EQ Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 20)

ANOTHER DAY There are no breaks between songs. What determined that? My wife and Scott Bennett and Darian Sahanaja all teamed up to sequence the album. They are responsible for that. What inspired “Oxygen”? It seems very autobiographical. . . . It is the story of my life. I laid around and didn’t do anything and was lazy. One day, I started exercising and I started eating right, and getting better sleep at night—stuff like that. What inspired the melody for “Oxygen”? What inspired the melody? Nothing. I just came up with it. I usually try out ideas on a synthesizer—a Yamaha. That and “Midnight’s Another Day” are both very frank and honest. Where did you find the strength to put those feelings in song? I needed to express myself so I just did it. What inspired your original stacked vocal harmonies in the Beach Boys? Ah, a bunch of different influences. I couldn’t even mention them all to you. Bach, for sure. What music are you listening to now? I listen to my own stuff, the Beatles, and a station called KTRH-FM 101 in Los Angeles. I listen to “oldies but goodies” all day. Do you have a favorite song on the album? I think “Oxygen” is my favorite song on the album, because it is about myself. They are all about me, but that was more about me than any of the others. PART II: SCOTT BENNETT ON THE DEMO SESSIONS FOR THAT LUCKY OLD SUN Multi-instrumentalist/co-producer Scott Bennett played a large role in the creation of That Lucky Old Sun, sharing songwriting and production credits for recording Wilson’s initial Pro Tools sessions in a small home studio in Los Angeles. Throughout the summer of 2006, he and Wilson spent countless hours building and refining songs, as well as laying down scratch Wilson (foreground) and engineer Mark Linett (background) at Linett's Your Place or Mine studio. vocal tracks—many of which appear on the final version of the album. Tell us about the genesis of That Lucky Old Sun. This record began as a bunch of demos recorded in the bedroom of my house. Brian would call me and want to come over and record. I have a small setup based around Pro Tools LE running on an Apple G4. Besides a Kurzweil K2000, a Yamaha Motif, a PreSonus Digimax FS, a Røde NTK, a Gibson acoustic guitar, and the Yamaha HS50Ms, I pretty much have nothing. But because of my background doing commercial sessions, I could work fast, and that’s why Brian wanted to work with me. It wasn’t about gear, it was about getting stuff down fast, because Brian is real impatient. Back in the day, he could get all the guys in a room and hear the songs as they were happening, rather than using a click and some guide tracks. That’s what he was used to. Early on, he became very frustrated with recording into Pro Tools. He said, “Scott, you’ve got to be kidding me with the tediousness of this process.” But Brian was also knocked out that the tracks could sound so good in such a small space. He said, “This studio is better than Ocean Way!” For him, there was ultimately less pressure. It was just us experimenting. Brian mentioned that he likes Antares Auto-Tune. Did you use the program a lot in the demo sessions? There was no auto-tuning of Brian’s vocals—we only fixed a few words here and there. He was impressed that we could change things like that. Brian would typically say, “Gimme a click.” Then, he would start pounding on the Kurzweil. He would invariably dial up the Honky Tonk preset, because he likes that fat key sound. We would pound out a tune, and then add a guide vocal. Nine times out of ten, he did great vocal parts. There are a lot of final vocals on the album that came from my home studio, including “Good Kind of Love,” “Midnight’s Another Day,” and “Morning Beat.” A bunch of tracks were built out of composite vocal tracks, but that’s because Brian doesn’t have any consistency to his mic technique when he is singing. He is usually reading a lyric page, or looking away from the mic, so it can be tricky to get his vocals balanced. One would think his technique would be better. After all, he is Brian Wilson, the vocal genius. But in the ’60s, Brian was not a close-mic singer. They used to just gather around a mic and sing. If the bass vocal part wasn’t loud enough, they got that singer right up on the mic. Brian sang some beautiful lead 20 EQ NOVEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

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

EQ Magazine - November 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Brian Wilson Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Sony Acid 6 Abelton Live 7 Controller World New Controllers Analysis Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - November 2008

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