RECORDING October 2022 - 18

Daniel
Lanois
Player, Piano
What kind of tricks?
For instance, I never liked the bass
end of a piano--the roundwound strings
of the bass side of the piano never appealed
to me that much. I've always
wanted to soften that down somehow.
So with the upright piano, we hung a
tea towel between the hammers and the
strings. This muffling trick took away all
the harshness and brought the volume
down about 40%.
You could use the bass guitar as an
analogy. If you put bright roundwound
strings on a bass and you slap the
strings hard, then you're going to get
a bright bang, bang, bang sound. But,
if you listen to a Jamaican record with
some muffling on the strings and a lighter
playing style, you're going to hear a
round bomp, bom, bom sound.
We also used a Steinway Model O,
which is a six-foot grand, and the hammers
come from underneath. There we
applied an extra layer of felt to each
hammer. It got me closer to the sound of a
Yamaha CP-70 or even a Rhodes. It was
an instant, radial sonic change. The last
song on the record, " Sunday Asylum, " is
an excellent example of that sound.
Photo by Daniel Lois
How did you mic the pianos?
Were you up close or distant?
I like tight miking. On the upright, we
had a ribbon mic and a Shure SM57
about a quarter inch from the soundboard
on the back, about as close as
we could get. Then in the front, I used
a vintage Sony C-37A tube mic. It's the
same one I've been using through the
years on all my vocals, and with Bob
Dylan and Emmylou Harris.
What's nice about the C-37A is you
can get right up close, and the capsule
doesn't collapse from moisture.
How did you mic the
grand pianos?
Believe it or not, I just laid the mics
right on the frame on top of some tea
towels. We tried a Coles 4038 ribbon
mic for a while and the Sony C-37A,
which we brought closer to where the
hammers are, and then the SM57. I
always use the SM57 as an insurance
policy if one of the other mics screws up.
Then we closed down the lid and
even went so far as throwing a bunch of
sleeping bags on top, just to avoid room
sounds. I don't like room sounds anymore.
It's a phase I'm going through-
no room sounds! [laughs]
Do you track through a desk?
We always use external mic preamps
like API and Neve. I
Photo by Daniel Lanois
18 RECORDING October 2022
still use the old
custom rack my brother Bob built for
me long ago. It's based on the API but
uses the Jensen-designed 990 Op-amps.
Then I have some Neve BCM10 channels,
and stuff like that.
Do you track with any
compression on the way in?
Compression on the way out, never
in-the mics are recorded without compression.
I track to a RADAR, which is
a Canadian-made digital multitrack system.
I run that back into my console, and
the final output of my console is run into
a pair of Pultec EQP-1A equalizers and
a Neve 33609 compressor for some
control and level. The final two-track mix
I print back into the RADAR.
A signature sound on your
recordings is your use
of ambient and dub-style
effects. What hardware
are you utilizing?
I'm still using an Eventide H3500 Ultra-Harmonizer
and an AMS DMX 1580S
Delay Harmonizer, which is a stereo
delay with a nice VCO in it. Then I'm still
using a Lexicon Prime Time and a PCM
41 digital delay. It's all antique stuff.
Are you tracking through
the effects or adding
them during the mix?
We track the piano first, and then I'm still
using the same technique I've been using
since back in the day. We float the effects
RECORDING October 2022

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