#equalizers

Synth Wavez✮

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ZsMuuM1jM&list=PLWEVfKcwQwTbk3D98O_B0q4EcfwM6wLxw&index=9

Darrell Thorp, Nigel’s former assistant and a formidable engineer in his own right, gave a fantastic, lengthy interview and he was asked about boosting higher frequencies during tracking and mixing. Here’s what he had to say:

“Brightness to me is two things: clarity and it's air. Air is making things sound wider. Air can make things sound like they have more imaging. Clarity is just the detail. The detail of a ‘T,’ a fingerpick. The clarity of a snare drum. And quite honestly, I learned a lot of this stuff from Nigel because he was...that guy could dig in some EQ. He wasn't afraid of it.”

He had a couple more interesting quotes about recording with Beck:

“To me, it's a lot to do with the drummer and the instrument that he plays. I made a couple records with Joey Waronker years ago and him producing a record and not playing on them, he showed me so many tips on tuning drums and how to get drums to sound really good when you put a microphone on it. Learning how to take what you have and make it a more precise instrument to record is the first step.

...Plus, a lot of the drum sounds you hear on my recordings are really dry. They're dead, they're in small rooms. [when asked why] That's a Nigel thing. Ever since I worked with Nigel, his drums are always dead. They're just in a booth. That's what he does.

Beck records, the drums are dead. There's no reverb on them whatsoever. That's the thing that people don't understand - the drums and the bass, the core rhythm section, is completely dead, dry, direct, in your face, punchy in your face and everything else is swirling around it.

There were a lot of reverb effects on, like, The Information. Just plates and things like that on the snare. Like "Dark Star" but that's rare.

[at tracking] When the artist comes in, I just want it to have as much life as possible - and clarity so people can really understand what it is that they're recording. What did we just do. Is it a good take? Is it a bad take? That has to go hand in hand with engineering.

With strings, I don't use more than fourteen pieces. Less is more. And maybe you can just double it if you're looking for a richer sound. Then it's just mic placement. At AIR Lyndhurst in London (church), they put up a Decca tree. And you push up three faders, pan it, get the level, check your phase and it's just there.

For a smaller section and a smaller room, I like doing both, where I'm using the rooms, if there's a Decca tree, but if there's not, it's usually just a stereo pair of M50s. And then from there I do more of a close micing as well. On the individual sections to get that more direct sound. It's case dependent. Are the strings playing very definitive parts or are they playing a nice pretty pad?

Sea Change, most of those strings are very direct sounding with chamber. But they're very, all the parts of that record, they're playing very specific "lead"-y lines. They're very much the lead instrument aside from the vocal.

I love Beck. He's my favorite songwriter. I didn't know what we were up to when we started Morning Phase...The songs are in raw form [at inception]. They're pretty much like the chordal structure of what the verse is going to be and what the chorus is going to be and he may have a melody line written. He usually has a melody line somewhat written already and/ or he's got maybe a lyric that goes along with it. But Beck is very much an inspired artist, he just comes with like a raw very very basic form of a song to the studio and he wants to hear it played by a band. Then the next thing, a couple hours later, he's got a song because he's fleshed out the chordal structure, he's got more of a melody going on in his head...Then from there, it's all about bells and whistles as far as basic overdubs and him singing and writing lyrics. [To cherrypick one strategy from Beck for younger artists] I think it would be the part of the confidence of going into the studio and making a record.

On Chaos and Creation in the Backyard: