EQ Magazine - August 2008 - (Page 10)

PUNCH IN The Kahne Method once the Explosions got signed to a major label, we had to go in and re-cut everything—which took a long time because it was all done very carefully—and it didn’t feel right to me at all. I was the producer, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I hate that concept of, “Oh yeah, we can improve on this,” because, most of the time, you can’t. When something is getting real reactions from people, there’s always a reason for it. But getting signed can be like when you’re going to marry someone, and you say, “I love you. You’re amazing.” Then, you get married, and you say, “Could you change your hair and get some fake tits?” Sad. . . . I’ve seen bands ruined by that sort of thing. When I was head of A&R at Columbia, I would hear the A&R people say the weirdest things to artists. I would see the artist’s face fall, and I’d think, “Wow. You don’t want to crush that guy’s spirit, because it doesn’t have to slip away very far before the music starts to lose its distinctiveness.” To me, once the artist’s commitment goes away, it’s over. This is one reason that I hate compromise. I want to be 100 percent happy, and I want the artist to be 100 percent happy. I once had a conversation with someone about a mix. The guitar was really bright and in the foreground, but it made the voice sound way bigger. In fact, I wasn’t even listening to the guitar—other than noticing it made the voice sound great. Well, this person thought the guitar was too loud, and asked, “Can we just tuck it back a little bit?” I hate that phrase, and you hear it a lot. “Just tuck it in a little.” It’s one of those phrases I always assumed was in some ’80s TV movie where the A&R guy was on coke, but somehow it got put in the A&R handbook of “things to say in the studio.” Anyway, I said, “No. If I do that, the mix is going to fall apart.” He said, “I’ll meet you halfway—can’t you turn it down just a little bit?” But if I turn down the guitar 2dB, I’m changing the whole foreground of the mix. I ended up pushing the guitar back, and giving the person a reference CD. He came back and said, “You know what? You were right. You just moved the guitar a little bit and the mix fell apart.” I felt that was a great moment, because I had a really strong idea of what something should be, and I figured out a way of maintaining that idea, rather than putting it somewhere between one idea and another idea. That’s the spirit of compromise, and it doesn’t often work too well in music. When I was finishing Memory Almost Full with Paul, he said, “When you put out a record now there’s all this crap you have to go through. I finish my record, and I’m happy with it. It sounds good to me. But when I turn it in, I feel like all I do is disappoint people.” [Laughs.] But Paul will not compromise one molecule of his music. Not for the record company, and not for anyone else. To see that commitment to selfexpression in an artist is fascinating. Sometimes, it feels pretty hopeless to try to get that going with an artist in light of what record companies need today. When I get the opportunity to work with somebody as great as Paul, you can see that self-expression and the emotion that’s pouring out of the music. When you can experience somebody really going for it, I just think it’s the greatest thing in the world. Utilizing a Dangerous Music Mixer and a RME MADI system, David Kahne concocted a best-of-bothworlds scenario where all his analog and digital processing is immediately available at all times. “I have access to my Federal AM-864 and Fairchild 670 tube compressors, my Chandler compressors, my hardware SSL XLogic Alpha Channel, my Roger Nichols plug-ins, the Neve 33609 plug-ins, and a bunch of hardware and software EQs,” says Kahne, whose main audio engine is Steinberg Cubase 4 running on a PC. “It’s pretty seamless—I don’t have to patch anything. It’s all wired all the time because the MADI system is so flexible.” Kahne uses four Dangerous Mixers (a total of 64 channels) for summing direct to an Alesis MasterLink because he doesn’t like mixing in the computer. “I could hear a lot of phasing and weird stuff in the summing output, and the headroom was really low coming out of the computer, so the mix would start to crap out,” he explains. “When I got the first Dangerous box, I could feel the audio open up completely.” —Michael Molenda Subscribe to MPN’s Special E-Newsletters! EQ’s Record Ready: EQmag.com/newsletter Keyboard’s Key News: KeyboardMag.com/newsletter Bass Player’s Direct In and Bass Player Live: BassPlayer.com/newsletter Guitar Player’s Fretwire, Grind, and Frets: GuitarPlayer.com/newsletter This Month on EQTV Join us at EQtv—EQ’s own video channel chock full of tips, tricks, tutorials, behind the scenes footage of some of the hottest sessions, and tons more. To check it out, visit www.eqmag.com and click the pretty little link, or go direct to www.eqmag.tv. You’ll be glad you did. This month you’ll see: In the Studio with Lyrics Born. Extra Bus Compression Tricks for Recording Drummers. Stem Mixing Tips for Pro Tools Power Users . . . AND TONS MORE!!! 10 EQ AUGUST 2008 www.eqmag.com http://EQmag.com/newsletter http://KeyboardMag.com/newsletter http://BassPlayer.com/newsletter http://GuitarPlayer.com/newsletter http://www.eqmag.tv http://www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

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

EQ Magazine - August 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Lyrics Born, Fink, David Kahne on Working with Paul McCartney, What a Future with no Record Industry looks like Tool Box ?uestlove Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Apple Logic Pro 8 USM Mic Round-Up USB Mics Chameleon Labs 7720 Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - August 2008

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.