| Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220242] |
Fri, 09 February 2007 23:27  |
 David Ballenger
Messages: 355
Registered: July 2004 |
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Thankyou in advance, William. You should know I've been wanting to know this stuff for awhile, but I've been much to timid to ask you directly.
Let me say that the work on "She's So Unusual" is some of the best recording of synthesizers that I've ever heard. Strong like an orchestra.
Please do tell, how you get such lush chorus sounds?
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220410 is a reply to message #220242 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 14:00  |
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wwittman
Messages: 7491
Registered: May 2004
Location: New York |
Platinum Member |
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Time After Time:
started in Record Plant Studio B which had an API and an MM1200.
Westlake monitors (in fact one of the very FIRST Hidley control rooms).
the studio had been rebuilt by the staff and was a medium sized but EXTREMELY live room.
Bouncy, splashy, diffused.. sounded like an empty warehouse. But GREAT.
But uncontrollable.
People either loved or hated recording in there.
I loved it.
We started that track with a Linn drum.
to that we overdubbed Rob Hyman playing a Juno 60 (which is the main synth) using its internal stereo chorus.
and at the SAME TIME, Peter Wood, playing a Memory Moog, doubling the basic part in real time.
To get some stereo variation, when the "horns" come in on the B-Verse ("You say , go slow..."), it's another Memory Moog part but it's double tracked, one on the left and one on the right.
The bass is Rob playing on I THINK a Prophet V (rev 1) but it COULD be the Memory Moog.
We also overdubbed Anton Fig playing the cross stick and bass drum, but the Linn shaker remains.
RE20 on the bass drum under some packing blankets.
KM-84 on the snare.
IN the mix I took the shaker (I just realised we always CALLED it a shaker, but actually it's the Linn Cabasa), through an Eventide Flanger to make it dance around in stereo a bit and get it out of the dead centre, where it was too demanding.
It sounded better being a little diffused... less artificial.
We did a pass of the guitar downstairs in Studio B... but this was very near the end of the record (it was the last song to go on) and we were due to move upstairs to the Mixroom
The guitar was Eric Bazilian's Strat through Record Plant's 50 watt Marshall 2x12 JMP combo.
It's got an 87 on it, probably compressed a bit with an La2a.
the first pass didn't seem to be "it".
The vocal is a U-47 - API 525 compressor.
the Verses were SO soft that I had the pre quite cranked up to get a good, full shot at It.
Then she'd hit the chorus and BAM.. distortion.
After experimenting a BIT with multiple mics and trying to ride the pre or A/B switch pres and other wanker-y, we ended up just overdubbing the choruses separately.
it DOES still have a kind of slightly distorted quality in the chorus, but that's also just part of how she SOUNDS in that range.
If you stick your ear in front of her mouth, you hear that sound.
Rob overdubbed the harmony vocal and that was that.
Then we moved up to the Mixroom, which had a customised Trident 56 in TSM.
we set up the same amp and Eric overdubbed the final guitar playing in the control room between the two speakers with the amp in the little overdub room.
At that point Cyndi mentioned Don't Stand So Close as a way to think about the verse guitar... since that said "chorus" to me, I put the Publison DHM-89 harmoniser on it and set it for a very short delay with a bit of pitch shift on each side, one side up the other down.
and that's the guitar chorusing.
If I SAW a DHM-89 I would probably remember just how i set it, but it was a kind of chorus-y ADT sound that i had sussed on the thing already.
I'd used it on a vocal on another record.
I don't think I'd used it on a guitar though.
In the final mix, I actually bring in the scratch track from downstairs in the "solo" section as an extra guitar.
the mix was fairly straightforward. I remember I did do a different delay for the chorus than for the verses so that the chorus would open up a bit.
again with a Publison DHM-89.
the stereo mix has an Audio&Design Recording Compex (F760x-RS) on it in a kind of "parallel" compression.
The TSM had a quad pan pot and a network that summed the rear quad busses into the front for stereo.
So I put the A&D on the REAR buss inserts and then could use the front-rear pan pots to determine how much a sound goes into the compressor.
I know I, for example, didn't put any shaker into the compressor, and had the vocal about half in half out.
The only reverb is an EMT250.
it's mixed (with no automation, just edits as necessary) to 1/4 15ips 456 at 6 over 250 nW/m on at ATR 102.
