in to listen to the whole album, I was thinking, “Oh my god, its just terrible.” I thought it must have sounded like this mushy big mess flying at him. After it was over, Bruce said, “I think I can take a breath now.” And I thought, “Wow, he really hates it.” But then he said, “It’s brilliant. There’s gotta be four singles on there that are amazing.” And there are only nine songs on that record! —Rich Tozzoli www.eqmag.com MAY 2008 EQ 21 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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