Recording - October 2021 - 38

AngelHeaded Hipster
Part 10: Bass and Percussion
The
if leakage becomes a problem. Since this was a quiet song and
the drums were isolated, Piltch's gentle bowing you hear on
that track is all acoustic, perfectly fitting with the string section.
Mix time
When it comes time to mix, I always make sure that all my bass
tracks (DI, mics on instruments and amps) are in phase. This is important
for the instrument delivering its low end since that's the first thing
to suffer from phase cancellation. When recording multiple signals
on a bass, I always flip the phase switch on the preamps to find the
best combination before I hit record. I also use the Melda Production
MAuto Align plugin at the mix stage to ensure total phase coherence.
Then, I mix the signals to achieve the right tonal balance between
the body sound of the instrument and the finger/string snapping. I'm
always pleased with the variety of tones I can achieve from this multisource
setup, and I've also used it live during concerts.
Other upright bass players on this album include the
excellent Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Fantomas),
Trevor White, Jesse Heasley and Tony Sherr (who played on the
majority of the tracks). Scherr played either upright or electric
bass on the tracks featuring Lucinda Williams, Joan Jett, Beth
Orton, David Johansen, King Khan and Todd Rundgren. When
he played upright, I used either a Neumann M 49 tube mic or
the combination of two Neumanns as described above. When
he played electric, I used the studio's Ampeg tube amp with
either a vintage Beyer Dynamic M88 (at Sear Sound Studio
A) or a Neumann U 87 on the same amp (at Sear Studio C).
The other electric bass royalty on this album was Adam Clayton
of U2. Adam is a super humble and sweet person and a wonderful
musician. His bass tech brought in a custom tube amp that
somebody built for Adam that sounded fantastic. We also had an
Ampeg VT-22 combo ready to go, but we ended up sticking with
the custom one, on which I placed a vintage Beyer Dynamic M88
TG along with a direct signal from a Radial DI.
Other great bass guitar players who graced the album
were Davey Faragher (on Kesha's track), Simon Hanes (who
played on and/or co-arranged the tracks for Marc Almond
and Emily Haines), Bob Smith and Josiah Steinbrick.
Let's talk percussion!
On some of the songs, the drummers (Pete Thomas and Jeremy
Gustin specifically) played shakers, tambourine or eggs, which I
usually just recorded with the overhead microphones set up on the
drum set. On the Sean Lennon / Charlotte Kemp Muhl track, their
drummer Bill Dobrow also played congas recorded with two Ehrlund
EHR-M triangular diaphragm condensers. Pete Korpela overdubbed
some percussion in Los Angeles on the Victoria Williams track.
While Hal loved to mix things up, he was also a very loyal person,
and the one cat he kept calling back to sprinkle magic percussion
goodness on the songs was Joshua Tree resident Danny
Frankel. Most of these tracks were recorded live with the rhythm
section. Like all respectable percussionists, Danny showed up
with a gigantic bag of tricks to augment his congas, bongos,
djembe, darbouka, and floor tom setup. Having played with Lou
Reed, Victoria Williams, and many others, I feel that Danny is
a true veteran of the instrument(s) and knows what to add and
where to add it-the true art of being a session percussionist.
I've worked with many percussion players, and they often get
into this thing of layering tons of tracks on a song to give the producers
and the engineers extra stuff and choices to work with, but
that was never Hal's style or way of working. Hal liked to find what
worked and commit to it. For example, on the Perry Farrell session
and the Nena session at Sunset Sound in LA, Danny would set up
all of these instruments and try different patterns and combinations
of sounds and grooves during the rehearsals. Once he honed in on
something that worked, he stuck to it for the actual takes of that song.
He always made sure that his grooves gelled with what was happening,
and he complemented what was being played rather than
fighting with or detracting from it. Blending in rather than standing out
is truly the mark of a great percussionist. Beyond playing in time, the
true musicianship can be seen in how they blend their parts with the
music and know when their contribution is even needed.
For Danny's setup, I used AKG 414 condenser mics as overheads
for all his percussion sounds and toys and then spot-miked his
congas, bongos and djembe / darbouka /floor tom with Sennheiser
MD 421 dynamic mics. Danny also brought a Korg Wavedrum
to the sessions (an electronic percussion instrument), which I recorded
with a DI and which you can maybe recognize on two songs.
We will see you next month for our penultimate entry on the
making of AngelHeaded Hipster!
Marc Urselli is a Grammy-winning engineer working out of
New York City and London. Read about his current projects
and past successes at marcurselli.com
38 RECORDING October 2021
http://www.pearlmanmicrophones.com http://www.marcurselli.com/
Recording - October 2021

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