That was the multi alignment as well but at 30ips.
no NR.
and it was mixed very much on the big Westlakes, and fairly LOUD.
not on bookshelves.
I was CHECKING the mixes on ROR cubes (kind of like Auratones that don't suck), and when I'd listen on the ROR's I'd throw on 20:1 heavy compression... just to get an idea of what a car radio tuned to FM was going to be like.
Just as a quick, how's the vocal? how's the snare?" kind of thing.
Mostly I MIXED on the bigs.
William Wittman
Producer/Engineer
(Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, The Fixx, The Outfield, Hooters...)
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220427 is a reply to message #220410 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 15:05 |
jimmyjazz
Messages: 1853
Registered: April 2004
Location: Austin, TX |
Platinum Member |
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Jeebus. Guys asks a good question, and gets a great answer.
My first exposure to Cyndi was her Tonight Show appearance where she did "Girls" pretty early in the show, and Johnny invited her over to the desk for some small talk. I honestly don't know if his "musician" routine was the same as his "comedian" routine, where your invitation to sit down hinged on your performance, but it felt that way. After a few minutes, he was clearly smitten, and then asked her to do another tune, which turned out to be "Time After Time".
Again, I don't know if it was planned or not, but it hardly matters. She absolutely hit that song out of the park. I get chills today thinking about it, and bought the record the next day.
I've been a huge fan of hers ever since. What an absolute giant talent she possesses.
Great job, William.
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220465 is a reply to message #220242 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 17:59 |
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Excellent record! Thanks.
I wish I had a Publison, I flat forgot about those.
That is such a great record.
M
All that is neccessary for bad music to succeed is that good ears do nothing, and blow up the internet with contrived viral marketing.
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220467 is a reply to message #220242 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 18:10 |
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rollmottle
Messages: 1240
Registered: May 2005
Location: New York, NY |
Platinum Member |
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i just heard this song over the house system at my local hardware store and wondered: what's that like?
my stuff has been on the radio before, but not in an ubiquitous "hardware/grocery store" kind of way...must be weird cruising around going about your daily business and hearing one of your songs/productions playing in the background.
SENTRALL Sound East
My SoundCloud | Twitter | www.sentrall.com
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220494 is a reply to message #220242 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 20:36 |
leonardo valvassori
Messages: 1125
Registered: March 2005
Location: Toronto |
Platinum Member |
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Thank you William.
Every single thing about that track is pop masterpiece to me.
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220499 is a reply to message #220494 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 20:51 |
hargerst
Messages: 1456
Registered: April 2004
Location: Sanger, TX |
Platinum Member |
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Agreed!! One of my two most favorite Cyndi Lauper songs.*
Great entertainer, great voice, great ass, great legs.**
*My other favorite Cyndi Lauper song is whatever song she happens to be singing at any given moment.
**Not necessarily in that order.
Harvey "Is that the right note?" Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
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| Re: Time After Time (the inside story) [message #220517 is a reply to message #220489 ] |
Sat, 10 February 2007 23:06 |
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wwittman
Messages: 7491
Registered: May 2004
Location: New York |
Platinum Member |
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| Jim Frazier wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 21:20 |
... I'm amazed that you remember that kind of detail, ...
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I might be making it up...
how would you know?
Time is such a SIMPLE track really. One of the simplest on the record.
We actually tried Anton adding a full snare back beat (on the actual 2 and 4 counting in half time) but it was WAY too poppy and heavy handed.
the balls in THAT record was to leave it as bare as it was.
Every single time, from the moment we had the basic track with the 2 synths and the Linn, EVERY single time I put it up to work on it, it just had an almost magical quality.
Just something special going on from its inception.
I remember vividly sometime quite early on, like that, like when we were doing the synth horns or something, I turned around (the door to B was in the rear left corner, and it was quite narrow front to back, only about 5 feet perhaps behind the desk, so the door was RIGHT there) and there standing just inside the door was Roberta Flack, who had been working in A.
She just sort of drifted in from hearing the track in the hall, through the doors, to say "what IS that?"
proving two things:
the power of the track
and that I really DO monitor loud.
William Wittman
Producer/Engineer
(Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, The Fixx, The Outfield, Hooters...)
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