[DDDorian]

I thought it would be cool to start a thread that archives anything to do with the with recording, mixing and mastering of releases from high profile musicians so that people can see what gear/software/tricks their favourite musicians employed to get results.

Here's one to start with, it's from the engineer of the studio, giving details on the recording of Carcass' classic Heartwork album:

Okay... the album was recorded at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool. Take a look at the link. At the time I was chief engineer there, after Peter Coghlan and I had teched the place from the ground up. The 4-studio 'Amazon Studios" complex had relocated there to the city centre after starting out in Kirkby, north of the city. http://www.parrstreet.co.uk/

The recording was started in studio 2, on the Neve VR. There are some layout pics on the Parr Street site, studio 2 has excellent visibility from teh control room into the main area (25-feet ceiling height, 2000 square feet inthe main room, plus various acouostic iso rooms) and each of the iso rooms (Stone, Wood and Dead) are 'fanned out' in such a manner that there is direct visibility with the main room.

Drums were cut with the drummer's back to the main control room window, with the usual mic complement, plus the doors to the wood and stone rooms (which he faced) opened to lengthen and 'shape the tone of' the ambience. Parr Street has permanently-mounted stereo PZMs on the walls of all the various acoustic iso areas, so there's easy access to blending the room sound... the mics normal to high-numbered mic inputs on the Neve (49-60)

The session was recorded to 2" (Studer A827) with no NR, at 30ips.

the drummer wore lead velcro'ed-on leg weights to help with some of the faster double-kick parts, and had an assortment of different weights, chosen and switched-out as and when each section required. There was a fair amount of punching in, and the fashion at the time was for 'clicky' kicks (the dreaded "typewriter" kick drum sound!) cutting through the mush of thickly-distorted detuned guitars.

I don't remember much about the Bass guitar, and sadly my assistant -Dave Buchanan- was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago, so there's only myself and perhaps Colin Richardson who might remember and for the time being I don't remember much at all.

The band had demoed some stuff in studio 3 at Parr Street -not many tunes, but a couple- and were happy with the sound inthe small demo room. It had an Allen & Heath 'Saber' console. When it came to the guitar sounds, things ground to a halt. the drums had been cut with 'guide' guitars, just to steer the tune, but when we got to print them for real, we knew there was some work to do.

Bill Steer (guitar) was bothered all the way through the backing tracks that the guide guitar (through his beloved marshall) had been too scratchy sounding. We tried moving the pickup height. We tried different amps (Soldano, 5150, various Marshalls, Dual rectifier, many, many amps!) then we tried different cabs... Nothing sounded as good as the demo sound. We had started with the same combo as the demo, but that was the "scratchy" sound that was annoying Bill... then I had an idea.

This was like making a resonant kick drum by putting two kicks back-to back with no heads in between. I took two Marshall 4x12 cabs. We took the backs of both of them. We took the speakers out of the second one, and we blocked off the holes with plywood and corrugated cardboard, as the closest thing we could find to a 'seal'. This was definately getting boomy, and quite interesting, but Bill still didn't like the top end. It was sandpapery and irritating to him.

As a last resort (after 4 days of trying things out, double-tracking things, seeing if things got better or worse after layering... then erasing everything right away!) we went up to the demo room (studio 3) and took our "Frankencabinet" up with us. We miced up the cab and brought it up on the Allen & Heath. There was our sound. Was it the room? -probably at least partly, but we'd tried 5 or 6 completely different areas in studio 2... ord knows there's no shortage of acoustic spaces there... or was it the Allen & Heath Mic preamps? -Who Knows? Who Cares? -I'm wheeling the Studer upstairs, and we're booking some time in studio 3!!!

The cab was miked as was my custom at the time: Two SM57's, right against the speaker cloth, but one on the center of a cone, one at the edge of a different cone. The two were combined and maybe shifted slightly for maximum summing, or smoothest top end, but that's usually a good starting point. Don't ask me why it works, I've tried to riddle it out, but it works.

Colin Richardson is a twiddler. He likes to fiddle with EQs every now and then. This was a great case in point. We ended up taking a Massenberg Eq and EQing the combined 2-mic signal. The band had initially wanted Bill Steer and Mike Amott to just do one track each, to get away from the "Wall of Thick, mushy guitar", but we ended up doing 2 tracks of each player. olin wanted there to be a differentiation betwen the two players, other than just slight playing style or inflections, so he put the Massenberg EQ -both channels cascaded in series- across teh buss insert, and he set up two variations that made him happy, which we labelled "Mike and Bill" and we switched one in and the other out as we alternated players. Then we basically went into "factory" mode and printed guitar tracks, 2 of each player per tune.

That was the big part of the album. The rest was just vocals (Trying not to sound too much like the cookie monster!) and mixing in studio 1, which has a 64-input SSL 4000, with my own 'AAD' (Amazon Audio Developments) Equalisers replacing the original SSL 82E02 cards.

I love the band. There was a conscious effort on 'Heartwork' to make the sound more 'expensive' without making "selling-out". Reference stuff was Pantera, Alice in Chains and a few other artists who have names which always have -and always will- make me laugh... like "Fudge Tunnel"...

And here's another, from Andy Sneap, in regards to the guitars on the Nevermore album Dead Heart In A Dead World:

"Custom Built 7 String Guitar loaded with EMG 707 pickups. The guitars were routed into a Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer that was used as a signal boost. The settings on the TS-9 were:

Drive: 9 O'Clock
Tone: 10 O'Clock
Level: 12 O'Clock

This was fed into the amp that was used on all of the rhythm and leads. The amp used was a Mesa Boogie (2 Channel) Dual Rectifier that was straight from the box. The Mesa Recto was routed into a Marshall 1960B 4X12 Cab with the stock 75 Celestions they have. Settings on the Mesa Recto were:

Silicon Diode Setting
Bold Setting
Red (Modern) Channel
Treble: 11.30
Mids: 10 O'Clock
Bass: 11.30
Gain: 12:30
Presence: 12.30
Master: 10 O'Clock

There were 4 tracks of rhythm, with 2 tracks being panned 100% left and right, and the other set being panned 80% left and right. There was no compression, limiting, etc...only a slight touch of EQ used. Two Shure SM-57's were used for recording, one on the center of the cone about an inch away.

Let's see what everyone else has!