EQ Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 24)

BANG THE DRUM G. HANEKROOT/SUNSHINE/RETNA LTD. in, and essentially just read all throughout the sessions and watched the clock. That’s what old-fashioned record producers did. They were there simply to manage the process and make sure the band didn’t go over budget. By the time we got to the second album I was thinking, “What do we need this guy for?” So I took over the production side of the band, decided how things should sound. When it got time to remix the record—we initially did a slapdash mix, because the band was already breaking up—at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia, I figured that I had been watching this process long enough; I might as well sit down in the chair and start doing it myself. The process was simple enough. You only had three-band, fixed, notched EQs and pan pots. I remixed that record, and after that I had the skill. I left the Nazz and was brought into [ex-Bob Dylan manager] Albert Grossman’s organization by Michael Friedman, who was previously a partner in the management of the Nazz. I came in to record their stable of artists. This was before they started the record label. I mixed [the Band’s] Stage Fright [Capitol], worked with Jesse Winchester. All of these folk acts that came after the Beatles hit weren’t getting much attention because they weren’t contemporary, so I worked with any of Grossman’s artists that needed a refit. After I had a few projects under my belt, they let me cut a solo record [Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren— Ampex] as an indulgence. You were an oddity back then because you were one of the few people in the world making records at home. What was your home studio like? It was based around an 8-track machine that I had rented, so that I could keep recording after I was done at I.D. Sound for the day. I’d record, come home and eat dinner, and then start recording again through the night. Not much sleep, I take it. I had a friend who was a psychiatrist and he gave me a bottle of Ritalin to try out and it was great. Time went by without a problem. How does being a musician and songwriter influence you as a producer? Todd Rundgren (left) in the studio circa 1975. Do you sit with bands and say, “Hey, this doesn’t have a hook here?’” You don’t have to be a musician to recognize when a song has weak points, but I’ve always had the advantage of having a musician’s perspective. I can make suggestions in that regard, but the downside to that is that if a band has those shortcomings, I tend to start writing their music for them. For instance, when I produced the Tubes album, Remote Control [A&M], they had few songs, but a lot of ideas. I had to make good use of studio time, so I stepped in and started writing lyrics and stuff for the songs, just so it would get done. No one seemed to mind, and I always sort of looked at it as a production duty, so I never took credit for writing any of the songs. Over those years, did you ever come across a console that, looking back, you think “Wow, that sounded great!” I never really took to the SSLs like others did. I never really liked the way the EQ was designed. Everything seemed to get softened by the SSL. I’d crank up the dB and I couldn’t seem to get much punch out of it. My favorite console was the second one I built, after the console I built before we recorded A Wizard, A True Star [Bearsville]. Was that the Secret Sound console? Yeah. The faders went to a 12-band graphic EQ and they were “soundgraphed.” They made these stereo EQs for home stereos, but I wanted the graphic EQ on every single channel. There was nothing on the console but faders, panners, and a 12-band graphic EQ for every single channel. That setup informed my style of recording at Secret Sound. If somebody came in to record, we weren’t messing around all day trying to get drum sounds. We got the drum sounds done right off the bat, and everything else was relatively easy after that. As long as I was in my own environment, and was able to have microscopic control of the sound, everything was easy. Optimally I would want the perfect mic to match an instrument, but realistically I would be working with a collection of “utility” mics that work in many situations— [Shure] SM57s and [Neumann] U87s. Having the ability to hone in on one frequency and knock it out made so much of a difference in terms of the overall sound. For your vocals, what is that “perfect mic?” For years, I’ve used a U87. It became a question of having that graphic-y picture of how I wanted my voice to sound, which involved notching out the frequency somewhere between 200 and 500Hz—the upper midrange that makes the voice sound kind of woof-y. I like a nice clear bottom, not a 24 EQ SEPTEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

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

EQ Magazine - September 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Freak Folk Todd Rundgren Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Sony Acid 6 Ableton Live 7 Portable Recorder Showdown Gadgets and Goodies Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - September 2008

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