EQ Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 21)

SIGNAL TO NOISE “Again, Again, Again (The Crux)” (American Gothic EP) Another product of the Pumpkins’ tenure with Roy Thomas Baker. The exceptionally loud Gibson J-160E acoustic/electric had such a distinctive punch in the lower midrange that it was paramount to pair it up with an electric that didn’t overshadow the tone. The solution: A 1973 Telecaster run through a ’60s Selmer amp and doubletracked. If Zeitgeist is the sound of a world pounded into dust, American Gothic is the sound of that world waking up to a new era of possibility. “Superchrist” (Fresh Cuts, Volume 2) “Superchrist” pairs the Pumpkins with longtime friend and producer Kerry Brown (“Starla”) for a 6/8 psychedelic jam. A custom API console in Studio 3 at Sunset Sound was used for tracking, with a fair amount of trial-and-error determining which instruments sounded best on what channel. With 18 analog drum tracks thrown against the well-worn tone of a 1958 Fender P-Bass (run through a Ampeg SVT-VR head with a SVT810E cabinet and miked with an AKG D12), “ballsy” doesn’t even come close to describing the sound. —Richard Thomas he frequently changed out his snares, building his kit around the snare and the ride as opposed to the kick. The familiar drum rolls all throughout “Tonight, Tonight” can be attributed to Jimmy’s classic 5 1/2x14inch Ludwig Supra-Phonic. “From there I go to microphones as far as how I want the drums to sit dimensionally in the track,” Chamberlin informs. “If I want the drums up front and aggressive, I’ll use a lot of AKG C 414s so they sit in front of things dimensionally. If I want the drums to sit in a rhythm section configuration, I’ll lean back towards the 414s and maybe some Shure SM98s. Then maybe go for Shure 12As on the bigger drums.” Mellon Collie debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 when it was released in October of 1995. Less than a year later it had crested $6 million in sales, and was later nominated for Corgan utilizing a dual vocal miking technique. Of Ruby,” which contains approximately 70 guitar tracks, would have been nearly impossible to do with tape alone. Likewise, “Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans” contains roughly six sections that were all recorded at different times with different instrument and microphone configurations and then fused together—another beneficial byproduct of editing in Pro Tools. Guitar and amplification choices were the key differences between Siamese and Mellon Collie. For the bass, Wretzky switched up from the P-Bass to a ’60s era Fender Jazz Bass reissue with Ampeg and Mesa Boogie amps. For Corgan, what sounded great about the Siamese fuzz pedal setup in the studio made it sound horrible live. He still had his Marshall 1960A cabinets, but Corgan shifted to a Mesa Boogie Strategy 500 and a Marshall JMP-1 preamp (Corgan also notes that he used an Alesis 3630 to drive extra gain into a Marshall). As the ultimate goal for Mellon Collie was to capture the band’s live, unbridled sound, Billy largely used this touring rig to record. “Flood felt like the band he would see live wasn’t really captured on record,” says Corgan. “So a lot of Mellon Collie was tracked by the band at deafening volumes. I mean deafening. There was so much SPL in the room that it was physically uncomfortable. Your ears, your emotional resistance, would wear down.” Flood also discovered that Corgan was a much better singer pitch-wise when he didn’t use headphones, so he switched Corgan up to a Shure SM58 and had him sing in front of open speakers. “My experience with U2 taught me that a lot of things you’d expect to become problematic with monitors in the room aren’t, and by careful use of screening, by positioning the monitors and what you put in the monitors you can actually get a lot of benefits,” says Flood. “For instance, Jimmy used to love having the kick drum and a bit of snare going through his wedges, which were directly behind him. So if you’ve got a kit that’s lacking a bit of bottom end, you pump the kick and the snare through the wedges and you start to tweak them to get extra weight. We also developed this system whereby we had what was called ‘rehearsal mode’ and ‘tape mode.’ In rehearsal mode, everybody was on the floor, the amps were blaring, and you wouldn’t have to worry about spills. We had the speakers inside these big coffin flight cases in the back of the room and miked them close up, then miked them about six feet away. Then we’d close the lid. When you were tracking in tape mode, everybody could flick over at the flick of a footswitch and their amps would be quietly purring away in the corner. When you’d give a little bit back to them in their own respective monitors, automatically the sound of the room cut right back and you’d get the vibe of four people playing on top of each other.” For the drums, Chamberlin’s core Mellon Collie kit was a Yamaha Maple Custom with a 16x22-inch kick, a 22-inch ride, 18-inch and 19-inch Zildjian A Custom crashes, 22-inch swish knockers, and 10-inch and 15-inch fast crashes. Because of his big band background, www.eqmag.com OCTOBER 2008 EQ 21 http://www.eqmag.com

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

EQ Magazine - October 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Smashing Pumpkins Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Steinberg Cubase 4 Studio Meets Stage Gear for the Studio and Stage Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - October 2008

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